We couldn't keep away. Now that flights to Cuba are again starting up from Europe and tourists are again starting to travel now that the worst effects of the pandemic are starting to decline due to the vaccination programs we thought we'd return with the primary objective of trying to find the Great King Anetia pantherata. We arrived in Habana last night after traveling from London via Madrid. Gone are the direct flights from London by Thomas Cook or Virgin so it was Air Europa via Madrid. We stayed as we have in the past at the Copacabana Hotel in the centre of Habana with swimming in the sea pool outside our windows.
Some things had changed, not least the roofs of parts of the hotel, which on our last visit had been clay pantiles in need of repair where many Cuban Martins nested where the pantiles had blown off. These had now all been removed and in their place was now just a pantile colour painted concrete roof. The many Cuban Martins that nested here on the two roofs in the first picture had now all been displaced. Luckily there were still a few pairs nesting under the imitation pantile sheet roofing on the side of the building just above our room. So before breakfast I spent half an hour trying to get a few pictures in the rather poor early morning light.

Our driver Duviel picked us up after breakfast, and as Doug and Yosiel had been a bit delayed, we went off with Duviel to the edge of Habana to get an oil change on the vehicle. While that was being done Lynn and I walked down the road to find some butterflies. There were several yellows, Ceraunus Blue Hemiargus ceraunus, both Phaon Crescent Phyciodes phaon and Cuban Crescent Anthanassa frisia. Cuban Calisto Calisto herophile and one or two skippers including Baracoa Skipper Polites baracoa and this Southern Broken Dash Wallengrenia otho. This is a species that we see more often in woodland clearings rather than on roadside verges.

I should say at the start, that back in 2019, just before our whale-watching trip to Mexico, I had traded in my Canon DSLR for a Sony RX10 bridge camera. The Sony has some great advantages like a zoom lens up to 600mm, great image stabilisation, the image quality is not quite as sharp as I'd like it to be but its the speed of focusing that is a problem to me. Often the time it takes to find the bird or butterfly on the screen and to focus means that the target is long gone.
So we picked up Douglas and Yosiel and then headed off to Soroa where we were going to be staying at the Hotel Horizontes Villa Soroa for four nights. At the Reception as we were booking in we were told that the Hotel Maria La Gorda at Guanahacabibes, which was our next hotel, had just been closed due to power cut problems and we'd need to make other arrangements. Such is Cuba! Time for a quick photo of this Pyralid moth before off to our rooms.

We put our things in our rooms, quick wash and change and out to look for wildlife. There is a small strip of cultivated land just behind the hotel which is always good for butterflies and first was finding a Costus spiralis plant covered in the eggs of Perching Saliana - Saliana esperi. There was also a large larva too. Many of the tips of the leaves had an egg, or in the case below, two - of which one had already hatched.

And there was a pretty orchid that we hadn't seen before called Prosthechea boothiana. It is supposed to be widespread from the coast up to 200m asl but here at Soroa the altitude is around 225m asl.

On the edge of a small cultivated strip behind the hotel Doug spotted a small Scaly-breasted Mannikin which allowed a remarkably close approach and remained motionless near the ground apart from the occasional blinking of the eye.

There were lots of butterflies on the flowers of the weedy plot and we saw around twenty species in about an hour. A pair of Common Ground Dove were feeding on the freshly turned ground where the hand-driven oxen had passed with the plough and Doug and Yosiel found a Spanish Flag Anole Anolis allogus on a tree at the end of the plot.

Just below the bar area there was a short row of Mango trees  with some fallen fruits on the ground which were attracting 5 or 6 Tailed Cecropian Historis acheronta and on a ripe fruit high up in one of the trees.

Of the butterflies on the flowers there were six Ocola Skipper Panoquina ocola, two Purple-washed Skipper Panoquina lucas and later a pair of Phaon Crescent Phyciodes phaon in cop and several Dainty Sulphur Nathalis iole settling to roost in the grasses before it was time to go in for our evening meal.

The Cuban Grassquit is a declining endemic bird of Cuba. It suffers mainly due to the unchecked captive bird trade where where wild birds are trapped and then kept in small cages for the rest of their lives - for human pleasure. Their capture is illegal but the authorities turn a blind eye as life is very hard anyway for most of the human population. Thank you to Jorge Juria for the wonderful photo.

