Trinidad & Tobago Birding Trip 2016

 

     After months of planning, on August 1^st, 2016, my family and I took off for our very first family/birding trip to the twin islands Republic of Trinidad and Tobago.  I set for myself what I considered to be a modest goal of 100 new species.  I said “modest” because T&T has recorded over 400 species of birds, due inpart to its closeness to South America and the varying habitats available on the islands. In preparation for the trip, I needed a field guide and I shortlisted two of them, Birds of Trinidad and Tobago, by Kenefick, Restall, Hayes (Helm Field Guides) and A Guide to the Birds of Trinidad and Tobago ffrench.  An article on the website 10,000 Birds entitled “The Birds of Trinidad and Tobago: Two Guides, One Book Review” by Donna Lynn Schulman helped me to select Kenefick, Restall, Hayes’ guide.

  

My gear was made up of:

• Cameras: Rebel T3 and a Nikon Coolpix P90
• Lens:Sigma 120-400mm f/4.5-5.6 AF APO DG OS HSM Telephoto and Canon EF-S 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS
• Speedlight: Canon Speedlite 430EX II
• Storage: 3x 16GB Lexar Platinum II, 8GB and 4GB Sandisk Extreme SDHC 
• Accessories: The Flash X-Tender (Better Beamer), Zeikos ZE-OCSCC Off Camera Shoe Cord

There was no room for tripod or a macro setup.

The flight got on its way at 9:05am and made one stop on the island of St. Vincent before arriving in Trinidad at 11:30am.  My birding started even before the airplane stopped.

The next few posts to follow will detail the day by day account of sightings and locations. My lifers are bolded in the day list that will be at the end of each post.  

So here we go…