The Cuban Birder No.4

November 2021 Issue 4

The CUBAN TROGON, much more than just a beautiful bird

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“Cuban avifauna conquered me”

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Interview with Marcos Verdecia

Black-necked Stilt: A Lady Who Flies

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Havana Already Has Its Birdwatching Club

38

The Jewels of Cuba, Spectacular Cuba

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Impressions of a former American diplomat

page 10

Alert: Bird trappers are on the loose!

editorial

Dear readers:

T

his new issue of the magazine The Cuban Birder comes at a time when we are waging an intense battle against the trapping and trafficking of wild birds in Cuba that has escalated to an alarming level. Eradicating this scourge is in everyone´s hands and actions to fight it must come from every possible angle.

Chilling are the images shared on social media every day by about 40 Cuban groups on Facebook that show how cage-trap hunters intercept thousands of migratory and resident species without caring about the serious consequences this brings to the balance of our ecosystems.

For this issue of the magazine we have chosen the Cuban Trogon as the featured endemic bird because in addition to being beautiful, it is also a symbol of our identity, of our aspirations for wild birds not to be confined to cages, of our determination to fight against such actions and our dreams of a modern and eco-friendly Cuba, a lover and keeper of its natural jewels of the present time and the future.

An initiative of Birding Havana A quarterly, digital and free magazine Director: Vladimir Mirabal Advisor: Nils Navarro Design: Leonid Prado English translation: Vladimir Mirabal English language Proof-reader: Andy Mitchell birdinghavana@gmail.com Phone: +53 53964483 www.facebook.com/birdinghavana www.thecubanbirder.wordpress.com

Cover photo: Vladimir Mirabal

All photographs and texts (except in the cases of authorship expressly indicated) are the property of this magazine, whether generated by its producers or obtained from free sources. The unlimited reproduction and distribution of personal content is authorized provided that the source is cited. In the case of third-party content published under license, republication is prohibited.

The signed articles exclusively express the opinions of their authors.

We deeply appreciate the contributions of all kinds that have made the publication of this magazine possible.

The Cuban Birder / November 2021 / Issue 4

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SUMMARY NOVEMBER 2021 / ISSUE 4

14 10 OUR ENDEMICS The CUBAN TROGON, much more than just a beautiful bird

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By: Leonid Prado and V.M.

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Alert: Bird trappers are on the loose!

By: Vladimir Mirabal, Yaroddys Rodríguez, Hiram González and Nils Navarro

AVIAN LIFE 17

SPOTLIGHT 14

“Cuban avifauna conquered me” Interview with Marcos Verdecia By: Vladimir Mirabal

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Peregrine Falcon at high speed By: Alfredo Begazo (Avianreport)

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Can the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker Be Found in Cuba?

By: Mac McClelland

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Cuban cacti and birds, links to investigate By: José Miguel Acuña

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A Lady Who Flies By: Leonid Prado

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Rarities Round-Up Unusual sightings

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Hotspots in the province of Granma

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By: José Eugenio Martínez González

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Basic Guide for birdwatching beginners

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Havana Already Has Its Birdwatching Club

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Rapid Exposure Adjustments Tips for photographing birds

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By: W.H. Majoros

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Your multimedia on line Exploring the ebird digital platform

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The Jewels of Cuba, Spectacular Cuba Impressions of a former American diplomat By: Michael J. Good

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Susam, the Nigerian Girl A story by Marilyn Pérez Prado

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The Cuban Birder / November 2021 / Issue 4

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Photo by Karlos Ross, from Holguín

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OUR ENDEMICS

CUBAN TROGON The

much more than just a beautiful bird

This article is illustrated with images of Cuban Trogons, taken in different parts of our country by several of our birders. It is a sample of how widespread this bird is throughout the

national territory. That´s why we invite you to visit some of our mountains or forests, be aware of its toco-ró, and maybe you will have the joy of meeting this beautiful bird.

By: Leonid Prado and V. M.

S

ome are chosen for their colors, others for their symbolism, but every country in the world has a national bird that represents them as a nation. Usually these birds are an icon of the place. Some countries share the same bird, since they even share geographical regions, for example, the Andean countries.

Aware of the idea that a symbol is the representation of a concept, then when it comes to national symbols we are referring to specific notions such as freedom, pride of a nation, integrity, strength, respect for life and others.

In Cuba, the Cuban Trogon is more than just a beautiful bird, it is the National Bird of Cuba. This

means that it is part of the national symbols of this country next to the White Mariposa, the Royal Palm, the Cuban Shield, the National Anthem and the Cuban Flag itself.

There are two main reasons why this beautiful bird was selected as our national symbol.

On the one hand, its bright plumage has the same colors as the

The Cuban Birder / November 2021 / Issue 4

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Cuban flag. On the other hand, it happens that it is not possible to keep this bird in captivity. When a Cuban Trogon is caged, it stops singing, stops eating, loses its precious plumage and lets itself die slowly. This characteristic was interpreted as a virtue. Cuban Trogons love freedom and would represent the free spirit of the Cuban people.

The Cuban Trogon is also called tocoloro and in some places in the east of the country, guatiní, a word of Taíno origin. This bird is endemic to our archipelago, that is to say, it is only found in Cuba, including the Island of Youth. It is common in forests across the country, which can be diverse, including pine forests, but dense and those which have tall trees.

There are two slightly different forms, the one that lives on the main island of Cuba and adjacent cays, Priotelus temnurus temnurus, and the one that lives on the Island of Youth, Priotelus temnurus vescus.

Our Juan Cristóbal Gundlach described it this way in his work Contribution to Cuban Ornithology of 1876: “Species typical of the island of Cuba, very common in the forests, and also, but with less abundance, in the tall undergrowth. It never frequents groves, parks or gardens and always stays in the same place. It is not flighty, allows close approach and sometimes it perches very close to people if they do not move.

Its position is always the same, very still, with the neck tucked in and the tail sometimes so thrown forward that it forms the continuation of the curve of the back. It never leaps from branch to branch; it perches on a horizontal twig and utters its simple song, which resembles the common name, “tocoró - tocoró,”, and then moves his tail with a trembling motion. At other times his song imitates the syllables” tui-u” which cannot be heard from afar.

From time to time it flies towards the fruits or flowers it feeds on, plucking them in flight. I found fruits in his stomach of the Guara, the Guaniquique etc. and flowers of the White Oak, of Campanillas or Aguinaldo etc., but also insects and caterpillars.

Mainly in the breeding season it has a strong smell of musk. Its flight is fast, but very short and a little noisy. It is rarely raised in cages, which comes from several causes. Their food requires great care and usually when caged they refuse to eat or sing, or have pleasant movements, and they easily break their feathers, becoming very dull.

However, you can keep them for some time in a large aviary, hanging in it twigs with ripe fruit of the Galán (Cestrum), Guaniquique etc.

Its plumage has the peculiarity of falling out very easily, so it is necessary to kill several individuals to get one good for dissection.

The neck has no feathers in a certain area and for this reason it seems that the bird has its head tucked between its shoulders. For nesting, it searches for the abandoned nest of a woodpecker and without adding any soft materials it lays its three or four white eggs with a slight blue tinge at the very bottom of the hole.”

Adrian Cobas, from Zapata Swamp in Matanzas, photographed this one feeding the chicks.

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This picture was made by Leonid Prado during a field trip to Sierra Cristal, Holguín, on eastern Cuba.

The Cuban name of this unique bird is onomatopoeic and around it were born myths and legends such as that of the beautiful Taíno woman who preferred to die rather than live as a prisoner and was later converted into a Cuban Trogon

by Atabey, Mother Goddess of Nature for the aborigines of the Caribbean area.

Its length ranges from 27 to 29 centimeters. From wingtip to wingtip it can reach almost 40 centimeters. Its tail with long and pointed feathers is in the form of a saw at the tip. Its eyes are red, while the bill is black on top and red at the bottom. Their claws are similar to other birds in the Trogonidae family.

The most striking aspect of the physical appearance of the Cuban Trogon is its colorful plumage. The top and back of its head are a violet-blue color, while the back and tail are dark green and bright. On the other hand, the feathers of the neck and the chest are

Yusimí Álvarez, Havana

I had to sit down and breathe slowly What I felt was inexplicable the first time I saw a Cuban Trogon in front of me. March 2019 was advancing, just before the COVID-19 pandemic was declared, and Vladimir Mirabal and I went birdwatching to Sierra del Rosario, in Artemisa. I was just starting out in this hustle and bustle of cameras, binoculars and field guides and the truth is that I was very motivated because every bird I could photograph in its natural environment was a very pleasant event. It was one of those mornings when the sun crosses you from side to side and roasts you ... that’s why we were so eager to get to the mountain and its shadow.

We got to the camping site La Chorrera, at kilometer 51 of the Highway to Pinar del Río, and immediately we sought

to approach the river to refresh under the shadows of the Cañas Bravas and the Almácigos.

When suddenly, right in front of my eyes, about 4 meters high and staring at me, this precious Cuban Trogon was silent. I froze..., the heat I felt transformed into an irrepressible tremble that did not let me take a picture of that beauty. I do not lie, after about 10 seconds I took Vlad’s hand, put it on my chest so that he could feel the same as me: the heart wanted to leave its place! I had to sit down and breathe slowly. What a thrill!

When I looked up he was gone, but never before or since have I experienced something like this in front of a new bird. The Cuban Trogon has that; it perplexes you and makes you fall in love with its charm.

Rolando Piñeiro could get this pair of Cuban Trogons through the lens in the Zapata Swamp, Matanzas.

The Cuban Birder / November 2021 / Issue 4

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Lázaro Ramón Sosa Morell, Zapata Swamp

How it shines, it looks like glitter paper!!

It was a group of seven children and two adults with binoculars, and so many birds to watch!! They had never gone out to watch birds, so fun and excitement were inevitable. It was early in the morning, and it is not the same to paint a bird from a photo as after having seen it in its habitat. ¡Of course!! After seeing several species of warblers, a pair of woodpeckers, a funny Great Lizard-Cuckoo and a couple of Cuban Todies, the elegant bird of the countryside of Cuba made its entrance: The Cuban Trogon.

First, he let himself be heard and we all set about finding him among the branches of the soplillos. “Whoever sees

it first gets the binoculars!!”, I said.

David, 12, a child as creative and curious as he was lively, was the ’winner‘.

His eyes were about to pop out. “Teacher, I didn’t know the Cuban Trogon had so many colors!! How it shines, it looks like glitter paper!!“he said making the group uneasy. “It’s my turn!” said Ashly and little by little they took turns to observe this handsome guy who in return gave his finest trill and showed his prettiest poses for the boys. Then they spent much of the morning asking “What does he eat? Where do they make their nests? How many chicks do they have?

“But that’s another story.

Yadiel Veunes, from Matanzas, sent us this great image.

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white or pale gray, but the belly and the base of the tail are a very bright red color. It feeds on insects, flowers and fruits. It nests from April to July in the recently-abandoned holes of woodpeckers. The female lays 3 or 4 eggs. Both sexes incubate and feed their young.

Perched on a branch, they repeat to-co-ró, in series, while moving their tail as if shaking.

They also make other sounds, such as snoring barks and various clucking and ringing murmurs.

It turns out to be a fairly passive bird, staying still for a long time, without odd movements, and it flies sporadically to take its food on the wing. Its flight is sudden but short, erratic and somewhat noisy.

Protection Both CITMA Resolution 160 of 2011, and Decree-Law 31 of

2021, also known as the Animal Welfare Law, protect our Cuban Trogon from its biggest predator, the irresponsible human. But beyond the legal interpretation, the protection of this little wonder of the animal kingdom has even moral connotations. No Cuban can think of damaging a Cuban flag, because of everything that it means. For the same reason, the Cuban Trogon is respected, not only for being a marvel of biodiversity, but also because it is our National Bird. His color and love for freedom are not only symbols of the unique Cuban nature, but an indissoluble part of this nationality. Protecting them also means defending Cuban identity.

