Cuba…The Forbidden Country. Well, kinda.
I just got back from a birding & cultural (and culinary, yum) tour of Cuba, and I can tell you that Americans are welcomed there. The people are friendly and are happy to see people from the US, the food is delicious (if a bit carb-heavy), and the birds are outstanding.
Despite recent complications by the former guy, Cuba is still open for travel by Americans. Officially you must have a license for travel or travel with a licensed company and only for certain purposes.
Our trip was covered under “support for the Cuban people” which is basically a catch-all. You’re not allowed to spend money at any business owned by the Cuban Government, and that includes big hotels and restaurants. So we stayed at casas particulares - essentially B&B’s in peoples’ homes – and ate our meals in paladares, small privately owned restaurants. Euros are widely accepted and US dollars, too (although not officially), and there a black market exchange rate that is 4 times the official rate. Oh, and did I mention the food was good?
Of course, we need to talk about the elephant in the room: Cuba is a very poor country. That’s not only due to the US embargo, although that’s a big part of it. Before the break-up of the Soviet Union, the Cuban government got a lot of economic support from there, but since then, they’ve been on their own, which is why they opened to tourism in the 2000’s. Beyond tourism, the economy is very agricultural. But as a socialist dictatorship, the government takes a lot of the production at a very low price. That’s bad for the producers, but on the other hand, basic foodstuffs (rice, sugar, oil) are guaranteed by the government at a subsidized price. Medical care is also subsidized, and is very good (they developed their own covid vaccine) and literacy is near 100%. There were a few modern cars, mostly Hyundai and Toyotas, but more common were either the famous 1950’s era US cars but also many old Soviet era Lada and Moskvitch clunkers. And people are still forced to stand in lines for hours for ordinary goods, like clothes, less common foods, and household goods, like they did in the USSR.
One other fascinating observation: there is no advertising anywhere. None. Zilch. Nada. The only billboards and signs are party propaganda, like this one from the Bay of Pigs area:
That does say it all, doesn’t it?
All that said, this is a nature diary, so let’s talk about the birds. Depending on how who’s counting, Cuba has 26 to 29 endemic species that are found nowhere else, including the smallest bird in the world, and two birds in their own endemic family. Unfortunately, there were also a few species that are extinct or nearly so. Cuba also has a few “regional endemics”, that is, species that it shares with only one or two of the nearby islands, such as the Bahamas, Hispaniola, or the Caymans.
Our tour saw all the possible Cuban endemics, and most of the possible shared Caribbean regional species. We also saw a few warblers and shorebirds on their way to the US and Canada. In total, we saw 130 species. If the tour had been a month or two earlier, we could have seen even more, but a lot of the North American breeders had already left for their summering grounds. Of those 130, 33 of them were lifers for me.
The tour started and ended in Havana and covered some key spots in the western half of the island. We first traveled to the small city of Viñales near the far western point of the island with a stop in Las Terrazas for some birds and to break up the trip. We then traveled back though Havana to the Zapata Swamp, which is on the west side of the Bay of Pigs near Playa Larga. From there we continued eastward along the south coast to the colonial city of Trinidad for a few targets in the nearby countryside. Finally, we drove back to Havana for some general tourism (sorry…support for the Cuban people), such as visiting Ernest Hemingway’s home, shopping in the old city, and a city tour in a pink 1950 Chevy Deluxe convertible.
I’m going to focus on the endemic species, and mix in a few Caribbean endemics. So on to the birds!
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First, let me present the national bird of Cuba, the Cuban Trogon:
It’s the national bird of Cuba because it features the colors of the Cuban flag (red, white, and blue – ignore the green). The local name is tocororó. Unlike other trogons in Latin America, they’re quite common and easy to see. We saw or heard several of them every day. This one was at a former French coffee farm in the Las Terrazas area, between Havana and Viñales.
Next, as promised, the smallest bird in the world, the Bee Hummingbird:
This little guy is only about 2” long. They look and sound like insects, hence the name. Even the local name, zunzuncito, sounds like onomatopoeia. You can’t really see it in the picture, but in good light his head is bright red. We had several of them coming to feeders in people’s yards in the Zapata Area.
