Birdwatching Tour

Welcome to Havana!

Arrive in Havana Airport – you will be welcomed to Cuba by your private driver (an expert birding guide who will remain with you throughout your tour). We will drive for 1 hour and a half to your place of accommodation and spend the night at the Hotel Villa Soroa.

Filled with towering trees, a picturesque 22-meter waterfall, a remarkable orchid garden, and of course a multitude of fascinating birds, this little settlement seems to be overflowing with natural beauty. It is named after the Frenchman Jean-Pierre Soroa, owner of a 19th century coffee plantation here. One of his descendants created the park as a luxurious personal retreat in the 1920s and it was opened to tourism after the Revolution.

Las Terrazas to San Diego

A departure at 06:00 am will take you to Las Terrazas in the Sierra del Rosario, where you will have a day of bird watching, with lunch included, before continuing to the San Diego area, where you will stay for 2 nights.

Las Terrazas is located in the mountains an hour from Havana, this UNESCO Biosphere Reserve is home to 117 species of birds, 12 of which are endemic to Cuba. The bright green forest rustles with colourful creatures like the Cuban Tody, Cuban Grassquit, and the island's national bird, the Cuban Trogon with plumage that resembles the country's flag.

Bird watching in San Diego

On your second day of your stay in the San Diego region, you will have a full day of bird watching in this impressive area. This area of green montane forest it was once a haven for the legendary revolutionary, Che Guevara.

Our main concern, however, will be the feathered inhabitants of the hills covered with forests and between them are several of the endemics of the island. A burst of rich rhythmic-metallic song can take us to a Cuban Solitaire, possibly one of the best singers in Cuba and one of us has a good chance of listening in here. The sober plumage of the Solitaire is less impressive than his song, but the reverse is true of another forest resident, the same colourful but vocally challenged Cuban Trogon, as well as the small by beautiful Cuban Tody.

Travel to Zapata Peninsula

Today we embark on a long drive to the Zapata Peninsula, made famous by the ‘Bay of Pigs’ invasion and fighting in April 1961. This area holds fantastic local habitats which will produce more endemic birdlife for us. Depending on time, we will hope to make a couple of birding stops on route (including a lunch stop) before checking in to our hotel in Playa Larga, our base for the next four nights.

Zapata Peninsula

The vast Ciénaga de Zapata National Park encompasses swamps, forests, scrublands, and many other habitats securing a host of places to visit from our coastal base. You will spend hours observing the forest birds of Las Bermejas Trail, home to 5 to 7 species of woodpecker. Each type of vegetation houses its own island specialty; in the dry and open forest we will look for Fernandina's Flicker, Bare-legged Owl, and the beautiful blue-headed Quail Pigeon, one of several members of this genus found in Zapata.

In expanses of humid tropical forest, we can discover the incredible Bee Hummingbird, the smallest bird in the world that looks the most like an insect as it glides around the canopy. Elsewhere we will wade through swamps in an attempt to tempt a Zapata Wren to appear from cover, look at the recently split, Red-shouldered Blackbird and search through congregations of Herons and Waders feeding alongside the richly coloured island race of American Flamingo on the Salinas Trail. Zapata is an outstanding area for birding, but it is a very large area with limited access and not all the residents are easy to locate.

The last day in Peninsula de Zapata is a free day so you can do more bird watching or spend the day on the beach if you prefer (your driver / guide will be nearby to take you where you want to go).

Travel to Camagüey

Today we will be taking a long drive to continue our journey eastwards into the interior of the island, towards the town of Camagüey, where we spend two nights at the Finca La Belen. Travelling through vast open savannah and agricultural fields, we will get an insight in to rural life in Cuba. As with our drive from San Diego to Zapata, we shall stop frequently for comfort breaks and birding, enjoying lunch en-route, before arriving at our rural accommodation in the late afternoon.

Camagüey

Driving south from Camagüey to the surroundings of the small town of Najasa, we spent much of the today looking for some of the unique birds that live in the Sierra de Chorillos, a small mountain ridge through the Najasa Mountains. Endemics will be in the foreground as we search for the very rare Giant Kingbird, a huge tyrant flycatcher who dwarfs the most familiar members of this powerful build genre; Cuban Parrot, Cuban Parakeet, Cuban Pygmy-Owl, Common Pigeon, Cuban Palm Crows are also some of the specialties it is possible to see here.

Travel to Cayo Coco

An early start is needed for the long journey to our next destination, Cayo Coco, where we will stay for two nights. The journey along a mostly deserted highway will take us through the beautiful Sierra Cubitas Mountains, great habitat for some endemics such as Cuban Bullfinch, Oriente Warbler, and with a bit of luck the rarities Cuban Gnatcatcher and Gundlach’s Hawk.

The road continues into agricultural heartland of Cuba where fields of sugar cane and tobacco are tended by workers from the local State Farms.

Cayo Coco

Cayo Coco is located in an island off the north coast of Cuba connected to the mainland by a causeway. The chaos of the islands here are part of a disorderly archipelago that stretches for a considerable distance along the coast providing an infinite variety of remote sandy beaches to attract sun worshipers.

Birds we expect to find in wooded areas include Bahama Mockingbird, Zapata Sparrow, Cuban Vireo and possibly a sighting of the rare Gundlach's Hawk, while a variety of herons, Roseate Spoonbill, Short-billed Dowitchers, Western Sandpiper and many other waders frequent the marshes, along with Brown Pelicans, terns, and the ever-present magnificent Frigatebirds, always looking for an unfortunate victim to harass.

We will also see the coastal scrub next to the lighthouse, since it is the only place in Cuba to see Thick-billed Vireo and is also a prominent location for the endemic Cuban Gnatcatcher, a magnificent little gem, Oriente Warbler and Mangrove Cuckoo. The beach may also have Piping Plover, and this is a hot migration site, so anything could show up.

Santa Clara to Havana

An early start will see us birding the Cueva del Jabalí (Wild boar Cave) where we can hope to see La Safra’s Flycatcher, Cuban Bullfinch, Oriente Warbler, the local race of Zapata Sparrow and many other interesting species, before beginning the journey back to Havana (via Santa Clara for a lunch stop), arriving in the late afternoon. We have the evening to enjoy this fantastic and unique city.

Goodbye Cuba

On this final day in Cuba, we have the opportunity to see some of the faded colonial elegance of Havana. In the morning you will enjoy a tour of the historic centre of Havana, followed by lunch at a local restaurant. Then return to the hotel in time for check-out before departing for the airport.