Rolando Trujillo, Cárdenas

It was a nice surprise I would had been about 10 or maybe 11 years old and used to go to the zoo in my hometown Cárdenas, because Havana´s zoo was a little far away from home, although someone had to take me quite frequently to that in Havana too. Animals have always liked me very much; it must had been induced by my guajiro (farmer) father. I don´t hide that, at home we had cages with Indigo Buntings, Grassquits, Blue Grosbeaks, Painted Buntings... a guajiro custom inherited from my father. He always took me to the zoo, he

even accompanied me as a teenager.

On one occasion we found a Cuban Trogon in one of the zoo´s cages no bigger than 2m long by 1m wide and something similar in height. For me it was impressive to see such a beautiful bird, I was excited because it was also a special surprise. It all ended very quickly when my father said that bird would die sooner rather than later for not being able to adapt to live in a cage.

This must have happened because a few Sundays later it was no longer possible for us to see her again.

Roberto Jovel made this gorgeous photo in Baracoa, Guantánamo

Rolando Trujillo got this marvelous Cuban Trogon in Cárdena´s mangroves, Matanzas.

Photo by Rodolfo Rivero, from Sierra de Cubitas, in central Cuba.

The Cuban Birder / November 2021 / Issue 4

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Alert:

Bird trappers are on the loose!

By: Vladimir Mirabal, Yaroddys Rodríguez, Hiram González and Nils Navarro

I

t is no secret to anyone that there are thousands of people in this country who are dedicated from an early age to hunting and trafficking Cuban wild birds, both migrants and permanent residents. Years ago, when there was no internet and social networks were something unattainable for most Cubans, these hunts and looting of nests were done in the shadows of impunity and only the perpetrators and their close circles of relations knew about it. Nowa-

days, the reality is very different because Internet access has increased significantly and it is used as a showroom to display the trophies of the hunt, to boast how “handsome” a certain Cuban Bullfinch or Blue Grosbeak is, and even for the purchase and sale of species. Now there are no shadows covering impunity; the crime is clear, visible and clearly unpunished.

In Cuba, we work in favor of the care of the environment from many sides and visions, of that there is no doubt, but it is not enough. The recent Animal Welfare Decree-Law brings a step forward in that regard, at least in

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letter and spirit, but it will be its practical and rigorous application that will have the last word as to its effectiveness. This Decree-Law, along with Decree-Law 200 of 1999, and Resolutions 115 of 2005 and 160 of 2011, both of CITMA, must provide the ideal regulatory framework to stop illegalities and reverse the predation process not only of birds, but of many species of special interest in our country.

However, the existence of legal instruments does not ensure the success of the mission. This must be a collective work, especially of those in charge of applying the laws and ensuring com-

“Migratory birds are just as Cuban as those raised in Cuba because they are in our archipelago from 6 to 8 months every year and play an important role in the ecological balance of our ecosystems...

All birds are beneficial to men because they are biological controllers, seeds disseminators and pollinators.

Their steady and ruthless caging is affecting their genetic background and decreasing the size of their populations.”

Hiram Gonzalez pliance with regulations; but also of citizens and civil society with their activism of denunciation, and work of education and awareness.

Our society has no choice.

We must be much more active and aware of the importance of caring for the environment in general, and birds and their natural environments in particular.

We must definitely move from speech to action.

List of Facebook groups that promote these practices with total impunity. membership figures: October 2021 Azulejos y Mariposas en Nuevitas (3,100 members) Solo Negritos Silvadores (12 000 members) Azulejos y Mariposas (5,200 members) AZULEJO DE CUBA (49,100 members) Mariposeros de Occidente (3,700 members) Azulejos en La Habana (7,600 members) Azulejones de Cuba (4,100 members) Azulejos cantos de Negritos Cuba (3,400 members) Azulejos de Cuba 100 % (3.100 members) Mariposas y Azulejos de Cuba y El Mundo (40,100 members) Mariposeros del centro (6.100 members) Mariposeros de Occidente (3,700 members) Silvestrismo Cubano (11.400 members) Pajareros De Cuba (18,700 members) asulejos de cuba (1.700 members) Tomeguines de la tierra (4,200 members) Jaulas y aves Camagüey (2,300 members) Negritos de Florida, Camaguey, Cuba (3,200 members) Jaulas de Cuba (3000 members) Azulejos en Camagüey (540 members) Amantes de Pájaros Camagüey (343 members) Negritos y Tomeguines de Pinar del Rio (6.300 members) Tomeguines Y Otras Aves (4.200 members) Negritos y jaulas (3.100 members) Negritos y Devate. (4,600 members) Reproducción de Aves en Cautiverio. (875 members) Cría de Aves en Granma (667 members) Jaulas de Holguín (1,400 members) Mariposas, Azulejos y más en Matanzas (3,300 members) negritos y jaulas (3.100 members) Adictos a los silvadores (231 members) Degollados de Occidente (1,500 members) EL MEJOR SILVESTRISMO EN CUBA (975 members) Apasionados de las Aves (24.100 members) Revolico de Aves migratorias y exóticas de Cuba, venta de aves, comida, jaulas y medicinas (2000 members) Negriteros de Matanzas (4,000 members) Tomeguines Y Negritos (46,100 members) AZULEJOS DE CUBA (2,300 members) Azulejos Trinidad Cuba (105 members) The Cuban Birder / November 2021 / Issue 4 11

List of the birds which are victims of trappers and hunters in Cuba: West Indian Whistling-Duck / Yaguasa Cubana Fulvous Whistling-Duck / Yaguasín Blue-winged Teal / Pato de la Florida Wood Duck / Pato Huyuyo Northern Shoveler / Pato Cuchareta American Wigeon / Pato Lavanco Green-winged Teal (American) / Pato Serrano White-cheeked Pintail (White-cheeked) / Pato de Bahamas Northern Pintail / Pato Pescuecilargo Northern Bobwhite (Eastern) / Codorniz White-crowned Pigeon / Torcaza Cabeciblanca Scaly-naped Pigeon / Torcaza Cuellimorada Plain Pigeon / Torcaza Boba Common Ground Dove / Tojosa Ruddy Quail-Dove (Ruddy) / Boyero White-winged Dove / Paloma Aliblanca Smooth-billed Ani / Judío Yellow-billed Cuckoo / Primavera Great Lizard-Cuckoo (Cuban) / Arriero o Guacaica Cuban Emerald / Zunzún King Rail (Northern) / Gallinuela de Agua Dulce Common Gallinule (American) / Gallareta de Pico Rojo American Coot / Gallareta de Pico Blanco Purple Gallinule / Gallareta Azul Sandhill Crane (nesiotes) / Grulla Wilson’s Snipe / Becasina Laughing Gull / Galleguito Wood Stork / Cayama Neotropic Cormorant / Corúa de Agua Dulce Brown Pelican (Southern) / Pelícano White Ibis / Coco Blanco Glossy Ibis / Coco Prieto Roseate Spoonbill / Sevilla Turkey Vulture (Northern) / Aura Tiñosa Snail Kite / Gavilán Caracolero Gundlach’s Hawk / Gavilán Colilargo Broad-winged Hawk (Northern) / Gavilán Bobo Red-tailed Hawk / Gavilán de Monte American Kestrel / Cernicalo Merlin / Halcon de Paloma Peregrine Falcon / Halcon Peregrino Barn Owl (American) / Lechuza Bare-legged Owl / Sijú Cotunto Cuban Pygmy-Owl / Sijú Platanero Stygian Owl / Siguapa Cuban Trogon / Tocororo West Indian Woodpecker / Carpintero Jabado Cuban Green Woodpecker / Carpintero Verde Crested Caracara / Caraira Cuban Parrot (Cuban) / Cotorra Cuban Parakeet / Catey

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Cuban Crow / Cao Montero Cuban Solitaire / Ruiseñor Veery / Tordo Colorado Gray-cheeked Thrush / Tordo de Mejillas Grises Swainson’s Thrush (Olive-backed) / Tordo de Espalda Olivada Wood Thrush / Tordo Pecoso Red-legged Thrush (plumbeus / schistaceus) / Zorzal Real Gray Catbird / Zorzal Gato Northern Mockingbird / Sinsonte Cedar Waxwing / Picotero del Cedro Scaly-breasted Munia (Checkered) / Damero Tricolored Munia / Monjita Tricolor Grasshopper Sparrow / Chamberguito Clay-colored Sparrow / Gorrión Colorado Dark-eyed Junco (Slate-colored) / Junco de Ojos Oscuros White-crowned Sparrow (leucophrys) / Gorrión de Coronilla Blanca Lincolnʼs Sparrow / Gorrión de Lincoln Western Spindalis / Cabrero Yellow-breasted Chat (virens) / Bijirita Grande Bobolink / Chambergo Orchard Oriole (Orchard) / Turpial de Huertos Baltimore Oriole / Turpial Cuban Oriole / Solibio Tawny-shouldered Blackbird / Mayito Shiny Cowbird / Pájaro Vaquero Cuban Blackbird / Totí Greater Antillean Grackle / Chichinguaco Ovenbird / Señorita de Monte Worm-eating Warbler / Bijirita Gusanera Louisiana Waterthrush / Señorita de Río Blue-winged Warbler / Bijirita de Alas Azules Black-and-white Warbler / Bijirita Trepadora Prothonotary Warbler / Bijirita Protonotaria Tennessee Warbler / Bijirita de Tennessee Kentucky Warbler / Bijirita de Kentucky Common Yellowthroat (trichas) / Caretica Hooded Warbler / Monjita American Redstart / Candelita Cape May Warbler / Bijirita Atigrada Northern Parula / Bijirita Chica Magnolia Warbler / Bijirita Magnolia Blackburnian Warbler / Bijirita Blackburniana Yellow Warbler (Northern) / Canario de Manglar Chestnut-sided Warbler / Bijirita de Costados Castaños Black-throated Blue Warbler / Bijirita Azul de Garganta Negra Bay-breasted Warbler / Bijirita Castaña / Setophaga castanea

Palm Warbler (Western) / Bijirita Común Yellow-rumped Warbler (Myrtle) / Bijirita Coronada Yellow-throated Warbler (dominica / stoddardi) / Bijirita de Garganta Amarilla Prairie Warbler / Mariposa Galana Black-throated Green Warbler / Bijirita de Garganta Negra Summer Tanager / Cardenal Rojo Scarlet Tanager / Cardenal Alinegro Western Tanager / Cardenal del Oeste Rose-breasted Grosbeak / Degollado

As citizens become more conservationist and more actively involved in the protection of our species, we will also see the country move towards becoming a nation that respects and cares for the environment in general and birds in particular.

For more than a decade, a group of Cuban ornithologists and specialists have worked very hard on the environmental education of our people and to sound the alert about these effects on our biodiversity.

It’s encouraging to see how ordinary Cubans are denouncing through Instagram, Whatsapp and Facebook many acts of vandalism, irresponsibility of individuals or institutions, pos-

Blue Grosbeak / Azulejón Lazuli Bunting / Mariposa Azul Indigo Bunting / Azulejo Painted Bunting / Mariposa Dickcissel / Gorrión de Pecho Amarillo Red-legged Honeycreeper / Aparecido de San Diego Yellow-faced Grassquit / Tomeguín de la Tierra Black-faced Grassquit / Tomeguín Prieto Cuban Grassquit / Tomeguín del Pinar Cuban Bullfinch / Negrito

session and trafficking of bird species of special significance and other effects on the heritage of our avifauna and its habitats.

