The Cuban Iguana (Cyclura nubila) is a very handsome beast which can grow up to 1.6m although this one was a bit smaller I think at around 1.2m at least. They have declined about 10% in the last 10 years which is thought to be mainly due to predation by rats, cats and dogs, and by destruction of their habitat - mainly construction of resorts on the beaches where they breed. It is also said that they are rarely used as food by Cubans but the people that we speak to about this tell us that they are hunted and they taste good.
They are 95% herbivorous feeding on leaves, flowers and fruits with the remaining 5% being made up of scavenged corpses of birds, fish and crabs. Females deposit their eggs in the same nesting sites each year and often several nests are found close together. It is always a good day when we see one so today was definitely a good day!

We had booked Paulino the local bird guide for a half day to show us some of the specialities. He arrived at 06.30 in his 1955 Chevrolet (he was its second owner) and off we went to the Wild Boar Cave which doubles as a night-club but is also a good area for birds - but not this morning. No sign of the Zapata Sparrows or Key West Quail-Dove though we did hear the latter with its very deep call. And we did see an obliging Oriente Warbler.

We heard Yellow-billed Cuckoo and Lynn probably saw another Caribbean Metalmark. But we pushed on to find Bahaman Mockingbird on Cayo Guillermo. We stopped opposite the Hotel Playa Pilar where we had seen lots of white butterflies as we came past on the bus a few days before. They were still there and it turned out there were a small number of Cuban White Ganyra menciae but were largely Great Southern White Ascia monuste (at least 150 of them) all flying around a couple of bushes on which they were clearly breeding as we watched them laying and found larvae and pupal exuviae. It was quite a spectacle.

It took a while but Paulino did find us the Bahama Mockingbird. They are a plainer grayer version of the very common Northern Mockingbird but these are very scarce and restricted on Cuba to the Cayos in this area. The wings lack the white wing patches of Northern Mockingbird and we had good views through the scope but it was a bit too far for decent pictures with just a 200mm lens. We did later get some nice views of Bahaman Swallowtail Heraclides andraemon.

We took another trip on the bus today to Cayo Guillermo and the Flamingos were rather more obliging. There was a group of four that wasn't too far away and provided some nice views as they foot-paddled and displayed in between bouts of feeding.

The only Odonata we have seen so far on this trip have been Seaside Dragonlet Erythrodiplax berenice and at last I've managed some pictures I'm reasonably happy with.

Nickerbean Blue Cyclargus ammon and White Peacock Anartia jatrophae are both common and widespread species but the Phaon Crescent Phyciodes phaon is much scarcer and we have seen it on less than half out trips to Cuba and we found a few again at exactly the same spot that we saw them three days ago. 

Smooth-billed Anis are very social birds and its not unusual to see ten or more in a group. We often hear them before we see them. They are so social in fact that females lay all their eggs in a single communal nest tended by all group members though it is quite usual for only the later ones to be laid to be the ones to hatch. Juvenile Smooth-billed Anis that hatch early in the summer often stay with their family group as the birds begin a new nest, and the newly fledged birds then help feed youngsters from the second nest. They are omnivorous and eat insects, fruit and even reptiles if they can catch them.

One of the main reasons to come back today was to get better pictures of the rarely photographed Cuban Spiny-plant Anole Anolis pumilus which I managed to do though I would love to know more about them.

Cuban Striped Curlytail Leiocephalus stictigaster is really very common on both islands but I haven't seen one before with this reddish colouring on the hind legs - perhaps it is a male.

There is a small restaurant at the Hotel Melia Cayo Coco in one of the buildings built in the lagoon and we went there for breakfast this morning. Just outside the windows were two mangrove bushes and in one of them There was a Greater Antillean Grackle nest and in the other a Green Heron nest from which a youngster had recently fledged. Apparently the Grackles had taken one of the two eggs early on.
A walk around the lagoon later produced some other nice birds including Cuban Lizard Cuckoo, Cuban Today, Tricolored Heron, Cuban Martin, American Kestrel and Red-legged Thrush which is the Cuban national bird.

And while watching a Cuban Snout Libytheana motya I became aware of a small bird flitting around me giving alarm calls. It was a Cuban Gnat-catcher carrying food so it must have had a nest nearby. I took a few frames and moved out of its way so it could get to its nest.

