Rashan­da Mc Ken­na

"In this coun­try, the hum­ming­bird is a pow­er­ful na­tion­al sym­bol. One of Trinidad and To­ba­go's na­tion­al awards is called the Hum­ming­bird Medal and is award­ed in gold, sil­ver and bronze, yet as na­tion­als we know noth­ing about the hum­ming­bird."

Too of­ten as Trinida­di­ans and To­bag­o­ni­ans we boast about be­ing pa­tri­ot­ic but there is no re­al ev­i­dence to what we be­lieve is our love of coun­try. This was sug­gest­ed by Dr Theodore Fer­gu­son, pho­tog­ra­ph­er and own­er of the pris­tine Yarette hum­ming­bird sanc­tu­ary, in the hills of north-east Trinidad. A trail lead­ing to these na­tion­al jew­els is tucked away be­hind tow­er­ing tree trunks, beds of flow­ers and re­fresh­ing herbs, and is hid­den deep in the Mara­cas Val­ley, at the Yarette com­pound, off old St Joseph Road.

It is a man-made haven, with hun­dreds of jew­elled-coat­ed hum­ming­birds, con­stant­ly fly­ing around dozens of feed­ers set up to at­tract them, right here in T&T. "Un­be­liev­able!" is the first word that comes to the mind of many vis­i­tors, who are of­ten ren­dered speech­less. Born in Grena­da, Fer­gu­son spent years as a Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies lec­tur­er in the field of agri­cul­ture and then start­ed a sec­ond ca­reer as a con­sul­tant on lead­er­ship. Sparked by their love for pho­tog­ra­phy, he and his wife Glo­ria start­ed at­tract­ing the birds about 14 months ago.

"I am more in­to ex­pres­sions and feel­ings and cap­tur­ing mo­ments of en­er­gy of the birds," boast­ed Fer­gu­son. He of­ten gives vis­i­tors to his hum­ming­bird haven brief lessons in Amerindi­an mythol­o­gy as it re­lates to the hum­ming­bird. He says the iri­des­cent-winged crea­tures were be­lieved by the Kali­na­go peo­ple, com­mon­ly known as Caribs, to be the spir­its of their an­ces­tors.

Hum­ming­birds were once held in high es­teem in this coun­try, not on­ly be­cause of their sen­ti­men­tal val­ue to the in­dige­nous peo­ple, but al­so be­cause of their worth to the Eu­ro­peans who trad­ed in the hum­ming­bird skins be­tween the Amer­i­c­as and Eu­rope, dur­ing colo­nial times. Fer­gu­son said de­spon­dent­ly: "In this coun­try, the hum­ming­bird is a pow­er­ful na­tion­al sym­bol. Im­ages of hum­ming­birds ap­pear on the na­tion­al Coat of Arms, cur­ren­cy and pass­port. One of Trinidad and To­ba­go's na­tion­al awards is called the Hum­ming­bird Medal and it is award­ed in gold, sil­ver and bronze, yet as na­tion­als we know noth­ing about the hum­ming­bird."

In fact, tourists from Eu­rope, Amer­i­ca and Asia flock to the Yarette site to get a glimpse of these gen­er­al­ly-elu­sive birds, to which lo­cal cit­i­zens seem to be obliv­i­ous. Yarette has an un­be­liev­ably large num­ber of hum­ming­birds, at­tract­ing up to 13 of the 17 species found in T&T. The site sees over 4,000 birds on a dai­ly ba­sis and Fer­gur­son ob­serves that the num­bers dou­ble af­ter heavy rain.

The hum­ming­birds are at­tract­ed to Yarette be­cause of the flower beds in the well-kept gar­den, with its wide as­sort­ment of petals bear­ing pollen and dozens of feed­ers, filled with ar­ti­fi­cial nec­tar. Fer­gu­son's ap­proach to main­tain­ing this oa­sis is tru­ly me­thod­i­cal, since he has a sci­en­tif­ic for­mu­la for prepar­ing the nec­tar. The so­lu­tion is made up of gran­u­lat­ed sug­ar mixed with boiled wa­ter, which is then cooled and poured in­to the con­tain­ers.

The cen­tral at­trac­tion of Yarette is the feel­ing of re­lax­ation, seren­i­ty, peace and nat­ur­al en­gage­ment when one is over­come by the spir­it of the place. Ac­cord­ing to an ar­ti­cle writ­ten by Fer­gu­son, the site at Yarette is "beau­ty in our midst". Yarette high­lights the his­to­ry of these crea­tures in our land, and helps us to de­vel­op a new­found ap­pre­ci­a­tion and ado­ra­tion for the hum­ming­bird. Vis­i­tors have an op­por­tu­ni­ty to be flab­ber­gast­ed by this ex­pe­ri­ence, as they view some­thing they have nev­er be­fore wit­nessed. For book­ing in­for­ma­tion, con­tact the Fer­gu­sons at 663-2623, 373-1379 or 360-6033.