Description:
Castara Cottage is an open, natural style Caribbean house situated in Castara, Tobago. The two-storey house offers flexible and comfortable self-catering accommodation for up to 11 adults in 3 apartments. | |
Additional Information:
Both houses look out due west so offer spectacular views of the sun and moon setting over the sea. Each house has been subdivided into self-contained apartments with fitted kitchen and verandah. Ideal for families, couples and friends. | |
Amenities
Heavenly Bay beach The main Castara beach and Heavenly Bay beach are equidistant, some 100 meters - 120 yards or about 4 minutes walk down the hill and 8 minutes back.
Both beaches are safe for children with parents.
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Activities
Castara Cottage is an open, natural style Caribbean house situated in Castara, Tobago. The two-storey house offers flexible and comfortable self-catering accommodation for up to 11 adults in 3 apartments. The cottage is just one minutes walk from two beaches and is surrounded by rainforest covered hills. Two of the apartments have outside decked areas, and all have their own entrance way, well-equipped kitchen, bathroom with hot water, and safety deposit box.
Birding
From your doorstep you can start birding, if you're keen, you would spend your whole holiday chasing through bush and forest. But you will need a camera, note book, pen, rainwear, good boots, binoculars, sunscreen, scopes and good book, here are a few:
A birder's guide to Trinidad and Tobago
Revised 1996; 160 pages; wire-O binding " Totally revised, expanded, and updated from previous editions to give you the latest details on the best sites on both islands. Tells you where to stay, when to go, how to get there and get around, how to hire local guides, exchange money, obtain maps, etc. Detailed, easy-to-follow maps locate and show the birding sites. Island specialties are given extra attention. Extensive bar-graph section covers seasonal abundance. The wire-O binding is a major improvement. William L Murphy
A guide to the birds of Trinidad and Tobago
Revised 1991; 424 pages; paper " Completely updates previous editions with revised and expanded text. Covers over 400 species found on these islands off the north coast of South America. Species accounts include habitat, status, range, voice, food, nesting, and behaviour. Colour plates in separate section illustrate over 300 species. Richard French
A Typical Birding Day
Leader: Bill Murphy
I'd like to try to share my notes and memories with you. Hope they stimulate some good Ornithology.
All in one long day
Sunday. Bill Murphy attempts something he's never done before - take a group of birders around Tobago for a single day, with no advance planning except ground transportation.
We took what we needed for the day (binoculars, sunscreen, scopes, and a little cash). Starting at the airport I'd predicted that the first birds we'd see would be Caribbean martins, a bird of the Leeward Islands. The latter species, being partially migratory, hadn't yet returned from wherever they'd gone. Instead we viewed a sky dominated by magnificent frigatebirds.
Upon clearing the airport, we were met by Peter Moore. Our first stop was at the nearby Fort Granby, where we watched royal terns and brown boobies sail over the azure Caribbean. In the short grass of the park hopped black-faced grassquits, while eared doves sat in the trees. A quick trip to the beach at the end of the runway produced some brown pelicans, more royal terns, and a distant view of Trinidad's Northern Range some 40 km (26 miles) across the strait known as Galleon's Passage, as all the Spanish ships going for gold from Central America had to ply those waters.
Farther north on the leeward - Caribbean side of the island, we carefully tread the uneven turf of a cattle ranch to reach tiny Buccoo Marsh. Enroute we found barred antshrike and brown-crested flycatcher in the thorny guava scrub. The water in the lagoon was higher than I'd ever seen it, but still it offered excellent looks at marsh birds that included several uncommon species like white-cheeked pintail and black-bellied whistling-ducks, which were unknown from Tobago even five years ago. Other wetland species present included common moorhen, wattled jacana, two immature little blue herons, a whimbrel, both species of yellowlegs, and an anhinga soaring like a raptor. A lone merlin blazed past. A medium-sized, mostly dark duck swam into view - a female lesser scaup, another first. Here we saw a few more of the rare least grebes. As we continued over roads that were nearly perfect, we spotted a number of good ‘wire birds’: pale-vented pigeon, white-tipped dove and gray kingbird. We kept our eyes on the trees, looking for the endemic race of the red-crowned woodpecker. Around almost every house sported brilliant flowers such as Croton, Rose-of-Sharon, and Bougainvillea of every hue. All in all, Tobago presented an attractive image.
