Shereen Ali

Like star­tling flames in a sea of swamp green, we saw five Scar­let Ibis­es roost­ing far above us, in the up­per branch­es of a dense clump of re­al­ly tall man­groves. The Ibis­es were one of many species spot­ted in a re­cent Christ­mas trip to the Ca­roni Swamp–part of the T&T Field Nat­u­ral­ists' Club an­nu­al Christ­mas gath­er­ing held on De­cem­ber 7 at the Ca­roni Bird Sanc­tu­ary.

Six­teen field nat­u­ral­ists and as­sort­ed na­ture lovers board­ed the boat cap­tained by tour guide Shawn Madoo short­ly af­ter 3 that af­ter­noon. We soon set off, ea­ger to ex­plore the swamp.

With al­most 15,000 acres of bio­di­verse marsh­land, tidal la­goons, man­grove forests and in­ter­tidal mud­flats, vis­it­ing the Ca­roni Swamp is a won­der­ful ex­pe­ri­ence for bird­watch­ers, lovers of wildlife, or peo­ple who sim­ply like the peace­ful­ness of glid­ing through the wet­lands.

Lo­cat­ed on Trinidad's north­west coast, the Ca­roni Swamp is home to at least 20 en­dan­gered bird species, and is a wet­land of glob­al im­por­tance (it is a Ram­sar site). This spe­cial place is not on­ly a mag­net for bird life–some 190 species of birds (nest­ing, res­i­dent and mi­grant) have been re­port­ed here–but it is al­so a valu­able nurs­ery for many fresh­wa­ter and ma­rine species of fish.

Our boat trip de­part­ed at 3.16 pm as a gawky young grey and brown Scar­let Ibis and a dap­per Blue Heron (both perched on a jet­ty rail­ing at the Vis­i­tor Cen­tre) eyed the wa­ter for tasty crabs–or per­haps a frog or two. We head­ed west on the Num­ber 9 Drain or Blue Riv­er.

An ear­ly sight­ing was a Tree Boa or Cas­ca­bel Dormil­lon. His five-foot-long kha­ki-brown body looped like a Celtic knot around an over­head branch of man­grove. He seemed very at peace with his world; his sin­u­ous curves looped around him­self as he slept in the trees. Tree Boas are most­ly noc­tur­nal, soli­tary, ter­ri­to­r­i­al an­i­mals, I dis­cov­ered lat­er. And they eat rats, birds, lizards and small birds' eggs.

Shawn was friend­ly, en­gag­ing, and seemed per­son­al­ly in­ter­est­ed in the wildlife, telling tales of past ex­pe­ri­ences (he's been cruis­ing the swamps for many years) and ed­u­cat­ing the new­er field nat­u­ral­ists among us on the swamp's in­hab­i­tants.

At one point every­one on the left side of the boat had to duck as we passed be­neath some low-ly­ing man­grove branch­es. We paused there to ob­serve a tiny Tree-climb­ing or Fid­dler crab. These hum­ble lit­tle crabs are a great ex­am­ple of the del­i­cate in­ter­re­la­tion­ships of life sys­tems in the swamp: they are a ma­jor food source for many species, in­clud­ing the Scar­let Ibis. The crabs' tiny bod­ies con­tain the red chem­i­cal pig­ment B Carotene, which is what gives the Scar­let Ibis its beau­ti­ful, star­tling red colour.

Shawn's prac­ticed ear recog­nised many bird calls, in­clud­ing the Yel­low-breast­ed Fly­catch­er, the North­ern Wa­terthrush, and the Straight-billed Wood­creep­er.

He told us about the wealth of fish species in the swamp, in­clud­ing sar­dines, grouper, snook, her­ring, tilapia, and cat­fish, not to men­tion man­grove oys­ters, mus­sels, clam­sand shrimp. At odd times we would hear a splash or a plunk, as fish would sur­face and quick­ly dis­ap­pear.