They were usually being chased by the other endemic hummingbird, the Cuban Emerald:
These guys were about twice the size of the Bee Hummingbirds, more numerous, and lots more aggressive. This one was in the same yard as the Bee Hummingbird above. Their Cuban name is zunzún.
Another tiny endemic is the Cuban Grassquit:
Grassquits are small seed-eating birds found in grassy fields, hence the name. We found a small flock of these in the Las Terrazas area. This is a male. The female has a brown face instead of black. They’re somewhat endangered because they’re captured as cage birds (just for their looks since their song is kind of uninteresting). There’s also a more widespread bird in Latin America called the Yellow-faced Grassquit. We saw quite a lot of those.
Next up is my favorite tiny Cuban bird, the Cuban Tody:
Todies are in their own family of birds, and are only found in the forests of the Greater Antilles. In addition to the Cuban Tody, there is one species on Jamaica, one on Puerto Rico, and two on Hispaniola. They’re all various combinations of red, pink, green, and white, with a hint of sky blue and those oversize red bills. Despite their gaudy colors, they are surprisingly hard to see when they’re sitting still because they’re so tiny. This guy was in a forest near the Zapata area.
The key bird to see in Zapata Swamp is the Zapata Wren:
It’s extremely local in the swamp and threatened because of habitat loss. To see it requires a 30 km drive from Playa Larga at the north end of the Bay of Pigs, along a dirt road into the heart of the swamp. You then walk a short trail / boardwalk to a boat launch where you take a pole-driven boat down a canal for 10 minutes. After a clumsy walk through the boggy part of the swamp you come to a wooden platform from where you can call in the wren. Fortunately our bird was very responsive to tapes of its calls.
Also found in the swamp is the Zapata Sparrow. They’re supposed to be a lot easier to see than the wren, but we only saw one. It was distant and gave rather unsatisfactory views and no photos. Ah well. You play the cards you’re dealt.
Staying with the concept of small, here’s a Cuban Pewee:
This guy or gal was nesting in the yard of one of the Cuban bird guides near Zapata. We saw them pretty much every birding day. We even saw one stealing nesting material from a pair of Cuban Bullfinches.
At the other end of the size range of flycatchers is the Giant Kingbird:
This was the last endemic we found. It took three different tries, but we eventually got him on the edge of a farm field about 20 miles east of Trinidad. We were about to give up when the guide suggested, “Let’s go a little further.” Then somebody spotted him. Very lucky.
There are also other kingbirds in Cuba that are widely found in the Caribbean – the Loggerhead Kingbird which is found in the Greater Antilles and the Bahamas:
and the Grey Kingbird which breeds all around the Caribbean including south Florida and the northern coast of South America:
Both of these kingbirds were widespread in Cuba.
There’s also a myiarchus flycatcher, the La Sagra’s Flycatcher:
It’s found in Cuba, the Bahamas, and the Cayman Islands. It’s less common than the other Caribbean kingbirds, but we saw it on several days.
And yet another “small” bird, the Cuban Pygmy-owl:
We saw a few of these little terrors, including this one at one of the homes in Playa Larga with the hummingbird feeders. They weren’t always easy to find, but once you found one it would stick around for pictures.
The other endemic owl in Cuba is the Bare-legged Owl:
It used to be called Bare-legged Screech-owl, but they found it’s not especially closely related to the rest of the screech owls, so they dropped the “screech.” This guy/gal was nesting in a broken off tree in Los Hondones, near Zapata. Sorry, no photos of the bare legs. He/she never came out of the nest.
As I mentioned before, Cuba also has two birds that form their own endemic family, teretistridae, only found on Cuba. The first of these is the Yellow-headed Warbler:
They used to be in the same family as the rest of the New World warblers, but they were split out as their own family a few years ago based on DNA studies. Yellow-headed Warblers are found on the western half of Cuba. This one was near Viñales.
The corresponding warbler on the eastern half of Cuba is the Oriente Warbler:
You can see it’s got a lot more yellow on the breast and has a grey cap as opposed to the all yellow head and a white breast of the Yellow-headed Warbler. We saw three of these about ten miles west of Trinidad. Our guide said this was probably the westernmost population of them on the island.