One lesson we shared was on domesticated animals - how to distinguish Caribbean goats from Caribbean sheep. Because neither animal has a thick coat in Tobago, the best ways to distinguish them turned out to be whether the tail was held aloft (=goat) or down (=sheep) of if the animal climbed at all to reach forage (=goat). We took a few brief walks on the Caribbean side of the island, viewing common species such as blue-black and black-faced grassquits, broad-winged hawk and more magnificent frigatebirds’.
Peter's knowledge of Tobago's back roads got us the seven miles across the island to Scarborough in no time at all. We detoured into the capital city of Scarborough for provisions (cheese, crackers, cookies, chips, more cookies, etc.), then wound our way back to the Windward Road. On the windward (Atlantic) side, we proceeded north on the Windward Road, which provides easy access to mature virgin rainforest. Along this most luxurious drive we spotted turkey-sized rufous-vented chachalaca, blue-crowned motmot, rufous-breasted wren, white-necked thrush, , scrub greenlet, and a few of the nonspecialist nest parasites, the shiny cowbird. At one stop we had a breathtaking view of an adult great black-hawk soaring in the high winds over the peaks, its wide, black-tipped white tail clearly visible. Cresting the Main Ridge, we were in a windswept zone dominated by Selaginella, an ancient plant from which much of our deposits of coal were formed. Our target was Gilpin Trace, a rugged, muddy trail along the side of a deep, steep-sided ravine. Gilpin Trace is home to some of Tobago's most secretive and rare species of birds. We rented calf-high rubber boots from a local entrepreneur at the trailhead and within minutes were totally surrounded by true jungle vegetation.
It's always twilight along Gilpin Trace. Almost immediately we heard the short, squeaky ‘song’ of the incredibly rare white-tailed sabrewing hummingbird, but try as we might, we could not spot it from our angle. Moving forward, I gave the whistled call of the blue-backed manakin, another Tobago specialty, until one of the members of the group spotted a gorgeous male in full view. We got great looks at it's velvety black body, powder blue back, and crimson crown. That swept the manakins for the trip - all three species of three different genera. Suddenly we spotted the Sabrewing right next to us along the trailside. For just a little while we had him, a fine green male, spreading and flashing his white tail and giving us a wonderful show. A little later we found a white-fringed antwren, then watched from above as a pair of stripe-breasted spinetails gleaned insects from the forest floor. A wary red-rumped woodpecker stayed just far enough around the far side of a tree trunk to give us rather paltry views. As we reached the point on the trail at which we'd turn back, we spotted another ‘give up any hope of seeing this one’ species - a yellow-legged thrush. Here's a species that's ‘always’ found in the blackest shade of a tree branch 90 metres (100 feet) above the ground, giving no opportunity for any kind of view. And where was this one? On the ground, below us, next to the stream. When we'd returned to the trailhead we were stunned at the amount of time that had elapsed while we explored Gilpin Trace.
Back at the Gilpin Trace Rest House, a structure with a view worth traveling to Tobago to see. On a clear day they say you can see the island of Grenada 110km (70 miles) to the northeast. On this day we couldn't see Grenada but we could see the distant rocky islands called the Sisters, about 1000 feet below us and quite a distance offshore. Through the Questar we could make out flying birds, white, pigeonlike, with long streamer tails: red-billed tropicbirds. How many identifications can be made from five miles!?
