September 20 Birds.
Hellishly hot by 0810 hrs and similarly quiet too although I did get a distant but unmistakable Magnificent Frigate Bird first thing. 3 Mourning Dove were seen from my balcony window and a large Tern was in flight calling. Fortunately I managed to nail a pair of them later; Royal Tern 😃.
I braved the heat and got stuck into a long walk along the beach which paid dividends as I picked up a couple of lifers albeit one is subject to a stringent verification process. Long-billed Dowitcher is so close to Short-billed that some experts say only the call is the clincher. Well, I heard three or four calls and got some decent photographs too, we shall see... The other bird involved is Bridled Tern, 2 of them and they too lent themselves to some decent shots. A couple of Least Tern were flying around close by and c32 Laughing Gull queued up for photographs as they guffawed at my by now dishevelled and very moist appearance.
A single sandpiper was approachable and I took time out to differentiate twixt Western & Semi-palmated from my shots. Bill length was the decider so it has to be Semi P. 4 Great Blue Heron flew over within 5 minutes of each other and ditto 4 Turkey Vulture were seen during the course of the walk. A couple of yank warbler types didn't stop to say hello whereas a bunch of House Sparrow did. The first bird I saw on leaving the airport yesterday was a Killdeer just as it was when I came to Cuba for the first time 11 years back.
