T & T Part 6: Bizarre Birds

So far, in my posts about the birds we saw on our trip to Trinidad and Tobago, I've written about dazzling hummingbirds and colorful songbirds.  In a place with so many kinds of birds, it makes sense that there are also some rather bizarre birds.  Yes, that's right, bizarre... as in "strange, peculiar, odd, funny, curious" -- basically I could say "weird and wacky"!  I think God might have been having some fun when He created these. 

The first bird may not look too strange from the front:

Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl

But he also has 'eyes' on the back of his head!

The next peculiar bird is actually the bird on the Asa Wright Nature Centre logo.

It's a Bearded Bellbird.  "Bearded" for its grayish 'beard' and "Bellbird" for the 'gong - gong - gong' sound it makes!

There's a trail at Asa Wright that leads you to a sign that points to "Bellbird" and the day we were there the bird was sitting right there.  Hmmm. Maybe this bird knows how to read?  There is another sign that tells more about them.

Not far away, on the same trail, there is another odd bird.  It's not at all bizarre in appearance, in fact, it's kind of cute.

It also has a sign.

 It's a very small bird that, like the Bellbird, has 'bearded' in its name.  White Bearded Manakin.  What makes it bizarre is the courtship behavior it performs and the sound it makes while doing so.  Along the trail, we come to the 'lek' or mating ground, which is marked off with a rope fence.

Mukesh, our guide, points out a spot where a male manakin has been cleaning the area of leaves and tells us to watch for the little white birds to do their 'dance'.  

 Sure enough, we see several birds which flit back and forth from one small tree trunk to another.  Even more bizarre than what they are doing is the sound they are making...  a noise kind of like the sound of an electric spark.

It was a little dark under the trees when we were there, so the next blurry photo is the only one I got that shows a 'beard'.

At least it wasn't as dark there as it was in the home of the next bizarre birds.  A few days later, we followed Mukesh down a trail and into the Dunston Cave to see Oilbirds!

The Oilbirds are quite famous at Asa Wright Nature Centre, since it is the only known easily accessible colony.  You can read the sanctuary's article about them by clicking here.  We were lucky enough to be such a small group (just my husband and I, with our guide) that we were allowed to quietly enter the cave.  Mukesh briefly pointed his flashlight around the ledges of the cave so we could see them.

In the above photo, their eyes were glowing from the reflection of the light.

While it's hard to get any kind of scale from the photos, these are not small birds.  Their wingspan measures 3 and a half feet! 

A pair of baby Oilbirds

They are named Oilbirds because their bodies (especially the babies) have such a high oil content that people would boil them to use the oil to burn for lighting or cooking. Thankfully, due to protection efforts, in recent years their numbers have been increasing.

The last two bizarre birds were residents of the island of Tobago.  In fact, the next one is the national bird of that place.  I mean no disrespect when I label it bizarre.  Maybe I should use the definition of "extra-ordinary" this time for bizarre.  They certainly have an extra-ordinary song.  

This is the Rufous-vented Chachalaca.  What a name, right?!  You'll have to listen to the next video to see why it got the 'chachalaca' part.  Now, don't be confused... the bird you will see in the video is NOT a Chachalaca, it's a Trinidad Motmot.  And, don't be confused because it's called a Trinidad Motmot and I said these birds were on Tobago.  It's a Trinidad Motmot on Tobago, with a Rufous-vented Chachalaca singing its name ("cha-cha-la-CA!")in the background.  Phew!

I thought a video of the Motmot, rather than a bare tree (since I couldn't actually SEE any chachalacas, only hear them) would be a fun way to record the singing.  (Yes, maybe I am odd/confusing!)

The photo above shows where the 'rufous-vented' part of their name come from.

Okay, this post maybe be rather bizarre, but I still have one more bird to show you.  Don't you agree with me that these Flamingoes fit the description as well?

I do think they are beautiful (actually, I'd say all these bizarre birds are beautiful in some way)... but they are also strange, peculiar, odd, funny, and curious as well!

Just look at their beaks, their necks, their backward-bending knees... you get the idea!  They were just amazing to see though, and I'm sure God had His reasons for each of their bizarre features.  *wink* wink*