We stopped again on our return journey at a tiny marsh that hosted a couple of yellow-crowned night-herons. Our day-long quest ended atop Fort King George in Scarborough. From that magnificent viewpoint we gazed east, out over the swells of the Atlantic, where the next landfall east was Senegal, and south, where we could see cumulus clouds building over Venezuela and Guyana. Around us, almost at ground level, flew short-tailed swifts, which were soon joined by dashing, tiny insectivorous bats. Near the airport we had parked along a goat pasture behind a row of food vendors at Store Bay Beach. It was so dark we could have been anywhere at all. The night is infinitely black.
Our tally, one day's birding in Tobago had yielded 91 species. Of them, 19 were new.
The Rainforest
The main challenge is the preservation of Tobago's rainforest in the new millennium approaches.
The main ridge rainforest is somewhere around 100,000 square kilometres (39,000 square miles) Tobago was set aside for protection in 1764, the earliest nature reserve in the world. The people and government are rightly proud of this history. Deforestation has come to a stand still (but the total rates of world tropical deforestation are difficult to estimate). Some unique rainforests have been almost totally destroyed. Loss of biodiversity, and global warming (due to increased levels of carbon dioxide) became global issues surrounding rainforest destruction. These and logging are threatening our rainforest. Please help, during your visit, leave only your footprints and take only photographs and memories.
The Rainforest Reserve Road. This road runs through the mature virgin rainforest reserve from just south of Roxborough through to Bloody bay taking you past the entrance to Gilpin Trace.
The Gilpin Trace. Bamboos - an import - of huge circumference tower hundreds of feet above you. Spiny palms such as the 'gru-gru' and bromeliad-covered cycads or tree ferns form the middle story, while an even greater profusion of bromeliads adorn the tree branches of the canopy high overhead. This is the most impressive area of rainforest in Tobago that can be accessed by car, with a dense canopy, many epiphytes, and more palms.
Tobago's rainforest. The northern part of the island boasts the oldest protected rainforest in the world. We owe this to Stephen Hales, a scientist who convinced plantation owners that if they went an cutting down the forest, they would destroy the balance of nature and reduce the island to a barren desert: remarkably, he did this in 1776.
The term tropical rainforest was coined at the end of the 19th century by the famous German plant geographer, Alfred Schimper, who first called it Tropische Regenwald. This tropical rainforest is characterised by evergreen woody vegetation with a high and usually closed upper canopy 30 to 50 meters (100-165 feet) above ground level. Emergent trees protrude partly or entirely above the upper canopy. Woody climbers called lianas that can exceed 20 centimeters (8 inches) in diameter are often common and their tops can reach the upper canopy. These are seen on most of the hilly roads around Castara. Numerous seedlings and herbaceous plants dominate the ground layer and there is often a rich epiphyte community, such as orchids and bromeliads, that grows on the trunks and branches. The tropical rainforest is stratified in the sense of having layers. An understorey, a closed canopy, and emergents are almost always recognisable.
DO NOT PICK PLANTS - PROTECT THE RAINFOREST - it is yours to take care of.
Our biodiversity. Most of the world's rainforests are within 10° of the equator. Tropical rainforests contain most of our planet's biodiversity and there are probably still millions of insects that have not been scientifically recorded. The rainforest is also able to establish itself on the tropical mountain ridge of Tobago, hence montane rainforest. The equatorial rainforest is a broad-leaved evergreen formation found in the warm and moist areas of the tropics at low elevation. Overall, moisture is the main factor influencing the distribution of equatorial rainforest, though other factors, such as soils, can be important locally. More importantly, there is no pronounced dry season in Tobago that could result in severe moisture stress. Other than the upper canopy and emergents, there are also two or more forest layers, or strata, made up mostly of seedlings, shrubs, and trees. Vines and epiphytes attached to the trees are often abundant. As seen from the air the upper canopy is closed and little light reaches the forest floor. Montane rainforests are especially abundant in the upper reaches of Tobago. Sometimes these are called cloud-forests, these clouds can be seen forming over the mountains that surround Castara.
