Tag Archives: birding

Visiting Cuba Day Three

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Locale: On 26 July 1988 the causeway linking to Cayo Coco with the mainland was completed.  Here is more information about this project that I found on the Internet:

The causeway linking Cayo Coco to the mainland is 17 miles long and runs across Perros Bay. It took 16 months to build and required 110 million cubic feet of stone. The causeway caused concern among environmentalists because it disturbed the tidal flow, thus changing the salinity and temperature of the water.  A number of gaps were created in the causeway to restore some water flow. Wild flamingos still live in the shallow waters of the bay and can often be seen from the causeway, albeit less frequently. Two short causeways link Cayo Coco to Cayo Guillermo to the west and Cayo Romano to the east.

This article also says that “coco” refers to the white ibis; supposedly the locals call them the “coconut birds.”

Weather:  80s.  Sunny.

Itinerary: Cayo Coco to Cayo Guillermo and back

Overnight: Hotel Sol Cayo Coco, Jardines del Rey

Excursions: Buffet breakfast at 6:30, birding at Cayo Paredón Grande near the lighthouse, buffet lunch at hotel, birding at Cayo Guillermo, birding at Las Coloradas Beach, buffet dinner at hotel

Habitats: Desert scrub, sandy beach, coastal wetlands, mudflats, mangroves.

Bird Species (partial listing, by family): West Indian Whistling Duck (Dendrocygna arborea), Blue-Winged Teal (Anas discors), Northern Shoveler (Anas clypeata), American Flamingo (Phoenicopterus ruber), Cuban Emerald Hummingbird (Chlorostilbon ricordii), Common Gallinule (Gallinula galeata),  Black-Necked Stilt (Himantopus mexicanus), Semipalmated Plover (Charadrius semipalmatus), Piping Plover (Charadrius melodus), Killdeer (Charadrius vociferus), Ring-Billed Gull (Larus delawarensis), Lesser Black-Backed Gull (Larus fuscus), Caspian Tern (Hydroprogne caspia), Magnificent Frigatebird (Fregata magnificens), Double-crested Cormorant (Phalacrocorax auritus), Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias), Great Egret (Ardea alba), Snowy Egret (Egretta thula), Little Blue Heron (Egretta caerulea), Tricolored Heron (Egretta tricolor), Roseate Spoonbill (Platalea ajaja), Cuban Black Hawk (Buteogallus gundlachii), Belted Kingfisher (Megaceryle alcyon), Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker (Sphyrapicus varius), Thick-Billed Vireo (Vireo crassirostris), Cuban Gnatcatcher (Polioptila lembeyei), Bahama Mockingbird (Mimus gundlachii), Western Spindalis (Spindalis zena), Zapata Sparrow (Torreornis inexpectata)

Other species: Barracuda, juvenile (Sphyraena)

Guides and Driver: Angel, David, Liu, Odey and Carlos

Observations: Marti and I swam in both the hotel pool in the late morning and in the ocean in the early afternoon.

Reflections:  I borrowed a field guide from the UMass Library: A Field Guide to the Birds of Cuba by Orlando Garrido and Arturo Kirkconnell.  It’s hard-bound so a bit heavy, but I’m taking it with me every day, as I believe it will be quite useful.

Images:

We are birding at Cayo Paredón Grande.

We observed these West Indian Whistling Ducks in a King’s Gardens resort.

This statue of writer Ernest Hemingway welcomes tourists to where he used to fish.

The vibrant pinks of these flamingos are attributed to their diet.

 

Visiting Cuba Day Two

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Locale: After Varadero, the Jardines del Rey, or Gardens of the King, are Cuba’s most popular tourist destination, and for good reason.  With their swaying palm trees, white sand beaches, and turquoise waters, these islands are nearly a parody of a tropical island paradise.

