Category Archives: Uncategorized

October
October’s activities began with a lecture by Danielle Morong entitled “Distribution of the invasive frog Eluthrodactylus johnstoneii in Trinidad”. Chances are you have been hearing this foreign amphibian in sub-urban environments, probably without knowing what it is!

October’s field trip took members to Fishing Pond for the annual geology trip where Mr. Philip Farfan pointed out the interesting characteristics of the area’s rock formations.

Members exploring the coast in October’s Geology trip

For the fourth year, the T&T Field Naturalist’s Club has been a proud facilitator of the BioBlitz. Coordinated by Mike Rutherford of the UWI Zoology, this year’s BioBlitz was held in Charlotteville Tobago with the assistance of numerous groups, with particular thanks going to the team at ERIC.

The TTFNC birders with Carl Fitzjames and the bird-banding group at the 2015 BioBlitz (Photo courtesy T&T BioBlitz).

November

Our hearts were set a flutter in November when Imran Khan related his personal quest to understand and experiment with commercial butterfly rearing in his lecture “The business of butterflies”.

The birders had a nice time out in the Aripo Livestock Station in November and also spent some time in nearby Mexico Road.

The birders at Aripo Livestock Station

The last field trip for the year 2015 ended with a bang as members had a thoroughly enjoyable trip to La Foret where we explored the rugged and scenic coastline.

Beautiful La Foret!

The Club lent a hand to the El Socorro Centre for Wildlife Conservation (ECWC) at their informative biodiversity display for schools in San Fernando at the Creative Arts Centre. As always the ECWC team put on an amazing educational presentation and the kids loved every moment of it.

The TTFNC had an opportunity to put forward its views on wildlife management at November’s “Hunting Roundtable”, held at the Caroni Swamp Visitor Centre. The presentation is available here for viewing.

December

December offers a chance for Club members to get together and celebrate the year gone by at our year-end lunch. This year, we headed for the hills to the Brasso Seco visitor centre where the Brasso Seco Tourism Action Committee prepared a feast for kings! Parang, cocoa pone and sorrel – what more could you want?

Roma and Dan hand out a few tokens of appreciation at the Christmas lunch.

Always on the move, the able Dan Jaggernauth still wasn’t done yet for 2015 as the Tableland Pineapple Farmers Association and the Trinidad and Tobago Field Naturalists’ Club attended the Laventille West constituency Christmas treat in December at the St Barb’s basketball court where they helped to spread the word on the importance of agriculture.

Tableland Pineapple Farmers Association and the TTFNC at the Laventille West constituency Christmas treat. (Photo from Trinidad Express)

That brought to an end the TTFNC’s activities for 2015. We look forward to a productive 2016.

July
The bird group kicked off activities in July with a trip to the Caroni Rice Fields. Members were treated to the usual mix of marsh birds – spinetails, gallinules and herons. The highlight was a pair of white-faced whistling-ducks.

July marked the Club’s 124th birthday and, as tradition, it was celebrated by members evening where everyone had a chance to do a short presentation on a topic of their choice. Renoir Auguste presented a summary of his MSc project work on the amphibians of Aripo Savannas.

Dan Jaggernauth presented footage from the Club’s display at Atlantic’s World Environment Day celebration in Pt. Fortin and photos and video from his time helping Eliza Waldron with her capuchin monkey surveys in Chaguaramas. Amy Deacon presented a slide show to showcase some of the recent trips and artwork produced by the TTFNC Art Club. Jalaludin Khan used a slide show to draw the membership’s attention to the region’s volcanic activity, with a focus on the situation in Montserrat and Kris Sookdeo presented some recent photos from his camera traps in the Victoria-Mayaro forest, which included deer, tamandua, lappe and agouti.

The field trip that month was a short visit to a series of small pools near Rincon Waterfall. It was a very quiet and pleasing spot where members could enjoy the environment and look for things of interest.

August
Club member (and non-members) were able to participate in the Chaguaramas leg of the National Wildlife Survey, led by Darshan Narang during August. The surveys were completed in record time and were incident free. Continue reading →

January

The new year began with our Annual General Meeting on 8 January where we reviewed the highlights of the year gone and some of the plans for the year to come. At this point we also held elections for the 2015 management committee and the results were as follows:

• President: Kris Sookdeo
• Vice President: Palaash Narase
• Treasurer: Selwyn Gomes
• Secretary: Amy Deacon
• Assistant Secretary: Eddison Baptiste
• Committee Member: Dan Jaggernauth
• Committee Member: Renoir Auguste
• Committee Member: Darshan Narang

The 2015/16 management committee

The January field trip would see members overnighted on Chacachacare Island off the north-west coast. Several noteworthy observations were made of the island’s flora and fauna, particularly birds, fungi, butterflies and moths. Sadly, the condition of the old leprosarium (and related structures) continues to deteriorate.

The old nun’s quarters and related structures.

February

February started off with an excellent lecture by Lori Lee Lum of the Institute of Marine Affairs entitled “The Sargassum event and the RBG algae of T&T” in which we learned not just about the different species of algae that inhabit our waters but also on the extraordinary sargassum invasion affecting our coasts at present (link to lecture)

The February field trip to the Tamana Caves was well attended and naturalists were able to see the caves and observe the surrounding forest. They were also rewarded by a sweeping view at the top of Mt Tamana of the plains below.

Cave entrance

A small contingent of birders visited Gran Couva on Carnival Sunday to look for raptors and other birds. A massive Ficus shumacheri was in fruit and attracted scores of forest birds including toucans and tanagers. The highlight of the day was an immature black hawk eagle.

March

The lecture for the month of March highlighted the work of the bug group in Christopher K. Starr’s presentation “Colony Cycles and What do they Mean”.

Following February’s lecture on algae, the botany group decided to capitalize on what they learned by visiting Saline Bay in search of algae. They were led by Professor Julian Duncan (UWI) and Lori Lee Lum (IMA).

The botany group examines a specimen.

The schedule March trip to Madamas was changed to facilitate the horticultural society’s show on that day. Instead, members visited La Laja Waterfall.

The bird group overnighted in Brasso Seco in March. The area offers sweeping views of the forest and allowed us to record several species of raptors. The night was unusually quiet and not a single night bird was heard or seen (save for an early flying short-tailed nighthawk). The birders were not the only ones about that night as two light traps were operated and we were able to record in excess of 125 species of moths.