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June 25th, 2008 , 22:56

Today was a quiet day – just hung out at the centre. Up at our usual time (6am) and off to the veranda to see what was on the feeders and have a coffee before breakfast. Then back to the veranda for more wildlife pestering (Joe has been harassing them to get their photos). At 9 we joined the group that was here for a visit of the coffee processing room. The Centre grow the coffee that is served here – so grow, harvest, dry, roast, grind, and make. The processing room is a small room where they have a gas burner and a large pan that they roast the beans in. One person operation and interesting to get to see.

We mainly hung out on the veranda today looking at things. We did take a short walk after lunch. We can hear the bellbirds all the time so we headed out to look for them along Bellbird trail. Found out later you can’t see bellbirds on that trail and we didn’t. We did see white bearded manakins and that was all. However, over the past few days we have seen: Carib grackle, purple honeycreeper, blue-crowned mot mot, channel billed toucan, palm tanager, white-tail trogon, scarlet ibis, egret (little, great, snowy), golden-olive woodpecker, barred & great antshrike, piratic flycatcher, golden-headed manakin, tropical mockingbird, thrush (?), yellow oriole, blue-grey tanager, silver-beaked tanager, green honeycreeper, red-legged honeycreeper, violaceous euphonia, turquoise tanager, among others that I can’t remember. We have also seen lizards, toads, boas, caimans, agouti, among others that I can’t remember!

Tomorrow we are off to the oilbird caves to see oilbirds. Maybe we’ll also go along the Discovery trail and see some bellbirds! Then tomorrow afternoon/night we’re off to see if we can spot a leatherback turtle come in to lay her eggs.

Joe has been taking hummingbird photos all day. Poor hummingbirds. Though they do seem to be coming up and posing for him!

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The Swamp

June 25th, 2008 , 1:40

Woke up to sound of the rain. It started around 2 or 3 this morning and was pouring it down all morning. Well, it is the rainy season and it is a rain forest.

So we skipped the orientation tour again (I guess we can do it Friday morning before we leave), instead sitting on the veranda and watching the wildlife and day tourists come in. The rain slowed down so we headed out along a walk and got to see a toucan. Lovely. Joe got some good photos once he finally found the bird!

We had lunch then got ready to head out to Caroni to see the scarlet ibis. There is a group here from the US and they had their swamp trip planned so the centre stuck us onto their trip. This worked out very well, though they headed off in two vans and Joe and I had our own van we all shared the same boat and had that to ourselves. So only 11 of us in the boat. On the way to the swamp we stopped at a water treatment plant and bird watched. There were Spectacled Caiman at the treatment centre and they were lovely. There were also a lot of birds and dragonflies. We then got to the swamp and got into our boat and headed out. Saw loads on the way out – crabs, two boas, and loads more birds. Once out we got to see several scarlet ibis. However, the best time to see the ibis is in December, January or February as they fly in in the thousands and roost in the trees. The worst time to see the ibis is in June when they have started nesting and don’t fly in their thousands and do not roost. Also it’s the start of the rainy season so you get wet. And there are zillions of mosquitoes. We were coated in deet but still had to fend off the beasts.

But we had a good time and saw loads. I can’t begin to list the birds I’ve seen. The group we were with was lovely and a lot of fun. We even had our rum punches out on the boat. So a very fun day but tiring. Off to bed!

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