During the austerities of the Special Period, immediately following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989, the Cuban government was astute enough to realize that in order to preserve their socialist experiment, they had to make some changes.  In 1990, in an attempt to deal with the devastating impact the collapse of the Soviet bloc inflicted on the Cuban economy, Cuban authorities announced the start of “the special period in time of peace,” an economic adjustment program. The following year the Fourth Communist Party Congress ratified the program and spelled out its main components; among them, international tourism was to be promoted as “an important source of revenue for economic development.”  Ten years after the Special Period was announced, many changes had occurred.  One economist summarized the decade in this way:

Economic reforms have gone further than the hardliners of the Fourth Party Congress envisioned, but have fallen well short of what economists (both inside and outside the island) deem necessary. Performance of the non-sugar agriculture sector remains dismal. Sugar lost its predominance in Cuba’s economy and in the 1990s, the sugar industry experienced the lowest annual production figures of the second half of the century. Hopes and expectations about the biotech industry proved illusory. Foreign investment has been erratic and has fallen short of expectations. Tourism, on the other hand, registered a strong performance throughout the decade and is no doubt the star of the “special period.”

Weather:  80s.  Sunny.

Itinerary: Camagüey to Rancho La Belén in Sierra La Najasa, back to Camagüey, west on Carretera Central to Ciego de Ávila, north to Cayo Coco, cross causeway to island

Overnight: Hotel Sol Cayo Coco, Jardines del Rey

Excursions: Breakfast at Rancho La Belén, birding along the interpretive nature trail, lunch at paladar (private restaurant) Chrono, birding on Cayo Coco, buffet dinner at hotel

Habitats: Secondary growth, some forest, some invasives.

Bird Species (partial listing, by family): Red-breasted Merganser (Mergus serrator), Great Lizard Cuckoo (Coccyzus merlini), Limpkin (Aramus guarauna), Black-bellied Plover (Pluvialis squatarola), Semipalmated Plover (Charadrius semipalmatus), Ruddy Turnstone (Arenaria interpres), Sanderling (Calidris alba), Short-billed Dowitcher (Limnodromus griscus), Willet (Tringa semipalmata), Laughing Gull (Leucophaeus atricilla), Royal Tern (Thalasseus maximus), Brown pelican (Pelecanus occidentalis), Cuban Pygmy Owl (Glaucidium siju), Cuban Trogon (Priotelus temnurus), Cuban Tody (Todus multicolor), Cuban Green Woodpecker (Xiphidiopicus percussus), Cuban Parrot (Amazona leucocephala), Giant Kingbird (Tyrannus cubensis), Cuban Palm Crow (Corvus palmarum minutus), Eastern Meadowlark (Sturnella magna), Greater Antillean Grackle (Quiscalus niger)

Guides and Driver: Angel, David, Liu, Camilo and Carlos

Observations:  At lunch, they served a pinkish-red drink made from mamey (Pouteria sapota); the fruit is faintly sweet and has a distinct flavor.  I’m not sure if I’ve had it before.

We are staying at an all-inclusive resort, which means that even the alcoholic drinks (meaning rum-infused of course) are free to us plastic wristband-wearing guests.  The hotel seems decently staffed and maintained, though it took us a while to get toilet paper for our bathroom.  There are many American TV stations available here as well.

Reflections:  If I were a German or a Canadian, I wouldn’t think twice about booking a week at an all-inclusive resort on Cayo Coco in the dead of winter.  What’s not to like about sun and sand and surf?  In fact, there are a lot of tourists in Cuba!  Most of them, of course, are not American.

I do wonder what the locals think about all of us tourists — I suppose we are a necessary nuisance, or something like that, though I’m sure they would be too polite to phrase it like that.  The embargo has caused genuine hardship, though I haven’t yet seen the kind of wrenching poverty that sometimes (rarely) makes news headlines in the First World.  Certainly the Cuban women I’ve seen have been stylishly dressed — quite the contrast to a dowdy, elderly woman like myself (and binoculars don’t count as a fashion accessory either).

Images:

The trogon is Cuba’s national bird.

I was fascinated by these living fences, which use trees as the fence posts.