Tobago 2 - Little Tobago

 

Little Tobago is an island located about a mile off the North East coast of Tobago. It takes about fifteen minutes on a glass bottomed boat from the pier at the Blue Water Inn. 

The island is protected and is a great place to see migratory sea birds. You can only visit the island with an official guide and the boats trips usually combine a visit to the island with snorkelling over the coral reefs in the Blue Water Bay. Great if you like snorkelling, not so good if you wanted longer on the island.

There were lots of birds on the island. We saw the target sea birds but I am sure there were a lot more to be seen if we had more time.

There is a colony of Laughing Gulls on little Tobago and they were a very common bird around the Blue Water grounds. It was strange to see so many of them when I have travelled hundreds of miles back home in England to see one as a rare visitor to our shores.

Laughing Gull

The Yellow-bellied Elaenia, a fairly common bird around the Blue Water grounds but this one photographed on the Island

Yellow-bellied Elaenia

Then from the high point on the island, the birds we had come to see:- Magnificent Frigate Bird, Brown Booby, Red-footed Booby, Red-billed Tropic Bird

Magnificent Frigate Bird

Red-billed Tropic Bird

Red-billed Tropic Bird

Red-footed Booby

Flybys by the birds were mostly too distant for good photographs and the shots of the Brown Boobys were too distant to publish here, but we did see the occasional Red-billed Tropic Bird roosting on the ground, close enough to touch.

Red-billed Tropic Bird

We also saw short-tailed Swifts which I was unable to get in focus in the time I had available and we were shown nesting holes for Audubon's Shearwaters with young in the nests. The adults would not return until after dark and we could not disturb the young. So close to a life tick but it doesn't count.

I should perhaps have explored the possibility of getting more time on the island but with plenty of other places to visit, it did not seem worth the expense.

Australia (7/8) Cairns

Cairns offered some more good opportunities for birding. It was surrounded by rainforest as well as having a great esplanade with trees on one side and at low tide mud flats on the other. There was parkland and Botanical Gardens to the north of the town and Mangrove swamps near the airport. Add that to the the Barrier Reef islands and it was the usual problem of not enough time to fit everything in.

Our first trip was out to Kuranda an old hippy haunt turned tourist location. We used a cable car to get up there and the historic Kuranda Scenic Railway to get back to Cairns. It all sounded very promising but there was a strange lack of birdlife around the area.

We did have the opportunity of visiting the Australian Butterfly Sanctuary or Birdworld Kuranda. The later tempting as they had a Cassowary which I would have liked to have seen. However, it was advertised as having some of Australia's most precious and beautiful birds. Of being a photographers paradise where you could hand feed the birds and of the company being proud of its achievements in the field of professional wildlife tourism. What!!!  These are caged birds. Where are the awards for conservation, the programs for the reintroduction of endangered species.

We gave it a miss and went for a walk through the rainforest. No Cassowary and not many other birds but we felt suitably superior as a result of our decision.

Sulpher-crested Cockatoo

Barred Cuckoo-shrike

 and in the trees in the main street of Kuranda

Australasian Figbird  -  Female

and one of my few butterfly shots of the holiday

Black Jezebel

The next day a trip out to Michaelmas Cay on the Great Barrier Reef. Snorkelling for most, birding for me. Tourists are only allowed on one small part of the island, the rest is reserved for birds. Twenty three species of seabirds have been recorded on the island and in the summer breeding season 20,000 birds have been seen there.

It was early in the season and I wasn't going to see anything like that number but there were still lots of birds about. Even on the small bit reserved for tourists you had to be careful not to tread on the Juvenile Sooty Terns who didn't seem to be able to read the signs saying that this bit was for tourists.

Sooty Tern - Juvenile

Sooty Tern

Sooty Tern

Brown Booby - Male

Brown Booby - Male

Brown Booby - Female with Yellow bill male with blue shading on bill

Common (Brown) Noddy

Crested Tern

Lesser Frigatebird

Ruddy Turnstone

Silver Gull

In the end I only saw seven birds but five of them were new for me and it was nice to have time , for a change, to stand around and look for some good picture opportunities.


The third day in Cairns we had the option of a coach trip up to the Cape Tribulation and the Daintree rainforest or a free day in Cairns. With so much to see in Cairns we opted to stay there. I was up early for a quick walk along the front. Later I returned for breakfast and to pick up Sue and we spent the day walking along the front and around the parkland areas.

I liked Cairns but it was hot that day, the low thirties and it was only just the end of  winter. The locals greet you with welcome to paradise. Maybe, the record low for the area is 18 which sounds like paradise but in the summer it touches 40 which takes it out of my definition of paradise.

Eastern Reef  Egret

The Eastern Reef Egret comes in two morphs, grey and white. Finding a grey morph made the species a lot easier to identify.

Australasian Figbird  -  Male

Masked Lapwing

Peaceful Dove

Pied Imperial-pigeon

Sacred Kingfisher

Curlew

Black-fronted Dotterel

Australian Pied Oystercatcher

Great Knot

Australian Pelican

Gull-billed Tern

Yellow Honeyeater

Early that morning I had met up with an Australian birder and his three grandchildren who were out on a birding big day. They offered to take me with them and I would have loved to have gone but I couldn't abandon Sue. He did give me directions for a Rufous Owl and later that day we found the right area with luckily another birder standing under the right tree. If he ever reads this blog I would like to say thanks for the info.

Rufous Owl and the usual branch  - Male

Inquisitive Rainbow Lorikeet at the Rufous Owl's nest with female and young at home - be careful

Laughing Kookaburra

Nutmeg Mannikin

Another Rainbow Bee-eater

Australian Bush-turkey

Olive-Backed Sunbird

I saw these Sunbirds a couple of times in deep rainforest with no light for a picture. This one was silhouetted against the light. The picture is not good but the colours are visible including the blue throat and breast. To make things a bit easier on identification there is only one Sunbird in Australia and hence only one bird with this profile.

Magpie Goose

Radjah Shelduck

White-breasted Woodswallow

Once again time catches up with us. We leave Cairns for Sydney tomorrow and there is still so much to see, the whole of Northern Queensland for a start.