St Lucia, Trinidad & Tobago 23rd Nov – 10th Dec 2012 Written by Alan Baxter
[email protected], Surrey, UK + Simon Hartill & Mark Rolfe, Southampton, UK I always fancied going to T&T but it never made top of the list and with more birds being available on mainland S.America it didn’t seem to make sense with the higher ‘cost per tick’. However, after being overwhelmed in Peru many years ago, a browse through the Wildwings brochure earlier this year finally sealed a much wanted decision to go. Their itinerary is well paced and you can go whenever you like as it doesn’t depend on a large group booking with a UK guide. We decided to go end Nov/early Dec as the wet season (in theory!) is over and if you go before 15th Dec the cost is much reduced. As the plane went via St Lucia Wildwings changed the itinerary at our request, to include a few days see the endemics. The trip was a great success as we saw most of our targets due, in no small part, to our local guide Kenny whose local knowledge and sharp eyes were invaluable. Logistics We booked a package through Wildwings, thanks go to Sarah-Jane Thompson for her help in sorting everything for T&T out. Bookings for T&T birding holidays have dropped in the last few years, probably due to the economic problems, but this means it is actually a great time to go. We were fortunate to have no other people on our tour so we had Kenny’s 6+ seater van all to ourselves, personally I hate large tour groups.