Belly Beach bird hike

Fort Belly

The real reason I wanted to stay overnight at Belly Beach was to go birding. Get up early and head up the stairs to a rocky road that sits above the bay. There are unique rock formations, a nice view of the bay, and a little fort my guide called Labadee Fort, and google maps labeled Fort Belly. There are typical birds – kingbirds, Antillean mangos, warblers. And also white-crowned pigeons which I have only seen once in Haiti, in the south.

Lichen

Walk up the stairs from the hotel

Rocky road

Spanish moss

Cruise ship at Labadee

Village of Labadie Haiti

Approaching Labadie Village

A nice surprise near (1 hr walk) from Cormier Plage is the Haitian village of Labadie. Moto or walk up the curvy paved road from the hotel (away from Cap) and you’ll reach the top of the hill that overlooks the private cruiseship Labadee Resort. The guard let me in to look at birds and take pictures. Then walk downhill and you’ll follow a high fence on the right to keep guests in the resort, and a nice wooded area on the left where you can do some birding. Keep walking to the water taxis, little boats that will take you to the actual village of Labadie. I think it cost around 100gd to hire one privately to take the 2 of us to the village. On the way back we waited for the boat to fill with other travelers and it was much cheaper. There were some larger motor boats too – perhaps they can be rented to go to some nearby islands.

Water taxis to go to Labadie Village

Labadie is a small quiet fishing village tucked into the forested hillside. I walked around with a friend to look at birds, but we didn’t eat or linger long. It would be a nice place to spend a morning or afternoon. If you are comfortable eating Haitian street food you could eat and drink there and hang out by the water. I didn’t see any other foreigners and kids were eager to say hi. Some people have kayaks so perhaps you could rent one. There seemed to be 2 hotels along the hillside between the village and mainland taxi stop. Here is another blogger's post about Labadee/ie.

A small cave!

The mainland taxi station.

Water project in Labadie Village funded by the Royal Caribbean Cruiseships

Hotel Cormier Plage Cap Haitien Haiti

My favorite place to stay in Cap Haitien is Cormier Plage, whose beautiful grounds have a variety of birds, plants, and reptiles, and sit along a clean swimmable beach. Bring snorkel gear! There is a small reef where you can see sea urchins and colorful fish, and next door is a coral restoration group Amiga Island that also offers snorkeling trips at a nearby island. The paved road to the hotel follows the north coast out of Cap – watch for signs for forts.

Someone's anchor

The hotel room had a ceiling fan and AC and patio. I didn’t notice hot water (I forgot to check since I don’t have it at home). The room electricity is off during the day which I think is great for conservation. You can charge electronics at the restaurant/bar right along the beach where you should be anyway. The room price included a breakfast of coffee, juices, bread, and fruit, as well as a selection of eggs, oatmeal, and other food from a menu. Lunch and dinner ranges from pricey to cheaper sandwiches, and even omelettes (which took a while to make!). Try the rhum banana for dessert! Avoid the conch (lambi) which is over harvested and avoid lobster during the reproductive season (March - June), or there won’t be any more next year! 

A 40 minute walk up hill on the main road you’ll come to an overlook of the private Labadee cruise ship port – complete with roller coaster and zipline for resort guests. Turn left and walk downhill to get to water taxis that will take you to the actual village of Labadie (see this post for more).

Gate from main road

View from balcony

Breakfast before I knew we could also choose from a menu!

Just one page of the large lunch and dinner menu.

Casa Cubuy Puerto Rico

I took a week off from Haiti to attend a BirdsCaribbean shorebird workshop in Puerto Rico, and ended up staying an extra 4 days as political protests in Haiti grew and shut down the country. The stay included 2 nights at a really cool lodge called Casa Cubuy on the south side of the El Yunque National Forest. I didn’t have much time to research my extra stay in PR, and am glad I ended up here. The owners were kind enough to email and call me with directions. The narrow windy road up to the lodge is scenic. Follow the directions on the website, and look for the last yellow building on the right. There is parking on the downhill side of the lodge, but no sign with the name. When I arrived a bit frazzled from deciding to head back to the US instead of Haiti, the owner Michael invited me into the kitchen and offered me a glass of wine and sliced up a mango for me.

My room was spacious, with 3 beds, 2 little desks, a ceiling fan, and a bathroom with hot water. The balcony overlooked the forest and cascade that sits below the lodge, and had a little table and chairs. It was very relaxing to hear the coqui frogs and cascade at night. I brought food for my lunch and dinner as the closest place for meals was 20 minutes away (the town of Naguabo off Hwy 53 has gas, grocery store, and restaurants). The kitchen has a large refrigerator for guests to use. They will make lunches for guests for $10, either to take on a hike or eat at the hotel.

Breakfast isn't served until 9am, so I missed it the first morning as I hired a guide for birding. The 2^nd morning I got to see what I missed out on – a family-style breakfast with the other guests, with lots of fruit, juice, and coffee, and wonderful oatmeal, eggs, and hash browns made by the owner.

Casa Cubuy is in the national forest and has a short path to the cascade below that has pools deep enough for swimming. The road past the lodge gave me a chance to do some birding, and I heard that at the end of the road are paths into the forest. Unfortunately my stay wasn’t long enough to explore those.

