The next few blogs will be about our last two trips, both to the Guardalavaca area in north-east Cuba, in December 2014 and March 2015.
The first thing that most people do when they arrive at their hotel is go to the bar, get a drink and sit by the pool. But to any naturalist the first thing they want to do is get out and explore and get the lie of the land. A quick tour of the gardens at dusk was all we managed the first evening but we were up at crack of dawn the next day, and every day for that matter, for a walk before breakfast. Often this would take us down to the lagoon just to the east of the hotel grounds, over which there was a long blue bridge crossing to the adjacent hotel, the Paradiso. This hotel is rather more expensive than ours, the Sol Rio de Luna y Mares and so, although they are in the same hotel chain, the folk from our hotel are not allowed into the grounds of the Paradiso, although traffic the other way is permitted!
The first thing that most people do when they arrive at their hotel is go to the bar, get a drink and sit by the pool. But to any naturalist the first thing they want to do is get out and explore and get the lie of the land. A quick tour of the gardens at dusk was all we managed the first evening but we were up at crack of dawn the next day, and every day for that matter, for a walk before breakfast. Often this would take us down to the lagoon just to the east of the hotel grounds, over which there was a long blue bridge crossing to the adjacent hotel, the Paradiso. This hotel is rather more expensive than ours, the Sol Rio de Luna y Mares and so, although they are in the same hotel chain, the folk from our hotel are not allowed into the grounds of the Paradiso, although traffic the other way is permitted!
In March the lagoon was clearly being used as a refuelling area by the egrets on their northward migration and it was interesting to see behaviou that I hadn't witnessed before - as the water was too deep to land in both a Snowy Egret and a Tri-Colored Heron had developed the strategy of flying slowly over the water often dragging their feet which would disturb small fish that would be snatched from the water in flight.
Lots of other birds would be calling from the mangroves or flying over but every morning would be different and sometimes it was difficult to leave to head off for breakfast.
Early morning is by far the best for birds at the lagoon with Least and Pied-billed Grebes, Blue-winged Teal, Neotropic Cormorants, Brown Pelican and often eight species of heron present. We have also seen Osprey and Magnificent Frigatebird flying over on the look-out for fish. On our first visit we sometimes saw a man walking about in the water (it’s about 1.5m deep) and setting traps to catch crabs but in March we were rather disturbed to see teams of several men with nets catching fish (and the odd bird as well). This was happening not only during the day but also at night. I suspect this is a new trend rather than a seasonal pursuit and will I fear have an adverse effect on the birdlife.
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