TRINIDAD AND TABAGO. TABAGO AND TRINIDAD. The order hardly matters so we started in Tabago at Cuffie River Resort, the plushest place we stayed on this trip. There were only six of us in residence, three independent couples each with a different itinerary and we were the most serious birders.
Blue-backed manakin
Rufous-tailed jacamar
We could see a dozen species right from our balcony; motmots, chacalacas, nightjars and half-dozen different hummingbirds. Day trips didn’t begin until after breakfast — Regina insisted that the rainforest birds don’t get up early. In two days we covered the forests from Cuffie down to the coast and onward to “Little” Tabago, through the rain and mud, adding eight new species, including the blue-backed manakin and the Trinidad motmot, one of five “new” motmots, formerly classified as the blue-crowned motmot we originally saw in Costa Rica. That one is now called the cerulean motmot and the blue-crowned is now found only in Mexico. If you find this confusing, think how the birds feel.
Trinidad motmot