Once again there were hundreds of Pygmy Blue Brephidium exilis, and also about 50 Lyside Sulphur Kricogonia lyside, Mangrove Buckeye Junonia nieldi, Florida Purplewing Eunica tatila and the Caribbean Daggerwing Marpesia eleuchea had increased from two yesterday to fifteen today. They all looked very fresh and were nectaring on the Black Mangrove Avicennia germinans. Around the climbing frame were about 50 freshly emerged Ceraunus Blue Hemiargus ceraunus.

One of the reasons for coming to Cayo Coco is that there is a skipper (Hesperiidae) that occurs here and the surrounding area and nowhere else on Cuba. It is the Zestos Skipper Epargyreus zestos. That combined with the fact that we had been told that Caribbean Metalmark Dianesia carteri can also be found here was enough to tempt us. The Metalmark had so far eluded us on our previous 11 trips to Cuba apart from just one very brief possible sighting a couple of years ago. It is not easy to see during the day as it is said to be mainly crepuscular.
We decided to explore one of the trails in the forest today to look for both species. I say forest but it was more like thick impenetrable scrub and trees about 15ft high. We walked along the road to where it started and then walked slowly along the trail stopping to watch for a while at each nectar source. Lynn announced that she had got something but wasn't sure what it was so I got binoculars on it and saw a.... Caribbean Metalmark Dianesia carteri. I managed three quick shots from where I stood before it flew and only one was in semi-focus. Lynn glimpsed it again briefly later but that was it not seen again - they are not easy. And within 15 minutes we were getting brief views of Zestos Skipper Epargyreus zestos too coming to same small white flowers of a tree. What a great result. But if you want to see much better pictures of both these species can can click on the species page links above.

The butterflies in the afternoon were a bit more obliging for photography. One of the most common and widespread is the Gulf Fritillary Agraulis vanillae.

We found a spot where there were about 10 Mexican Fritillary Euptoieta hegesia including this female ovipositing. And it was nice to see clearly the differences between males and females. The females look a lot more like Variegated Fritillary Euptoieta claudia but lack the wiggly black line across the centre of the upper hindwing of E. claudia. Fiery Skipper Hylephila phyleus were quite common too.

And I couldn't resist more pictures of Lyside Sulphur Kricogonia lyside as we had never seen them in such numbers before. The paler greenish tinge of the female hindwing with its raised whitish central vein was very different from the pale yellow of the male.

We watched as two very fresh female Caribbean Daggerwing Marpesia eleuchea nectared on the Black Mangrove Avicennia germinans flowers. Females lack the black wingtips of the males, and although I knew that there were two tails on each hindwing I hadn't noticed before that the inner ones turn downwards. The reason for this only becomes clear when seen from the rear. In the third picture below you can clearly see that this is an anti-predator mechanism with two blue-grey eyes and two large horns on the sides. I've no idea what it might deter but perhaps a bird is most likely.

Southern Broken Dash Wallengrenia otho seemed commoner than we had noted elsewhere but Cloudless Sulphur Phoebis sennae were surprisingly scarce.

The folk staying at the adjacent hotel have to cross a small bridge over a channel to get to the beach and in the channel there were quite a varied selection of fish. One seems to be a needlefish but I don't know which species.

We were amazed to see Peter Stringfellow in the restaurant in the evening reincarnated as Bernard Meyer the hotel manager! It always made us chuckle when we saw him and it was difficult not to say 'hello Peter'.

Lynn was up early to get the caffeine levels up before going swimming but that was thwarted a bit by the bug spray man coming round with clouds of insecticide. And then as she got to the sea a plane came over spraying along the beach. She hid under the towels beneath the parasols to avoid it.

We found out there was a very regular and cheap bus that runs along the main road on the north coast and stops at the various other hotels along the way. It also runs to near the western end of the adjacent island Cayo Guillermo. You can also get free passes from other linked hotels along the route enabling you to go out for the day and get lunch in another hotel without paying extra - good system. So our first stop was the Sercotel Club Cayo Guillermo just after the bridge onto the island. There was a small number of flamingos (we had expected more) but understand that huge numbers were killed in the devastating Hurricane Irma in 2017 but that numbers are now recovering. Once more there were several Seaside Dragonlet Erythrodiplax berenice and about ten Phaon Crescent Phyciodes phaon and a very freshly emerged Little Yellow Pyrisitia lisa female.