The range of the Nassau Grouper covers the whole of the Caribbean including Florida and down to Venezuela and the coast of Belize. It is found on inshore coral reefs and down to a depth of 100m. Its range has declined catastrophically due to commercial over-fishing including on Cuba so that in many areas it is now considered extinct.
It is a solitary fish (except when spawning), feeding in the daytime, mainly on other fish and small crustaceans such as crabs and small lobsters. It spawns in December and January, always around the time of the full moon, and always in the same locations. By the light of the full moon, huge numbers of the grouper cluster together to mate in a mass spawning.
Cuba is at last setting up Marine Protected Areas to ensure that adults can spawn and the young grow in safety. Cuba does not have a great track record in nature conservation. In fact one only has to look at huge illegal bird trapping business in Cuba to see what happens. Yes there are laws in place to prevent such bird trapping for the cage bird trade but it still goes on often under the noses of the police who take no action whatever. And so in the dismal and deteriorating economic climate in the country the regime allows it to continue and takes no action to stop it. And many of the birds collected and consigned to living in tiny cages for the rest of their lives are rare and declining endemics like Cuban Parrot, Cuban Grassquit and Cuban Bullfinch.

Protection of marine life such as turtles and manatees I think follows much the same pattern though at least for the turtles there are some great protection efforts going on mainly by volunteers. We saw this on our latest trip to Cuba in August and I'll be writing about this later. The MPA set up to protect the Grouper, and where the wonderful pictures above were taken by Joán Hernandez Albernas is at Cayo Francés (marked below) which lies to the west of Cayo Coco on the central north coast of Cuba. It was here also that a carcass of a stranded Fin Whale (Balaenoptera physalus) was discovered on Feb 6th 2022. It was determined as a young male 13m long and you can read about the finding here. This stranding is the first record for the species in the
northern coast of Cuba, and the second documented in the country. Fin Whales are the second longest whale on the planet (after the Blue Whale) and can grow to around 26m in length.

I've often thought there is huge potential for whale watching in Cuba especially in the south-east where the land drops away rapidly to deep water. In other parts of the world these are typically areas where upwellings from the deep create ideal conditions for cetaceans to feed. Anywhere west of Santiago de Cuba could be brilliant I think but I don't expect anyone has ever looked. I would love to go back to Cuba and spend time in this area just looking out to sea with a telescope or binoculars. Whether we will or nor remains to be seen.

The fear that the Cuban  regime has of a mass exodus of Cuban folk, to Florida especially, means that ownership of fast boats is restricted. And of course the Guardian newspaper here in the UK reported only yesterday the Cuba state media report that a boat off northern Cuba traveling toward the United States sank after a collision with a Cuban coastguard ship and at least five people died. The craft reportedly flipped over after the crash near Bahía Honda, about two hours from the capital, Havana. Among the five known dead were a minor and three women, while 23 people were rescued. No other details have been released and the true facts will probably never be known. Cuban authorities say the matter is now under investigation but it should be born in mind that the narrative they wish to promote is that the journey is very dangerous and is likely to result in them being caught and returned to Cuba. Who knows what the fate of the survivors will be but it will likely involve a long prison sentence incarcerated in a Cuban jail as a deterrent to others. The incident comes amid the biggest migratory flight from the Caribbean island in four decades, spurred by a deepening economic, political and energy crisis. The majority of Cubans leaving go by plane to Nicaragua, then travel overland to the US border, often in Texas and Arizona.
But a growing number have fled by boat on the dangerous 90-mile (145km) journey to the southern coast of the United States. Between October 2021 and August 2022, the US Coast Guard intercepted more than 4,600 Cubans traveling by boat, almost six times more than in all of 2020. It is the largest exodus since 1980, when about 125,000 Cubans traveled by sea to the US over six months, an event known as the Mariel crisis.

And I haven't said that since the last corrupt, lying, cheating charlatan.

Who'd vote Tory? Still at least there's only two more Chancellors till Christmas. Have a good one - if you can still afford it that is. There are now over 2,500 food banks operating in the UK and they provided over 2.1 million food parcels to those suffering hardship in the year to May 2022. Most are employed hard-working people, some doing two or more jobs trying to make ends meet and feed their families. We need a General Election and a new Government now. We need rid of all corrupt, lying Tory politicians.

Or, as the wonderful actress Miriam Margolyes said live on Radio 4 this morning while talking about Jeremy Hunt "Fuck the Tories".

While we were in Cuba in August we went to visit Carlos A. Mancina in Habana. He is Director of the Institute of Ecology and Systematics in Habana. On the wall of their flat was this wonderful painting of a Cuban Giant Owl. No you won't find it in the Field Guide as it is long extinct. It was painted by his good friend Raimundo Lopez-Silvero in 2020.

Carlos had generously retained some copies of a new book published earlier this year (for which he is the lead author) called Mariposas de Cuba, Guía de Campo. Douglas Fernandez had written a chapter and I had also contributed a little. This is the first Field Guide to be written on the Butterflies of Cuba and although a few hard copies were printed the main advantage of the book is that it is available as a free pdf. It was produced with the purpose of raising awareness and as a leaning aid for the population of Cuba.

But - back to the Owl. The Cuban Giant Owl or Giant Cursorial Owl is an extinct genus of giant owl that measured around 1.1 metres in height. It is closely related to the many species of living owls of the genus Strix. It was a flightless or nearly flightless bird, and therefore largely terrestrial,  and is believed to be the largest owl that has ever existed. It lived solely on the island of Cuba.