One of the most beautiful singers in Cuba is the Cuban Solitaire:
Solitaires are thrushes, related to the Swainson’s or Hermit Thrushes, with a similar flute-like song. They’re found near Viñales where their songs echo off the limestone karst hills called mogotes. A clip of their song is here. These are the mogotes:
Next up is a Cuban Vireo:
We only saw them on a few days, and they were hard to photograph because they just don’t sit still. But we heard them pretty much every day. We found this one in the thorn scrub on the way to Trinidad.
A more abundant vireo is the Black-whiskered Vireo:
They’re widespread in the Caribbean and extend into south Florida. They were everywhere in the Cuban countryside. In many places people call them “bien te veo” (good to see you) which is what their song sounds like. I took this picture in Viñales near where we found the solitaire.
One last tiny bird is the Cuban Gnatcatcher:
They look a lot like the Blue-grey Gnatcatcher of eastern North America (which winters in Cuba), but have a little black crescent behind their eye. They’re very local in costal thorn scrub, similar habitat to the California Gnatcatcher. This one was in a dry scrubby area right along the south coast about ten miles west of Trinidad.
Now for some bigger birds! One of the first Caribbean endemics we saw was the Red-legged Thrush:
They’re found throughout the Greater Antilles and the Bahamas. They’re pretty tolerant of people. We saw this one at our lunch stop in Las Terrazas. But we even saw them at Hemingway’s “farm” in suburban Havana.
Cuba has two endemic species of woodpecker. The more easily found one is the Cuban Green Woodpecker:
He was excavating this nest hole right along the road at a cattle farm outside Trinidad where we looked for the Giant Kingbird, but we found several over the course of the tour.
The other endemic woodpecker is Fernandina’s Flicker:
As you can see, she was sitting in a nest. It’s in the stump of a palm tree on a cattle farm in Soplillar, just north of the Bay of Pigs. We saw her defend the eggs against West Indian Woodpeckers and even a Kestrel that was nesting in the same stump. We also saw the male come in to feed her, but I only have pictures of his back.
This is one of the West Indian Woodpeckers that was harassing her:
They’re very common in Cuba, and are also found in the Caymans and Bahamas. As you might guess from their appearance, they’re closely related to the Red-bellied Woodpecker of the eastern US.
Another bird that we saw on a nest was a Greater Antillean Nightjar:
Some authorities split this subspecies as Cuban Nightjar with the subspecies on Hispaniola as Hispaniolan Nightjar. This girl was sitting on an active nest in Zapata Swamp National Park. We didn’t stumble on it. The Park Rangers knew exactly where it was.
Also in Zapata Swamp National Park were these Cuban Black Hawks:
They were at the end of the road in the salt flats on the edge of the Bay of Pigs in Zapata Swamp. They feed mostly on crabs…and there are a lot of crabs around the Bay of Pigs.
We now pause for a word from our sponsor:
Sorry. I couldn’t help it. Now back to the birds!
The other endemic hawk in Cuba is the Gundlach’s Hawk, an accipiter about the same size as a Cooper’s Hawk. We saw an old nest in the Botanical Gardens outside Cienfuegos, but the birds were gone. As we were leaving the gardens, one of the other birders saw a hawk flying from the window of the bus. It was a definite “Stop the bus!!!!” moment. It disappeared by the time we scrambled off, but eventually we re-found it soaring nearby. Our guide was thrilled to see it, because he said that it’s the most likely endemic to be missed. Sorry, no pictures. It only stuck around for about 5 minutes.
Continuing with the “black” theme, here’s a Cuban Blackbird:
They’re extremely common. In fact this was the first Cuban endemic I saw…in the parking lot at Havana Airport. This particular bird was photographed at the house with the Bee Hummingbirds in Playa Larga. They look almost exactly like another black bird, the Greater Antillean Grackle:
Can you tell the difference? The grackle has a yellow eye and a large vertical tail. The Cuban Blackbird has a dark eye and a horizontal tail. The grackles are extremely common throughout the Greater Antilles. We even had them in the city parks in Havana. This one was in Playa Larga, on the Bay of Pigs.
