Cuba's Guanahacabibes National Park

Eager for our best chance to see a Bee Hummingbird––the world's smallest bird––we head to Guanahacabibes National Park and Biosphere Reserve near María la Gorda. The region is important for its coral reefs, 4 species of sea turtles, spiny lobsters, and 11 species of birds endemic to Cuba. Its 150 square miles harbor about 100 lakes.

Entrance to Guanahacabibes National Park

(Photos by Narca, except for Cuban Emerald)

Right away we are finding wonderful Cuban birds, like this Western Spindalis. The Cuban spindalis is one of a species complex that may eventually be split, as understanding of their genetics advances.

Western Spindalis

La Sagra's Flycatcher is much like other Myiarchus flycatchers that nest around Portal.

La Sagra's Flycatcher

And this Eastern Phoebe looks just like... an Eastern Phoebe! What is this bird doing in Cuba? It's only about the fourth record for the country! Yesterday Arturo Kirkconnell and his group from Massachusetts Audubon found this rarity, and it is still here today.

Eastern Phoebe is a great rarity in Cuba.

The insects at Guanahacabibes are dazzling, too.

Orthemis sp. (Antillean Red Skimmer) 

Doug Danforth (who noticed that Roseate Skimmer does not have a red face) has sent me a note on this dragonfly, after consulting with Dennis Paulson. Dennis writes: "It is what we have been calling 'Antillean red,' a red species looking very much like discolor that occurs all over the Greater Antilles and into southern Florida...." The bottom line is that this Cuban skimmer has not yet been officially described, and DNA work on this species complex is underway. Thanks, Doug! I can always count on you for elucidating dragonflies.

We saw Common Ringlets, Calisto herophile, in many locales.

We are impressed both by the efforts here to regenerate native forests and by the outreach programs which involve local schoolchildren. Several people in the group have brought school supplies which we leave for the reserve's programs.

And the great giveaway of baseballs commences! Several people––Janet, Pat, Rich––have brought something like 50 baseballs and a glove. Throughout our trip, the kids who receive this largesse can't contain their excitement.

And what about those hummingbirds? Plenty of big Cuban Emeralds are buzzing around.

Cuban Emerald (Photo by Jerry Oldenettel)

And, yes indeed, here is the prize! Bee Hummingbirds! I was only able to photograph a female, and only her nondescript front––her back blazes with turquoise. Rich Wagner shot an excellent photo of the Bee Hummingbird, showing some of that turquoise on her flanks and back. Click here to link with his blog.

Dave's devotees are all very happy at the end of the day, and some are clamoring for a toast with Vitamin R!

A tiny Bee Hummingbird, about 2 inches long, bill and all. Think about it!

Cuba's Far West

Daybreak at María la Gorda (Photos by Narca)

We set out for María la Gorda at the extreme western tip of Cuba. It's an all-day drive, and our unflinching NMOS leader Dave Krueper (sustained by the whole gang) is not going to leave any Cattle Egret or Smooth-billed Ani uncounted. Yes, this is fun, but I am ready for those endemics!

Along the way, we pass endemic Barrigon ("Big Belly") Palms. 

Giraldo Alayon, our very fine Cuban guide, talks to us about Cuba's geology and habitats as we travel––of the karstic (limestone) soils and the high level of endemism. Giraldo is a birder (and a very fine dancer!), but his more serious profession is arachnologist––a spider man.

In 1986 Giraldo spotted an Ivory-billed Woodpecker in eastern Cuba, igniting excitement that the species survived. Researchers found three Ivory-bills in that area, but in recent years biologists seeking Ivory-bills have been chasing evanescent rumors in Cuba. Hope has faded, but among Cuban biologists it hasn't died entirely.

Ivory-billed Woodpeckers (Acrylic painting by Narca)

From Ray (Raydalie Pérez O'Farrill), our marvelous Cuban logistics-and-cultural guide, we learn of Vitamin R (rum). Only one day into the trip, spirits are high and joking is rampant.

After a few birding stops, we arrive at María la Gorda, where palms overhang the breaking surf and a Cuban Black-Hawk perches above mangroves. It's good to land!

Jerry Oldenettel, Jim Shiflett, Janet Ruth and Bruce Neville––relaxing!

Our cabaña at María la Gorda

Butterflies like this White Peacock enliven the path to the bungalows.

The hotel grounds are rich in Cuban Orioles, Cuban Pygmy-Owls, Cuban Bullfinches... I think we've found those endemics!

