Day 21: Cienaga de Zapata birds II

A beautiful day, and, prophetically, I said so to Angel when he picked us up in the Lada at a leisurely 7:30. We drove into the forest again, this time the other side of the highway to a bit drier area. Angel noticed that D was making me give her the better binoculars frequently, so he let her use his.

We knew immediately it was going to be a truly beautiful day when we had the first of many bee hummingbird sitings (the world's smallest bird, 2.5 inches long, shorter than a dragonfly)...



endemic to Cuba. We had another fine endemic day, with the
Cuban screech owl...



Fernandina's Flicker (mating pair doing some remodeling, female on the left supervising...




and blue-headed quail dove...




as well as several others I couldn't catch with the camera.

We also saw some repeats, a Pygmy Owl, a Cuban Tody...



and a Cuban Parrot...



and some new faces: a gray headed quail dove...




a stripe-faced tanager...




and a yellow-faced grass quit.



For the hard core birder, more images of the bee hummingbird - OK, it might be a bit like bragging...











Altogether we've seen 10 endemic species, including 5 of the 7 birds on the cover of our Cuba bird book. Our Cienaga de Zapata visit has been the best birding experience of my life. For anyone interested in a trip to Cuba to include birding, don't miss this place. Angel's contact info is: Angel Martinez Garcia, angelczcuba@gmail.com, cell # 01-52941653, home # 045-987545.

We think we've put together a trip tomorrow to see the 10,000 flamingos and other migratory wetland birds, and to get to a place to catch a Viazul to Havana.

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Location:Playa Larga