Digiscoping at Asa Wright

Crested oropendola.

I've heard several well-traveled friends say that Asa Wright Nature Centre in Trinidad is an excellent destination for a bird watcher's first tropical birding experience. All of the characteristics of a tropical birding experience are present at Asa Wright: jungle/rainforest, amazing plant and animal life, heat and humidity. But the diversity of bird species present is not overwhelming.

Whereas a first trip to Brazil might place you in a spot with 25 to 30 tanager species and close relatives, (Costa Rica has 45 tanagers, Panama 42) Trinidad has about 15 tanagers and relatives. And this holds true across many of the tropical bird families. So it makes for a less confusing introduction to tropical bird watching.

But I believe that Asa Wright is also ideally set up for digiscoping tropical birds. The feeders at Asa are teeming with visitors. The elevated verandah is surrounded by trees and perches used by the birds coming and going to the feeders. Farther out but in plain view are more distant trees used by toucans, tityras, tanagers, and raptors that don't visit the feeders. And the trails! The local nature trails have lekking manakins and singing bellbirds that are regular as clockwork. More on that tomorrow.

All of the images in this post were digiscoped from the verandah (that's how the locals spell it) at the Asa Wright Nature Centre in Trinidad. These are just my "keepers."