Although we are still far from achieving the results to which we aspire, spontaneity and citizen activism are already visible, two essential components of any conservation movement in the world.

We must also recognize those organizations and institutions, such as the Cuban Rangers Corp, the Cuban Society of Zoology, the Monte Barreto administration, the Antonio Núñez Jiménez Foundation for Nature and Men, the Ariguanabo Foundation and others who are combating this scour-

ge. Unfortunately, this work of confrontation is not always accompanied by a coherent communication strategy that amplifies the actions and their results in the media. We need more communication, more activism and more support from government authorities in this battle against impunity and for our natural heritage.

To file complaints to the Cuban authorities there are some telephone numbers and email addresses throughout the country. You can find that info on this PDF document (500 Kb) which can be downloaded here: https://drive.google.com/file/ d/1IecgxdA5Sxmy27pYhY_49H3b8FgO1e-m/view?usp=sharing

The Cuban Birder / November 2021 / Issue 4 13

SPOTLIGHT

“Cuban avifauna conquered me”

MARCOS VERDECIA TELLS US ABOUT HIS MOTIVATIONS AND INSPIRATIONS FOR THIS BIRD PHOTOGRAPHY WORLD. By: V. M.

B

irdwatching is increasingly becoming a hobby that young Cubans choose to spend their free time on - something noble and beautiful. For that reason, we reached out to Marcos Verdecia, aged 20, who studied electronics and now works on an assembly brigade of ETECSA. Marquitos, as we affectionately call him, was born in Vedado, Havana, but currently lives in El Cerro and you can see the enjoyment he gets, camera in hand scrutinizing each shrub, branch or bush in search of the birds he wants to photograph.

Marcos, thank you for the opportunity to talk with you!

Tell us why you became interested in birdwatching and bird photography, what motivated you and why you do it?

Since I was a child I´ve always been very interested in everything related to nature, especially fauna. I didn´t have much contact with it but the TV series Habitat and the paintings and photographic work of Raimundo Lopez (a friend) made me especially interested in the Cuban fauna. Of the latter, the avifauna was conquering me little by little. Currently I spend as much time as possible going out

to photograph birds and that fills me with an unparalleled pleasure.

What kind of bird photography do you prefer? (action, in flight, perched, shorebirds, songbirds, raptors...) Do you have references that inspire you, and who are they?

All the types have their particular charm. I think one of the most wonderful things about birds is the great variety they exhibit!!! Sometimes to get the best out of a bird it is necessary to capture them in flight, but at other times all you need is the bird to be perched in a particular place or in an interesting pose.

My main reference is the American nature photographer Ray Hennessy. I simply love his work; how he manages to get the best out of birds and their environments. On the other hand, there are many Cuban ones that I admire a lot like Félix Raúl Figueroa and Raymundo López, among others.

What equipment do you use and how did you get it? Do you prefer a particular brand?

After a few months of saving money, I was able to buy a Nikon D5000 with a 70-300 mm lens.

I am quite new to the world of photography but I think Nikon can offer me everything I need.

What are the favorite places you have visited so far to watch

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birds and where would you like to go that you have not been yet?

To photograph shorebirds, Playa del Chivo is the perfect spot. The numbers of birds that can be found there and the accessibility of the place make it the best option here in Havana. On the other hand, I have noticed that in Lenin Park I can find all the common birds on the outskirts of Havana. In addition to its forests, this Park has the Ejército Rebelde Dam where you can find the spectacular Osprey!

I would love to visit Topes de Collantes, I think it is a special place to enjoy our avifauna and nature in general.

How have you handled the movement restrictions due to the pandemic to develop this hobby? What are your plans for when this is over?

I have had to reduce the number of times I go out in the week, as well as take the basic hygiene measures so necessary in these times. I have a lot of plans for when this is over! The first will be to visit the Sierra de la Rosario in search of its many avian treasures.

Which bird that you have already photographed do you like the most and why? What is your to-do list and how do you plan to complete it?

If I had to pick one bird it would be the Cuban Tody. The first time I saw it I was surprised by how small it is. They are really beautiful, especially when in spring they expose their pink little feathers on

PHoto: Marcos Verdecia

Marcos trying to photograph a Green Heron at Ejército Rebelde Reservoir.

The Cuban Birder / November 2021 / Issue 4 15

PHOTOS: Marcos Verdecia

the sides as symbol of their reproductive state. In addition, they are very curious tiny birds which makes it very rewarding to work with them. On one occasion one fluttered right in front of my lens!

There are really many birds that I want to photograph but there are some that I long to find a little more than others such as: Cuban Trogon, Bee Hummingbird, Cuban Pygmy-Owl, Osprey, Prothonotary Warbler and recently I included the American Avocet in that list.

I am already working on some birds of this group and that is the case with the Osprey. After locating the place where she usually is, the difficult task is to keep

going back until I find the perfect opportunity to take the photo that I have in mind. Others unfortunately cannot be found in Havana so I will have to wait impatiently and reluctantly for circumstances to allow travel in search of them.

What do you think of the Cuban Birders Club on Facebook, how did you get to it and what should be changed to improve it?

Facebook introduced me to the group as “recommended” so I joined it with the expectation of learning more about the Cuban avifauna and so it was. All I know about the birds of Cuba as well as where and when to find them is thanks to the Club.

16 The Cuban Birder / November 2021 / Issue 4

To improve it, I would say that we must continue working to motivate members to become active in the Club with their photos, observations, and continue working on general awareness about the care and conservation of birds and nature.

What would you say to young people like you who start in this beautiful and noble activity throughout Cuba?

That we should continue to cultivate our love and respect for birds and nature, adding knowledge and experiences that will be the basis of our contribution to their conservation, thus learning to enjoy this feathered wonderful world without affecting its perfect functioning.

AVIAN LIFE

Peregrine Falcon at high speed By: Alfredo Begazo (Avianreport)

P

eregrine Falcons are hunting machines that have adapted to capture their prey in the air with maximum efficiency. The narrow, pointed wings of a Peregrine Falcon and its aerodyna-

The Cuban Birder / November 2021 / Issue 4 17

mically shaped body help it gain extremely high speeds due to minimal resistance. They also have excellent vision, which allows them to see from a great distance. Their claws, long legs and hook-shaped bills are designed to trap and manipulate prey in the air. During high-speed dive flight, tubercles in their nostrils regulate breathing, while a third eyelid or nictitating membrane and thick tears protect their eyes.

Adaptations of the Peregrine Falcon to highspeed flight The Peregrine Falcon has many characteristics that distinguish it from other birds, making it one of the deadliest predators on earth. These features include: Aerodynamic Body: During high-speed dive flight, the Peregrine Falcon adopts a “diamond”

shape that offers minimal wind resistance.

Wing Shape: The Peregrine Falcon’s pointed wings help the bird reach extreme speeds.

During the dive, the wings are positioned backwards and contribute to the stylized figure which offers minimal wind resistance. Angular wings on “elbows” create a multi-dimensional air foil effect that maximizes maneuverability and high-speed endurance.

Specialized body feathers: Unlike other birds, the body feathers are thin, rigid, and compact reducing the vibration and movement that would cause flaccid and loose feathers. This type of

18 The Cuban Birder / November 2021 / Issue 4

feathers makes the falcon’s body resemble a metal surface that offers the least resistance to air at high speeds.

High resistance to inertial force: Humans in a fighter aircraft can safely withstand 8 to 9 units of inertial force pressure of G-force. The Peregrine Falcon can withstand up to 25 units of inertial force.

Tubercles in the nostrils: The nasal tubercles have the function of creating a turbulence that cancels the force of the wind at high speed allowing the flow of air in a more natural way.

Otherwise the air would enter directly into the lungs with such force that it would damage the

lungs. This is an ingenious evolutionary adaptation to extreme high-speed flight.

Protective nictitating membrane in the eye: This membrane is known as the nictitating membrane and forms an inner eyelid that closes laterally in birds. The Peregrine Falcon has a well-developed nictitating membrane that protects the eye from particles in the air rushing in during high-speed flight.

Thick tears: The Peregrine Falcon’s tears are as thick as oil and protect the eye from drying out in the air during a high-speed chase.

A wider keel bone and additional vertebrae in the coccyx: The keel (in blue) is a modified sternum on which the flight muscles adhere.

The wide keel of the Peregrine Falcon allows a larger mass of flight muscles to adhere. Flightless birds have a rudimentary keel bone. It also has additional vertebrae in the coccyx that allow more muscles to be attached to them, responsible for maneuvering the tail.

Specialized heart and lungs: The Peregrine Falcon’s heart can beat 600 to 900 times per minute. It can also breathe with a unidirectional flow of air into its lungs which remain inflated

even when the falcon exhales.

This allows oxygen to travel to the flight muscles very efficiently giving the falcon great physical endurance.

Risks and difficulties of high-speed flight The Peregrine Falcon is famed for the type of dive flight, but high speed increases the risk of fatal crashes with power lines, antennas, windows, buildings, trees, and other structures during the pursuit of their prey.

Ornithologists, through the marking and tracking of Peregrine Falcons, determined that the second-highest cause of mortality in juveniles, and to a lesser degree in adults, is crashing during high-speed flights.

Learning to master high speed and catch prey is not easy.

Studies of Peregrine Falcons have determined that less than half of young Peregrine Falcons reach adulthood. Some die in collisions and others starve because they cannot catch sufficient prey to survive.

Despite being able to fly much faster than any other bird, it is estimated that only 20% of hunting attempts are successful.

The average lifespan of a Peregrine Falcon in the wild is 10 to 12 years. In captivity, the average life span is longer.

The Cuban Birder / November 2021 / Issue 4 19

part three and final

Can the

Ivory-Billed Woodpecker Be Found in Cuba?

By: Mac McClelland

W

hen the group wakes up at dawn in the military outpost below Ojito de Agua, Lammertink secures four mules to carry gear. Two national park guards also arrive to accompany them. The sun comes out blazing. They climb uphill.

When they make it to the manned station several miles up in the afternoon, they stop for a moment—but then continue on, five miles more to the clearing at Ojito de Agua, where Lammertink wants to make camp and mount searches. The writer, who has been ingesting food but has effectively not eaten in two days because of the diarrhea, becomes too weak to stand; they put her on a mule. They put Gallagher, who is growing increasingly tired, on another one. They reach Ojito de Agua shortly before dark, and it starts to rain as they set up their tents. The Cubans fill the designated treated-water receptacle with untreated water; Lammertink, the only fluent Spanish speaker, has not explai-

ned to them that the Americans are designating such a receptacle or why because he personally is not bothering with water treatment from this mountain spring.

A partial list of untreated-water tragedies that have occurred in Lammertink’s previous fieldwork includes: the death of a human man. That time even Lammertink didn’t trust the water, so sketchy were the sources they were pulling it from in the Bornean jungle, but the field assistant, a local, wouldn’t listen to anyone’s warnings. Diphtheria came on fast after he went back home and turned worse quickly; by the time his family went for medical help, there was nothing anyone could do.

The photographer almost drinks the untreated water before the mistake is discovered.

The writer has already drunk a liter of it.

At Ojito de Agua, everyone in the small camp bathes and washes their hands and dishes in a stream that the mules are pissing and shitting in and near.

The second night, one of the mules awakens the camp, moa-

20 The Cuban Birder / November 2021 / Issue 4

ning and thrashing and crashing around; it lies down, and then, to the great astonishment and helplessness of its Cuban masters, violently dies.

“This is not what normal birding is like,” Gallagher clarifies at some point to the writer, in case this has been lost on her.