Cuban Black-Hawk is a recent split from Common Black-Hawk.

West Indian Woodpecker

Cuban Pygmy-Owl

Cuban Bullfinch

As I drift off to sleep, sea breezes are stirring, and waves lap at the shore, promising great adventure ahead.

Havana! Havana!

Recently Alan and I joined friends from New Mexico Ornithological Society for a humanitarian trip to Cuba. Our project was––of course!––a bird survey, done under the auspices of Caribbean Conservation Trust.

Back in 2004 we made a similar trip with Western Field Ornithologists, and the scene was much the same in the city and the countryside. Vintage cars, polished to a high gleam, still cruise the roads. 1958 was the last year for Cubans to bring US cars into the country; today those ancient vehicles are the only ones which can be legally owned by individuals. (People with more modern Russian Ladas are using their government vehicles.) Only supreme ingenuity has kept those wheels turning.

Cars are often fumigated with insecticides at the outskirts of big towns!

(Photos by Narca, except for Cuban Tody)

In the intervening years, Cuba has switched from its experiment with a US dollar economy to their own CUCs ("kooks"). US restrictions on visitors have also tightened. No longer is it possible to bring home a T-shirt, handicrafts, or a musical instrument made from a gourd. But "information" like artwork and etchings are allowed! (I'm okay with the ban on bringing in cigars! Even though Mike really seemed to enjoy his.)

A peacock strolls through the beautiful Cafe El Cappuccino in Old Havana

Street scene in Havana

Fun public art in Havana

Before we leave Havana for the countryside, we visit Orlando Garrido at his home. Introduced to us as a "national treasure," Garrido is coauthor of Field Guide to the Birds of Cuba. For much of his career he has worked in ornithology. He piles his desk high for us with specimens of Cuba's endemic birds.

Orlando Garrido signs our books, while Dale Stahlecker looks on.

Garrido has a second area of renown: he has been a fine tennis player, even competing at Wimbledon. He becomes really animated when he shows us his trophies and talked of tennis! And I had thought him enthusiastic before!

Garrido with a zillion tennis trophies

Among Cuba's fabulous endemic birds is this jewel: the Cuban Tody. Todies comprise the only family of birds endemic to the Caribbean. We are eager to be away from the city and into Tody Country!

A tiny Cuban Tody (Photo by Jerry Oldenettel)

Billboards all over Cuba endeavor to keep the revolution alive.

"An end to injustice!" and "NEVER has a people had so many things to defend or such profound convictions with which to fight."

A woman with whom I struck up a conversation in a plaza in Old Havana didn't seem too keen on continuing that old struggle, lauded in billboards. She was without relations in the US, and so had no one sending her money on a regular basis. Sweet and exhausted, she said that life is very hard now. She had one hope: her daughter was attending school to work in Cuba's tourism business. Contact with tourists brings money to build a better life.

The embargo against Cuba outlived any usefulness decades ago. Isn't it time we normalized our relations? First-generation Cubans in the US fled the revolution. Their property in Cuba was confiscated more than 50 years ago, and those who are still alive, still want it back. The embargo isn't going to accomplish that; it is purely punitive. Fidel Castro and his brother Raúl (now in power) have loved that embargo. It has given them a reason to continue railing against the "imperialists", and a way of distracting the populace from other problems. The Cuban revolution happened because change was needed. But we all need to leave this time warp and move on!

Buff-collared Nightjar / Field Sketching Workshop

Years ago in the village of Alamos in Sonora, Mexico, Alan, Beth Russell and I stumbled across this Buff-collared Nightjar. (Maybe stumbled across isn't quite right––we were out on that chilly night specifically to look for one!)

The bird was nestled under a street lamp next to the cemetery and didn't want to budge. How obliging! It was begging to be sketched.

Today's request from Western Birds for a sketch of a Buff-collared Nightjar brought back the whole scene. Digging through old field journals, I found it. It actually provides great incentive to get back out in the field with a sketchbook.

If any of you have a similar hankering, think about joining me next August for a weeklong workshop in field sketching, offered through WINGS. We will be based right here in the Chiricahua Mountains. What setting could be better?!

Carson Ghost Town

Some places call us repeatedly to return. For most of my family Lake City, Colorado, is such a place, starting with our grandparents in the late 1940s. 

