The Amethyst Hairstreak Chlorostrymon maesites is only known from Florida and the Antilles. In Cuba it is widespread  but uncommon.
Douglas Fernandez' small town garden in Camaguey has been planted with many butterfly foodplants and is great for nectar sources too. He has planted Calopogonium caeruleum (Fabaceae) and occasionally sees Amethyst Hairstreak nectaring and even egg-laying on the flowers. During a recent search for larvae his wife Noris found this near full-grown larva sitting superbly camouflaged on the flowers. Well done Noris and Doug.

The Northern Potoo (Nyctibius jamaicensis) has very recently been discovered in a forest in the Sierra Maestra mountains in the municipality of Pilon. It was found to be doing well in the area and even a nest with an egg was discovered.

The Northern Potoo is a nocturnal bird that feeds on insects and by day it camouflages very well by pretending to be a blind branch in a tree. It is found in Hispaniola, Jamaica and Central America while  It was formerly classified as a subspecies of the Common Potoo (Nyctibius griseus) and from which based on external characters it is very similar, but since 1995 it has been treated as a separate species based on the great difference in vocalizations. Oddly, the bird is not mentioned in The Birds of Cuba (Garrido & Kirkconnell, 2000).

In Cuba there have been few confirmed records going back to the 19th century. In 1997 El Chino, a well-known guide from the Zapata Swamp, obtained Potoo feathers but no adults were observed in the wild.

In January 2001, G. M. Flieg and Guy M. Kirwan conducted nocturnal surveys in eastern Cuba. Just before sunset on 5 January, a Northern Potoo was observed, briefly, atop a telegraph pole beside the road east of Siboney, Santiago de Cuba province. The bird then flew across the road into an area of xerophytic vegetation on a hillside, characterized by tall columnar cacti, emergent palms, and 1-3 m–tall scrub. It was lost from sight and no further observations were made at this site. Further, on 10 January 2001, Kirwan heard the distinctive song of the Potoo in a similar area of xerophytic scrub on the coast, south of Baitiquirí, Guantánamo province. This individual was not seen. The habitat in which these two records were collected is similar to that in which the species is most frequently encountered in Hispaniola (Kirwan, pers. obs.).

Later, in 2003, Maikel Prieto a resident of Holguín Province donated a dead bird specimen to a museum, initially believing it to be a Cuban Nightjar. However, upon closer examination, Nils Navarro realized that it was actually a Potoo. Shortly after, another specimen was collected by the same person and donated to the museum. In 2020, Maikel alerted Nils Navarro to a live specimen that had been injured by locals in the same Province. A photo of this bird exists.

A few days ago (Feb 2025) a connoisseur of birds and nature in general, alerted bird-watchers to the presence of a Northern Potoo near his house and a group of the Avila Birdwatchers Club and the Granma Birdwatchers Club went to the place to confirm the sighting with photos, videos and audios. A huge well done to all those involved in this discovery.

Further to the recent blog about the Cuban Emerald nest in Doug and Noris' garden in Camaguey Doug has confirmed that the youngster fledged at 21 days old. Just before fledging it could be seen testing its wings in this lovely video taken by Noris. You can see from the picture below that the youngster still has quite a lot of growing to do, not just in wing and tail length but also in bulk It spent its first night out of the nest roosting on a slender branch in their garden. And here it is being fed by the female parent. Great pictures both of you and thanks for sharing. And now just the empty nest is left.

Whilst on a field trip from Habana recently to the east of Cuba searching for butterflies, Yosiel Álvarez with colleagues Dayron Breto and Sheyla Yong made an amazing discovery. They found a butterfly that had previously been thought to be an endemic of Hispaniola. On 29 January 2025 at Maisi in the far north-eastern corner of the island they found The Widow Archimestra teleboas. Many were seen along 12km of woodland trail so it seems to be well established there. It will be interesting to note how quickly it moves westwards. You can read the paper of the discovery here.
Well done to the finders! There is still lots to be discovered about the butterflies of Cuba

Douglas Fernandez has recorded many species of butterfly in his small town garden in central Camaguey. He has recently seen a Yellow-tipped Flasher Telegonus anausis nectaring on one of the many nectar and larval foodplants that he has planted there to attract them. This is a rare butterfly in Cuba which he has only seen visiting his garden just once before.

He tells me that he has also recently seen a Green Heron perched in one of their small trees, and currently has a Cuban Emerald nesting there too. Two eggs were laid but only one hatched so Doug removed the other to make space for the growing youngster. At its largest shown below it is 18 days old. He tells me that he has read that they fledge at 19-22 days old so not long to go. When it was smaller Doug had to chase off the large male Cuban Green Anole Anolis allisoni that lives in the garden as it was approaching the nest with a look of intent!

