Another One That Took A While

In my previous post on this blog, I shared a personal story about my encounters (or lack thereof) with the very beautiful Pearl Kite. Sometimes when preparing articles like these, one tends to venture down memory lane. After which many similar stories bubble to the surface, begging to be told to unwary and unfortunate audiences. I didn’t have the opportunity to begin digging up past experiences, as only a couple days after finally photographing a Pearl Kite, I crossed paths with another species that had previously eluded me.

For clarity, I only am considering resident species in this context. Migratory species elude me all the time, and I don’t have the slightest problem with that. The more time that passes until I see a Sora, for example, means an extended stage time for my very tired “I never saw a Sora“. Species that share a space with me daily, however, are a different story. There is a certain responsibility one feels as a birder – some call it a compulsion – that we should have at least seen as many locally resident species as possible. And as a photographer there is an additional urge to document all these sightings in image form. Invariably, there are species (like my Pearl Kite story of last fortnight) that tempt and tantalise, whether to be seen or to be photographed.

The distinct, undulating trill of the Silvered Antbird is one of the first vocalisations that stuck in my memory. I first heard it on a birding trip in southern Trinidad many years ago, along with some more experienced birders we tracked the bird down to a specific clearing, within which the bird was surely calling. We used the thick surrounding tree trunks as cover, advancing slowly over the leaf litter. The bird did not fly. I still hadn’t seen it. Eventually, we got to a point where the bird was singing from nauseatingly close by, and I had no visual. Next to me, however, was another birder who had craned his camera around the tree trunk – and in the camera’s LCD I could clearly see a male Silvered Antbird, its rotund lower bits vibrating in tune with staccato notes. Of course, the bird flew before I could’ve gotten even a finger around the trunk.

Over the years I’d hear Silvered Antbird fairly regularly, but seeing them proved to be at best not straightforward. Their reputation for being well hidden was well deserved, after all. Cruising down the Mahaica River in Guyana brought me within touching distance of a male – but it never left cover. There was one uncharacteristically bold individual I encountered in Trinidad’s Nariva Swamp that was too preoccupied on finding food among the maze of mangrove roots that it didn’t mind being in full view for more than five minutes. I was in stitches, laughing because I had left my camera at home. This impressive wetland is one of the most reliable places on the island for Silvered Antbird, I even managed an image on a subsequent visit which I shared in this post.

Fast forward to a couple weeks ago, still on a high from photographing the Pearl Kite, I was about to board the boat to return to the dock at Nariva Swamp on Trinidad’s rugged east coast when a pair of Silvered Antbirds began calling from a nearby bush. We were racing against falling tide and light, but I was encouraged to at least make an effort.

When one steps into a bramble, it’s an entirely different planet. There is no sky, so if the light was low outside, it was almost nonexistent within the bush. Endless brown arcs of living and dying branches and woody vines crisscross almost every cubic millimetre. Leaves that are about to fall off flail in even the slightest breeze; somewhere within this cornucopia of vegetation there was a Silvered Antbird or two.

Eventually, I spotted a female. I eased upward from my squat position to try to get a clear view. As soon as I began pressing the shutter button, a much louder vocalisation sprung out from my immediate right. Peering out from behind my camera, I caught sight of a male on a relatively exposed branch.

Silvered Antbird, female

The trouble here was to find a hole to photograph through. My arms and shoulders were burning, hands desperately keeping the rig steady as I squeezed the shutter. Gentle reminder to everyone who photographs birds in the dense forest: don’t forget to breathe!

Silvered Antbird, male vocalising