The mangrove. The tropical coast at the southern end near the airport are bordered by intertidal forest communities consisting of plants highly adapted to periodic inundation, boggy soils, and saline conditions. These mangrove formations are not rainforests, but are mentioned here because they often fringe the latter at their coastal limits. Plant diversity is low in mangroves compared to rainforests because of the stressful conditions presented by salt or brackish water.
Soil erosion. Tobago's warm climate and copious precipitation can lead to strong weathering of the soils. Minerals are continuously leached (that is, dissolved by rain water) from the upper layers. Latosols are very poor in most minerals, although quartz, aluminum, and iron become concentrated because they are not heavily leached by rain water. Accelerated biological activity in the litter, along with high levels of precipitation, means that nutrients, unless somehow captured, will be leached away rather rapidly. Given the poor soils on which the rainforest grows, plants can capture nutrients by 'withdrawing' them to stems before leaves fall, accumulating them from rain water in epiphytes and on trunks and, most importantly, taking them in the root zone before they are leached away. This is done with the help of nutrient-absorbing fungi that become integral parts of the rootmats. These symbiotic associations are called mycorrhizae; the fungi supply nutrients to the rainforest trees and these in turn furnish energy to the fungi.
TAKE RUBBISH HOME - PROTECT THE RAINFOREST - it is yours to take care of.
The different types of soil found in tropical regions lead to a mosaic of rainforest types. Tobago's tall, diverse rainforest with high biomass is found on the upland latosols. In the sandy areas, where podzolic soils dominate, stunted communities are found, and though tree species diversity is reduced, a better light environment allows a wealth of orchids, bromeliads, and other epiphytes to flourish. Plant life is dominated by angiosperms, or the flowering plants. The vast majority of species are woody. Somewhere between 80 and 200 woody species can be found in one hectare (2.5 acres) of the mature rainforest.
The greenery of seedlings, vines, epiphytes, and small trees will often obscures a clear-cut view of the rainforest's strata. Once conceptualized, however, it is usually possible to "see" the various layers. Altogether five strata can usually be identified. The highest consists of emergent trees that poke their crowns above the canopy. Emergent trees can be over 50 meters (165 feet) high. These are often magnificent trees, such as the Kapok cotton tree, whose horizontal branches can stretch 30-40 meters (100-130 feet) above the upper canopy.
The main canopy fills the spaces between the emergent trees and forms a continuous cover with them. Vines, epiphytes and lichens can grow profusely in the canopy as they claim their place in the sun. Below the upper canopy there is an amorphous layer of smaller trees that may be anywhere from about 10 to 30 meters (33 to 100 feet) in height. Many can be young individuals of the giant tree species in the neighbourhood; others have attained their full size. A shrub layer below this lower tree level can also have young individuals of canopy trees, but there are also a wide variety of mature woody individuals. Finally, the lower understorey consists of numerous seedlings and scattered herbaceous plants. Rarely is the ground layer so thick that a rainforest cannot be walked through, at least with a little help from a machete.
Millions of animal and plant species yet to be found. Rainforests are the most diverse ecosystems on Earth because of the incredible numbers of animal species present. Most of this animal diversity is made up of insects, but many other invertebrate groups are also involved. A large rainforest region may have in excess of ten million animal species, though most of these have yet to be scientifically recorded. In contrast to temperate latitude forests, animal diversity in rainforests is heavily arboreal and always greater than that found living on the ground. Even some large vertebrates have evolved to spend most of their lives in the trees.
DO NOT PICK PLANTS - PROTECT THE RAINFOREST - it is yours to take care of.