We then got the bus again to travel as far as it goes before turning round. Here there is a walkway to the beach where we saw De Villiers' Swallowtail Battus devilliers and Bahaman Swallowtail Heraclides andraemon.

We then returned to the Sol Melia Cayo Guillermo for a very pleasant lunch. But the undoubted highlight of the day on the island was this anole. It's called Anolis pumilus Cuban Spiny-plant Anole and is supposed to occur throughout the western third of Cuba. It is just one of the 64 species of Anole that can be found in Cuba. We have only seen it once before near Santa Clara and there appears to be only one other picture on the internet other than the ones on this website so I'm guessing it must be pretty scarce.  It was remarkably good at hiding itself and would disappear for five minutes at a time before I spotted it again. The pictures I got weren't that great so we did go back another day to get better ones.

The most unusual image of the day that I managed was this adult Green Heron. Although it was facing away from me  I managed a few shots as it wing-stretched. There was a pair nesting in a small clump of mangrove not far from the shore of the lagoon so we did see them quite often throughout our stay.
Our plan for the day was to walk right around the lagoon. Near the start of the path a Cuban Blue Anole Anolis allisoni was hunting insects among the mangrove branches.

But the most numerous of the butterflies during the walk were Pygmy Blue Brephidium exilis which was flying in hundreds. We have seen them in small numbers in several places before but never like this. I managed to photograph an egg which this female laid, but failed as usual to find any larvae despite spending some time searching. I suspect they must be nocturnal feeders that hide down at the bottom of the plant during the day.

We did see an Obscure Skipper Panoquina panaquinoides as we walked along the path and there were quite a few more Lyside Sulphur Kricogonia lyside as well as Cassius Blue Leptotes cassius,  Florida Duskywing Ephyriades brunnea and Miami Blue Cyclargus thomasi. And it was nice to watch the courtship of a pair of Cuban White Ganyra menciae as they did their dancing flight with the male and female each jumping over the other to the front in turns - fabulous to watch. I was expecting to see Mangrove Buckeye Junonia nieldi but all we saw were Tropical Buckeye Junonia zonalis.

There is so much to learn about moths in Cuba and it would have been great to have been able to breed this micro larva through to find out what it was. I suspect it was a Depressariidae of some sort but I'm not sure.

And we knew that this dragonfly the Seaside Dragonlet Erythrodiplax berenice occurred here but had never seen it before. This I think is a female.

And a Clapper Rail crossing the path a long way off ahead of us was another first for Cuba for us. I did get a few pictures but nothing to write home about so here are is one from our friend Karlos Ross that he took recently in Holguin province. Thank you Karlos.

When we neared the eastern end of the lagoon the path got narrower and petered out completely with just a thicket of scrub and a steep bank ahead of us. We knew this was the road as we could hear the occasional taxi go past so we decided to persevere rather than head back the way we had come in the baking sun. It took a while to fight our way through the scrub and onto the road. The hotel at this end of the lagoon is called the Pullman Cayo Coco and they wouldn't let us through to walk back along the beach so we took a taxi back in order not to miss out on lunch.

Colin Stafford-Johnson is an award-winning cinematographer from Ireland and has a wonderfully quiet but perceptive view on life and the natural world. He specialises in wildlife documentaries and has worked on the film Mississippi Tales of the Last River Rat for the Discovery Channel, and the highly successful BBC series Planet Earth. For the last six years, Colin has presented Living the Wildlife, a very popular wildlife series for Irish television. His latest two-part film shown recently on the BBC is on Cuba and it's a masterpiece. If I'm honest I would have liked a little more science but that's just my preference and there's only so much you can cover in two hours. He talked about the fact that the indigenous Taíno people had been there for 5,000 years before Columbus arrived near Baracoa on 28 October 1492. The Taíno then became nearly extinct as a culture following settlement by Spanish colonists, primarily due to infectious diseases to which they had no immunity.
Columbus later wrote:
They traded with us and gave us everything they had, with good will. They took great delight in pleasing us. They are very gentle and without knowledge of what is evil; nor do they murder or steal. Your highness may believe that in all the world there can be no better people. They love their neighbours as themselves, and they have the sweetest talk in the world, and are gentle and always laughing.
Columbus wasn't so charitable in return and later, on his second voyage, he began to require tribute from the Taíno in Hispaniola. According to Kirkpatrick Sale, each adult over 14 years of age was expected to deliver a hawks bell full of gold every three months, or when this was lacking, twenty-five pounds of spun cotton. If this tribute was not brought, the Spanish cut off the hands of the Taíno and left them to bleed to death. These cruel practices inspired many revolts by the Taíno and campaigns against the Spanish —some being successful, some not.

