Birding T&T, Episode 1

This April involved two back-to-back 10-day birding tours in gorgeous Trinidad & Tobago – which also serves to explain my online absence. This year I have also taken a bit of a sabbatical regarding content for my social media platforms; this extended to almost a complete hiatus from tech for my February trip, where we kept track of our sightings around dinner each night using the traditional method of pen and spreadsheet.

For these two tours, however, I returned to eBird to track our sightings throughout our time together. While my content for socials continues to falter, I at least logged my first checklists for 2026 when we kicked off the first tour in southwest Tobago. The island's slower pace and relatively straightforward birding lent to the perfect start to our adventure, within 90 minutes we had already clocked over 50 species. This first tour was a custom itinerary designed with specific targets for my clients' life list, and while I am a huge proponent of casual birding in general, I also very much enjoy the hunt. It is by no means a rudderless operation, on the contrary, it is the result of weeks of planning and reconnaissance culminating in the prudence to know which buttons to press, and when. It feels like a massive project – to be fair it kinda is a complex affair – and to execute something like this from planning all the way to the final dinner is truly a privilege.

One must never judge a tour after the first morning, but by the time we were having lunch that first day, somewhere inside of my psyche there was an acknowledgement that we were going to do well in terms of numbers. It was exactly the right time of year for the majority of the desired species, and the weather was predicted to be fair.

After more than an hour scouring the trees in the Main Ridge Forest Reserve during our first night together, we came upon the indisputable holy grail of Tobago's resident birds: the endemic subspecies of Striped Owl. This medium-sized owl was bordering on the "unreasonable request" category, but we had to try. Thankfully, we found a very cooperative individual, and we were lucky enough to leave it with a freshly caught prey item (which we couldn't ID).

Starting off on such a high note, it truly felt as if we were coasting from there. Not for long, though, as a few days later we flew across to Trinidad with a fresh slate of targets – some of which were notoriously difficult. The most coveted of these was the Trinidad Piping-Guan, the island's critically endangered endemic. Getting the guan is always fraught with deep emotional crevasses, it's either hysterical jubilation upon seeing one of the rarest birds on earth or crushing disappointment. I've dipped on the guan before at Grande Riviere, so I never mention the word "guaranteed".

Thankfully, we managed to find a few, then a few more, and even a few individuals that lazed around all afternoon in the same tree. The sky continued to produce a revolving door of birds of prey, including Common Black Hawk, White Hawk, Plumbeous Kite, Swallow-tailed Kite, and Grey-headed Kite. The raptor sightings were occasionally punctuated by mixed flocks of swifts and martins. It was overall wonderfully productive birding throughout the day in those forests. Along the river we also had numerous encounters with Silvered Antbirds and even a pair of Yellow-olive Flatbills building a nest. Despite only one of the flatbills building the nest a time, both birds would always be present for the operation.

Lilac-tailed Parrotlets are an often-requested species as well, mostly due to their fairly limited range: a sliver of northern South America and Trinidad. Most sightings of parrotlets in the Touit genus (within which this species lies) are of birds flying overhead, their shrieks galvanising birders into dangerously swift actions as they frantically attempt to locate the dots coursing across the sky. While I managed to catch a fleeting view of a pair in flight on our first afternoon at Hacienda Jacana, no-one else did. The following morning I put us in place at a tree I knew the parrotlets were likely to visit – and we waited. After more than an hour enjoying the plethora of other birds around, we saw two birds fly into the tree that certainly looked like parrotlets. True to form, we struggled to locate the birds despite knowing exactly where they landed. A few moments later, a flock of maybe a dozen Lilac-tailed Parrotlets flew over our heads and into the tree before us. They made not a single sound, but passed so close we were able to hear the whoosh of their wings. Unperturbed by our presence, the birds gorged on berries as we ogled them.

Overall, some species gave us trouble but for the most part everything fell into place exactly as intended. Even though I was working from a list of targets, it was still up to the wild hearts dancing around us to decide what is revealed. And so, I remain utterly grateful for the combination of factors playing out as they did – we ultimately landed a total of 244 species recorded within 10 days. You can view the trip report here.

Barn Swallows were hunting over the sewage ponds.

Perhaps the trip's mega sighting on the first night: Striped Owl!

I couldn't resist this Pale-vented Pigeon from my hotel room.

Rainforest mood with a Trinidad Motmot.

Red-footed Booby

Brown Booby, a juvenile.

Red-billed Tropicbirds always stir my creativity.

Further south, along the Caribbean coast we found a cove where a few Sandwich Terns were hunting.

Royal Tern, while my clients were out snorkelling. Yes there was beach time!

Trinidad Piping-Guan, one of several seen that afternoon.

Yellow-olive Flatbill, with nesting material.

Can you find the Lilac-tailed Parrotlet?

Trinidad Euphonia

Short-tailed Pygmy-Tyrant, another hard-to-find target.

Seeing a Bright-rumped Attila wasn't on my bingo card, but I'll take it.

Brown Violetear

The larger egret is a Little Egret, counterintuitively. The other is a Snowy Egret.

American Flamingos and the Atlantic Ocean.

A Pearl Kite gets harassed by a Tropical Kingbird.

Green-throated Mango