Way Past Due: A Weekend Around St. Pete Beach, FL

I apologize for the time it's taken for me to report on this trip. But you know about the "best laid plans" and all those other homilies.......

Several weekends ago, Sept. 6 - 9, 2012 to be exact, Avie attended the Southern Sleep Conference at St. Pete Beach, FL, kindly taking me along. In addition to visiting with some old friends who had moved to the area years ago, I also took the opportunity to do a bit of birding on Florida's Gulf Coast.

Happily, it was during fall migration. Even better, the St. Pete Beach Audubon Society was having a field trip to John Chesnut Sr. Park. Located on the southeast corner of Lake Tarpon it is reputed to be a great migrant "trap". So, I hopped into our rental car and set out to join them.

Right out of the car, in the parking lot, there were Warblers galore. Unfortunately, the time spent in an air conditioned car caused my binoculars to fog up when I got out into Florida's humid weather. So, while everyone else was counting the Warblers, I was listening and straining with eyes naked.

The field trip took us to a couple of different parking lots, chasing mixed flocks. The most common birds were Blackburnian and Yellow-throated Warbler. Of course, being Warblers, an my being more a birder than a photographer, I enjoyed seeing them and didn't make an attempt to photograph these ever-moving little birds.

However, a bit later in the trip, we took a trail where there were a couple of cooperative birds. One was an Eastern Wood-Peewee, perched in clear view.

But I'd have to say the best photo op and tied with a Prothonotary Warbler for best bird of the day was this cooperative Barred Owl. It sat very still, but refused to turn its head so I could get its face in the photos I took. No matter -- any birding day with an owl is a good birding day.

Shame on me for not saving my bird list from this day. But I will say, in spite of a lengthy downpour which limited our available time in the field, it was a worthwhile fall migration spot if you find yourself in the area.

Avie's conference ended on Saturday afternoon. So, Sunday morning we packed up, checked out of our hotel, and headed down to Fort DeSoto Park for a full morning of birding. It was raining when we drove down and it rained for a couple of hours after we got into the park. It put a little bit of a damper on things. But, dammit, we're birders! So we persevered.

Of course, most of the birds continued on in spite of the rain, as demonstrated by this Great Blue Heron, perusing the puddles in one of the parking lots for frogs.

On a stop into the ladies' room, I picked the lucky stall and saw this large Cuban Tree Frog literally hanging around. Since the restroom was deserted, I called Avie in and asked him to put his finger in the frame of the photo for size perspective. The frog didn't even balk.

As you know, birders are a friendly group of folk. While we were looking up into some pine trees, a car pulled over and asked if we had "seen anything good". We pointed out a Pine Warbler. The gentleman in the car recommended we go over to the "Ranger's House" and walk around the fence along the trail to the big tree in the back. We took his advice and saw the best mixed flock of the day.

Again, Blackburnian and Yellow-throated Warblers were the most common birds. But we were also greeted with many other migratory songbirds. Additionally, there was an amazing migration of Common Nighthawks overhead, with thousands flying in a never-ending stream.

A Cuban Anole sat on a nearby tree, sunning.

On our way out of the park we stopped at an area which was supposed to be good for shorebirds (GROAN!). We fought against working with these tricky birds for over twenty-five years. But we've decided, with our new 80mm Swarovski Scope, it's about time we try to tackle them. Tackle them we did -- juvenile/fall plumage and all.

So, what follows are our best attempts at identification. If you find any issues, please let me know in the comments.

Here's a non-breeding Willet:

Short-billed Dowitcher:

Dunlin:

Too much obstructive greenery for many of them. But there's a lovely "coming into plumage" Black-bellied Plover to the right.

Just a nice shot of a Great Egret behind a Black-bellied Plover:

Okay -- My brain is starting to hurt, so I'll let you identify the rest. I will tell you these are the shorebirds we know we saw:
Black-bellied Plover
Semipalmated Plover
Killdeer
Spotted Sandpiper
Lesser Yellowlegs
Willet
Marbled Godwit
Ruddy Turnstone
Sanderling
Western Sandpiper
Least Sandpiper
Dunlin
Short-billed Dowitcher

We also saw this Wood Stork, looking very much like a coquettish dancer in the water.

I'm not sure when we'll be returning to the Gulf Coast area of Florida. But, compared to our subsequent weekend on the Atlantic Coast, I would say fall birding is far superior on the West side of the peninsula!

We Have Travel Packets!