It starts to pour again. In the morning, they break dead-mule camp for fear of infection and rotting-mule smell and hike three miles to another, smaller clearing, perched on the side of a cliff where mosquitos are swarming in great clouds. It rains again when they arrive to set up for three nights among the trees and underbrush, which in this area are covered with sharp thorns and spikes of varying lengths. When Lammertink stayed here 25 years ago, he brushed up against a plant that turned his forearm into a bloated, oozing, yellow-pus-seeping rash of open blisters that didn’t close for five months, and then didn’t fade from scarring for “years.” He doesn’t know which plant it was, so he can’t point it out.

But. In between the moving, and machete-swinging through non-trails, and basic surviving: Silence.

Between sweating and getting snagged and rained on, slipping over wet rocks in the middle or right on the side of a mountain, 20 flights of elevation before even 7:30 a.m. one day (the writer climbing under her own power, as her stool has miraculously solidified): They stop. They strap up the double-knocker. They turn on recorders, and write down coordinates, and call to the Ivory-bill.

BAM-bam.

They wait, collectively, for hours, sitting or standing quietly, for a response. BAMbam. Waiting. Kent-kent through the speakers; waiting. Hiking and trudging and starting over.

In all that stillness and hard staring, it’s easy to understand how an anticipation broken by a bird finally bursting forth would evoke sobs, as it immediately did in the guy Gallagher saw the Ivory-bill within 2004—after they’d dodged countless close calls with poisonous water moccasins in the southeastern American swamp.

But in Cuba, one never does burst forth. Worse, there are not even any signs in this place, the last place in the country where Ivory-bills lived, that they were here anytime recently. There are no foraging signs, none of the bark-scaling and bark-stripping Ivory-bills do. No recent cavities. The forest is not even as Ivory-bill-friendly as Lammertink would like. Though protected, it’s dense. The regrowth pines don’t have enough light and space to grow into big Ivory-bill habitat. There are no reports among locals, not even crappy secondhand rumors that one has been seen or heard in decades, excepting one witness who they will go check out when they leave

Lammertink and Gallagher head out for another day of fruitless interviews.

Photo: Greg Kahn

the woods. All of the interviews with potential witnesses they’ve tracked down so far have been hopeless: The one with El Indio’s father that contained The Twist, the one with the former logger they passed on the way to the national park station who said no one had seen the bird after the ’80s, the one with the 91-year-old in Farallones who

said Ivory-bills were everywhere when he was a kid but not since, and kept trying to steer the conversation away from extinct birds (“He says, ‘We’re all made out of dust and to dust we will return,’ ” Lammertink translated. “His wife passed away three years ago, and he believes she now lives in eternity, or something”) as Lammertink mightily

The Cuban Birder / November 2021 / Issue 4 21

From left: Jabao Zahares, longtime friend of Lammertink; Rafael Osorio says he saw Ivory-bills in the 1950’s; Jesus Ymbert Planas runs the forest station at Parque Nacional Alejandro de Humboldt; Rubiel Guerrero Rodriguez has seen an Ivory-bill but not since the 1970’s. Photos: Greg Kahn

steered it toward extinct birds again and again (“There’s probably at this age more pressing questions than Ivory-bills,” he said as he finally gave up).

Sitting down in camp on the final night, Lammertink pronounces that the worst day in the field is better than the best day in the office. He became captivated by woodpeckers in general and Ivory-bills in specific when he picked up a book on the bird family by chance in a library at age 11. When he graduated high school, he worked at a dairy factory to save money to finance his trip to come here and look for them, and this time, he is satisfied with how much ground he’s covered. He is hungry, since he ate only a handful of stale crackers for lunch on another hard-charging day of traveling and double-knocking, and thirsty, since he lost his water bottle at some point in doing so. Having observed the character of his interactions with the other members of the group for almost two weeks, the writer has circled in her notes to ask him if he likes birds better than people, but on this last night she sits down next to him and asks instead if he cares more about birds than he does about himself.

He pauses for a long, long time, and stutters. He allows when pressed that the botflies are a gross and painful annoyance but a small one, and maybe he should put more DEET on his clothes. But when you’re getting up close on a bird and you feel a mosquito land, you can’t just be swatting around like a maniac. No. You can barely dare to breathe. He doesn’t think he would kill himself over a bird.

Not deliberately. Yes he’s had dengue fever and malaria, and he died once. Well didn’t quite die, but came close to dying, when he and a field assistant were swarmed by thousands of bees in Borneo. They were in and out of consciousness after, ferocious puking and diarrhea while some villagers tried to pluck thousands of stingers from their faces and backs and arms, and others stood around saying they wouldn’t make it for sure.

It was an Oriental Honey-buzzard, which rips open bees’ nests, that had whipped them up and caused the whole event; Lammertink had never seen one of the birds, and he was pretty excited until the bees attacked.

He and the field assistant are married now and have two children. “I’ve been doing this now

22 The Cuban Birder / November 2021 / Issue 4

for, let’s see, 25 years, fieldwork in tropical areas, and you know, I’m still alive,” he says. He laughs. “So, why not do it for another 25 years?” He is not a thrill seeker. Not even a risk seeker, he says. He acknowledges that some of the work he does is risky, “but it’s always for some kind of conservation project, and if something goes terribly wrong, at least in my last moments, I know it was for some greater cause.”

In the morning, Lammertink, who can endure almost anything but cannot abide an unshaven face, shaves by feel beside the cold creek. The group packs up camp. They march eight miles over a mountain ridge and out of the forest, stopping for a last double-knock session, finally coming out the side opposite the one they entered—north, back up in Farallones. Both birders say, as they emerge filthy from the trees, that it does seem like the Ivory-bill is dead in Cuba.

Lammertink’s earlier conclusions, he re-concludes, are confirmed. The little bit of hope he was holding is squashed.

But. Wait.

The Ivory-bill is not given up so easily.

After a night of sleep back at the first jungle shack, the birders decide, while the photographer and writer are out of earshot, that they will go back into the woods. Today. There is still that last witness, who someone said saw one in 2008 and heard one in 2011. They haven’t interviewed him yet. They are on their way to interview him this morning. If he seems credible, they will ditch the writer and photographer and round up some mules and hike right back into the mountains for another double-knock session tonight, and another at dawn, and then try to race back out and to a driver and to the airport hours away over barely-roads to make their flight tomorrow.

There’s hope! Gallagher thinks, perking up out of his dire exhaustion, in which he barely staggered out of the woods just yesterday. We can still do this!

The witness says he saw Ivory-bills, all right.

He saw them in 1971.

Gallagher is crushed. His throat is thick with grief and near-crying when he comes into the writer’s hotel room the next day to confess the plan to jettison her and continue the expedition, foiled only by the confirmation of a faulty report.

“I just suddenly . . .” he says. “I thought: These birds are really gone.” His swallows are heavy.

“I mean, I’m the most optimistic person in the world, and it was just . . . inescapable to me.

And I almost felt guilty, as though, like, me giving up made it so. It was really like having a loved one on a ventilator or something, and they’re already gone, and you just have to make that decision to give up.”

He thinks other people should keep looking here. Even though he feels sure the birds aren’t here. He doesn’t know why. He says it’s hard to say. He himself won’t come back, though, unless there’s a solid sighting. This is it for him.

Here in Cuba, anyway! He’s talking about the Cuban Ivorybill. He will continue to float the rivers and bayous of the American Southeast looking—Oh yes!, he says. Because that’s who he is.

He will never give up the dream of finding one in America, though he’s been mired in controversy since the first time he proclaimed that he had—the catalyst of the highest-profile birder fight in modern history. Weidensaul, when saying on the record that he considers Gallagher’s sighting “persuasive,” equates that admission to “driving nails into the coffin of my professional reputation.”

“I need to go, to exclude the possibility that they’re there,” Lammertink had said at the Toronto airport, before they left. “It’s too important not to check.”

“Of course, it’s a real long shot, and probably nothing will happen,” Gallagher had said the same day. “But as in fishing, if you don’t put your fly in the water, there’s no chance you’re gonna catch anything. You could go to some stream and go, This is a terrible-looking stream, or whatever, or unlikely to have trout, but I’ll cast the fly out there. And I’ve caught trout in some really unusual places.” If he can keep that kind of hope up for trout, what can’t he do for birds, with which he’s been in love since he was talking to them out on his grandmother’s porch as a three-year-old while his father, a sailor who was sunk three times in World War II and came back a scary drunk, knocked her around inside. “Someone’s gotta do it, or it’s not gonna get done.”

The writer and the photographer don’t understand, haven’t understood, the risks the birders take. But one could argue that the writer and photographer do—that they are on this very trip doing—the same for their own work. The bir-

ders’ passion does bring maybe balance but certainly conservation successes sometimes to this planet. The sightings in the ’80s got the forest they’ve just exited protected, and perhaps not a moment too soon— three of the areas where George Lamb photographed the Ivorybills in the ’50s are completely logged and mined out, in a country that is really just now opening up and increasing infrastructure and investment.

Gallagher’s alleged 2004 sighting helped get more of a singular and threatened American landscape preserved. It’s hard to argue that it was a bad outcome, regardless of whether there were Ivory-bills in it. Back in the day, early explorers did outrageous things to discover the world when it was still wild and unknown. So do their modern counterparts, who are trying to prove it still is, and to keep little pieces of it that way.

On the way to Farallones, back on the first day, the group stopped by the side of the road for a bathroom break. Though it’s currently the only road connecting all the cities in Cuba’s northeast, they didn’t bother to properly pull over. They climbed out, dusty and jeep-shook. Not a car passed. After they’d all returned from their visits to the surrounding woods, they stood stretching their legs quietly until Gallagher intoned, in his best voiceover impression as he gazed toward the trees, “And they stopped for a bathroom break, and suddenly, there was an Ivory-Billed!,” his face lit brighter than two bottles of prosecco at the possibility.

Republished on The Cuban Birder under license from Audubon Magazine and photographer Greg Kahn Taken from: https://www.audubon. org/magazine/may-june-2016/ can-ivory-billed-woodpecker-befound-cuba

The Cuban Birder / November 2021 / Issue 4 23

Cuban cacti

and birds, links to investigate

By: José Miguel Acuña

I

t is well-known that birds maintain a relationship with the botanical environment where they live; in the search for food, protection and places to nest, birds get many of these resources from plants. In Cuba we find the greatest diversity of botanical genera and species in the insular Caribbean and the number of endemic species makes Cuba a center of dispersion and a hotspot in the area.

Within the varied Cuban ecosystems the semi-arid and sub-humid dry environments that predominate in some areas of plains, mountains and in most coasts of the island, stand out.

Here the plant formations of semi-deciduous microphyllous forests, mogotes vegetation complex, coastal and sub-coastal xeromorphic scrubs constitute excellent refuges of flora and fauna. More than 80 species of animals and more than 2900 plant species are typical of these regions (González et al. 2009), where the cactus family is one of the most striking and unique.

Recently, the study of Cuban cacti has been increasing.

Among the most relevant results in reproductive biology is the discovery of strictly nocturnal pollination carried out by Mono-

phyllus redmani (Long-Tongued Bat) for the nocturnal flower of the cactus Leptocereus scopulophilus, which is endemic and critically endangered. It has a restricted range in Puerto Escondido and Pan de Matanzas (Barrios et al. 2011). This study showed that, due to the lack of diurnal receptivity, for a few hours in the morning there are visitors who feed on nectar and pollen without interfering in pollination, in this case Riccordia ricordii (Cuban Emerald) and Mellisuga helenae (Bee Hummingbird).

Although these birds do not provide direct benefits to L. scopulophilus, this cactus provides safe feeding at the end of the dry period between March and May during its peak flowering, being an important nutritional support.

Another notable example is the genus Melocactus. These cactus species have self-ferti-

24 The Cuban Birder / November 2021 / Issue 4

lizing flowers (they do not need to be crossed with another specimen). However, in certain localities where Melocactus harlowii grows in Cuba it has been noted that some plants do not have the capacity to self-fertilize, so the constant visit of hummingbirds in the denser populations could influence the high local morphological and therefore genetic, variability. In other South American Melocactus it has been found that those visited by several species of hummingbirds are not prone to being self-fertilizing.