Man­grove lessons

Man­grove forests with mas­sive arch­ing roots sur­round­ed ei­ther side of us as we mo­tored slow­ly up the peace­ful chan­nel. We learned about the three main species of man­grove: red, black and white. The first kind we saw was the black man­grove, with strange lit­tle aer­i­al roots grow­ing straight up, like colonies of oth­er­world­ly fin­gers grop­ing for the sky; these roots can breathe even when sub­merged. Lat­er we saw red man­groves, with their com­plex net­works of tall stilt roots that grow down in­to the wa­ter like gi­ant ten­ta­cles. Red man­grove is more com­mon fur­ther down the riv­er, and at the sea­ward edge of the swamp, where saline wa­ter mix­es with fresh; and these red man­grove roots are where the oys­ters like to live, said our guide. All three man­grove species work to­geth­er to help sta­bilise the shore­line, trap tidal de­bris and pro­vide feed­ing, breed­ing, and nurs­ery grounds for a great va­ri­ety of fish, shell­fish, birds, and oth­er wildlife.

We al­most missed spot­ting a lit­tle four-foot black caiman, so well did his leath­ery ridged back blend in with the sur­round­ing roots.

Bird sight­ings in­clud­ed a Boat-billed Heron, a Yel­low-crowned Night Heron, a Tri-coloured Heron with his S-shaped neck, a Grey Heron, many Blue Herons, a Belt­ed King­fish­er and a sol­id, rugged look­ing Com­mon Black Hawk perched qui­et­ly on a branch. We al­so saw keen black and white Os­preys or Fish Hawks, which are fish-eat­ing birds of prey. Os­preys have such good eye­sight that they can see fish un­der­wa­ter from 100 feet in the air.

As sun­light glint­ed off the rip­pling riv­er wa­ter, the chan­nel widened as we ap­proached the ex­pan­sive hori­zon of the sea, with the sun straight in our eyes. We went out in­to the Gulf of Paria, with the smell of salt air and a spec­tac­u­lar view of Trinidad's coast­line. In the dis­tance we could see main­land moun­tains. Sea­wards, os­preys swooped.

A spe­cial sur­prise was the sight of a huge pel­i­can par­ty. Some were swim­ming along the bay, but they all flew up in­to the man­grove on our ap­proach. Per­haps 50 or more Brown Pel­i­cans then peered down at us from their high roosts, keep­ing a wary eye on us, their white heads and fan­tas­ti­cal­ly long bills swivel­ing as they tracked our lo­ca­tion. One lone pel­i­can re­mained in the wa­ter; when we ap­proached, we re­alised why: it had a dam­aged left wing.

On our re­turn to the swamp, we saw a Mer­lin (a small rap­tor) and a hap­py os­prey with din­ner in his beak–some­thing with a wrig­gling tail.

By 5.09 pm, Shawn had parked our boat fac­ing a large is­land in the mid­dle of the swamp. Soon, three oth­er boats joined us.

Then, from all di­rec­tions in the swamp, flocks of Scar­let Ibis be­gan ar­riv­ing, in­ter­mit­tent­ly at first, and then pick­ing up the pace. Some black cor­morants and tri-coloured egrets al­so flew in. As sun­set shad­ed in­to hints of dusk, over the short time of 20 to 30 min­utes, hun­dreds more Ibis­es ar­rived, long lines of flap­ping red flocks ar­row­ing in on their favourite roost­ing spot on the man­grove is­land. It was a breath­tak­ing dis­play of one of na­ture's beau­ti­ful rit­u­als. Each new flock hag­gled for its spot in the is­land in a ca­coph­o­ny of bed­time bird talk.

Short­ly be­fore dusk, sud­den­ly there ap­peared long, long lines of white egrets, al­most skim­ming the wa­ter in low-fly­ing acts of grace, like spir­its fly­ing home. They most­ly roost­ed be­low the ibis­es.

The green man­grove is­land soon looked like a beau­ti­ful Christ­mas for­est–our own in­dige­nous Christ­mas beau­ty: not one of ver­ti­cal fir trees, but rather a sprawl­ing, green, vi­brant space, jew­eled with liv­ing red and white.