Rainforest trees are pollinated by insects and birds. The high diversity of many animal groups, such as birds, can in large part be explained by the fact that various unique combinations of species tend to inhabit different layers of the rainforest. Life based in tropical trees has led to the evolution of several peculiar adaptations. Mutual interactions between plants and animals are characteristic of rainforests. Many animal groups, but especially insects and birds, pollinate rainforest trees, as wind is not an effective pollinator for most plant species in this relatively closed environment. The insects receive food from nectar and other substances, and in return pollinate the next flowers they visit. After fruit is formed, rainforest plants more often than not use animals to disperse their seeds. Birds and mammals are important dispersal agents in the rainforest. Some animal groups provide protection to a plant species and receive living quarters in return. Ants are the most common and abundant animals found in the Tobago Rainforest Reserve, and they have evolved to occupy all strata, from the understorey to the emergents. Many tropical plants have hollow structures in their stems or twigs that stinging or biting ants use as homes. Ants supply nutrients to the trees and also in many cases protect them from leaf and seed predators.
It is now generally accepted by scientists, though unfortunately not by many developers, that rainforests are of more potential value as a long-term sustainable resource when left more or less intact than when converted to pastures or other simplified habitats.
Tobago is doing its bit. Rainforests have built up the largest standing biomass of any plant community on earth, and they have done this almost independently of soil conditions by evolving nutrient recycling. Managed rainforests can thus provide huge amounts of valuable timber, retain the naturally thin topsoil layers, regulate run-off, and stabilize local climate. The nursery at Louis d' Or near Roxborough and the Botanical Gardens at Scarborough are involved in such programmes.
Your future will depend upon the rainforest. Because rainforests contain our planet's greatest diversity of plants and animals, they also represent giant gene banks that are surely needed now and in the future for new drugs, foods, and other products. Medicinal substances already discovered in rainforests, such as diosgenin as an active agent in contraceptive pills, reserpin for cardiac problems, and curare used in heart and lung surgery, point to further and increased potential uses. Only a very small percentage of rainforest plants have thus far been assessed for potential chemical value. There are a large number of natural and human-induced factors that impact on rainforests. Hurricanes such as the one in 1963, forest fires, disease, landslides, and other natural factors are now of rather minimal influence compared to human deforestation, such as that caused by logging, road building, mining, and large-scale clearing for cattle pasture and other agricultural crops.
Ant large-scale clearing that may be allowed to take place in Tobago's rainforest areas would be of such an extent that hundreds of years would probably be needed for natural recovery to produce anything similar to the original vegetation.
Some of the world's unique rainforests have been almost totally destroyed. Loss of biodiversity, and global warming (due to increased levels of carbon dioxide) became global issues surrounding rainforest destruction.
We want you to take pleasure when you visit the Rainforest Reserve - it is yours to take care of.
Swimming
The winds come from the east - this makes the Atlantic Ocean side - the windward (east) side more windy with light choppy seas. It is often too dangerous to swim on this coast. Nearly all the beaches on this side are classified as dangerous and are better avoided. Some of the leeward beaches are:
Castara The main and north beach are safe for children whilst supervised by an adult as there are no life guards. The leeward Caribbean Sea is much calmer than the windward Atlantic side. These two crescent shaped beaches are lined with palm trees which offer some shade. The main beach has a shower and changing rooms which costs a few dollars for all day use.
Englishman's Bay which is a fair walk from Castara is a picture postcard scene of a tropical beach. Being very isolated you will have to take care of your valuables. There are no resources, so bring your own refreshments and lots of water to drink. Pack up soon after sunset as there are millions of mosquitoes waiting for you.
Parlatuvier is a picturesque bay but the water soon becomes too deep for children. Refreshment is available. This beach can be reached by bus or a long walk from Castara.
Bloody Bay is a pleasant swimming stop after you have been trekking through the rainforest nearby. This beach can be reached by bus from Castara.
King Peter's Bay is a little over one mile from the main road between Runnimead and Moria, so you will need a car to see this picturesque tropical beach. Being very isolated you will have to take care of your valuables. There are no resources, so bring your own refreshments and lots of water to drink.
WARNING - when is rains, do not shelter under the manchineel (poison apple) trees on the beach, the sap from any part of it will irritate, rain dripping from these trees will irritate your skin - avoid the tree. | |
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