Back to Birding, and Soon Bowdoin

All my aquatic activities are done for the near future, so I had no reason to get up at a reasonable hour today. I took advantage and stayed up late last night and then slept in by a whole forty minutes! The reason I got up was to go for a walk with my dad, try to find some birds. Usual vacation stuff, that's what all of you do right? We were surprisingly successful even though we really started too late to find any birds. I also stole my mom's camera so the pics in this post will have been taken by me not wikipedia. We heard a bunch of birds, and saw a few, but most were common local birds that I wont bore you with. When we were looking for some noisy little bird, I happened to notice a different one just chilling on a branch

It's a very snooty bird and refused to make eye contact with mere humans

The rufus-tailed jacamar is a type flycatcher, so it would sit and wait on that branch until it saw a fly, and then it would dart after the fly and catch it before returning to its initial perch. This made it pretty easy to keep track of. We kept walking and eventually saw two great black hawks and two peregrine falcons. We then had to turn back because there were other things to be done (involving birds, obviously). On the way back we heard this bird kind of cawing at us. The sound seemed wrong, almost crow like, and the glimpses we got showed that these were small nondescript passerines. While trying to find them I saw this branch or wire that seemed to be moving. "Hey Dad, a snake!" I cried with glee. My father looked thoughtful for a moment before replying, "maybe that's what the birds are all excited about." He's completely right. Those were either distress calls or mobbing calls, as shown by other birds approaching the vocally agitated ones. We talked about this kind of stuff in ecology, so it was pretty cool to see nature in action. and to see a snake.

My parents and brother set off to do what we had done last week, with the glass bottom boat and tropicbirds. I decided to pass on that. Instead I plopped myself in front of a hummingbird feeder, intent on seeing and photographing the ruby topaz. Epic fail. I sat there for ages and didn't even see it once. I did see a woodpecker

Red-crowned woodpecker. It was making a giant hole. It was
there for ages. It's probably still there now, pecking away

and a hermit crab and a bunch of other species of hummingbirds, but not the stupid one I wanted to see. I got lunch with the fam when they returned, wherein Jonah and I had a misunderstanding over ketchup mainly because I was being oblivious slash greedy. 

I had done most of my packing already, but I finished that up. After that I went and over to check on my dad, who had taken up my former vigil at the hummingbird feeder. I retrieved the camera and joined. My mom's camera is a canon rebel, with an awesome 70-300 lens. The problem is that there looks like one button got damaged. The manual focus button. So everything is autofocus which is incredibly frustrating when trying to photograph hummingbirds, especially those that don't perch when they feed. They're really fast so you end up focussing on what's behind them. After probably another hour plus of arguably patient waiting and deleting photos of walls, I got one

yes it's a bit blurry, but focus on the pretty colors instead

And that's about it for today's activities and the trip. We head out at five (about 40 minutes), and between layover and flying will be back in New York around 5 am. Then I fly up to Maine for the remainder of preseason. It should be lots of fun (preseason not the flying in at 5 am).

I was also invited back here to do an internship if I'd like, so that's an awesome option to have. Who knows what the future holds. Hopefully animals.
This ends part two of my travel blog, TZ in Tobago, thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed it and found the plethora of animals and animal facts interesting, or at least tolerable. Bye for now

I Owe Wayne Another Beer

First things first, I passed the rescue diver class. This means I'm now not only able, but kind of obligated to assist or lead rescue and first aid efforts in diving related incidents. Or near-drowning, or really and CPR related thing. I am so special. Actually in my opinion I barely passed. I couldn't find the goddamn weight belt again! Stupid 14 inch visibility. I actually lost my own buddy in the effort to find it. It still has not been found yet. The recovery and towing in went relatively fine, though the victim occasionally got his head dunked under water...oops. Then things went pretty well with the cpr, except i stopped after the Oxygen was hooked up, which you weren't supposed to do apparently...oops. Still I passed even though the victim probably would have been in trouble multiple times over. Close enough I guess...
Before that I went diving. It was my last actual fun dive, and we saw some stuff. Lobster, crab, and a giant green moray with almost it's entire body exposed which was pretty cool. Right at the beginning we saw a peacock flounder. It's so thin that I don't understand how it has bones. I thought it was some invert or other.