In his film Colin covered many of the endemic birds of Cuba with unique film and talked about the main reason for the decline of the Cuban Parrot being the illegal practice of catching and keeping these (and many other birds) at home in cages. The way they are caught is to cut down the dead palms in which they nest old woodpecker holes and then to collect the youngsters from the nest. This has the effect of not only reducing the wild population but also to destroy another potential nesting site which are few and far between.

He also showed a unique piece of archive film of a pair of the now-extinct Ivory-billed Woodpecker at the nest. I say extinct because it hasn't been seen since 1987 despite there having been several expeditions to look for it. Having said that the terrain is steep, remote and very difficult to access, and animals that are officially declared extinct have sometimes been re-found shortly afterwards - so yes its definitely extinct!
Colin had visited Cayo Largo which is an isolated cay east of the Isla de Juventud and south of Zapata. Here he got wonderful film of a female Green Turtle laying her eggs in the sand and later the perilous journey that the hatchlings make to the sea being preyed upon by Common Black Hawks. He had beautiful footage of comparatively tame jutías but he didn't say which species they were. These are large rodents in the family Capromyidae and  there are ten species on Cuba though several are restricted to the islands and cays and one or more of these may already be extinct.

Having never been diving or snorkeling myself, his underwater footage was a revelation especially Cuban Garfish Atractosteus tristoechus which is a top-level endemic ambush predator that lives in fresh or brackish water in the west of the island and grows to 1-1.5m long. This picture was taken just next to crocodile farm at Zapata.

There are lots of other highlights including the Bee Hummingbirds at the nest - possibly the first time this has ever been filmed. And what is probably the smallest frog in the world, the tiny Monte Iberia Eleuth Eleutherodactylus iberia. But this is just a taster so do watch it for yourself.

It was no surprise to read  this news of a medical team of over 50 arriving in Italy last weekend. Cubans are well known for providing medical support to poor countries but it is the first time they have sent help to a European Country.
 
We wish them well and a safe and healthy return to their families and friends in Cuba.

This is Part 4 of my ramblings about the ills of the world. If you just read this blog to get away from them and immerse yourself in the beauty of the natural world of Cuba and its lovely people then scroll down to the previous blog with wonderful pictures of Blue Grosbeak.
If Bumbling Boris Johnson thought that his tenure as UK PM would be easy he must be realising by now that it isn’t. But at least his quite shocking performance and behaviour at the start of the Covid-19 crisis here in the UK has now changed completely and he does now realise the seriousness of the situation and seems to be taking good advice – but it is far too late and serious damage has already been done that will cost a large number of lives.

You will remember him grinning and smirking on TV in an interview on 5 March saying that he had visited a hospital "I am shaking hands. I was at a hospital the other night where I think there were coronavirus patients and I was shaking hands with everybody, you will be pleased to know, and I continue to shake hands.”
Whilst openly saying that the government was following the science he didn’t mention that he was going completely against the WHO guidelines on how to deal with the pandemic. He also didn’t say that there was huge division within the department about the direction the Government was taking and that it would cost many lives. My jaw dropped to the floor when I saw Johnson on TV putting forward the concept that they might just let the virus run its course to achieve ‘herd immunity’. Seriously? A quick calculation of the UK population of c. 66m x an infection rate of say 70% x a 0.9% death rate gives 415,000 dead people. It’s amazing that he didn’t realise in a nano-second that this might not look good on his CV. The danger with Boris is that he can sound quite plausible and many people will believe him but don’t forget for one moment that he’s a liar.
Lord Michael Heseltine describing Boris Johnson said: “Well, I think that you have to see Boris as a career map. He works it out, he decides which way the wind is blowing, and that wonderful phrase about a politician - a man who waits to see the way the crowd is running and then dashes in front and says, ‘Follow me’.”

