There’s a mangrove tree in Étang de Cimetière in Grand Case that has been a home to countless iguanas and egrets over the last couple years, but is sadly dead or nearly so today. Below you can see the radical transformation over the last couple years.

April 2010 – Healthy Mangrove Hosting Egrets

January 2011 – Loads of Egrets, Lower Branches Bare

September 2011 – Nesting Over, Few Leaves Remain

December 2011 – No Birds, No Leaves, Fifteen Iguanas

January 2012 – The Egrets Return to Nest in the Bare Mangrove

It’s a pretty amazing progression, and I was surprised to see the egrets coming back to the bare tree. Of course, if the mangrove is totally dead, it will start rotting and probably collapse into the pond within another year or two. Probably there is a lesson in there for the humans of St. Martin, too.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 20th, 2012 at 8:47 am and is filed under Les Fruits sur la Terre, Pour les Sciences. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.