Rare sighting of nesting white hawks

The year 2020 will be remembered for the covid19 pandemic and the physical confinements of lockdown.

But one budding photographer, Sham Sahadeo, escaped to the wilds of Trinidad and Tobago, armed with newfound passion and an entry-level DSLR camera – with no training, and little knowledge of photography.

Sahadeo started with his own overgrown backyard in south Trinidad, an ideal habitat for birds and butterflies and some generally less lovable creatures.

Sahadeo, an attorney by profession, and now a passionate bird photographer, didn’t waste time while the courts were closed.

As luck would have it, people and the wilds have been very kind to him.

“I’m grateful for the support and people who are always encouraging me. I have had some good people lead me to some really amazing locations and finds,” the avid environmentalist said.

Serendipity is a word he would come to use very often. He recorded the first pair of nesting green winged macaws in Trinidad in a 150-foot palm stump right next door to his home.

The feathered neighbours became an endearing photographic story – not once but three times in as many years, on the same stump, “until it was senselessly chopped down by poachers who were after nesting parrots,” a visibly upset Sahadeo remembered.

He is inflexible when it comes to protecting wildlife: “No compromise. We depend on the environment for our quality of life.”

Pictures of the everyday progress of the first nesting pair, affectionately named Paco and Paula, were shared on many social media platforms, and that’s how Sahadeo made his first mark.

Trinidad, despite being only 4,520 square km, can boast of having one of the densest bird populations per sq km anywhere in the world, with a total of 482 species of birds recorded for both Trinidad and Tobago.

As Sahadeo’s skills in terms of birding and wildlife photography grew, so did the urge to explore new areas. His neighbour’s backyard which bordered part of the vegetation of the southwestern peninsula, was the next stepping stone, and in less than a year, all parts of the country became familiar to him, from Cedros to Chaguaramas.

“The learning curve was steep and would take me to all 'covid-safe' corners of the island,” and, he suspects, to some places where few photographers had been. The areas, because of their very sensitive nature, remain nameless, only being referred to as the “Green Forest” in his posts and communications with the public.

The wetlands of the southwestern peninsula opened up for his brand of birding and wildlife photography. Some of the trips were not pleasant; swamps are not among Sahadeo’s favourite haunts.

“But I’ll endure most things to share the images and experiences of it, if it will help people understand the value of the natural environment to our existence,” he said.

Bigger, unexpected moments would come.

Sahadeo would be introduced to a pair of nesting white hawks through a chain of encounters, suggesting that there was more than just chance to his journey: “Imagine, if you will, seeing a white hawk land on the branch of a tree some 20-odd years ago – and then nothing.

"Then one day in passing, you see parrots landing on the same tree. I stop to take pictures and then realised that there was a grey lined hawk perched on the tree that I did not notice at first.”

But the story gets better. Every day after that, he kept looking at the tree to see what more it would offer, until one day he discovered bat falcons nesting. He started to photographically document them.

“Then one day a stranger pulls up and asks what it is I was doing, and then proceeds to tell me about a place with birds. I visit that place, and another person from the area tells me about 'white birds circling in the sky' and proceeds to point out swallow-tailed kites and says he knows someone who might know where they are nesting.

"It turned out he was partly right, on the nesting part anyway, but it wasn’t a nest of the swallow-tailed kites, but that of the elusive nesting white hawks.”

These raptors have not been recorded and documented nesting for almost 80 years. The last time nesting white hawks were officially documented in this country was in 1943, as told in the Birds of Trinidad and Tobago by Richard Ffrench: “A nest of twigs on a bromeliad 80 feet up in a tree in March of 1943. There was one egg, pale bluish with brown markings.”

Fast-forward to 2022, when Sahadeo set out to profile the white hawk for two successful breeding seasons, during which there were two additions to the white hawk population in the green forest.

There are some boundaries he won't cross as a wildlife photographer.

“Respect for the natural environment and for all life that call it home is critical to our existence. Nature can survive, and in all likelihood would, without humans.

"Humans, on the other hand, cannot survive with nature, although many mistakenly believe that we can.

"There is more to birding and wildlife photography than just grabbing a camera and heading out into 'nature' to take pictures. How you treat and interact with the environment and every living thing that you encounter within are key ingredients. How close you can get versus how close you should get to a subject (is one of) the little things that show respect for the forest.

"In return, nature can and often does offer up far more hidden gems than if you did not show that respect.”

A currently display of Sahadeo's photography at Fine Art Caribbean Ltd can also be seen on his Facebook page.