That was right as we got down there too. We also saw a rather large turtle with moss growing on its back. The sea was very choppy as we got to the site. I had all my gear on and was ready to go. We had been using a back roll entry, which is that we sit on the side up the boat and do a backwards roll into the war. We wait for the divemaster to give us a countdown. I sat on the side of the boat...and then we hit a wave. I lost balance for a moment and had feet with fins spread out, giant heavy tank hanging off the boat. Predictably, I fell off into the water. This wasn't a big deal as I had everything on, except my mask which was on my neck. I just stayed in the water until everyone else got in. Apparently everyone assumed erroneously that I just hopped in early. I corrected this falsehood, and Wayne claims I now owe him another beer. So that's two. For those paying attention at home, the prospective rescue diver fell off the boat.
So I mentioned possibly being a sunfish. This is what they look like

Bannerfish not usually included

very weird, but very distinct. They're also pretty rare and I had never seen one before. I mentioned it to Wayne and he said that yah, they did sometimes get small ones. It was probably about a meter or a little longer. They can easily make it to found meters long including the fins. It's always fun seeing new things, even if they look really weird.

I owe Wayne a Beer

Today was a very busy day…with no pictures. The morning was my practice search and rescue for a missing diver. The diver in this case was a weight belt. This was almost as frustrating as neurobio lab (though more fun). I could not find the goddamn belt. The first time was my fault, my hatred of compasses overcame me. The second time we started too far in and missed it. And after that we kind of just tried to pin point it and failed. Eventually it took a line of four of searching together to find it. I was the one who found it. I talked to Wayne, the instructor after. He explained that with the type of visibility (about 18 inches) we would have used a much more complicated search pattern only taught in the hardcore search and recovery specialty course. So that makes life hard. Meanwhile, Jonah saw a shark on his dive.

Then I went diving and was supposed to show some helping those under duress under water. I did a great job…when I noticed. But sometimes I got distracted by fish and eels and maybe even a sunfish. It was far off, but it looked like it, it’s a pretty distinct shape. So that was that. It was a fun dive. We got up close and personal with a turtle, saw some squid, and found an eel. It shot away into a small structure so I tried to find it on the other side. It ended up coming out right beneath me. It was fun

Third activity/second dive (unless search and recovery counts as a dive (I was under water for ages). This one I just got to do fun stuff, look at fish. The coolest thing we saw were garden eels. They just stay in little holes, with their heads sticking out of sand. I enjoy watching that. I could have stayed there all dive…but for some reason people wanted to move on.

Once we surfaced I was to do Rescue Exercise 7, helping a nonbreathing diver on the surface. It was fine, except I when I took off the victim’s mask, I stopped paying attention to it and it sunk. Wayne had to go fetch it and says I now owe him at least one beer. I guess that’s fair enough. If I pass the course after tomorrow’s big final practical I’ll buy him all the beer he wants. Also worth noting is that while I was doing this the waves were of an almost surfable quality. So more challenges to overcome. Another new thing was that there was a couple from Canada diving, David and Jennifer, who were diving as well. They had some fun stories involving dry suits, whale sharks, the flu, and other things and places. Meeting people like that is always fun. The dive community is a great group plus friendly and welcoming to those with the same interest. And it’s always fun to dive with new people who wont kick you in the face. So for prospective divers, we’re nice and fun…

I Got Lazy

I know there was no post yesterday. It was mainly because I was so depressed that I didn't get to go diving. I was doing course work instead for the Rescue Diver stuff. With better time management though between me and the instructor I definitely could have gone on at least one of the dives sigh. Jonah went diving all my himself and saw two turtles. He did claim that it was not as much without me though. Still we managed to have our first fight yesterday, impressive that we made it four days without one. I wont explain the details as he is the only person i know for sure who reads this blog. Let's talk about today instead.

This is a Trumpetfish

So today I went diving! Let's talk about trumpetfish. They are hilarious  and not only because they would make terrible trumpet players (they don't have the lips for it). They, like many other creatures attempt to camouflage. They're method is hiding in soft coral which sways in the current. So they make themselves vertical and hope that no one will see them...It doesn't work. That made me laugh on the first dive. The second dive was a little more stressful as there were more people, many of whom I had not dove with before. This worries me because it increases the likelihood I take a fin to the face. We saw some cool little slugs, spotted drums, and a giant barracuda. Communication is really difficult underwater. So I tried to signal to Jonah that it was a spotted drum. The sign is to play the drums (probably snare). He thought I was riding a horse and started looking for a seahorse. Sigh I need to get a dive slate.
I passed the written rescue diver exam. Yay! The only thing left is do some actual rescuing scenarios...oh shit!
Parents came in today and Jonesy and I had dinner with them. There is no such thing as a serious conversation in this family. I try to tell them about caecilians, pronounced sicilian, and my dad starts humming the theme from the godfather. Insufferable!