But the Cuban context is different because only R. ricordii (Cuban Emerald) is reported in semi-desert areas of Guantánamo.

Another important aspect is the feeding of birds on cactus fruits and the dispersion of seeds. Mimus polyglottos (Northern Mockingbird), Icterus melanopsis (Cuban Orio-

Within the varied Cuban ecosystems the semi-arid and sub-humid dry environments that predominate in some areas of plains, mountains and in most coasts of the island, stand out

The Cuban Birder / November 2021 / Issue 4 25

le), Tiaris olivaceus (Yellow-faced Grassquit), Melanerpes superciliaris (West Indian Woodpecker) and Torreornis inexpectata (Zapata Sparrow), the latter in the town of Baitiquirí (Garrido and Kirkconnell 2010), have been viewed, reported or photographed feeding on fruits of several species of cacti, including Stenocereus fimbriatus, Pilosocereus brooksianus, Melocactus harlowii and Harrisia fernowii. Those birds could be their disseminators in semi-desert areas near the shores and mountains of Granma, Santiago de Cuba and Guantánamo provinces. It is possible that other species of birds that inhabit these areas, such as Melopyrrha nigra (Cuban Bullfinch), Phonipara canora (Cuban Grassquit) and Polioptila lembeyei (Cuban Gnatcatcher), include cactus fruits in their menu or perhaps take advantage of the insects found in these fruits when ripe, confirming the value that the presence of cacti and their fruits represent in the diet of birds in hostile environments of extreme drought.

In addition to resident birds, migratory birds also seem to take advantage of these fruits to restock energy during their stay in Cuba or to continue their journey. Cacti such as Pilosocereus millspaughii (in the Jardines del Rey Archipelago and the north coast of Las Tunas and Holguín provinces) and Pilosocereus robinii (in the north of Mayabeque and Matanzas provinces) have populations that match exactly with the migratory bird stopover areas in southern Florida and the keys. The same happens with Stenocereus fimbriatus in south-east coast of Cuba and its distribution in other islands of the Greater Antilles. Some warblers and thrushes might prefer this food as a supplement to their insect diets.

The presence of Mammillaria prolifera was recently reported in an area of the coast of San26 The Cuban Birder / November 2021 / Issue 4

PHOTo: JOSÉ MIGUEL ACUÑA

ta Cruz del Norte (Pantoja and Acuña, 2020), in a habitat where six other cactus species grow.

M. prolifera is a small cactus that grows in the mogotes of Pinar del Río, the mountains of Camagüey and in the semi-desert areas of Guantánamo but the variety reported on the coast of Mayabeque corresponds to the Mexican form with yellow spines, common in growing crops. Because the town of Santa Cruz is located more than five kilometers from the place of discovery, everything indicates that a bird dispersed the seeds in the place conducive to its development, and it is

highly possible that warblers, which given their flying skills and adaptability to urban environments, are the most likely to be the dispersing agents.

There are still many studies to be done on the natural history of Cuban birds and cacti. Reporting these behaviors is invaluable in analyzing ecology, reproductive biology, and distribution patterns of both. I invite everyone to always link birdwatching not only with the art of photography, but also with botany, geology and other scientific branches. For this, the eBird platform is a useful tool when compiling those kinds of data. And

of course, share your photos of birds with cacti together!

Reference: - Barrios D., González-Torres L. R. and Palmarola A. 2011a. Biology of Leptocereus scopulophilus (Cactaceae) pollination in Pan de Matanzas, Cuba. Revista del Jardín Botánico Nacional vol. 32-33: 163-168.

- Garrido O. H. and Kirkconnell A. 2010. Birds of Cuba. Cornell University Press.

- González J., Bridón D. and de la Colina A. J. 2009. Part One: Arid and Semi-Arid Ecosystems. In A. J. de la Colina (ed.). Fragile Ecosystems in Cuba. A Geographical Approximation. GEOTECH Publishing. 38-47.

The Cuban Birder / November 2021 / Issue 4 27

Flock of Black-necked Stilts in Playa del Chivo, Havana Photo: Vladimir Mirabal

28 The Cuban Birder / November 2021 / Issue 4

A Lady Who Flies By: Leonid Prado

I

watch and it gives me the same feeling that those beautiful Hollywood actresses do when they walk the red carpet on the night of the Oscars. Her elegance and grace when walking remind me of those slender and long-legged models that parade on the catwalks of Victoria Secret. Any admirer of human female beauty would surely feel the same emotions when they saw that little bird known as Black-necked Stilt show up.

This beautiful bird is widely distributed throughout the Antilles. Adapted for wading through water, it lives on muddy beaches covered by high tides, as well as ponds and marshes.

The Black-necked Stilt scientific name is Himantopus mexicanus, it belongs to the order Charadriiformes as well as a large number of species including terns, sandpipers, plovers and gulls. Recurvirostridae is the family to which Black-necked Stilt belongs, and that family includes avocets.

Its main features are long, thin pink legs and a well-proportioned long, thin bill. The body is white below and black on the back. It has a black crown that startsfrom the eye and continues through the nape and resembles

a mask. Its wings are short and triangular.

Habitat and foraging They are usually found in mixed flocks with other species. Their diet includes aquatic insects and

other small invertebrates, usually found by stirring the mud with their beak from side to side while pecking at the surface of the water.

Breeding According to studies of the Department of Animal and Human Biology of the Faculty of Biology of the University of Havana, in Cuba the breeding period for this species starts at the end of March and extends until August. They form colonies of several pairs and

a considerable separation between each nest between 15 and 20 meters has been observed and calculated, probably as an adaptation against predation.

It nests in the ground among grasses and reeds and sometimes builds a floating nest with aquatic plants. It commonly lays four eggs. Both birds incubate the eggs for between 22 and 26 days. The average dimensions of the eggs measured in Cuba are around 4 cm. The eggs are highly camouflaged,

usually olive-colored, densely dotted with black spots. The young are able to fly between 28 and 32 days after hatching.

At approximately 40 cm long, this bird delights observers with its simplicity and slenderness every time it appears. Undoubtedly, a poet in love would find in her a lady who flies.

The Cuban Birder / November 2021 / Issue 4 29

RARITIES ROUND-UP

Long-billed Curlew / Zarapico Pico de Cimitarra Grande / Numenius americanus found by Jorge Uría and Vladimir Mirabal in the sands of Brisas del Mar, Guanabo, on August 18, 2021.

This species is a Rare Vagrant in Cuba and there are very few previous records. https://ebird. org/caribbean/checklist/S93439548 Jorge Uría: “What a treat when I watch a species that only dreamed of! I only got to see it in books and wanted to see it so badly, but it was only dreams… then suddenly ... Plaff! It was right in front of me! My legs tremble, the camera trembles, I bend down to be able to rest my elbows on my legs to stop the shaking. I try to take a good shot, usually thinking of my followers on Facebook, so that you see a good photo. Everything passes quickly through my mind: a new species, show it! It has to look good and I keep trembling… here you have it.”

The Acadian Flycatcher / Bobito Verde / Empidonax virescens is a Rare Transient species in Cuba.

This solitary individual was observed by Jorge Uría, Marcos Verdecia, Jean Carlos Vega and Vladimir Mirabal in the surroundings of Morro Castle, in Havana, on September 12, 2021. https://ebird.org/caribbean/checklist/S94608570 30 The Cuban Birder / November 2021 / Issue 4

This Red-necked Phalarope / Zarapico Nadador/ Phalaropus lobatus was found by Marcos Verdecia at Playa del Chivo, Havana, on September 4, 2021 and it´s a Very Rare species in Cuba with fewer than five records historically. https://ebird.org/caribbean/checklist/ S94181777 Marcos Verdecia: Best of all was this!!! I was taking pictures of a couple of Black-necked Stilts when I saw it among the sandpipers.

I took this picture (quite bad) and looked at the camera screen for a second. By the time I looked up, it had already vanished. The interesting thing is that apparently this species has fewer than five reports for Cuba. So I was very lucky!!!”

On October 10 and 11, friends Jean Carlos Vega and Marcos Verdecia, respectively, photographed two specimens of the Canada Warbler / Bijirita de Canadá / Cardellina canadensis in the Havana municipality of El Cerro. All in all, there are only about ten records of this species in Cuba!! https://ebird.org/caribbean/checklist/ S96049756

The Cuban Birder / November 2021 / Issue 4 31

Hotspots

in the province of Granma By: José Eugenio Martínez González

G

ranma, in eastern Cuba, has the greatest variety of landscapes in the island. Its geography includes areas of wetlands, rocky coasts, mangroves, beaches, extensive plains and some of the highest mountains of the archipelago. This offers a wide range of ecosystems with a large number and variety of excellent sites for birdwatching. In this article we will try to describe some of them, from the point of view of the amateur birder.

Desembarco del Granma National Park It is one of the most important national parks in the country, internationally recognized as a UNESCO Natural World Heritage Site. It covers several interesting places to observe about 110 species of birds, among them the Monument to the Landing of the Yacht Granma. There is a trail that crosses a swamp strip more than 800 meters wide, which includes the mangrove forest itself, coastal lagoons and swampy areas, giving the possibility of watching, without getting wet, all the great diversity of birds such as Sandpipers, Limpkin, ibises, Oriente Warbler, Flamingos, Cuban Black Hawk and many more that inhabit this exceptional ecosystem.

A few kilometers further south on the road to Cabo Cruz,

you will find the El Guafe trail through the dry forest of typical vegetation, where you can see species such as Cuban Bullfinch, Western Spindalis, Yellow-faced and Cuban Grassquits, White-crowned Pigeon and Gundlach´s Hawk, in a journey of just a few hours. To the east and south of the trail extends a large area of well-preserved dry mountain vegetation, which can be explored with some effort and a good tour guide, to try to also observe the Cuban Gnatcatcher and the Blue-headed Quail-Dove, among other birds. Some studies also report Cuban Parrots and Bee Hummingbirds in the area.

At the end of the road you reach Cabo Cruz, a small fishing community located in that “corner” of Cuba with the same geographical name. It is bordered to the north by a marshy coast where species of this type of ecosystems abound and to the south by a coral barrier and a very deep area of the Caribbean Sea. There are possibilities of finding shorebird species, even oceanic, among which the White-tailed Tropicbird stands out, which has one of the two nesting sites in Cuba in the area.

You can start birdwatching from the community of Las Coloradas, right at the entrance of the park, where there is a camping site next to several rental houses both there and in Cabo

32 The Cuban Birder / November 2021 / Issue 4

Cruz which facilitate the organization of expeditions of several days throughout the area.

Delta of the Cauto River Almost at the mouth of the Cauto River is a complex network of lagoons, estuaries, swamps and channels that constitute the second largest wetland in Cuba, and all the islands of the Caribbean. Its importance for birdwatching is such that it has the protection category of Wildlife Refuge at the national level and is recognized as a Ramsar site internationally. More than 105 species are reported there, with a large concentration of migratory birds, highlighting several species of shorebirds and ducks, as well as nature´s majestic displays such as the nesting of about 50,000 American Flamingos. Access is possible from Bayamo or from the municipality of Río Cauto.

Turquino National Park (Granma Sector).

It begins in the mountain community of Santo Domingo, in the municipality of Bartolomé Masó. The forest formations of the area change with height, from the predominant semi-deciduous forest to the montane forest and the mountain rain forest at higher altitudes. It is not difficult to imagine the diversity of birds that the birder will

find in the place, among which we can mention Cuban Solitaire, Cuban Crow, Stygian Owl, Giant Kingbird, White-collared Swift and Black Swift. In some sections the abundance and singing of Cuban Trogons, Oriente Warblers and woodpeckers becomes overwhelming. The road is paved up to Alto del Naranjo and from there are several well-signposted trails, and facilities to spend the night at certain points. Very knowledgeable local guides and rental houses in Santo Domingo facilitate expeditions.

