Cacti on Little Tobago, Day 3

Managed to get a few more photos from Day 3 of our recent trip posted on Flickr tonight. These are just extra images that I wanted to add to my Trinidad & Tobago albums. Either later tonight (tomorrow morning) or when I get up tomorrow, I will post my photo for tomorrow - another beautiful bird from the island of Trinidad. I only have another 17 or so photos from Little Tobago island and then I can sort out a few taken the same day (Day 3), when we stopped a few times on our way from the Blue Waters Inn to the airport. It was only a very short flight from Tobago to Trinidad - we were barely up in the air before it was time to start the descent to the Port of Spain airport on Trinidad.

I was not expecting to see cacti growing in this area, but the forest here is dry forest. This was taken at our highest point, while we were looking over the ocean and watching Frigate Birds, Red-billed Tropicbirds, a very distant Red-footed Booby, and Laughing Gulls.

"Little Tobago (or Bird of Paradise Island) is a small island off the northeastern coast of Tobago, and part of the republic of Trinidad and Tobago. The island is about 1 square kilometre in area and is located at 11° 18' N and 60° 31' W, approximately 2.4 kilometres (1.5 miles) from Speyside. The highest point on the island is approximately 37 metres (121 ft) above sea level.

The island supports dry forest. It is an important breeding site for seabirds such as red-billed tropicbird, Audubon's shearwater, brown booby, brown noddy, sooty and bridled terns. A few pairs of white-tailed tropicbirds are also nesting here.

Little Tobago is also a good site from which to see birds which breed on neighbouring small islands, including red-footed booby and magnificent frigatebird. The latter species is frequently seen harassing the tropicbirds, boobies and terns.

The sea between Tobago and Little Tobago is shallow, and glass-bottomed boats enable the attractive corals and brightly coloured tropical fish to be seen on the crossing. It is a popular area for snorkeling and diving, especially on Angel Reef in front of Goat Island.

In 1909 Sir William Ingram introduced the greater bird of paradise (Paradisaea apoda) to the island in an attempt to save the species from overhunting for the plume trade in its native New Guinea. About 45 juvenile birds were introduced to the island. After Ingram's death in 1924 his heirs deeded the island to the Government of Trinidad and Tobago as a wildlife sanctuary. The birds survived on the island until at least 1958 when they were filmed by a National Geographic crew. There are no reliable records after 1963 when Hurricane Flora hit the island and the population is presumed to be extinct." From Wikipedia.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Tobago