Caecilian, pronounced like the Italian people (only much more gross and slimy)

That's just one example. Shrubberies, Notlob, and many other things came up. Bonus points to those who understand those jokes. It was fun, i guess parents can be ok to have around, assuming you don't see tooooo much of them.
Bonus picture:

silky anteater, absolutely adorable and so pocket sized

Note, none of these pictures were taken by me, credit to wikipedia.

Dive Another Day

5 points to whoever guesses what Jonah and I did today. Those who guessed braided each other's hair are incorrect. You should have guessed that we went diving. I was too tired (lazy) to get up for the morning chorus today, so Jonah and I got up around 8:15, went to breakfast, and then went to the dive shop. I arranged for the rescue diver course. Apparently it will own my soul for the rest of my stay. I'm ok with that though. The guy I talked too had a distinct and familiar accent. So during the course of things I asked where he was from all ready to talk about my semester down in Tassie and how I dove in Cairns. Turns out he was English, not Aussie, so I didn't really have anything to say about that. Awkward...

Random Picture of Dive Shop Sign, sorry no good new pics today

Then we hopped on the trusty boat, and before we knew it were in the water. And there was this giant fish and I knew it was a shark! Except it was actually a tarpon which is definitely not a shark. So I kind of felt foolish after frantically signing shark. We did see a giant barracuda, which was chasing a small clown fish that had only one good fin. Then a different scuba diver came and captured the clown fish and went away to Australia with it! Right at the end I also found a really cool eel that we watched move around. I later commented to Jonah, "it was so cool! especially how we saw it moved exactly like it does on land!" He replied, "you mean flop around and die?" he has a point
Second Dive! The second dive was definitely another dive. We saw a turtle from afar, and there was another scorpion fish. There were lots of other fish (no tarpon (or sharks)) that I wont list because few people reading this actually know or care about the difference between an angelfish and a butterflyfish. At the end of the dive Jonah is the first one to the ladder, and promptly announces that he dropped his weight belt.

How we responded upon hearing about the belt

Foolish brother, sigh. I went down and grabbed it for him because I'm so nice and sweet. On the way up I saw a school of needlefish that no one else did, so I guess being a hero also has a payoff. I then spent much of the rest of the day reading the Rescue Diver Manual and being surrounded by Ruddy Turnstones as I did so. They're this absolutely fearless little plover. They literally did all but walk on me as I was reading. Anyway, Yay Work!

Birding in the Rain

So Jonah learned an important lesson today. We should make sure that all our activities are done through the Inn for reasonable prices. We kind of got ripped off, but that's ok. Also it probably would have been better organized. As we were walking by some guy invited us to do a birdwalk at a sanctuary. Jonah was all for it while I was simply quiet. Then I started whining that this would make us miss lunch. He didn't care. So we got on a glass-bottom boat and rode out there. Glass-bottom boats are pretty cool, you can see the reef below you. The magic was probably a little lost on us because rather than looking down on the reef we had been in the reef mere hours before. Anyway we get to the island sanctuary place and see a bird right off the bat: chickens. domesticated chickens. as we started scaling a hill we saw another bird or two and even a flicker of a gecko before it hid (for those counting that's birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and fish, as well as tons of inverts in one day). Then we found a Tropicbird

It's baby is underneath. No you cannot see it

This island was a sanctuary for them, which was quite nice. When we went to a different point and were able to see a lot of them flying around a little cove. It turns out that these birds are quite graceful in the air, soaring and swooping, but are terrible on land. We're talking worse than ducks, worse than even penguins. I had a video of one trying to walk, but the internet is evil and hates me. Their legs are too short to really walk so they kind of hop/scoot. It's pretty funny. I'll put the video on facebook soon. There some others birds like boobies and frigate-birds

This is a red-footed boobie, what did you think I was talking about?

Fun animals fact: frigate-birds are sometimes described as pirates. They steal food from the tropic birds and so earn the name. So that was fun, but it wasn't an unexciting walk. When we got the view of the boobie our guide looked up and said "looks like rain." With in seconds it started pooring on us. We survived, but where soaked. The weather in the tropics is even less predictable than Maine! So we survived and finished the walk...and found that there was no boat waiting for us. There had been snorkelers, so we assumed they'd get bored before we finished and be waiting for us...Nope. An hour or so later the boat shows up. Apparently someone got sick so they all headed back, and then had to come all the way back out to get us. It was pretty boring/annoying. Sigh. Then it was nap time. Long day and it wasn't even dinner time yet.