On 13 March 229 scientists wrote an open letter to the UK government urging them to introduce tougher measures to tackle the spread of Covid-19 in order to save lives, and to publish the data that they had and the modelling so that it could be peer-reviewed. On Monday 16 March I watched a stooge on Skynews defending the government position and saying that the scientists that wrote the letter wouldn’t understand the data as they weren’t virologists, and that anyway the data wasn’t in a presentable form that people would understand so it would take about a week for ‘the spreadsheets’ to be put in a presentable format. It’s difficult to imagine a more unbelievable performance than this.
The New Statesman wrote on 16 March “Misinformation and disinformation has so far thrived in the void left by inadequate, inconsistent and conflicting communication from government. A reliance on the old political tools, such as anonymous briefings and commentary placed with friendly newspapers, has added to the noise and uncertainty at a time when clear advice is necessary not just to reassure the public, but to ensure they understand what to do.”

You have to wonder how much Cummings was advising and governing the direction in the background. And its interesting that we no longer see Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee on the podium with Boris at the daily briefings. They have been replaced by deputies. I suspect this is Boris trying to distance himself from them. After pressure from many governments around Europe to change tack the U-turn finally happened.
It seems clear that in two and a half months since the warnings from China were announced that a Coronavirus was spreading uncontrollably in their country (and had already been for several weeks but the news had been suppressed) the UK government had completely failed to:

1. ensure that there was sufficient personal protective equipment (PPE) for everyone working in health care and
2. failed to ensure that there was a rigorous testing and tracing regime put in place as they have done in S Korea and quickly got the problem under control and
3. failed to ensure an adequate supply of ventilators for use in hospitals

This incompetence/gross negligence, however you want to phrase it, will have resulted in the spread of the virus in hospitals among both the critical health care workers and the patients themselves. The seriousness of these failures that have been pointed out by despairing doctors and nurses on social media for weeks and are only now being addressed. It will lead to a rapid failure of the NHS system.  

And I feel very sorry for the people in many countries around the world that have incompetent leaders that think only of their personal safety and status and put these above those of poor people that have to struggle each to find food to survive. How many people will die in India, S America and Africa.
And what of the USA where millions don’t have health insurance, sick pay or holiday pay? Whilst the morally corrupt idiot Trump who has described the pandemic as a hoax put forward by the Democrats now says he thinks it will all be over in three weeks! And all that while the number of cases and deaths in New York is sky-rocketing. This will surely bring him down and he knows it even though the lies will get greater and greater.
When the film is shown about this sorry episode in history, as it surely will be (in fact I’m sure people will be penning it already) and the insiders spill the beans (they are already doing so) on the shenanigans and incompetence going on behind closed doors, I wonder how the world’s leaders will fare.  

And what of Russia where news has been very sparse recently? This is a country of course where news is heavily controlled by the government and if you upset Putin you are likely to end up dead on a pavement. Pro-Kremlin media have been spreading disinformation about coronavirus with the aim of “aggravating” the public health crisis in the west, the European Union’s diplomatic service has concluded in a leaked report. There is also a growing belief that Russia is not being open and honest about the number of cases there - that's hardly a surprise as Putin is up there amongst the biggest liars of them all.
Of one thing I’m absolutely certain and that is that at the moment of greatest tragedy here in the UK when the papers are writing about nothing else than the pandemic, the long-awaited Parliamentary report into alleged Russian interference in UK democracy will be quietly released in the hope that the press don’t notice.

Did you see the wonderful 2-part film on Cuba and its wildlife on BBC last week by Colin Stafford-Johnson? Well worth a watch and I learnt quite a bit that I didn’t know. I’ll blog more about that later. Enjoy your day, keep exercising and laughing, and above all stay safe.

Blue Grosbeak Passerina caerulea is widespread but not abundant in summer throughout Central America and most of the US and is expanding its range northward due to climate breakdown. In winter it moves down to Mexico and Central America. At this time it is very occasionally found in Cuba but is commoner on migration. I was recently sent these excellent pictures of a male coming into summer plumage. They were taken very recently at Las Salinas de Brito, Zapata by birding and nature guide by Adrián Cobas Arencibia. Thank you Adrián. You can find him on Facebook or Twitter @adriancobasarencibia.

And here is another of his great pictures, this time a Spotted Rail also at Zapata.