The ghost town of Carson, with timberline just above (Photos by Narca)

Not too far from Lake City are the ruins of Carson, the ghost of a mining town that once thrived high in the San Juan Mountains, slightly below the Continental Divide. A miner, Christopher Carson, staked claim to the Bonanza King in 1881, and within a few years a town of 400 to 500 hardy souls had sprung up. The town's establishments included a livery stable, hotel and restaurants. Gold and silver briefly flowed, but winters proved too difficult, silver was devalued in 1893, and the town declined to extinction after the early 1900s. Its sheer inaccessibility presented a huge challenge to would-be residents.

Stampede to Timberline, Muriel Wolle's fascinating account of Colorado ghost towns, notes that Carson was built on an iron dike and therefore attracted far more than its fair share of lightning strikes!

Clumps of Mertensia are beautiful against the weathered gray wood.

Today, Carson is one of the best-preserved of Colorado's old mining camps, thanks to funding provided in large part by the federal government. New metal roofs have halted the disintegration of many of the cabins.

Yellow-bellied Marmots inhabit Carson today, as they no doubt did 100 years ago.

Beyond Carson, the wild San Juan Mountains beckon.

My grandparents spent most of their summers in Lake City, and the trip to Carson was a familiar one. Back then, the tiny town dump still held treasures of old purpled glass. Then, as now, the road up Wager Gulch to Carson required high clearance and 4-wheel-drive. When you reach Carson, you step back in time, to the era of oldtime, hardrock mining. What stories must haunt these log and plank walls!

Bighorn Sheep are among the rarer mammals of the San Juans. This bachelor group was spotted by our friend Jim Shiflett, between Creede and Lake City, during our June trip.

Today the high country around Carson is as exhilarating as ever. Lynx prowl the area. In most summers, the high mountain meadows are thick with flowers and butterflies. This year, after the lack of winter snow, a few flowers bloom, but it's only a ghost of the normal display.

Scarlet Gilia blooming at Carson

One of the yellow alpine paintbrushes...

... and its rosy relative, both at Carson

The only butterfly much in evidence is the Arctic Blue. On this cool, rainy day, they are hunkered down on the big composites, and little else is flying.

Arctic Blue clings to a composite on this chilly day.

Beyond Carson stretches a mountain wilderness. The old jeep road over the divide at Carson and down into Lost Trail Creek has degenerated into a simple trail. Barely accessible even in the 1950s and 1960s, Lost Trail was a lure for fly fishermen, because it still held a healthy population of native Cutthroat Trout. Our family would occasionally plan a camping trip to this wilderness, where, for shelter, we erected our tent within the log walls of a fallen-down cabin.

Today, while the others explore the road to the divide to see what shape it's in now, I walk alone through the spruce forest, past beaver ponds, and past the ruins of this cabin-with-a-view, which is perched above Wager Gulch and the distant valley of the Lake Fork of the Gunnison River.

Clouds shroud the high peaks. I see no Lynx, but this American Red Squirrel charms. 

American Red Squirrels are a close relative of Douglas Squirrel from the Pacific Northwest and Mearns' Squirrel from Baja California.

The songs of Hermit and Swainson's Thrushes spiral around me. Drumming woodpeckers duel. Mountain Chickadees and warblers feed their young. Mountain air is sharp and scented. How good to be back in the San Juans!

School for Thrashers

This morning a small Western Diamondback rattlesnake meandered into the yard. We knew a snake was nearby from the turmoil among the thrashers, cardinals, and Black-throated Sparrows. Nothing else stimulates such a flashing of wings and intense glaring.

A family of four Curve-billed Thrashers––both adults and their two fledglings––was especially emphatic. The adults seized the opportunity to teach their young a thing or two about the danger posed by snakes. Judging from the way the young joined the action, they are now well-schooled.

Curve-billed Thrasher protests a rattlesnake. (Photos by Narca)

A few minutes later a single Crissal Thrasher came in for a drink. This bird had no family in tow, but joined the general melée anyway!

A Crissal Thrasher joins the fracas.

Crissal Thrasher's best distinguishing marks––the chestnut undertail coverts and strong malar––aren't obvious here, but you can see the less-orange eye. To me they seem a little more slender and elegant than the Curve-billeds, with a slightly longer, slightly more curved black bill. With practice, you can learn to distinguish at a glance the subtle differences in proportions––but then confirm your impression by checking that malar mark and chestnut under the tail! Thrashers can pose identification challenges!

The business end of a Western Diamondback Rattlesnake, staked out and patiently waiting for a meal.