We recommend to always access the place in vehicles in good technical condition and with drivers familiar with the area, since the road from Santo Domingo to Alto del Naranjo has the steepest slopes of all roads in Cuba.

The Cupainicú Botanical Garden It is located in Guisa municipality. It is the only Botanical Garden in the country with a natural forest: Monte Cupainicú, which at the same time is a protected area, with the category of Protected Natural Landscape. It is an excellent place to observe birds. About 85 species have been reported, among them Yellow-faced and Cuban Grassquits, Cuban Green and West Indian Woodpeckers, White-winged Dove, Mourning Dove, Scaly-naped Pigeon, Cuban Trogon, Cuban Tody, Cuban Pygmy-Owl and Bare-legged Owl, Cuban Pewee, La Sagra´s Flycatcher and Loggerhead Kingbird. In addition, it offers the opportunity to easily observe many species of warblers and other winter residents. Among the advantages of the area are its easy access from Bayamo, the infrastructure that facilitates the visit and the convenience of being able to observe a large number of species without too much effort. Yasmani Díaz, local guide and Carlos Arévalo, specialist of the protected area are members of the Birdwatchers

Club of Granma and can serve as excellent hosts to the visitor.

Marea del Portillo It is a small community in the municipality of Pilón, a place with peculiar vegetation and landscapes, because it is located on the southern slope of the Sierra Maestra, and close to the sea, where the regimes of rain and wind differ from those of the northern slope. Ninety-three species of bird have been reported at the site. Oriente Warbler, Cuban Parakeet, Yellow-faced and Cuban Grassquits, Cuban Bullfinch, Western Spindalis and many more, including shorebirds and oceanic species, are relatively easy to find in the area especially if you are accompanied by Ricel Polan, member of the Granma Birdwatchers Club and excellent local guide.

The rice fields between Veguitas and Manzanillo.

They are spectacular places to observe dozens of species of birds very easily. The ecosystem provided by the rice fields attracts all kinds of shorebirds, such as sandpipers, Black-necked Stilt, White and Glossy Ibis, herons, Roseate Spoonbill, night-herons and gulls, without forgetting also the Snail Kite, Belted Kingfisher and Limpkin. The birdwatcher

can easily visit them and it is even possible to observe the birds from the road or from the Bayamo-Manzanillo train.

Granma Park It is an urban park of very easy access in Bayamo. It includes a forest area, a lagoon and the Manegua Stream. My personal list of birds observed in Granma Park amounts to more than 80 species, among which about 20 warblers and other winter residents are included, Limpkin, Smooth-billed Ani, Mourning and White-winged Doves, Common Ground Dove, Northern Mockingbird, Cuban Blackbird among others are abundant; recently specimens of Broad-winged Hawk, Cuban Pygmy-Owl, Great-Lizard Cuckoo, Cuban Tody and tanagers have been reported. Every year there are surprises.

These are just a few sites that I recommend for birdwatching, photography or bird counting in Granma, but they are not the only ones, there are other protected areas in the province that are worth visiting, as well as areas little explored yet. There are many more places waiting to be studied.

Also keep in mind that in your backyard, a park, a coffee plantation, a stream or the nearby forest there are many birds to observe.

Come out and see!

The Cuban Birder / November 2021 / Issue 4 33

Basic Guide for

birdwatching beginners Por: V. M.

I

f you like to be in contact with nature, admire birds in the wild and perhaps have ever thought of being able to observe birds and photograph them, this is the best time to take that step. In Cuba there is a great diversity of birds and many places to watch them very close to where you live. But wait a minute... Where should I go? If I see a bird, how can I identify it? What equipment should I use? Who am I going with? In this article we will help you to answer these and other questions, and so you will see that it will be much easier than you thought to get started in this exciting and noble pastime.

No-one knows the sounds and movements of nature as well as a birdwatcher. It only takes them half a second to recognize a feathered image of colors e.g. brown, yellow, red, etc. and some notes that sound like a “chip”, to know what kind of bird it is. For this, birdwatchers must quickly process a lot of information about color patterns, singing and calling notes, beak shapes, legs, habitat, time of year and many more data.

Through the training of their senses, the birdwatcher develops visual and acoustic skills. In fact, they are much more perceptive and analytical than the average person. In the first attempts to identify even the most common species a beginner can become extremely frustrated, which is

34 The Cuban Birder / November 2021 / Issue 4

why many people give up before they actually begin their training.

We hope that with the help of this Basic Guide you will forget those frustrations and together we can become better birdwatchers.

Going out into the green spaces Leaving home to the nearest green spots, following the rules of physical distancing and protection measures against COVID19, are the first step. You don’t have to travel a long way to reach those idyllic places which everyone talks about. Going to the nearest park, or to that wooded spot with a pond, and even to a port or beach nearby will be enough to have your first expe-

rience. Where will I find birds?

The answer is very simple: anywhere!

Prepare your outing and make a plan. Activate the GPS of your smartphone and build a simple route, you will have time to make it longer. Start by taking the first steps and you will soon gain confidence and make it more complex.

Weather, seasons and birds Weather might often change the outing plan. A rainy day is not recommended to go out to the field to watch birds because you can catch a downpour and ruin the gear and your health.

The strong midday sun is harmful to the skin and also birds are not very active at noon. Take advantage of the early hours of the morning or the late afternoon when the birds feed and preen, and thus become more visible.

In Cuba you can observe birds all year round, however between September and April there are many more because of the arrival of the migratory species that spend the “Cuban winter” here.

That is the best time of year not only because of the number of birds, but because there are fewer mosquitoes and other annoying insects. Besides, it’s less hot!

on Facebook you can download a digital version of this wonderful book Aves en Cuba (Spanish only), by Orlando Garrido and Arturo Kirkconnell, which you can take with you on the phone to consult and study. There is also a free resource on the internet (Play Store), the Merlin Bird ID application that helps you to identify almost all the birds you will find in the field.

A good birdwatcher goes unnoticed. Therefore, in addition to staying as quiet and still as possible, you need to think about your clothes. Avoid using bright colors.

Learn to listen Chances are you’ll hear a bird before you see it.

In fact, if you can recognize their song, you can identify them without seeing them at all.

Don’t worry if you don’t have an experienced birdwatcher to teach you.

There are many “online” resources with which you can learn. Of course, what you hear may not really be the

song of a bird. Be alert for other sounds like pecking, scratching, or fussing.

Keep your distance When you see a bird, it’s easy to get excited and try to get as close as possible. If a bird you’re watching flies away, it’s probably because it wants to keep a safe distance. You have to make sure you respect that distance.

There’s no point chasing birds; it’s a race you’re not going to win. On top of that, it is likely to cause unnecessary stress to the bird.

Special care should be taken if you encounter a bird that is nesting, as any disturbance could cause the bird to leave its nest.

Chances are you’ll hear a bird before you see it.

In fact, if you can recognize their song, you can identify them without seeing them at all.

Identifying birds There are five basic clues with which you can decipher the puzzle of bird identification: 1.- The shape and / or silhouette of the bird.

2.- Their plumage and coloration.

3.- Their behavior.

The necessary equipment

PHoto: LEONID PRADO

We already know that a pair of binoculars or a camera are not very easy to get in Cuba, but maybe getting one is not so complicated. We Cubans are very keen to share and probably with a pair of binoculars two or three people can go birdwatching without too much trouble. You can go out to the field without any equipment at all, but it would be very challenging because birds move fast and many of them are small, so it´s best to use some optical gear to make it easier.

A field guide is another requirement that you should not forget. In The Cuban Birders Club The Cuban Birder / November 2021 / Issue 4 35

Useful tools for bird watchers in Cuba

TIPS

!!

There are two general rules that you should keep in mind during your first birdwatching outings: 1.- Do not try to identify or look for rare species, focus instead on the common birds in the area, so that this way you can recognize something rare when it shows up.

36 The Cuban Birder / November 2021 / Issue 4

4.- Their habitat preferences.

5.- Their voice, calling or singing.

As you become familiar with the field guide, you’ll be able to quickly categorize the majority of the birds in families using only the shape of the bird (remember that every family has a form that characterizes it). This will allow you to immediately place a certain bird in a particular family, thus you will have reduced the possibilities of all the species in the guide.

The shape of the bird’s beak is also an extremely valuable key that is obvious as part of the silhouette. Cardinals, seed-eaters and sparrows have short, conical beaks. Woodpeckers have chisel-shaped beaks for working on wood. On the other hand, eagles and hawks have beaks with sharp edges and hooks that make it easier to deal with meat. Shorebirds have thin beaks of different lengths that allow them to search the sand and mud.

The characteristics of plumage are what have really led many people to choose bird watching as a hobby because we like to see the beautiful and varied colors, patterns and shapes. The distinctive plumages that help identify different bird species are known as field marks. These include patterns such as chest spots, wing bars, eyerings, eyebrows and many other features.

Some field marks can be better seen when the bird is in flight.

The behavior of a bird, such as the way it flies, looks for its

2.- Take notes and important data that can help you with future identifications.

These two rules are closely linked to each other, and relate to making birdwatching easier by reducing the number of possibilities you have to consider.

PHoto: LEONID PRADO

food, or its behavior in general, are the best clues with which they can be identified. Woodpeckers climb trees in search of food. Flycatchers spend most of their time perched on an exposed branch and when they see an insect they quickly fly out, snatch their prey and return to the same perch. Seed-eaters spend a lot of time in the ground looking for seeds. On the other hand, shorebirds spend their time searching for food in shallow waters.

In many cases, the behavior is the key to identify specific species, as for example the Spotted Sandpiper and the Louisiana Waterthrush move their tail constantly up and down. Another clear example is the undulating flight of woodpec-

kers and some seed-eaters; birds of prey, on the other hand are like floating in the air, suspended with outstretched wings, but within this group are some exceptions, for example the falcons fly with strong wingbeats and rarely glide.

All these features should always be taken into consideration, depending on the habitat.

A disadvantage of visual signals is that they can only send messages over short distances. To send a signal further the birds use sound. There is a difference between singing and calling. Calls tend to be short, they are completely inherited and are made by both males and females. The songs, on the other hand, tend to be longer and more complicated, involve

The characteristics of plumage are what have really led many people to choose bird watching as a hobby because we like to see the beautiful and varied colors, patterns and shapes.

learning and tend to be produced only by the males.

Calls work to send alarms to warn of danger, to maintain contact within a group, and to recognize individuals (which is particularly important for offspring and their parents in breeding colonies). Singing is used to proclaim the identity of an individual.

Use the citizen science platform www.ebird.org/caribbean Sightings can be recorded in any way that is the easiest. There are those who prefer to take written notes of the species and their number along the route, there are others who memorize everything until the end of the excursion. The most important thing is not to lose details and to make a reliable record of what is observed in the field. Once you’re done, you should take some time to make a list and share it on www.ebird.org/caribbean. This way, your experience adds to that of many others to help scientists establish species conservation parameters, monitor the quantities and diversity of birds in a given period of time and area, etc.

The Cuban Birder / November 2021 / Issue 4 37

Havana Already Has Its Birdwatching Club By: V. M.

A

s part of the events related to World Migratory Bird Day, on October 9, almost thirty people from Havana gathered in Lenin Park, ready to found the first Birdwatchers Club in the country. They were all united by the love for free birds and the desire to share their experiences, desires and expectations regarding the protection and care of the Cuban avifauna with the other members.

