Back from Cuba!!!

A perfect escape, while it lasted.

(Listen to the radio version here.)

Cuban Tody!

I’m writing this on Thursday, February 27, while sitting in the Tampa airport in Florida.

Of course I asked someone to take my picture with this amazing sculpture at the Tampa Airport.

I’m filling my ears with quiet music through my noise cancelling headphones and my eyes and heart with photos I’ve taken in the past couple of weeks as I give my brain a final respite from American news.

Closeups of these exquisite, endangered Cuban endemics, the Cuban Parrot (aka Cuban Amazon) above and this Cuban Parakeet, were because these two birds were raised by people. In both cases they spend all day (and often night) outside and associate with wild birds of their own kind.

I’m letting myself think about the exquisitely beautiful country I left yesterday and the extraordinary Cuban people I got to know.

Me with our splendid guide, Maikel Cañizares. In coming weeks, I’ll be writing a lot about him and his important biological and conservation work.

I often joke that I’m not emotionally prepared to return home after a great trip, but this time it’s not funny. Our group did one touristy thing in Havana: we went to the Tropicana, where the emcee announced what country various tables of people were from. When he announced that we were from the United States, boos came from several directions, especially loud ones from the Colombians at the table next to ours.

And that was far from the only time I was ashamed of my country on this trip. The Cuban people are suffering enormously because of my country’s embargo—more appropriately called a blockade—preventing human beings from getting gas, food, and a great many other essentials. Last time I was here was in October 2016, at the tail end of eight years of the Obama/Biden Administration, which was the best time in recent history for both Cubans and Americans visiting there. That time I was allowed to bring back cigars for friends and a bottle of rum for my son’s birthday.

Russ and I each took a couple of puffs on a Cuban cigar at midnight on New Year’s Eve, 2016. Our New Year’s resolution was to stop smoking, and we did!!!

As soon as Trump took over the first time, he tightened things up again. We think we live in a free country, but we’re not free to visit the closest neighbor our country has after Canada and Mexico without all kinds of restrictions set not by Cuba but by the so called “Land of the Free.”

Because of the embargo, most of the places we visited had frequent electrical outages and limited WiFi, and so I was mercifully able to avoid most news of the ever-darkening world I’d be returning to. I did hear about the deaths of thousands of Sandhill Cranes and other splendid birds from bird flu, another tragedy that the ugly billionaire forces that have taken over our country will ignore or make even worse with their willful ignorance about both wildlife and diseases as well as their strange lack of concern about anything that doesn’t make a profit for themselves.

But for almost two full weeks I managed to get away from almost everything, and being in Cuba, which I think is my favorite country on the planet outside my own, was an especially lovely respite. I have such very fond memories of the country from my visit in 2016, and this trip was as good or even better in every way. October was a fine month to visit, and we enjoyed a lot of wonderful migrants as well as seeing my very first Cuban endemics. But February is even better in many ways, as many birds are getting into their most splendid plumage and some local nesters are starting to sing again.

We heard many more Cuban Vireos singing than we saw, but boy were they worth looking for!

I was especially thrilled by the Bee Hummingbirds—one of the few hummers in which males shed their brilliant iridescent gorget feathers for the winter. During my October visit, the males looked very much like females, which is hardly a bad thing in principle but I SO wanted to see that brilliant red head and throat, the side feathers flaring out like Hercule Poirot’s mustache!

When we visited the Casa Ana hummingbird feeders this time, some of the males were in perfect breeding plumage, fully as exquisite as they are tiny.

My photos of the other native hummingbird, the Cuban Emerald, show their whole body's gem-like iridescence better than last time, too.

On the October 2016 trip I saw a total of 117 species, 40 of which were lifers. This time around, I saw 145 species or so, including four new ones. This being the dry season, the flamingoes stayed in deeper water, further away than last time. (There were also fewer of them thanks to recent devastating hurricanes.)

The spectacular land crabs were mostly safe in their moist underground burrows.

And we missed one endemic that was pretty easy last time—the Red-shouldered Blackbird.

But this time I got much better photos of almost all the other species, not just because many were in better plumage and I have a significantly better camera, but also because our guides were so patient about letting us enjoy the birds that took our fancy instead of instantly moving on the moment everyone had a glimpse. In 2016, we took enough time at our first Cuban Tody so everyone could see it, but after that, the guides lost interest in the most adorable bird in the universe. In 2025, our guides seemed to savor them as much as we did.

They also gave us more time to savor the stunning national bird, the Cuban Trogon.

Our assistant guide, Abel Luis, stayed with me while I photographed this splendid bird.

Last time we saw a Greater Antillian Nightjar. This time it has a different name, because taxonomists raised what was considered the Cuban subspecies to a full species, the Cuban Nightjar. And this time I knew more about how important it is to underexpose nighttime photos, so you can actually see it in my photo.

Grasshopper Sparrows breed right here in Minnesota where I've photographed them at Afton State Park, and are extremely rare in Cuba, yet I lucked into my best photos ever of the species in Cuba on this trip.

I’m already leaving again on Friday, February 28—Russ and I want to be in East Lansing, Michigan on March 2, the 50th anniversary of my starting birding so I can make a Chickadee Pilgrimage to Baker Woodlot. I’m excited about that, but also excited to get back to editing photos and savoring memories of my time with Cuban birds. At times like this, I need to cling to every beautiful thought I can.

(All the content on this blog is and will always remain 100 percent free, without advertising or commercial support. A lot of us can’t afford to pay for every service we use online, and it’s not like birds charge me to photograph and learn about them. But this trip was only possible for me thanks to the generous support by people with paid subscriptions. I am very, very grateful to you!)

Bare-legged Owl nesting in a nest box constructed by our guide, Maikel Cañizares.