Caroni Swamp - March 2014

A small motor boat slowly cruises through dense mangrove swamp. Brackish waters part around the bow, and the sound of the engine cuts the quiet evening air. A young Trini man in a staff t-shirt and faded shorts pulls the boat to the left bank, barnacles showing on the twisted roots to the high tide line. He has spotted something unnoticed by the boat passengers, old English and American birdwatching couples and a few Guppsters.

We are in the Caroni Swamp, a Mecca for nature lovers the world over, famous for the scarlet ibis that flock in nightly to roost. But there are other sights to see before the sun sets, and D- has just pulled the boat over, walked on the gunwale, and plucked a large crab off of the thin bole of a mangrove tree. Suddenly we see that the tree is crawling with crabs, and several are passed around the boat. The crustaceans are flustered but unharmed, and returned to their tree. Soon D- idles the engine again, pointing. A silky anteater, an animal I had hardly dared to hope to see, is sleeping in the crook of a high branch. Delighted, I swing my binoculars up, zooming in on a tawny fuzz ball the size of a young house cat, limbs pretzeled around a fluffy belly to form a perfect sphere. The silky anteater sleeps away, undisturbed by the flurry of, "Ooh where!?" and "Oh yes now I see it! Here, have a look!" exclamations its nap provokes.

We motor on, and shortly see a flash of red through the trees. The first of the ibis are here. A mid-sized bird, roughly the size of a blue heron with a long decurved bill, the extract their feather color from a diet heavy in crustaceans. Through the dimming light below the jungle canopy, they flash brilliant red against the dark wet green. These are the forerunners of the flock, and we motor on.

(Silky anteater, dead center)

Clearing the narrow mangrove waterway, we motor out into a lake ringed by mountains. Avid birders and boat guide alike point out species of sand piper and herons, tricolors, little blues, black and white capped night herons, the odd great egret masquerading with juvenile herons who haven't yet come into their colors.

In a wave they appear, the first ibis flapping through the sunset sky in a narrow V formation, ebbing and flowing with the wind. They drop low over the water, moving fluidly together. "It's like fire flying," an awed voice behind me says, and he is right. Suddenly I see the flock as though they have been breathed out of the mouth of a water dragon. Billowing and racing, they cross the calm waves, coming to roost on a tiny island in the lake. More flocks arrive from all directions, five, ten, twenty at a time. They settle into the trees, appearing as bright as red Christmas balls on the evergreen island jungle.

We stay and watch until sun has fallen and the night grows dusky. The engine turns over and D- pilots back to the mouth of the mangrove trail. Birds and bats cross paths overhead as day gives way to mangrove night.