Morning Chorus...and DIVING

Today marks our first full day of adventure in Tobago. We did much more than sit on planes! We sat on boats! So my dear brother and I crashed pretty early yesterday because we were whipped from all the travel. I woke up somewhere around 5:30 am and was able to hear the dawn chorus starting. This is a birding term for all the birds getting up in the morning and making a shitton of noise.

5:58 AM, totally worth it

Being the curious lad I am, I got up to investigate who was around. Our main culprit was the bananaquit. No I did not make up that word. They're a tiny honey/fruit eating bird with no shame or fear of humans. They are colorful and very loud

What are you doing Bananaquit? That's a humming bird feeder! You're not even using it correctly!

So I saw plenty of those and much fun was had by me while wandering around. I wont list all the birds I found because most of you are relatively sane and don't want to hear about them. I also found a mammal (other than stray cats and dogs) an agouti! it's a nut/fruit eating South American rodent. I was excited about it ok. Jeeze, stop being so judgmental  Eventually I got my brother wake up (14 minutes before we needed to get to the dive shop), and we went to the dive shop. Then we went diving. Jonah nearly hit me I so was vocally excited. He found me tiresome...

Diving is the best. it is so much fun. we saw tons of fish. damselfish, angelfish, parrotfish, wrasse, triggerfish, a scorpionfish, and that was the first, weaker dive. The second one was even more exciting. We also had company in the form of four very new divers...they were not great with the not crashing into people thing, but one found a green moray so i forgive him. We persevered nonetheless and it was a great dive. We also saw giant spiny lobsters, a massive turtle with exactly 13 inner plates (if you didn't read the Australia blog, i mentioned all turtles and tortoises have 13 inner plates). I also thought I saw an octopus...but realized that either it was an amputated and aware tentacle, or it was a worm. It was a bearded fireworm. For those wondering, it looks like an octopus tentacle. Later on we actually did see an octopus. It was amazingly camouflaged, but once you saw it, it became clear. Still it attempted to maintain the facade of being invisible. It kept opening an eye to check on us. I imagined it's inner monologue going something like "they can't see me, no they cannont. now piss off....are they still there...yes. DAMN close eye fast...but they can't see me..." for about two minutes. Great start to the day, and got right back into diving, not too rusty. the afternoon adventures forthcoming with more pictures and maybe a video

Planes and Ghost Fish

So the blog is back for a limited time only. Both my avid readers will be delighted. I am no longer in Tasmania, or even in Australia. This adventure finds my brother and I stranded in Tobago, miles away from civilization. Seriously, we're pretty remote hear. But I'll get to that.
Today we woke up so early that it really counted as very late (4:00 am). We got to JFK and were shocked that there was pretty rigorous scheduling for Caribbean Airlines.

There is a hummingbird on a the tail

You think they'd be all about Island Time. Turns out the scheduling was all for show. Our plane took off really late. Yay. Not great organization by the airlines. ANYWAY, the flight was pretty painless, kind of dozing and listening to music the entire time. Then our family split ways. My parents went off on a wild adventure to go birding. My brother and I were hopping on another plane to get to Tobago. There was quite a layover for our twenty minute flight. Literally twenty minutes; they didn't even let us take our seat belts off. I took a picture of the sunset when we got off the plane...and got yelled at. Something about taking photos at airports

So now you can all see the details of Tobago's airport secrets!

So we then get in a car and ride for an hour and a half into "the country," which you can kind of read as the middle of nowhere on the more remote island of a small island nation. It took that long because it was long and windy the entire way. This windiness made Jonah almost throw up in the back of the car. He survived, but thought it was worth mentioning. We checked in and everything went swimmingly, except we didn't actually go into the water yet. diving starts tomorrow. yes i'm too excited for words so I wont even try. I did have my first animal experience of the trip. I was walking out on the dock around 7:45, and suddenly I see movement in front of me. The place is literally crawling with crabs. They were about as brave and aggressive as sir Robin. And it was dark so pictures yet. I'll work on that. Also check facebook for more.
So ghost fish. There are lights in the water by the dock probably to help them when they're setting up for night dives. I don't think there were any tonight, but as i was having fun chasing crabs I saw that there were things swimming in the water. These things were fish...duh. But they all had a kind of whitish hue because of the green back light and moved too quickly for me to identify any of them. Thus they are ghost fish. Hopefully I'll have more and better stories/pictures as the week continues