The Havana Birdwatchers Club was born as part of the initiatives of Birding Havana and the Cuban Birdwatchers Club on Facebook, with the support of Birds Caribbean and other generous people, to promote bird watching in Cuba as a mean to increase citizen awareness and participation in the protection of birds and their habitats.

The Club was formed with the primary objective to promote the respect, the love and protection of birds and their natural environments in the country’s capital, as well as to encourage the study and general knowled-

ge about the birds, their breeding and foraging habits, migratory movements, and everything related that contribute to creating a greater awareness of their importance for the natural balance of biodiversity, on the premise that “you can’t love what you don’t know”. Membership of the Club and all activities generated by it are free.

At the time of the foundation, there were people from the ca-

pital’s municipalities of Guanabacoa, Habana el Este, El Cerro, Playa, Plaza and 10 de Octubre, among others. Women, children and teenagers left their indelible mark! The less young founder, charismatic Francisco Prado, 71 years old, spoke of the present and the future, and we all became attentive ears! Unity and desire to work together were breathed, the eyes shone and the emotion for the solemnity of the act invaded the air. It was a beautiful moment of citizen spontaneity, of common goals and passions, of freedom. At the end of the signing of the commitment of the founding members, the group dispersed through the field and the bird counting began. ¡¡CONGRATULATIONS TO THE FOUNDERS!!!!

Text of commitment: - I will feel the pain and sorrow of caged birds, the looting of nests, the trafficking of species, the destruction of natural environments and everything that affects the welfare of birds and their reproduction.

- I will continue to study and learn about birds and their importance for maintaining the natural balance of biodiversity on the planet because you can’t love what you don’t know.

- I will participate actively, as far as possible, in the activities organized by the Club and I will contribute, from my possibilities, everything that contributes to a greater dynamism in the functioning of it.

- My membership to the Club will serve to attract and convince others in my family, work and social environment about the importance of the care and protection of birds and their habitats.

38 The Cuban Birder / November 2021 / Issue 4

PHotos: Frank G. Batista

The Cuban Birder / November 2021 / Issue 4 39

Rapid Exposure Adjustments Taken from the book Secrets of Digital Bird Photography. Tools and Techniques.

By: W.H. Majoros

D

uring intense shooting situations, it can be important to be able to very rapidly adjust exposure. This is true whether you’re using manual exposure or one of the automatic exposure modes.

A very common scenario is one in which the bird or birds you’re working keep moving in and out of the shade. In a complex environment, the shady areas may be extensively interspersed with the sunny areas, so that movement of the bird between shade and sun may happen every few seconds. Although spot metering may work well for you in some of these situations, in others you may find that the metering sensor is larger or smaller than the bird, so that the meter reading is affected by other parts of the scene besides the bird. I’ve had little luck with spot metering, especially for small birds such as warblers, and have therefore tended to opt for either evaluative/matrix metering coupled with aperture-priority (Av) exposure mode, or more recently by simply using fully manual mode most of the time (and disregarding the meter reading).

When using evaluative metering and automatic exposure (Av or Tv), changes to the exposure level can be made very ra-

pidly via exposure compensation (EC) settings, as long as the EC is mapped to a conveniently accessible dial or other control on your camera (such as a joystick or pair of buttons). After taking a shot and then quickly glancing at the image as it briefly displays on the camera’s LCD, you may decide to dial in a +1 or -1 adjustment on the EC control before taking the next shot. Typically, you’ll only need to make a few such adjustments before getting the exposure you want—as long as the bird doesn’t move from the sun to the shade (or vice versa). Once you’ve found a suitable EC setting— say, -2 for example—that works well while the bird is in the sun, you can then concentrate on finding a setting that works well when that bird moves into the shade.

Suppose that +3 works well in the shade for this particular bird.

Making a mental note of these two settings—+3 for the shade and -2 for the sun—will allow you to more efficiently work this particular bird for the duration of the shoot. Every time the bird moves from the sun to the shade, you can simply turn the EC dial 5 clicks—from -2 to +3—without taking your eye from the viewfinder. When it moves back into the sun, you turn the dial 5 clicks in the other direction. As long as you don’t accidentally turn the dial the wrong number of clicks, or in the wrong direction, this

40 The Cuban Birder / November 2021 / Issue 4

strategy can be very quick and very effective.

The same strategy works in manual mode, except that you need to select one or more parameters—aperture, shutter speed, or ISO —to swap between the sunny and shady scenes (or when rapidly switching between a light-colored bird and a dark one). The selection of parameter(s) to adjust is often dictated for you by the shooting scenario. If, for example, your shutter speed is already at the lower limit for eliminating motion blur, and your aperture is already wide open (or as wide as your lens can open without compromising sharpness), then you’ll probably want to stick to adjusting ISO—taking care, of course, not to increase the ISO to such a high value that your image is excessively noisy. Regardless which exposure mode you use, it’s best if your camera allows you to remap the exposure controls (such as EC, ISO, etc.) to the most accessible dial on your camera, as noted earlier in this chapter. My current camera has two dials, one on top next to the shutter release, and one on the back next to the LCD. Since adjusting the top dial requires taking my index finger off of the shutter release, I prefer to make most of my adjustments with the back dial, since my thumb is always free to adjust that.

PHOTO: VLADIMIR MIRABAL

Thus, whichever parameter (ISO, aperture, shutter speed) I’m modifying the most in a particular shooting scenario is the parameter that I map to the back dial.

That way I can adjust the exposure without having to lift my finger off the shutter release, which is useful when using the focus-and-recompose method (or when tracking a bird in continuous AF mode). People who are especially coordinated may be able to operate the shutter release with the middle finger, the top dial with the index finger, and the back dial with the thumb, all at the same time.

Finally, note that making adjustments to exposure becomes more complicated when using flash, since flash violates the rule of reciprocity mentioned earlier.

Furthermore, in flash photography we have to manage not only the overall exposure level, but also the flash ratio—that is, the ratio of flash light to ambient light (from the sun).

PHOTO: VLADIMIR MIRABAL

Photographing warblers is challenging because of their rapid movements between branches and constant changes of light and shadow in the scene. This Cape May Warbler / Setophaga Tigrina is an example of this.

Small birds like our endemic Yellow-headed Warbler/Teretistris fernandinae require the photographer to make exposure adjustments quickly because they don’t always stay on the same branch for long.

The Cuban Birder / November 2021 / Issue 4 41

Your multimedia on line Some Q&A about multimedia files on eBird.

Taken from ebird.org

B

ird watching is a hobby developed as leisure, with the aim of knowing about the different species of wild birds. Some of us limit ourselves to creating a list of the birds that occur in a specific area. Others keep a count of the different species they have observed throughout their lives, while others focus on a specific bird species. Everyone takes this hobby his own way. There are those who simply enjoy the walk through the natural environment and there are also those who delve into more scientific concepts of birds, the science known as ornithology.

In order to continue contributing to the citizen science proposed by the eBird platform, here we reproduce several of the most frequently asked questions, with their answers, related to the subject of the photographs, videos and multimedia files that we upload to this site. We hope they are of interest and help you to continue advancing and contributing to the knowledge of the birds of our country.

I have a “terrible” photo, should I upload it?

Is the bird marked as unusual in eBird, and can you tell what species it is? If so, then yes! Even the worst quality photos are valuable if they can be used to establish the identification of a bird.

In the case of documenting a rare or unusual sighting, ANY photo is often better than no photo!

What is the copyright status of my media on eBird?

All your media is copyright YOU. The Cornell Lab is allowed to use media that you upload for not-for-profit uses in eBird, the Macaulay Library, and other Cornell Lab resources. We will not sublicense your photos or sounds to any third party for commercial use without your permission.

Whenever the Cornell Lab uses your media, you will be attributed.

Can I use photos from other people’s eBird checklists?

The Macaulay Library archive is primarily a data repository for research purposes. It is not an open repository of rich media available to the general public for any and all use. Assets in the collection are owned by the original author (e.g., photographer/ recordist), and the copyright lies with each author unless otherwise indicated. It is not appropriate to download these assets for general third party use, without permission from the author.

Where are my photos and recordings stored and how can I access them?

The images uploaded to eBird through the media upload process are archived in the Macaulay Library. You can download the original files of your media by viewing the asset page (e.g.

ML###) and clicking ‘Download Original’ in the lower right corner.

You can also download an organized spreadsheet of the metadata for your personal media assets in eBird/ML, much like with your eBird checklists

42 The Cuban Birder / November 2021 / Issue 4

themselves. Just go to your eBird Profile page and click ‘View All’ next to ‘Latest Photos’ or use the Media Search to access your media gallery by searching for your name under ‘Contributor.’ Once there, you can click the blue ‘Save Spreadsheet’ link in the top right corner and begin the download.

Why can’t I upload more/ larger files?

The current file limits are 10 photos per species and 10MB per image. The limiting factor for any media hosting is the technology required to upload, process, and maintain the files that people contribute. As technology improves over the years, we may eventually increase these limits.

Why does it take so long to upload my images?

Several processes take place when you upload your photos to eBird. There are two primary reasons it might take longer than expected to upload photos: Slow connection: the speed in which your files are transferred to eBird depends largely on your internet connection and bandwidth. Faster connection speeds mean faster upload times. Bigger files take longer, so if your connection is slow, considering limiting the file sizes of your images/sounds to something smaller.

The photo “ingestion” process: this occurs on our end.

Once we receive the file, we ingest it into the database, convert the file to a smaller version for display, and send it back to the eBird checklist. This process

usually happens instantaneously, but if there is a lot of traffic, it’s possible that your files will be put into a processing queue, which could result in minor delays. If a file isn’t uploading or the process isn’t completing in a timely manner, please let us know at ebird@cornell.edu.

Can I upload video to my checklists?

The Macaulay Library currently archives selected videos from professional bird videographers, researchers, and trained Cornell Lab staff and students. If you are an experienced videographer who would like to participate in our limited video testing group, click here to learn more: https://support. ebird.org/en/support/solu-

tions/articles/48001064364-video-uploadguidelines).

You may also see videos that were imported during the transition of media items from the Internet Bird Collection (IBC) to the Macaulay Library. These video items were previously archived, and most IBC users do not have the ability to upload new video items at this time.

How do I add a photo or sound recording on eBird Mobile?

At this time, there is no way to add a photo or recording to your checklist through eBird Mobile. If you would like to upload a photo to your checklist using your phone: 1. Open eBird Mobile and tap Checklists (at the bottom of the screen) then select “Submitted”

2. Tap the checklist you want to add photos to 3. Tap “eBird.org” at the bottom of the screen 4. Select the green “Add media” button and follow our Add Photos and Audio instructions (https://support.ebird.org/ en/support/solutions/articles/48000825713-add-photos-and-sounds#anchorAddMedia) to upload your photos.

You will be able to access and upload images from your phone’s photo gallery.

If you don’t see the green “Add media” button, make sure you are logged in to eBird; you should see your username in the upper right corner of the checklist page.

The Cuban Birder / November 2021 / Issue 4 43

PHoto: Michael J. Good

The Jewels of

Spectacular By: Michael J. Good* 19 years ago, I had an opportunity to be an ambassador to Cuba and lead my first Cuba Bird Survey in a country whose ecology I have now come to love as deeply as my own home. During February 2022, I am looking forward to leading a Cuban Bird Survey with my friend and colleague Jim Wright, author of the recently published, “The Real James Bond”, and a team of bir-

CUBA

ders for Caribbean Conservation Trust. We are prepared to put our trust and lives in the hands of both the Cuban and American people and governments to safely manage the Covid situation recently politicized by the uneducated previous administration.

