Tobago 3 - Newton George

 

It's always difficult when you are birding in a foreign country. Do you hire a guide to find the birds for you or do you do your homework and set off to find them yourself. I much prefer finding my own birds, the sense of achievement in exploring a different location and finding something new takes me back to my early birding days. Using a local guide somehow feels like cheating but if you don't get some help then you will clearly miss out on a lot of birds. So, one day out with a local bird guide is allowed, as it is only cheating a little bit.

Checking online it was clear that there were many good local guides on Tobago but one name stood out, that of Newton George.

With only a couple of weeks before we travelled I was not expecting him to be available but I e-mailed him anyway and fortunately got a positive response. Sue and I spent a day with Newton and three other birders on what turned out to be an eleven hour birding tour. Better still Sue, who is not a birder, actually enjoyed the day.

We started off in the south west of the island around the Bon Accord ponds and drainage channels and very productive it proved to be.

Spotted Sandpiper

Greater Yellowlegs

Green Heron

Juvenile Little Blue Heron

Southern Lapwing

Tropical Kingbird

Wattled Jacana

Anhinga

Black-bellied Whistling Duck

Least Grebe

Brown-crested Flycatcher

Grey Kingbird

Red-crowned Woodpecker

Smooth-billed Ani

Then one of the highlights of the day, a Tricoloured Heron in full breeding plumage.

Tri-coloured Heron

White-cheeked Pintail

Blue-winged Teal

Juvenile Great Blue Heron

Solitary Sandpiper

There were birds everywhere and most seemed to have no fear of us walking in the area, although I did note that all the ducks took flight if we got too close. The sad thing is that they probably should be concerned. A large part of the ground we were birding on had already been marked out for housing and drainage work had already started.

Our next stop was the ponds at the Fairways Golf Course and the Plantations Boardwalk. 

Common Gallinule

Newton was intent on finding a Mangrove Cuckoo but unfortunately it wasn't to be. However there were plenty of other birds around although photographing them in the low light levels of the mangrove swamp was a bit more challenging.

Black-crested Night Heron

Brown-crested Flycatcher

Whimbrel

Yellow-crowned Night Heron

Snowy Egret

We also saw a Potoo but I will put a picture of that in a later blog.

We then went on a bit of a tour along the coast, to look for sea birds, with the first stop at the Coco Beach hotel. It has a rock breakwater protecting a seawater bathing pool and there were a hundred plus birds roosting on the rocks.

Eared Dove - looking for food

Roseate Tern

Royal Tern

Then on to view a derelict pier just below Fort James in the Plymouth area. Again hundreds of birds, I should have been carrying a wide angle lens. We found Black Skimmers, Laughing Gulls, Sandwich Terns, Royal Terns and Cayenne Terns. 

I had not even realised that Cayenne Terns existed. They are in fact a subspecies of the Sandwich Tern and are found in the southern Caribbean and Atlantic coast of South America. They have a yellow bill and a slightly longer crest than the North Atlantic Sandwich Terns. It was useful to be able to see the two subspecies at the same location.

Black Skimmers Royal Terns and Sandwich Tern

Black Skimmers

Laughing Gulls, Black Skimmers, Royal Terns, Cayenne Terns (yellow bills)

And, a little further along the coast a Brown Pelican fishing in one of the coves.

Brown Pelican

More to come from our tour with Newton George in the next blog.