Asa Wright - Day 1 cont/d

The group of 4 Americans consist of Greg who is leading the photographic birding tour and 3 clients (although they've all been with him on so many trips they're more like friends).

For this trip I've hired a 100-400 lens to see if it would be worth buying one and so far I'm not too impressed with the results as nothing seemed particularly sharp.  I mentioned this to Greg who asked if I'd micro adjusted it - something I'd never heard of.  He then proceeded to adjust both this lens and my own 70-200 and the difference is just amazing (probably won't be too noticeable on these small images but it is a vast difference.

A few more from this afternoon, probably much the same as this morning but I can't resist especially the hummingbirds, some of which are so hard to tell apart so I won't name them :) and they are just pictures of "birds on a stick" so I don't think I'll be sharing them with anyone.  They are without a doubt the most challenging thing I've tried photographically.

Sadly Greg and his party leave tonight but I have his website and who knows, maybe a birding-photography holiday somewhere with him may happen in the future.

Asa Wright - Day 1

We arrived in Trinidad about 1730 after a reasonably good flight and duly were met and transferred up to Asa Wright so it was dark when we arrived.  The room is basic to say the least but we had read this on Trip Advisor so it wasn't too much of a shock, it is very clean and the towels are fluffy and white so we'll manage.  

There are very few guests at the moment and with dinner being taken at communal tables we were able to meet all the others; 4 Australians and 4 Americans, all very nice but unfortunately all leaving today.

This morning we were up at 0500 to be down on the famous veranda for first light and the sight was just amazing, so many birds of so many different species.  

After breakfast we did an orientation walk along one of the trails but the jungle canopy is quite thick so very difficult to spot much.  The rest of the time was spent on the lovely veranda watching the amazing birds.

A wide selection of images taken today, some good, some bad (identification courtesy of Ian who can already identify about 40 different species).

Bananaquit (cute, noisy, little things - remind me of sparrows, always on the go and always up to mischief - stealing sugar from the tables and beer from your glass).

Purple Honeycreeper (Male - the female is green!).  They should probably audition for some kind of evil creature like the penguins in Madagascar.

Blue-chinned Sapphire Hummingbird

Locally known as 'Hot Lips' plant 

Ginger 'Torch' Lily

White necked Jacobin

White chested emerald hummingbird

Green (the usual debate reigns re. turquoise) honey creeper (male)

Copper rumped hummingbird

Crested oropendola

Golden Tegu lizard

Long-billed starthroat hummingbird

Finally on our way

After an extremely stressful few days we're at last on our way.

Having missed a ferry to Brittany because of M25 accident closure earlier in the year, we decided to overnight near Gatwick and avoid the stress of morning rush hour.  As Ian had choir practice last night we didn't get to the hotel until about 2300 but had a reasonable sleep until 0530.

Now we're sitting in No.1 Lounge with a great view of the runway and a glass of Prosecco in hand.

The runway looks to be totally invaded by Easy Jet.  We're flying with BA to Trinidad with a flight time of 11 hours (including stop off in St Lucia) and a 4 hour time difference, so we'll arrive about 5pm.  The Asa Wright Centre is only atbout 30kms from the airport but an hour drive (challenging roads me thinks!)

A Slightly Different Type of Holiday

Heading West again, this time to Trinidad and Tobago on a Bird Watching holiday.

Whilst we were in Africa last year Ian got quite into "birdwatching"; I was spending so much time and concentrating on taking photos and he became very good at spotting, identifying and remembering the numerous species we saw.  So we thought we'd like to go back to Costa Rica, one of the richest birding areas in the world, but when we researched holidays they were mostly revisiting places we'd been to in 2006 and having had Osvaldo the best guide possible we didn't want to risk a lesser experience. 

Then Trinidad and Tobago came onto our radar.  Trinidad is just 7 miles off the coast of Venezuela and its proximity to South America and biodiversity makes it an extremely rich area for flora and fauna, in fact few areas of comparable size in tropical America can match it - 97 native mammals, 400+ birds, 55 reptiles, 25 amphibians, 617 butterflies as well as over 2200 species of flowering plants.

Trinidad is 50 miles long and 37 wide and dominated by the Northern Range (3,000ft) and situated in this lush rainforest is the world renowned Asa Wright Nature Centre, our home for 7 nights.

From there we fly 25 mins to Tobago and travel to the north east tip of the island to the relatively undeveloped area of Speyside for more birding and snorkelling.

We're just hoping the other people there aren't real 'bird nerds' only interested in viewing species through a very long telescope and ticking them off a list.  Obviously my main interest will be trying to photograph them but Ian enjoys seeing them with his own eye.