While Lynn was having an early morning swim I did a bit of birding and found an Antillean Nighthawk roosting on the flat roof in front of our room. I had to stand on a chair to get reasonable views of it and it was too distant to get any reasonable pictures. A bit later however we noticed a man out on the flat roof doing some maintenance so seeing an opportunity we went and spoke to him and asked him if I could get some pictures. Previously the access door had been locked so this was very fortuitous. I'm sure I could have got a lot closer but I didn't want to disturb it. This was the first time I had seen one settled like this.
On previous visits here we have always seen ospreys and a variety of water birds on the lake and Limpkins on the margins. On this occasion however the only thing we saw was a Double-crested Cormorant as we took our last trip across the lake in the boat.
Double-crested Cormorant 11 Jun 2018 Hanabanilla © Tim Norriss So we set off for Topes stopping on the way at the viewpoint that looked out over the forest towards one of the arms of Lake Hanabanilla below. Further on there was evidence of how much damage had been done by the rain last month. Topes had been cut off completely for several days and although temporary repairs had been made to the road it will be some time before it is completely made good. We were later told that there had been 300mm of rain in one day and 500mm over three days. This had caused a surging torrent that was 20ft deep lower down and had caused devastation. Whilst there can be quite a bit of rain here in the wet season this amount in such a short period of time was unprecedented.
There had been an accident on the road two days previously where a truck carrying local workers had been traveling too fast and had come off the road and overturned. Amazingly nobody was badly injured. The standard of driving in Cuba is generally very good but the truck drivers here didn't seem to have learnt the lesson and were still hurtling along far too fast.
We made a stop for butterflies a bit further up and were very glad that we did. A pristine male Silver Emperor Doxocopa laure was on the ground taking moisture and salts and was remarkably tame. It was interesting to see that the purple colour was only visible at certain angles and that some of the time it looked plain brown instead. We also saw Polydamas Swallowtail Battus polydamas and Many-banded Daggerwing Marpesia chiron.
Silver Emperor Doxocopa laure 11 Jun 2018 Topes © Tim Norriss
We passed a snake stretched out on the road and got Raul to pull over. Doug was swiftly out and grabbed it before it had time to make off. It was a Cuban Racer Cubophis cantherigerus which we see far more commonly than any other snake. It wouldn't live long lying in the road so we made sure it moved off quickly into the vegetation at the side.
It was a pleasure to be back at Los Helechos Hotel at Topes as we are always made very welcome. We were soon out exploring the roads and trails around the hotel and though there were fewer butterflies than last time because of the rain there were still lots of reptiles. I puzzled over the second one which is clearly a very pregnant female of I think Anolis homolechis though I have to admit that I'm still rather unclear on the differences between this and Anolis allogus. But since the latter isn't meant to occur in the Escambray I think I'm pretty safe. And also a very interesting Arctiinae moth that unfortunately flew and I couldn't relocate.
There was also another Twig Anole Anolis sp that has got me very intrigued. It is similar to Blue-eyed Twig Anole Anolis alutaceus above but I have convinced myself that it is not that species due to different colouration and also some subtle structural differences. It has a longer nose, longer tail and slimmer legs. It lacks the pale stripes on the side of the abdomen of alutaceus and there is a distinctive pale patch at the base of the spindly rear femur where this meets the body. It also has a small white mark on the elbow of the forelegs. In fact the more I look at it the more obvious that it becomes that it is a different species. But what is it?
Well it has taken me a few hours of finding and reading papers and descriptions (there are only a couple of poor quality pictures on the internet) and I have finally found the answer. After going through the list of Cuban anoles alphabetically and ruling each one out I came across Black-shouldered Anole Anolis spectrum which seemed similar structurally but is only found further to the west. There are about a dozen small species that occur in grass and bush habitats and these are placed in four species groups: alutaceus, clivicola, cyanopleurus, and spectrum (Burnell and Hedges, 1990). The spectrum group comprises A. spectrum and A. vanidicus, and vanidicus is found in the Escambray mountains. So it is an Escambray Grass Anole Anolis vanidicus. And we saw another the next day so I have included the picture of that too. And it occurs only here in the Escambray mountains - and nowhere else on the planet!
Well it has taken me a few hours of finding and reading papers and descriptions (there are only a couple of poor quality pictures on the internet) and I have finally found the answer. After going through the list of Cuban anoles alphabetically and ruling each one out I came across Black-shouldered Anole Anolis spectrum which seemed similar structurally but is only found further to the west. There are about a dozen small species that occur in grass and bush habitats and these are placed in four species groups: alutaceus, clivicola, cyanopleurus, and spectrum (Burnell and Hedges, 1990). The spectrum group comprises A. spectrum and A. vanidicus, and vanidicus is found in the Escambray mountains. So it is an Escambray Grass Anole Anolis vanidicus. And we saw another the next day so I have included the picture of that too. And it occurs only here in the Escambray mountains - and nowhere else on the planet!
Escambray Grass Anole Anolis vanidicus 12 Jun 2018 Topes © Tim Norriss
The Club-tailed Skimmer Scapanea frontalis is a fairly common dragonfly up in the mountains but what a beautiful insect, definitely the best odonate we have seen. And it was great to catch up with the female of the Antillean Sylph Macrothemis celeno that we saw yesterday as I can find no other photos of females on the internet.
And Doug then found a larval shelter of Frosty Flasher Astraptes habana and eggs of Green Flasher Astraptes talus on a small vine.
We watched a Grey Ministreak Ministrymon azia laying on a new foodplant and while sitting having a break in the high humidity Doug spotted a large Cuban Tree Frog Osteopilus septentrionalis hiding in plain sight on the tree in front of us. And as we walked back from supper at the restaurant in the evening there were once again several Antillean Nighthawk calling and feeding overhead.
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