Photo Gallery
We’ll begin with a flight from Fort Lauderdale to Havana and immediately board our bus…
…for our hotel in Las Terrazas about an hour away.
There will be birds on our hotel grounds, probably including Red-legged Thrush…
…West Indian Woodpecker…
…perhaps our first endemic, Cuban Pewee…
…and maybe a wintering North American warbler or two possibly including Cape May.
After dinner we’ll venture out in hopes of finding Bare-legged Owl.
On our first full day we’ll see a number of endemics probably including Cuban Grassquit, here surrounded by lots of Yellow-faced Grassquits…
…Cuban Trogon, Cuba’s National Bird…
and with luck the endemic (and threatened) Fernandina’s Flicker, a species that walks, not hops, on the ground.
We’ll visit La Guira National Park…
…where Che’s Guevara hid during the Cuban revolution.
Among the karst cliffs near Che’s cave, we should hear the etherial song of the Cuban Solitaire…
…and might encounter the charming Cuban Vireo.
Our next stop will be Zapata Swamp…
…where we’ll take to narrow canoes poled by local watermen…
…to look in particular for the vocally very distinctive Zapata Wren.
In a forest not far from the swamp, we’re likely to see the stunning and endemic Gray-fronted and Blue-headed Quail-Doves…
…and sometime we find a roosting Stygian Owl…
…or Cuban Parrots feeding on tree fruits.
In the same region, a local backyard attracts the minute Bee Hummingbird and…
…lots of Cuban Emeralds.
It’s a long drive from the Zapata region to the north coast but as we approach we may see flocks of brilliant American Flamingos…
…or a perched Cuban Black Hawk.
We stay at a very comfortable beach resort with good birding just out the front gate …
…often including West Indian Whistling Ducks (with a Northern Shoveller in the background)…
…the charming Oriente Warbler…
…and at a local feeding station, Key West Quail-Dove.
The distinctive and very local Cuban Gnatcatcher can be found fairly easily on Cayo Coco…
…and while we’re looking we should also see Zapata Sparrow, a different race from the birds we might have seen in the Zapata Swamp.
Our final nights will be in Camagüey (this is the exterior of our hotel)…
…a lovely uncrowded city where Cuban Martins perch on the top of some church spires.
On one day we’ll travel east to La Belén, stopping to listen to the endemic Cuban subspecies of Eastern Meadowlark whose song is so different it’s likely a different species…
…before continuing on to perhaps the best place on our route for Giant Kingbird.
On our last evening, we’ll board bicycle rickshaws for a tour of the town’s architectural monuments…
…passing the town square where people gather (free WiFi)…
…and ending at a local restaurant with a Cuban band to entertains us.