The only drawback to Casa Cubuy was the 40 minute drive back to the area that had beaches and more parks and tourist attractions (around Fajardo). A longer stay at the casa would have been ideal, with a couple day-trips to other attractions. Also I am an early morning person so waiting until 9am for breakfast was inconvenient, so worth a longer stay to have mornings to enjoy that.

Here are the birds I saw just from the road, with links to eBird. Also, I was told the guesthouse downhill has hummingbirds.

Scaly-naped Pigeon

White-winged Dove

Mangrove Cuckoo

Puerto Rican Screech-Owl

Puerto Rican Woodpecker

Gray Kingbird

Loggerhead Kingbird

Black-whiskered Vireo

Puerto Rican Tanager

Bananaquit

Black-faced Grassquit

Puerto Rican Screech-Owl

Red-legged Thrush

Agroforestry tours at UCNH Haut Limbe

Criollo

In addition to the many species of birds found at and around Université Chrétienne du Nord d'Haïti (UCNH) in Haut Limbe (east of Limbe), visitors can learn about the agriculture in the area, including cacao - the source of chocolate, and bananas and plantains. There are many groves of each in the area, and the denser cacao groves host many species of birds, including: common yellowthroat, yellow-throated, black-throated blue, and Cape May warblers during the winter; broad-billed todys, Hispaniolan lizard-cuckoos and Antillean bullfinches, and the endangered plain pigeon. 


Chocolate is made from cacao seeds which are found in pods that grow directly on the trunks and branches of the cacao tree (a habit known as cauliflory which is common among tropical trees). All three varieties can be seen, even in the same grove. Criollo, supposed to make the best quality of chocolate, but susceptible to disease, is identified by reddish pods. Forastero, more productive but not as flavorful, is identified by longer grooved pods. The hybrid of these, Trinitario, combines these two qualities, and is identifies by its stouter warty pods.

You will also learn to identify the differences between plantain plants, which are starchy and boiled or fried, and the sweeter banana plants. Plantain leaves are a lighter green and have a pink edge, and the bunches are looser. They grow better in the sun. Banana leaves are slightly darker, have a thinner browner edge, and the bunches are tighter.

Contact me if you would like a tour to see birds, agriculture, or chocolate making. Please be considerate and ask your guide before taking photos of people.

Yellow-throated warbler

Trinitario the hybrid

Forestero

Banana

Plantain

Banana left, plantain right with pinker wider edging

UCNH - birding and academic hotspot!

Hispaniolan parakeet - endemic, threatened

One hour west of Cap Haitien, off of Rt 1, sits a university whose founders and subsequent presidents prohibited cutting of trees (directions here). Today Université Chrétienne du Nord d'Haïti (UCNH) and the surrounding area of Haut Limbe is home to over 30 species of birds, and is a relaxing place to enjoy large trees full of lianas, bromeliads, and other life you’d expect to see in a tropical forest. Parakeets fly by every day and sometimes hang out on campus, warblers make it their winter home, and woodpeckers, palmchats, red-tailed hawks, and banaquits raise their families here. If you are up for a hike, there are great views from the surrounding hills and you might see a loggerhead kingbird, merlin, or plain pigeon. See here for list of birds.

UCNH also has a snack shop, copy center, bookstore (academic books in French), and library. Agronomy students have a plant nursery on campus, and you can visit a cacao grove and learn about chocolate. Perhaps while visiting you’ll get to see a performance by the fine arts students. Contact me if you’d like to set up a tour and a budding ecotourism student can show you around and take you birding, or to see cacao and plantain/banana groves.

Red-tailed hawk on campus

Plain pigeon - endemic, threatened

White-necked crow - endemic, threatened

Louisiana waterthrush

Hispaniolan lizard-cuckoo - endemic

A sisal factory!

Plantation Dauphin is an old sisal plantation and factory, built in the 1920’s across the bay from Fort Libertie on the north coast of Haiti. Not only is it a piece of Haiti’s booming sisal history (#1 in the western hemisphere in the 1940s), there are birds, as well as fish and other coastal life, such as sea urchins and jellyfish. It is an easy walk around the old buildings, and a cement wall allows you to get close to the sea life.

male and female kestrels

jellyfish and fish

warbler

Tragedy and history at Caracol

I recently visited Caracol Haiti, east of Cap Haitien, with other birders to see all the shore and water birds that still visit the mangrove that has been mostly cut down.  Now salt flats sit where a lush tropical ecosystem once grew.  Yet a variety of birds use the salt pools – we saw 21 species in less than 2 hours, plus unidentifiable warblers.  How many more were there before the mangroves were destroyed?  FoProBiM is an NGO trying to restore the trees, yet it seems like a futile task if people aren’t educated about the importance of mangroves, which I am now more resolved to do in my university and school classes. 

In additional to the surprising variety of birds is the evidence of the history of the area. Conch shell midens, evidence of native pre-Columbian activity, were unearthed where the salt pools were dug, as well as broken pottery from the colonial era.  There is also a canon sticking out of the mud!

Mangroves reduced to salt pools and cow grazing

Trying to reforest the mangroves

Exposed midens of conch shells (all those white things)

Plate shard

Canon in mud