Great Sand Dunes National Park

The fires raging in Colorado are reminding many of us of similar recent events on our home turf, and we feel great empathy for the current trauma there. Colorado was my home for many years during childhood, college years and young adulthood, and the scent of pine and the rush of mountain streams still take me home. Let's look for a bit at some of Colorado's natural jewels, starting with the Great Sand Dunes.

Dunefield of Great Sand Dunes National Park (Photos by Narca)

Hidden away in the San Luis Valley of Colorado are the sculpted sands of the tallest dunefield in North America: Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve. A recent scouting trip allowed me to explore this newest national park, in the fine company of our friend Jim.

Gnarly bark of a Rocky Mountain Juniper (Juniperus scopulorum)

The dune ecosystem is far more complex than I had realized. Cradled against the 14,000-foot Sangre de Cristo Mountains, the park's life zones range from alpine tundra above treeline, down through subalpine spruce forest, montane forest, pinyon-juniper woodland, the dunefield itself, the sand sheet and grassland surrounding the dunes, on down to the lowest elevations, which feature alkaline flats or "sabkha", and the riparian corridors and wetlands associated with seasonal creeks.

Sand dunes, we learned at the Gray Ranch in New Mexico, are a sponge for absorbing precipitation. Beneath the dunes, any impervious layer of rock or clay traps the water, so that trees can establish at lower elevations if their roots can reach water. Imagine what aquifer underlies the Great Sand Dunes!

Creeks flow into the dunes from the towering Sangre de Cristos––mainly Medano and Sand Creeks. These creeks are shallow, surging, and seasonal. Children and adults delight in playing in the cool waters. In this extreme year of drought and heat, very few wet spots are showing at the surface in late June. But at a slightly lower elevation, the waters sponged up by the dunes are still being released slowly, feeding the wetlands where American Avocets and Killdeer breed.

The dunefield at dusk

The sand sheet with its grasslands surrounds the dunefield. In this region vegetation has stabilized old dunes, so that they no longer shift and now support thriving grasses and shrubs like Rabbitbrush (a fantastic magnet for butterflies and other insects when it blooms).

This trip, we camp at Pinyon Flats, as shadows grow long on the dunes. Smoke from the distant Little Sand Fire, burning to the northwest of Pagosa Springs, blurs the western mountains but doesn't quite reach us here.

Next morning, we find Clark's Nutcrackers and bright flowers along shady Montville Nature Trail. By all reports the winter has been exceedingly dry, and certainly the Sangre de Cristos don't carry their usual mantle of snow and ice––what was there has mostly melted. Yet I am used to desert conditions, and am surprised to find a fine variety of wildflowers and busy insects, in so dry a year.

Wyoming Paintbrush (Castilleja linariifolia)

Quaking Aspen (Populus tremuloides)

After hiking the nature trail, we drive to the Point of No Return and explore the nearby dunes. The whisk marks of kangaroo rats' tails and the miniature tractor-prints of big beetles pattern the sand.

Vesper Sparrows and Green-tailed Towhees both find the region much to their liking. They are at the peak of nesting season, and the air rings with their songs.

A hefty Vesper Sparrow on territory

A Green-tailed Towhee throws every ounce of strength into broadcasting his song.

Even in the grassland near the dunes, flowers still manage to bloom, beautifully.

Hall's Penstemon (Penstemon hallii)

In wetter years, Prairie Sunflowers (Helianthus petiolaris) carpet the grassland. Now only a scattered few are blooming.

Scarlet Gaura (Gaura coccinea) is a familiar, widespread species.

Rocky Mountain Beeplant (Cleome serrulata) is spectacular!

This native Wavyleaf Thistle (Cirsium undulatum) is irresistible to insects.

A night-blooming Cutleaf Evening Primrose (Oenothera coronopifolia) hasn't yet faded with the coming of day.

Insects also catch our eye, including this lovely dragonfly.

OK, Doug and Bob, this one is for you!

And indeed, Doug Danforth tells me this is a female Variegated Meadowhawk (Sympetrum corruptum)––thanks, Doug!

An endemic tiger beetle roams the dunes, but seeing that gorgeous insect will have to wait till the next trip!

Dark, heavy sand grains of magnetite form patterns on the dune.

Another fantasy dances in my mind: imagine spending the night up on those dunes, when they are flooded in moonlight, or dark with a field of stars blazing overhead. We talk to one young couple who did just that. They say that sand is in all their gear and clothes, but how worth it for the experience!