Trinidad/Tobago - Day 3 Clicking and Snapping

2/27/2004 (Friday)

At 6:15 a.m. we walked down the Discovery Trail to the White-bearded Manakin lek and found it literally hopping with the little guys.

Thirty or more males were displaying, with their peculiar snapping wing sounds and vigorous hopping back-and-forth between twigs near the ground. When a female would happen along, the displays got even more frantic. It was like watching popcorn pop.

Teri and I videoed the displays, but the dim light kept them from coming out as well as we’d hoped. 

Turn your sound up!

 After breakfast we went on another orientation walk, this time with Mukesh. He said that he would show us a Golden-headed Manakin display area that we’d been having trouble locating. After covering the same ground that we had with Molly the previous morning, we went down an un-named trail linking Discovery and Bellbird Trails at about the halfway point.

Nutmeg Tree

We saw several Golden-headed Manakin males about 25 feet up in the trees. Their display is less remarkable than the White-bearded species, and consists of flying back-and-forth rapidly in the trees. The males are a spectacular jet black, with bright golden yellow heads, making them easy to see against the green canopy despite their small size. We saw another group farther down the linking trail, then followed Bellbird around to the intersection with Discovery, and back up to the main house. We got back to the room around noon.

  

We were discovering by now that chiggers are a problem in Trinidad! We were surprised since we hadn’t walked through any grass, but apparently the chiggers were on the trails.

We took a short nap after lunch, and then headed back out at 3:30. We followed Chaconia, Heliconia, and Bamboo trails from the main house down to the road below the pool. The trails were less used and more heavily vegetated than the other trails, which made bird spotting more difficult. We did get good looks at a Cocoa Woodcreeper excavating a cocoa pod, and at a White-flanked Antwren.

Giant Bamboo

Beautiful trails along water.

Cocoa Pods

We enjoyed our second dinner that evening. We were really pleased with the meals being served at Asa Wright. The food was simple, with salads, plenty of vegetables, and a simple meat dish that wasn’t too heavy. Desserts, when offered, were something simple like fruit or pudding. Breakfasts included dry cereal, fruit, scrambled eggs, bacon, and one morning, pancakes. Drinks at meals were generally grapefruit juice with breakfast, and water or tea with lunch and dinner. Soft drinks, beer and cocktails were available on the veranda in the afternoon.

At 8:00 we watched the second half of the John Acorn video on Asa Wright. Our naps helped us to be more alert this evening, and we even stayed up for a bit and read before turning in.

Next time: Day 4 We go under ground to find the Devilbird.