There are two other smaller blackbirds in Cuba. The common one is the Tawny-shouldered Blackbird:
It’s found in Cuba and just barely in Haiti. It looks like a Red-winged blackbird except the wing patches are golden with a hint of red. They’re found in most open habitats. This one was at the top of a palm tree in Soplillar near Zapata where we looked for the Fernandina’s Flicker.
The least common is the Red-shouldered Blackbird. It also looks just like a Red-winged blackbird of North America, except its wing patches are only red, with no yellow. And unlike the Red-winged Blackbird, the females of this species are not brown and streaky. They’re all black, but with no wing patches. We only saw a few of them via scope views and in flight and they didn’t allow us close enough for pictures. They were near Zapata.
The next black bird is the Cuban Bullfinch:
They’re found on Cuba and Grand Cayman. They’re all black with a white patch on the wings. The wing patch is mostly hidden unless the bird is flying. We saw this bird at the salt flats in Zapata Swamp National Park. We also saw a pair building a nest near Trinidad.
Another mostly black bird is the Cuban Oriole:
It looks a lot like the Tawny-shouldered Blackbird, but note the shape of the yellow patch. It used to be considered a subspecies of Black-cowled Oriole, a Central American species, but now it’s a full species. We saw this guy in the Zapata Swamp. We also saw an immature which was mostly yellow coming in to a hummingbird feeder.
And of course, you can’t talk about black birds without dealing with crows. There are two kinds of crows in Cuba, the Cuban Crow:
And the Palm Crow:
Can you tell them apart? Yeah well, neither can anybody else. The only way to separate them is by voice. The Cuban Crow gives a funny bubbling call that almost sounds like speech. The Palm Crow gives a raspy “caw.” Also, some authorities split the Palm Crows into separate species on Cuba and Hispaniola. The Cuban Crow is endemic to Cuba. The Cuban Crow in the picture was seen at the feeders in Playa Larga, though we saw them all around the south coast. The Palm Crows were outside Trinidad and are fairly local.
After all that black, let’s wrap up the endemics with some color. Cuba has two endemic quail-doves. The first is the Grey-fronted Quail-dove:
Quail-doves are usually tough to see. This guy was rather obliging, but unfortunately the shadows tend to mute his color. This is a species that our “international” guide most wanted to see and photograph. Like most quail-doves, we heard him long before we saw him. He was along the road into Zapata Swamp.
Even more colorful is the Blue-headed Quail-dove:
This guy was coming in to feeders in a yard in Los Hondones near Zapata. Apparently he didn’t get the message that quail-doves are skulkers. Gorgeous, huh? Some of our group even saw a few of them near a beach along the Bay of Pigs. Apparently going to the beach can be supporting the Cuban people. Huh. Who knew?
And who doesn’t love parrots? This is a Cuban Parrot:
They used to be known as Rose-throated Parrot, for obvious reasons. They’re found in Cuba, the Bahamas, and Grand Cayman. This one was in Soplillar, near the Bay of Pigs.
There’s also a Cuban Parakeet:
It’s a true Cuban endemic. We saw these on several occasions, mostly of small flocks in flight. We saw this one as part of a flock in the heart of Zapata Swamp.
That’s about it for the endemics. There’s also a resident subspecies of “Yellow-shafted” Northern Flicker, which is a possible future split as Cuban Flicker and a subspecies of eastern Meadowlark which may be split as Cuban Meadowlark. We saw both of them, so I’ve got two for “the bank.”
So while I’m out of endemic birds, I’ll end with one more bird I really wanted to see on this trip. This is a Stygian Owl:
They’re a little bit smaller than a Great Horned Owl, and are found throughout the tropics, but in very small numbers and very locally. I missed one in the Dominican Republic and I missed one in Brazil. So I was thrilled to find out that the guides knew where a family of them could be found near Las Terazzas. We saw them on the first day of the our tour - two adults and two fluffy young. Yay!
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So that wraps up my Cuban endemic bird tour. I hope you enjoyed the birds and a little bit of politics and it inspires you to visit Cuba yourself. It’s well worth it.
So what’s new in your area?