Wild Tobago

Faraaz Abdool believes it’s not natural to turn our backs on nature. And we can find our way back if we start with birds!   Overwhelmingly, our leaders are highly educated professionals, both historically and contemporaneously. Despite this, we are still very much on course for a climate catastrophe. Environmental education remains a hot topic in educational institutions worldwide, but increased levels of drought, famine, and unprecedented supercharged storms have already been notching indelible marks in the rapidly unfolding story of humanity. Clearly, there are significant shortfalls in the global education system we all subscribe to. We continue to parade through the education system, picking up courses to trade them in for letters at the end of a few years - yet we seldom turn our attention to the greatest source of knowledge and information that has ever existed.   Swamp immortelle trees are common and distinctive across T&T. They attract a wi...

This newspaper started its Thursday (marine) environmental column in July 2016 in the edition of the paper printed and distributed free in Tobago. Dr Anjani Ganase, then a PhD candidate in Australia, wanted to spread awareness and inspire appreciation of their marine environment with residents of Tobago just as she was herself learning more about the ocean in her studies of marine biology and coral reefs around the world. All the weekly columns have been collected in the Wild Tobago blogspot and shared on-line; and are still available at  www.wildtobago.blogspot.com This feature, published January 22, 2026, in the on-line edition of the Newsday, is the 500th column. Over the time, she has shared the space, every Thursday, with other environmental thinkers, scientists and activists. She felt it was fitting that this 500th should go to the other end of the islands to showcase another unique ecosystem existing in Trinidad. One of the principles of this column is t...

Birding is for Everyone!  Faraaz Abdool presents twelve of the many reasons that we should all be bird-watching!   Oh, birds! We’ve all experienced them at some point. Whether in passing or deliberately, birds, their superhuman abilities, and their symbolic representations have captivated humans for millennia. Presently, the term “birder” is a person who enjoys birds, irrespective of degree or methodology. While some may argue to the contrary, a person who cracks a smile upon hearing the sweet song of the wren in the morning is as much a birder as the person who sloshes through kilometres of flooded forest, battling millions of mosquitoes to catch a glimpse of a roosting potoo that looks like nothing more than a broken branch.   Being a birder is both a right and a privilege. There is no specific dress code, nor a thousand-strong species list needed to qualify one’s status as a birder. Being a birder does not make anyone into an authority either...

  Faraaz Abdool invites us to welcome the birds migrating through our islands by observing them, and giving them space.     The looming winter echoes across the boreal forests and tundra of the far north from where coldness never truly leaves; icy fingers only loosen their grip for a short few weeks. The transition comes swiftly, often overnight - and so this warning must never go unheeded. Waves of wispy winter tendrils thread their way south, thickening as the north pole tilts away from the sun. Like cold air cascading from an open freezer door, it threatens the unprepared without discrimination. Those who can flee do so with urgency, not out of fear but out of deference to time-honoured traditions that form the foundations of global ecology. Human eyes and minds perceive this annual phenomenon as bird migration. Here in the southern Caribbean we bear witness to the arrival of weary wings around September.   Throughout most of thei...

  Before there was oil from the ground, there was this bird. Rarely seen in the day, this mystical creature forages at night. Faraaz Abdool tells us about the bird that once was a source of energy for the early inhabitants of our island.   The continental island of Trinidad shares virtually all of its ecology with South America, and this includes one of the strangest and most remarkable birds in the world. Like the superhero masquerading as an ordinary citizen, this is a bird that can easily be overlooked. It lacks many of the avian attributes that enrapture us: no iridescence of the hummingbird nor powerful talons of the hawk-eagle, for example. The constant lesson in nature, however, is to look deeper. Nowhere is this truer than with the Oilbird.   This Oilbird was found roosting one morning at St. Benedict's College in La Romaine, south Trinidad. Nowhere near any known colonies, observers carefully kept their distance throughout the day and the bird flew off that...