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.
[caption id="attachment_1056509" align="alignnone" width="769"] Wildlife photogapher Sham Sahadeo. -[/caption]
“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.
[caption id="attachment_1056512" align="alignnone" width="1024"] A ferruginous pygmy owl chick peeks out of its nest. - Sham Sahadeo[/caption]
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 o
