Sun, March 25 - Birding the Camagüey Area

We met for breakfast at the bar of one of the hotels in our neighborhood at 6 AM and were served good platters of fruits and then cheese and ham omelets. 

Fancy Cappuccino!

Cuban Martins were flying around the church across the street as mass was being conducted.  We had to walk a short way to find Arturo and the bus as he can’t park on our narrow street.  This city is really charming with flowers and murals and old historic buildings everywhere and the streets seems to be cleaned every night!

Cuban Martins on the Cathedral Cross

We set off, heading south from the city.  There was virtually no traffic, partly due to it being Sunday, and partly due to the lack of autos. 

We quickly got out into the countryside consisting of many small farms with horse-drawn carts transporting people back and forth.  We stopped at a few places and birded in the lovely cool early morning air, and saw the Plain Pigeon, a rather lovely purple brown bird with white edging to its wings.

Cuban Cowboy

We arrived at Rancho La Belén, once a large horse ranch, and now a park but still with horse stables, the best horses we’ve seen and quite a few cowboys leading horses here and there.  We had lunch at a nice restaurant next to a pool full of noisy Sunday holidayers   I’m not sure how this upscale operation fits in with this society, but it as very pleasant and a nice place to bird.

  

Malachite Butterfly

We took a walk for about a mile along a dirt ranch road between horse paddocks and  finally spotted the rare Gundlach’s Hawk which flew over a ridge top and was identified by acting like a Cooper’s Hawk which doesn’t exist here!  We also saw the rare Palm and Cuban Crows which look very similar, except that the Palm is often seen on the ground, and has a raspy Craaah voice.  The Cuban is seldom seen on the ground and has a variety of high-pitched warbles and parrot-like calls.

Royal Palm

 We decided to return to Camagüey, as we have a busy schedule planned for the rest of the day, but the bus inexplicably stopped, turned around and we all got off to look for a better view of the Cuban Parrot!  It was very hot by then, but we walked about half a mile, and did get a good view, but whew! 

Cuban Parrot

We returned to our hotel at 4 PM, and in ten minutes dashed off with Gonzalo to a shop he knows that has good cigars, coffee and rum for us to buy.  We then met to do the List.  Bob and I ordered Piña Coladas which were the best we’ve ever had - just delicious!!  At 5:15 the 14 of us climbed onto 7 Bici-Taxis, all colorfully painted, and started off to explore four of the city’s beautiful historic plazas.

Our Bici-Taxis

We started with the regal Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de la Merced opposite the brilliant blue convention center. 

We then rode to Cathedral de Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria, a pink and cream church where the national anthem was being played very loudly as the flag was being lowered.  Everyone, including little children, stood at attention.

  We next stopped at a plaza with a simple green and white church and finished up at the Plaza de Carmen that contains a grander church, art galleries and a restaurant, El Paso, where we had a dinner of basically the same ingredients as we have had elsewhere, but very well prepared.

  A charming young woman and a guitarist serenaded us, and even played “Alleluia” for Jon, a devoted Leonard Cohen fan!  We walked home through car-empty streets, but with lots of people wandering about.  Back at the hotel, we listened to Dr. Luis Díaz, our naturalist guide, give us a power point presentation on the fauna of Cuba which was very interesting.   

A great 60s rock band was playing on the plaza outside our hotel - great music that thankfully ended at 9:30!