Trinidad & Tobago 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 in part 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 by ffrench.  An article on the website 10000 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.

Birds of Trinidad and Tobago 

ffrench

Birds of Trinidad &Tobago
Kenefick, Restall, Hayes

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…

• Day 1 - Monday, August 1st
• Day 2 - Tuesday, August 2nd (Asa Wright & Aripo Livestock)
• Day 3 - Wednesday, August 3rd (Pitch Lake and Caroni Swamp)
• Day 4 - Thursday, August 4th
• Day 5 - Friday, August 05th (Tobago)
• Day 6-8 - Saturday 6th - Monday 8th
• Synopsis and Thanks
• Total Checklist