Well our latest group of birders have just left, triumphant from a week of birding which netted 65 species and 11 of the Cuban endemics.
So now we dig out the kitchen – the site of many very early breakfast makings, and great dinners. With birders wanting to catch that moment of dawn or even earlier we send a packed breakfast of fruit and omelet and a snack, often made at 3 in the morning.
We are fortunate in the Santiago area to have many separate micro-climates so we offer a truly marvellous array of habitats ranging from cloud forest to almost desert. As 50 kms of the coast and mountains is part of a protected biosphere the mixture of coastal marshes, tiny beaches, pastureland and mountain forest provides increased range for almost everything.
In fall we have ospreys using the heights and thermals to set them right for a long glide to Haiti, and at this time of year the cold in the mountains drives small birds down to the warmer coast – including this time the bee hummingbird casually drinking in a patio, much to the delight of our co-ordinator, who was getting anxious, the ornithologist who wanted perfection, and our birders, who had dreamed of such a happening.
As not all birders want to bird all the time, we include in our week a couple of our wonderful history and cultural tours, and always something about organic food production.
Cuba is changing so quickly; almost every day the newspapers carry news of a factory restarted, fruit or vegetables harvested at rates not seen since the early – 90’s or even the 1980’s – a time preserved in a haze of good food, great ice cream, and working transportation.