A free day to do what we will - or so we thought but as we were about to go on our walk we were asked if we minded visiting the oilbirds today rather than tomorrow. We said 'no problem' and instead headed off with a guide and an American family to the cave where the oilbirds live. We arrived at a narrow cave and went in 2 at a time to see the birds - there were several on the cave ledges but as your eyes adjusted and the torch moved around you could see many mor...

Up at 5 ish and out at 6 am onto the veranda to see what life was about. A UK biology teacher was already there watching a ferruginous pgmy owl - it looked like a small rufous addition to the branch! The other new birds we saw were the Trinidad mot mot and a northern waterthrush. At 0830, after breakfast, we went down the discovery trail with Molly our guide for our orientation walk, we were joined by another British family. We saw golden headed manakin in their ...

Up at 5am, then breakfast in our room before meeting Dennis our driver who took us on the 50-60minute drive to the airport. For the whole journey we listened to him telling us the woes of trying to get a new generator and generator parts to Rock View Lodge; Colin was beside himself as, just prior to a busy bank holiday weekend, another generator had broken down! A lorry had refused to carry a new generator and the plane was being difficult with taking the parts ....

I set the alarm for 0415 as we were being picked up at 5am to go birding. Indeed we left the room at 0450 and the driver and guide were already there so we were able to leave immediately. We drove to the east to Abary Creek trail where we had a quick breakfast of coffee and cheese sandwiches. We then started to look for birds - first we saw the rufous crab hawk sitting in a roadside tree, this was quickly followed by watching and trying, with difficulty, to photo...

We awoke to rain hitting the palm roof so stayed in bed longer particularly as we heard and saw no movement outside. When I went to the bathroom I actually saw the bats we knew inhabited the roof and who left neat piles of droppings on the floor each morning.....they were flying around, catching insects and hanging upside down in the palm rafters. At 5.40 I went across to the dining area for coffee and initially was on my own drinking it. John had a shave and sho...