Birding in Cuba

Magnificent wild parrots feeding

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Eventually we head down a track that's clearly designed for oxen, not buses. It's a long, jarring ride, and eventually it begins to feel like a waste of time. But Ernesto just smiles and says,"los cotorras," waving vaguely in the direction of a small distant wood. We stop at a small house where a few men squat by an open fire. Thin piglets snuffle by the fire and some truly magnificent chickens, resplendent in shades of bright gold and crimson and shining hunter green, are scratching the dusty earth. A pair of yoked oxen eye us calmly. One of the men detaches himself from the group to lead us as we head into the small wood.

Almost immediately two parrots sweep across a small clearing. Barring a pair of drab gray parrots dimly seen one misty dawn in Madagascar, these are my first wild parrots and I am ecstatic. They cock their red heads and eye us curiously while we absently swat mosquitos. When they disappear we spot another pair in plain sight. In the end we determine there are five pairs in this tiny patch of forest, another good omen. They are loud and cheery and a little clownlike; after this trip I find myself unable to accept captive parrots, no matter how well-loved.

Causeway to Cayo Coco

The next morning finds us in very different country. Cayo Coco, a coral key some 37 km long, is joined to the mainland by a 27 km causeway across the Bahia de Perros. It has miles of creamy sand beaches, and the forested interior is a sanctuary for wildlife. Just to the west is Cayo Guillermo, with extensive mangrove swamps and their resident pelicans and flamingos; it's also a deep-sea fishing mecca, long a favorite with Ernest Hemingway (one can't go far in Cuba without encountering references to the great man). Cayo Coco is a popular tourist destination, and an air taxi service exists to bring visitors from Havana and Varadero.

As we drive across the causeway the curving pearl-gray back of a dolphin breaks the waves just offshore. A large flock of greater flamingos rises gracefully and heads into the east, their huge wings flashing fuschia in the breaking sunrise. A handful of immature gray flamingos troll the mud flats, part of a flock estimated at about 200,000 by Cuba's department of Flora y Fauna. We spot double-crested cormorants, tricolored herons, snowy and reddish egrets—some in the white phase—Least terns, laughing gulls, little and great blue herons, the occasional roseate spoonbill, a greater egret.