About Bonds

The Language of Tobago Birding

Author: Staff
The sound is unmistakable once you've heard it - something like a rooster in need of a tonsillectomy. It's a call that sounds as harsh as the name of Tobago's national bird: cocrico, also known as Tobago pheasant.

The secretive but noisy cocrico is one of 400 bird species that inhabit the island's forests, wetlands and coastal areas. The message delivered by the seriously sought-after red-billed tropic bird is slightly less obstreperous. "Careek, kek-kek," says the streamer-tailed seabird, which makes up for its voice with exquisite beauty. It nests on the bird islands of Little Tobago, off the windward shores of Speyside, from March to August, drawing life-listers and their guides by the pirogue-full.

One of the islands, Bird of Paradise, got its name from an introduced species that survived from 1909 until Hurricane Flora in 1962. Still a birding paradise, it provides sanctuary for brown boobies, laughing gulls, pelicans, herons and terns. Rocky St. Giles Island, off Tobago's northern point, is known for its frigatebirds, which imprint their distinctive silhouette like a child's cutout pasted to sky-blue construction paper.

Away from the sea, in the hillsides and virgin rain forests, the cocrico is joined by a bevy of other bird beauties both common and not so. The blue mot-mot, called "king of the forest," dwells in the shadows, presenting itself only to the sharpest eyes. One of the rarest bush creatures, the collared trogon, is making a comeback since Flora, while green parrots perch on tree tops as everyday sights. The jacamar hummingbird, stripe-breasted spinetail, Southern lapwing, kingfisher, ibis, gallinule, egret, bananaquit and anhinga are a few other revered species that frequent Tobago's many sanctuaries and hillsides.

Birding guides are equally abundant on the island. Most resorts are bird-brained. If they don't provide on-property sanctuaries and hummingbird feeders, they can at least recommend a local expert. For birding tours of Tobago's northern islands and rain forest, contact ornithologist and guide David Rooks at (868) 639-4276 or Frank at Blue Waters Inn in Speyside, (868) 660-4077.

Posted online 09/01/97.

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