Yesterday (Thursday, Feb. 17), a week and a half before we’re scheduled to fly from Miami to Havana, we received emails from Marazul (the travel “agents”) asking us to confirm the use of our pre-authorized credit cards and our mailing address. A second email notified us our travel packets were going out that evening.
Well, it’s just before 1:30 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 18 and they’ve arrived. My level of anxiety regarding the unknown travel factor has disappeared.

A photo of my portion of the packet is below. Avi received identical papers, except with his name on everything.



It contained:

1. Our tickets for our flight booked by Marazul, chartered by Gulfstream Air, and provided by Sky King. The guessing game we’ve been playing these past few days about the type of aircraft we’d be on has been resolved as well. We’ll be flying a Boeing 737 with an allowance of 44 lbs. each. I’m anticipating we’ll be at 44 lbs. combined, since we prefer to travel light. ($349 each R/T)

2. A travel contract between us and Gulfstream Air, which we have to sign and hand in at the Miami airport.

3. Our Cuban Tourist Card, which cost $50 each.

4. A paper giving us information regarding our Cuban health insurance, which we are required to purchase in order to visit Cuba. Apparently we have $25,000 worth of coverage each, with $7,000 more for transportation home in the event of injury or death. All this for $3/day.

5. Our license from the U.S. Dept. of the Treasury, making this a legal trip for humanitarian purposes.

6. Information on Cuban money exchange. Between the exchange rate and the exchange “premium” (thanks to the U.S. embargo discouraging U.S. dollars from entering Cuba), there’s a 20% loss when exchanging dollars for CUC’s. We could exchange our dollars into Euros here and then into CUC’s. But it all seems too complicated, and I’m not sure there would be that much in savings. We’ll see what we decide when we read this a bit more carefully.

7. A 17 page booklet from the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control titled Cuba: What You Need to Know About U.S. Sanctions Against Cuba. A pretty dry read. Most of the material doesn’t apply to us. It just speaks about who may or may not travel to Cuba and what we may and may not purchase there. At least it looks as though Avi can bring back some music.

This weekend we’ll be getting things out and in order for packing. It seems particularly important we not forget anything we need, since we’re not allowed to buy much in Cuba.

Next Stop: Cuba!

Many, many months ago, just after our return from our birding trip to Ecuador (Galapagos), Andy Griswold from the Ct. Audubon Society's Ecotravel decided to try and tempt us into booking another trip. First he sent us information on their trip to Trinidad and Tobago -- it look interesting, but we decided it was a bit too rich for our blood. But Andy is a smart man. The next offer hooked us and reeled us in. It was a two-week birding survey of Cuba in conjunction with the Caribbean Conservation Trust.

Perhaps a little bit of backstory would be in order here. I used to have family in Cuba. My grandmother had two aunts who lived there and ran a, um, er, "business" in Cienfuegos or Matanzas. (Both areas came up when she would tell the story.) My grandmother visited her aunts there before Batista was deposed and frequently told us it was the most beautiful place she had ever been. I have several photos from her time there, but will post just one, since I think it's the most historically significant (check out the poster to my grandmother's right).

Basically, the poster says:

Workers
We march on May 1st
United front to the divisionists (?) and against anti-union attacks!















We signed up. The process hasn't been an easy one.

We're flying in and out of Miami through a Cuban charter company called Marazul. We ARE traveling legally, with a license from the U.S. Treasury Dept. since this is considered a scientific trip which falls under humanitarian travel. As of now, I'm still not sure everything is in order, since we have yet to receive our travel packet: airline tickets, Treasury license, proof of Cuban health insurance (required of all foreign visitors at a cost of $3/day per person), and who knows what else. With only two weeks before our trip, I must say I'm a bit nervous.

I guess our target bird should be Cuba's most famous, the Bee Hummingbird -- about the size of a quarter. But I'd really like to see the Cuban Tody, a very cute, brightly colored piece of feathery fluff (and probably one we're much more likely to see).

Our trip to and from Florida will also include a visit with our daughter, who is living in Hollywood and will be our means of transportation to the Miami airport on March 1. We'll probably get in a bit of birding there as well, though not as concentrated an effort as the two weeks which will follow.

So, stay tuned. I'm pretty sure there won't be much Internet access during our time on the island. But I'll be keeping my journal and logging the photos each day so I can post gradually once we arrive back in the U.S. For now, I'll leave you with one more photo with my grandmother and her cousin (the daughter of one of the Cuban aunts who was raised as her sister in the U.S.) with some Cuban friends.