And here is a lovely collage of the event so far put together by Doug's wife Noris.

Trogons are found throughout the Tropics around the world. There are 46 species in the Family Trogonidae. They feed on insects and fruit and despite their bright coloration can often be hard to spot in the shade of the forest.
Thank you to Rolando Trujillo for this superb photo of the Cuban Trogon which is endemic to Cuba. The sound of their distinctive calls can be heard around the forests of the whole island.

And here is another top class photo of another endemic, the Cuban Gnatcatcher, taken by Roberto Jovel. I have written before about this species and shown Roberto's photograph of a nest that he found east of Guantanamo here. Roberto lives with his partner at Baracoa where they have a casa particular called Villa Paradiso.

The Cuban Tody is a tiny Cuban endemic. It is just over an inch long and weighs less that 6g. It is a year-round resident of Cuba and the islands just off the Cuban coast and is found in dry lowlands, evergreen forests, coastal vegetation, and near streams and rivers. They have a distinctive call which is a loud rattle like the chatter of a machine gun. Their diet comprises mainly insects and spiders but also includes small fruits and lizards.
They nest from April to July and excavate a tunnel about 30 cm (12 in) long in a clay or sand embankment with a terminal chamber, although sometimes they use a rotten trunk or tree cavity. They cover the walls of the tunnel and the egg chamber with a thick glue-like substance mixed with grass, lichen, algae, small feathers, and other materials. Three or four eggs are laid and they are incubated by both parents.
The above photo is probably the best that I have seen of a Cuban Tody as it's difficult to get a picture with an uncluttered background. It was taken recently by Marcos Verdecia Diaz. Well done Marcos.

Our journey to Maria la Gorda on 5 Aug was not the easiest. No problem with traffic, but it was a long way over roads with loads of potholes - such a relief to arrive in front of the Hotel reception. But then horror of horrors the rear wheel of the vehicle had a flat tyre. The real problem was that Although Duviel had a spare tyre it was not fitted on a wheel. And a garage with the equipment to do this was probably a three or four hour drive away. We always respect Cubans for their competence and tenacity and we weren't disappointed. A guy who ran a very small hire car fleet at the hotel immediately offered to help Duviel and off they went round the back of some buildings. A short while later Duviel and the van reappeared, puncture repaired. Amazing! But the really amazing thing was that they had mended it with a condom. And that repair lasted for many hundreds of miles more till we got back to Havana!
This morning we went for a walk down the track from the hotel this morning for just a short way after breakfast and saw some of the same butterfly species including a female Cloudless Sulphur Phoebis sennae.

But there was a also a Louisiana Waterthrush feeding on the edge of the track. This was a bit unusual but must have been a downed migrant on its passage to the south. Both Northern and Louisiana Waterthrush are common winter residents and transients in Cuba. Northern Waterthrush prefer the mangrove swamps so are more coastal than Louisiana Waterthrush which prefers woodland streams and ponds. The differences in appearance can be subtle but Northern has a streaked throat, darker legs, finer bill and a supercilium that tapers behind the eye and is usually buffish (though it can be white). Louisiana Waterthrush has a white unstreaked throat, pink legs, stouter bill and a white supercilium that broadens behind the eye.

Compare this to the Northern Waterthrush that I photographed at Guardalavaca in mangroves on 7 October 2017.

We also saw the beautiful Evening Skimmer Tholymis citrina that we've only seen once before in October 2017 at the other end of the island.

We said our farewells at Maria la Gorda and headed off towards Vinales stopping only for two Hammock Skipper Polygonus leo that were sat on the road imbibing salts.

Although there have been occasional problems with the non availability of fuel here in the UK, the problems in Cuba during our holiday (and since) were gigantic! We needed fuel on the journey to get back to Vinales today, so Duviel visited a Government office yesterday to get a permit to buy fuel as he was transporting tourists. Us! We set off today but the tanker had not arrived so we had to do the journey on a very low tank.
We got to Vinales to find all sorts of problems at the hotel. However having sorted out that we could actually stay, Duviel  returned to the previous town, some hours away, spent the night there in order to be in the queue for when the tanker arrived. Fuel had been a problem right from the start but the situation had deteriorated considerably following devastating explosions and fires at the huge fuel depot at Matanzas. Duviel spared no efforts to ensure we had good trips and a brilliant holiday.