I have also come to know Cuba’s vital importance to the ecological stability of America and our continents bird populations. For example, 80% of the Black-throated Blue Warbler po-

44 The Cuban Birder / November 2021 / Issue 4

pulation overwinter in Cuba and there are over a hundred species of birds, including many of our eastern warblers that winter in Cuba too. Cuba and America are connected by our birds American must allow Cuba to thrive socially and ecologically. A degraded Cuba plus the uncertainties of Climate Change create an unprecedented national security threat to our nation if we cannot find solutions to the current economic threats from the neanderthal Cuban Embar-

PHotoS: Michael J. Good

go. America’s government must end the Cuban Embargo because our economies are both dependent on healthy and thriving ecological systems.

Over these decades of work in Cuba, I have met some of the most hard working and creative people, seen the dedication of the Cuban people and have watched them overcome the complexities of political upheaval and now the Covid-19 nightmare madness instigated by the outgoing American president.

Nothing over the last 4 years has made much sense and the degradation of Cuba, out of total spite and malice, is one of the most colossal blunders of American national policy, one with potentially devastating ecological ramifications for our collective bird populations and posing a serious national security threat to both Cuba and America.

During my amazing years of travel in Cuba I have met some of the most intriguing, talented people and ornithologists, all dedicated to a deeper understanding of Cuba. Almost the entire eastern US bird flyway travels to or through Cuba. America is connected to Cuba ecologically and therefore America must find political pathways that maintain the ecological stability currently found in Cuba. Cuba’s ecology and ecological health is vital to the ecological security of the United States.

Cuban and American ornithologist are also increasingly concerned about the illegal Cuban Caged Bird Trade, currently allowed to function in the open throughout Cuba. Migratory birds breeding in North America are caught in nets and other despicable ways along the northern coastlines of Cuba. These wild birds are then sold and bought by Cuban people and sold through the illegal bird trade. Because of these unchecked policies, wild bird populations are suffering because the Cuban

Almost the entire eastern US bird flyway travels to or through Cuba. America is connected to Cuba ecologically and therefore America must find political pathways that maintain the ecological stability currently found in Cuba.

The Cuban Birder / November 2021 / Issue 4 45

PHotoS: Michael J. Good

opportunity to study wintering Neotropical bird populations on a pelagic island where many of our eastern American breeding ducks, warblers, vireo’s and flycatchers cohabitate forests, fields and waters with Cuba’s endemic species. Understanding these interactions and relationships helps me as a biologist to better explain to students the intricacies of migration and an opportunity to photograph the Jewels of Cuba so you can see them too.

Government has decided to turn a blind eye to the destruction of migratory birds. This makes no sense because of the Ecotourism generated in Cuba each year by the bird-watching industry. In America, we enacted the vitally important “ Migratory Bird Treaty Act” and this is exactly what ornithologist would like the Cuban government to do. Pass laws to stop the possession of wild birds and stop the Caged Bird

Trade. This unchecked practice is devastating thousands and thousands of vitally important birds who die needlessly every year in Cuba when they should be preforming ecological services, like eating pest insects or making us all happy by singing in our forests for the tourism industry.

“Why Cuba?”, has been a question often asked me over the years. First of all, I had the

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* Michael J. Good is the president of Down East Nature Tours in Bar Harbor, Maine and lead biologist for Caribbean Conservation Trust in Hamden, CT, which is committed to the conservation of native and migratory birds and their habitats in the greater Caribbean region, specifically in Cuba and Puerto Rico, and including all islands within the Caribbean basin.

The CCT’s regional scope includes the study of neo-tropical migrant bird species moving between North America and the greater Caribbean region, focusing on birds from the east and mid-west of the United States.

Susam,

the Nigerian Girl An unpublished story for children by Marilyn Pérez Prado, Santa Clara, Villa Clara (very active member of the Cuban Birdwatchers Club)

A

long time ago, a Nigerian baseball manager named Abidoye went to Cuba to ask for help from coaches Juan Castro and Pedro Medina, because that country’s athletes wanted to be the Pan-African champions. He was accompanied by his little six-year-old daughter named Susam, they spoke only English.

On their return, as the girl liked birds and the yellow color very much, the Cubans gave her as a present a cage with several Cuban Grassquits, with a nice collar of that intense color in the males and lighter in the females. That’s what they could find because they were on their way back to their town, Kwara.

The plane broke down and crashed in The Bahamas. Everyone appeared except the girl and the Cuban Grassquits. Help came urgently and they looked for several days, but she did not appear. The crying father had to return alone to Africa. The mother almost went mad, and the family and friends, deeply sad, were desperate.

A plane came from Cuba every week. They searched the woods and other places for a while until she was declared missing. They concluded that Susam had been washed away by the flood of the nearby river, because it seemed to have rained a lot the night before the plane crash.

A year and a half later, Abidoye and his wife had another child, whom they named Susam as well, after her.

Meanwhile, Susam who had fallen near a cave whose entrance was hidden by the surroundings bushes, managed to crawl into it with her birds.

As much as they called her, she didn’t answer. She was so scared that she lost her voice and did not come out because she did not hear clearly her father’s voice due to the depth of the cave. When she recovered from the initial shock, as other voices called her, she chose not to respond.

The Grassquits became fond of the little girl, and although she set them free out of the cage, they never abandoned her. They fed on fruits and drank water from the river.

Every night she cried, missing her parents, until he resigned herself to share life with the Grassquits.

In the few days she was in Cuba the local friends tried to get her to memorize some words. She just pronounced chi instead of sí. Imagine the Grassquits teaching her Spanish! What little she learned she spoke like the aborigines when they said “you,

pale face, come” or “you, black man, I saw you do evil”.

They always saw her watching the yellow flowers. They realized it was the color she liked the most. In that exclusive language she said she wished to see other birds that were yellow.

As they had thought that she could no longer live in that dark cave, they would ask the woodpeckers, the Cuban Green and the Fernandina’s Flicker, for help in building her a little house. They determined that someone would have to go to Cuba to look for them. In addition, they would bring the Cuban Todies, to help in the building process, opening a large hole in the side of the ravine, to protect the house from wind, rains and hurricanes; for this the Todies would ask for help from the Kingfisher, belonging to their genus, as a large bird. So the hole would be wider for the house.

They were also other endemic birds that had the appropriate color to cheer up the girl. Among these, the Cuban Vireo (Ojón), who is a specialized sentinel, because when he sees an intruder he immediately opens his eyes more, observes well

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and gives the alarm; also the Yellow-headed Warblers and Oriente Warblers, since their screeches or songs are cheerful. Thus, when the Ojón, in his watchful turn, warned of any danger, they would scream so high that all the birds and animals of the place, friends of Susam, would come to assist her.

There was also the Zapata Sparrow, who is brave and never afraid.

They all came, from each family of birds, about twenty of them. Something happened with the Ojón and its relative the Chinchiguao (also known as Black-whiskered Vireo), who only visits us to nest in the summer, and that’s why they came at the last minute. The girl waited for them eagerly, assured that, even if they built the new house, if the sentinels did not arrive, she would not leave the cave; when at last they saw that the Ojón Juan was coming, who was leading his own flock; then a Grassquit warned: - Susam, here comes Juan, the Ojón, with his friends!

The Grassquit thought he had not understood it and repeated the phrase with an English word that she taught her: - Susam, look, here comes Juan, the Ojón with his friends! Do you see them?

And she answered: - Juan-chi-vi, Juan-chi-vi! (something like I-do-see-him) They all laughed. When Juan arrived and asked why they were laughing so much, a screaming warbler said: - Juan-chi-ví, Juan-chi-ví, Juan-chi-ví! This is how Susam called them when she recognized them.

Then they continued laughing. But it doesn’t end there; Juan saw his Chichinguaos relatives, while they finished laughing.

- Look, Susam, here come my relatives!

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When Juan was about to repeat the name, Susam came forward to tell him that she had already seen them: - Chi!, bien-te-veo, bien-te-veo, bien-te-veo! (yes, I-see-you-well) They laughed willingly, and the same thing happened with the Ojón, from now on they would be named and sing like that.

The girl repeated happily: - Chi, chi, chi, me like sentinel’s names, Juanchi-ví and Bien-te-veo; me like those songs too!

And this is how those birds got their names forever.

The new house was so beautiful that at night, while she was ready to sleep, the windows looked like closed eyes, for it they covered them with yellow feathers and black eyelashes.

In front of the house they made a wide wooden portal, which had only a small piece of roof that had remained under the ravine; surrounded by trees, shrubs and other plants. The woodpeckers cut them and pulled them together with strong vines to sow them in the holes made by a beaver, so that the home could not be seen, keeping it away from danger. They even built her a bed and a wardrobe!

All the birds, with the exception of those passing through, stayed forever with her, in The Bahamas.

This is a work of fiction inspired by the events that occurred in March 1963 when a plane carrying Cuban Grassquits from Cuba to Spain was forced to land on the island of New Providence, in the Bahamas, due to technical problems. The repair took longer than expected and the birds began to die because of the difficult conditions for them. For that reason, they were released and adapted to their new home. They are now common on this island.

GLOBAL SHOREBIRD COUNT: Despite movement restrictions and the poor epidemiological situation in the country due to COVID 19, between September 1st and 7th the Cuban Birders Club participated in the Global Shorebird Count in several provinces. Here is a summary of what happened: •TOTAL PROVINCES: 6 (Pinar del Río, Artemisa, Havana, Matanzas, Ciego de Ávila and Holguín) •TOTAL BIRDWATCHERS: 23 •TOTAL SITES WHERE BIRDS WERE OBSERVED: 10 •TOTAL SIGHTINGS REPORTED: 537 •TOTAL FIELD TRIPS: 25

Congratulations to everyone for the scientific importance of all the information obtained! You gave us beautiful photos and enriched our knowledge! The praise goes to all of you; the one who got wet in the sea and the rain! The one who got up early and had to crawl in the mud! Give it up!!

Albys Gonzalez Barrera (member of the Club)

MATANZAS

GIBARA, HOLGUÍN

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John Cassin On September 6, 1813, in Pennsylvania, United States, John Cassin was born, who was an ornithologist and algologist. He was considered one of the most important American ornithologists, since he described 198 birds that had not been previously mentioned by Alexander Wilson or

by John James Audubon. Cassin’s best-known works are Illustrations of the Birds of California, Texas, Oregon, British and Russian America (1853-56), and Birds of North America (1860), written together with Spencer Fullerton Baird and George Newbold Lawrence.

His work on the Cuban avifauna is very extensive. He exchanged much information with Juan Cristóbal Gundlach about new and known species of our island.

The arsenic used to preserve bird specimens, just like other ornithologists of his time, affected his health greatly with terrible consequences. He died young at the age of 55 on January 10, 1869.

founders of Ornithology Thomas Barbour On August 19, 1884, Thomas Barbour was born in Massachusetts, United States. A naturalist, herpetologist and ornithologist very famous in Cuba for being the first to describe the famous Ferminia / Zapata Wren / Ferminia cerverai, Cabrerito de la Ciénaga / Zapata Sparrow /Torreornis inexpectata and Gallinuela de Santo Tomás / Zapata Rail / Cyanolimnas cerverai.

From 1927 to 1946, he was the director of the Museum of Comparative Anatomy founded in 1859

by Louis Agassiz, at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His scientific travels took him through Africa, Asia, North America, South America, and Central America, among other regions. He particularly enjoyed Panama, Costa Rica and Cuba.

He visited the latter for long periods of time on at least thirty occasions from 1908, usually staying in the Harvard Garden, in Soledad, in the southern part of Cuba (Cienfuegos).

In his book, A Naturalist in Cuba, Barbour writes: “I suspect that I am the only living American naturalist who has visited all parts of the island again and again, for I am not only a Cuban by adoption, but a devoted friend of the land and its people.” Fermín Cervera was his collector whom he paid for his explorations in Zapata Swamp and his collections. Ironically Barbour could never see in life the three species that he described. He died at the age of 62 in 1946.

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