The first fossil specimen was mistakenly described as a bird in the family Phorusrhacidae, in part because the bones were so large. Birds in this family, colloquially known as terror birds, are an extinct clade of large carnivorous flightless birds that were one of the largest species of apex predators in South America during the Cenozoic era; their conventionally accepted temporal range covers from 62 to 0.1 million years (Ma) ago.  In 1961, Pierce Brodkorb reviewed the fossil remains and placed them properly, with the owls. Remains have been found to be abundant throughout the island, in cave deposits from the Late Pleistocene period (126,000 to 11,700 years ago) and at least three nearly complete skeletons have been found.

Arredondo estimated the height of Ornimegalonyx to have been 1.1 metres tall and it probably easily exceeded 9 kilograms. It had very long legs for its size, but was bulky overall and probably short-tailed. The modern-day owl that most resembles the Cuban Giant Owl in proportions is probably the small long-legged Burrowing Owl which is found throughout the open landscapes of North and South America. It is the only surviving owl that is very largely terrestrial. This implies similar adaptations to the terrestrial lifestyle, but not a close phylogenetic relationship.

One of the largest living owls, the Eurasian eagle owl (Bubo bubo), reaches 4 kg in weight, and Peters has reported them taking roe deer fawns that weigh 17 kg as prey. The legs and feet of the Cuban Giant Owl also appear to be very large and powerful. This supports the theory that they were strong runners, hence the alternative name, cursorial. The keel of the sternum was reduced and the owl may have been capable of a short burst of flight.
The Cuban Giant Owl is believed to have preyed principally on large Jutias (still extant today), including Capromys, Geocapromys, and Macrocapromys (the latter being the size of a modern capybara) and the ground sloths Cubanocnus, Miocnus, Mesocnus, and Megalocnus. It was probably an ambush predator that would pounce on unsuspecting prey with its crushing talons.

We are living in very dangerous times with Neoliberalism and fascism on the rise. Do watch what George Monbiot has to say about this here.

Melete salacia Black-striped White is a regional endemic found only on Cuba and Hispaniola. It is not very common and the lovely picture above of a male was taken recently in Cuba. Its range is mainly in the east of the country though it does occur as far west as Topes de Collantes and the Bay of Pigs wherever the foodplants grow.

Reddish Egret has two morphs in Cuba, the first like this is grey with a reddish chestnut head and neck, and the second is entirely white. In breeding plumage the adults have a pink base to the bill but here the adult has an all black bill.
They feed primarily on small fish; shrimp and crab, and are quite widespread around the coasts of Cuba. It is just occasionally found on freshwater lakes inland. They are active, animated foragers and employ their wings frequently when hunting, either opening the wings briefly to startle their prey, or by keeping the wings extended and open, probably to coax prey to take shelter in the shade of the wings. They also extend their wings fully over the head and hunt beneath the umbrella they create. This “canopy feeding” also attracts prey to a shaded environment and permits the egret to see prey clearly, without sun glare.
Thank you to Ernesto Reyes Mouriño for his great pictures taken recently at Zapata.

Thank you to Jemma Forte's Dad for this poem about the wonderful succession of Tory leaders we’ve had.
STEP ONE
CAMERON As smooth as a plastic banknote, a cipher in a suit,
A bottomless pit of nothingness, he started the dispute,
With our European neighbours, to appease the rabid right.
He proposed the referendum, that has turned our world to shite.
THEN MAY Strangely forward leaning, but only in her walk,
She preached the Brexit gospel, and talked the Tory talk.
A fervent believer in Brexit, though she’d campaigned to remain,
She spread the Brexit mantra, whilst sounding quite insane,
‘No deal is better than a bad deal.’ she honked like an angry goose,
But she didn’t get her deal through, and the bastards cut her loose.
JOHNSON People liked this funny chap, this rumpled clubbable Tory,
But his days as Bullingdon hoodlum, tell quite a different story.
A greedy lying narcissist, feathering his nest.
Milking Tory donors was the one thing he did best.
His horrendous Brexit deal went through, making millions for his chums,
Whilst leaving others destitute, millions of credulous bums
Leveling up was a great success, though not everyone got more,
While millionaires became billionaires, it was leveling down for the poor.
As food banks fed the destitute, the ruling class got richer,
He’d done horrendous damage, by the time he left the picture.
AND NOW TRUSS
Truss – ‘A surgical appliance’, only this one inflicts pain,
The ultimate horror tory, borderline insane.
The red meat of racist rhetoric, hooking codgers in the Shires,
Pandering to xenophobes, and stoking their desires.
Spouting shit more freely, than the shit flowing into the sea
Picking fights with global leaders, completely out of her tree.
Pig-headed and thick as mince, a fatal combination,
What Cameron did to a pig’s head, she’ll now do to a nation.