Tag Archives: Caroni

Scarlet Ibis (Eudocimus ruber)

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The Scarlet Ibis (Eudocimus ruber) is a species of ibis in the bird family Threskiornithidae. It inhabits tropical South America and islands of the Caribbean. In form it resembles most of the other twenty-seven extant species of ibis, but its remarkably brilliant scarlet coloration makes it unmistakable. It is 1 of 2 national birds of Trinidad and Tobago.

In this series of photos I took at Caroni Bird Sanctuary, we see them flying in formation, arriving at the roost area and settling in for the night.  The bright scarlet colour is amazing, especially when you have 1000’s of these birds all together!

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The Scarlet Ibis has a huge range over Colombia, Venezuela, Brazil, Trinidad and several Caribbean islands.  You are virtually guaranteed to see them in the thousands at Caroni Bird Sanctuary in Trinidad.

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LEARN MORE ABOUT SCARLET IBIS

Wikipedia

Birdlife

Neotropical Birds

VIDEOS

There is no shortage of videos of this spectacular bird online, many of which were filmed in Caroni so you get the idea of my experience.  Not to be missed!

A Boat Trip To Caroni Bird Sanctuary, Trinidad

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After a very full day of rushing around in the car, getting lost and seeing some amazing birds, we were ready for a nice relaxing boat ride in the Caroni Bird Sanctuary.  As usual, we arrived late after getting lost but another couple also arrived late so we shared a boat all to ourselves.  The crew at Nanan’s were very friendly and the guide found a few water birds along the route even though we were an hour late.

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Only one other couple on the boat.dscn3762

Great Blue Heron

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Emerging into the main lake.dscn3769

We cruised around the lake slowly as the Scarlet Ibises and Egrets flew to their roosts in several small groups at a time.  Despite having lots of trees and islets to choose from, tey all chose to roost together in one area.  There were so many bird the trees looked like they had tons of white and red flowers!dscn3770 dscn3778 dscn3779

Another tour groupdscn3780 dscn3782 dscn3786 dscn3789 dscn3792 dscn3793 img_6966 img_7024 img_7020 img_6990 img_6978 img_6973 img_7026 img_7028 img_7031 img_6952

Finally the specacle was over and the birds settled in for the night.  All boats started heading back to the docks……………………dscn3797

…………..but not before we watched the sun set over the swamp!dscn3795 dscn3796

Getting Lost In Trinidad

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There are a few must-see birding hotspots and with only 2 full days I had organized two very ambitious itineraries.  The first day involved driving out to Nariva Swamp before dawn, getting to Yerette (Hummingbirds) for lunch, then doing the sunset boat ride at Caroni Bird Sanctuary.  What I didn’t realize is how confusing some of the roads were and without a GPS, we would get lost several times.  Ordinarily getting lost isn’t a bad thing as you can stumble into some pretty cool places but I really needed to get to all these places on time.  This is what it looked like (blue is Google maps, red is how we got to Nariva Swamp and green is getting back to Yerette.

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I have no idea where most of these places are, I was just snapping photos out the window to show every day Trinidad life.dscn3574 dscn3575 dscn3576 dscn3577 dscn3578 dscn3579 dscn3580

I love this colour!dscn3581

Public transportdscn3583 dscn3585

Pretty police stationdscn3586 dscn3588 dscn3589 dscn3590 dscn3591 dscn3592 dscn3593

After finally finding the road to Nariva, we stopped here to buy food and drinks.dscn3595 dscn3596

The sea at last!dscn3597 dscn3598 dscn3600 dscn3601 dscn3605

Yay, we found it!dscn3606

This next group of photos is getting back from Nariva to Yerette.  We ended up in some really remote rural area and only got back to the main road after following a local man who was headed that way.dscn3618 dscn3619 dscn3620