Our room here at Asa Wright has a high ceiling and a ceiling fan along with
screened windows, so there is a good breeze for us and we slept great. It was an early morning as one gets up to go out
on the Asa Wright verandah by 6:30 am to watch the early morning birds. There were Tanagers, hummingbirds, and even a
House Wren. It is just wonderful to take
all this early morning activity in. At
the same time, coffee or tea is available so it is a perfect place to wake up
and bird!
There is a bell/gong for meal times and breakfast was nice
with cereal, yogurt and fresh fruit (papaya and pineapple) then most of us had
a omelette. After this our guide Mahase
welcomed us to Asa Wright and we went off on an orientation walk/trail behind the
center. It was hot already and on
the trail we saw the Blue-crowned
Motmot, the Elua Flycatcher (have to check the spelling) the Bearded Bellbird
and the Zone-tailed Hawk. We then
continued our birding down the Asa Wright road and we saw the, Forest Elenia,
Ghanian Trogan and the Common Blackhawk.
Back on the verandah we saw a huge moth, the biggest I have ever seen,
called the Coco Moth, it was about 8 inches on the diagonal.
All of a sudden it was noon and the bell rang and lunchtime! We had a hot lunch that was very good with
lamb, lentils, plantain and mixed rice.
Gosh they make hearty meals here!
A sandwich would have done it for me.
This is the hottest part of the day and it was over 30 degrees today and
the birds are quiet in the shade so I went back to our room and had a cat
nap.
We met up with our group of 12 at 4 pm, just as tea time was on and we left for an evening of birding on an old WW2 US Airforce Base which was abandoned after the war. The runway s are still there and are in good shape. It is now called an InfoTec Park and the University of Trinidad is being built on this site along with some industrial technology buildings. It is protect and gated also. So one of the target birds were the Red-bellied Macaws flying around and then eating their palm tree nuts. The Macaw held the nut in its feet and ate the nut delicately like an apple. The birds were spectacular.
Then it was time for rum punch cocktails and a safari-type
hot supper on camp chairs and dined in the open. We toasted the sighting of the Macaws and has
a lovely supper. The weather was perfect
and the stars were coming out. We looked
for the Tropical Screech Owl who comes out to hunt right at dusk and we had no
luck here. Then Mahase looked for the Paraque and we saw
it flying around and then sitting on the tarmac. We had good looks at it. We then tried for the White-tailed Nightjar
and we saw several flying around as we drove on the airfield and finally one
stayed on the ground and we all got out of the van and had good looks at
it. Mahase then started looking for the
Potoo and sure enough, Mahase spotted one sitting on a snag and we had great
looks again. The birding gods were with
us this evening. By now it was pitch
dark and we headed back up to Asa Wright at an elevation of 1000 meters. Up the same twisty road with construction and
some wash-outs. We made it for evening
tea and there was only ONE desert so we
took four spoons and shared the chocolate mousse.
Brenda is in the shower now and I have started on this blog
. There is no TV here anywhere and so I
will have to tell Colleen that there is no CNN and we cannot comment throughout
the evening and solve the problems of the world anymore. Darn!
CNN the last two weeks was the best reality TV for us.
Peggy and Brenda were still tired today from their long day
yesterday getting here and took a siesta in the morning to catch up a bit. They were rested enough for the afternoon
expedition today, so maybe recovered.
The birds are great here and plentiful but we are all on a learning
curve to learn the names of the birds and match it to the right birds. A bird paradise.
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