In an attempt to get a few better bird photos for the wildlife guide, I picked up a Tokina 80-400mm lens in New York. Although it’s not the best on the market by any means, it is one of the smallest, although it is still at least twice as heavy as my camera. They’re able to make it smaller (and cheaper) because it doesn’t have image stabilization, which means it’s really only useful if there’s lots of light. Luckily, we generally have that down here and I think it’s going to work out well.

Below are photos of a few critters that I saw at Pinel Island last week. They’re mostly familiar faces, although the young grasshopper and moth may be new to me.

A few weeks ago I found another tree that was being almost completely defoliated by checkered swallowtail (Papilio demoleus) caterpillars and brought back a single chrysalis which hatched a week or so later. This time it hatched in perfect form. Despite the fact that it is an invasive species, I released it because a single individual would not really make any difference in the colonization of the island.

On Wednesday I made another trip out to Grandes Cayes and Petites Cayes to look for sea turtle tracks on the beach, but didn’t see any. I did manage to get some photos of a ghost crab that didn’t have a good getaway plan and just froze for a while. I also snapped a couple shots of the terrain at Wilderness and some examples of hills defoliated by grazing.

Below are photos taken in a couple fields in Grand Case. Cloudy weather and some previous showers made it a little easier to get photos of some of the smaller butterflies, while spiders were in abundance and seemed to be having really good luck catching insects.

Here are a few beetles, a moth and the omnipresent gray wall jumper spiders. This was the first time I had seen cannibalism in the gray wall jumpers.

The other day I went on a longer than expected adventure through the Wilderness area of the island. I started off a little before seven to check my beaches for turtle tracks. Feeling pretty good after doing that, I decided to head cross-country up Red Rock, the mountain behind Petite Cayes. At first, progress up a dry gulch was quite good, although things started to get pretty dense once the slope leveled out near the top.

Rather than turn back, I decided to push through and descend down towards Cul de Sac. This took several hours longer than I anticipated, through thorny scrub and fields of the bromeliad that has serrated leaf edges like knives. For a time I had to stop taking photos because if I stopped moving I would be swarmed by dozens of mosquitoes. I also became quite thirsty in the hours after I ran out of water.

Eventually, though I made it to the top of the ridge overlooking Cul de Sac and merely had to climb all the way down on a field of boulders to get to civilization. At four o’clock, covered with scratches and dirt, and having a large hole in the butt of both my shorts and underwear, made it back to the road, stopped at the first place I found and drank a liter and a half of water and immediately got severe cramps. Was it worth it? It’s hard to say, but I’m not going to try it again in the near future.

Below are a bunch of critters that either came to our porch light or were seen during nighttime walks. One night after a week of heavy rains we were swarmed by water boatmen, very small aquatic hemipterans.

Below are a few sets of photos from various excursions in search of wildlife. The first set is from the area near the Grand Case airport. There were quite a few creatures, but the mosquitoes were out in force, which made it hard to stop and take photos:

At the other end of town, I travelled from the cemetery area to Friar’s Bay and Happy Bay. Between the aforementioned bays I ran into a very curious cuckoo, the first one I’ve seen on the island.

Finally, here are a few stray shots from a visit to Pinel.

Below are a few sets of photos from our expeditions to survey for turtle tracks and nests. After searching a couple times at our designated beaches in the northeast of the island, we met up with friends and Pauline from the nature reserve to look at Baie aux Prunes where we found lots of tracks and a few possible nests. The saddest tracks were the wanderings of a turtle that fell over a wall and then had to crawl around searching for a way back to the beach.

Back at our assigned beach we found no tracks, but plenty of other stuff. I focused mostly on the seabirds that take advantage of the easterly winds in that location.