When hiking, it is very important to keep an eye out for bird pellets or animal droppings so you can collect them and analyze their contents. I typically carry some ziplock bags for storage, leaving some air in them to protect the contents while in my backpack. Below are some photos of what I believe are bird pellets that I collected on a recent walk. Bird pellets are made of indigestible matter (in this case primarily bones and fur) that are regurgitated by birds. I often see them beneath large trees where birds may roost, but in this case they were on a stone wall.

As you can see, this bird was primarily eating rodents. The bulk of the pellets was made of fur, but portions of the stronger bones, like the jaws and teeth, were still intact within the pellets. I did also find bits of beetle carapace, perhaps an hors d’oeuvr, as well. It may be interesting to note that there are no native rodents on the island, although mice and rats have been here for hundreds of years now. Of course, any migratory bird may also be used to eating rodents back on the continent where they are native.

Yesterday we spent a day at Pinel Islet with new team members D Money and Jessmaster J. While they snorkeled with Madam J, I headed across the island to investigate the mini-forest where my dwarf geckos live, as well as exploring a couple new snorkeling areas. As noted yesterday, I found the tiniest lizard I’ve ever seen. I also found and interesting cricket. The woods were drier than in previous visits and perhaps there was less to eat: when turning over rocks or logs to investigate, the usually shy anole Anolis gingivinus often immediately ran down from from a nearby perch to see if I had uncovered anything edible.

Walking around further, I found some large crevices in the rocky hillside, but they seemed uninhabited. I also did reconnaissance of potential snorkeling spots and took a few landscape photos of the island. After lunch, I headed back out with snorkel gear and explored three new areas.

The first was the tide pool area on the North Beach. There are quite a few large tide pools here, but they are very shallow, only a few inches deep, so they mostly hold algae and a few small fishes. Next, I headed out off the northeast beach and found that a small barrier reef creates a relatively sheltered lagoon near the shore that slopes down to about 12 feet deep. Swimming out through a cut, the reef drops down to about 30 feet on the outside and there are many beautiful coral formations. Finally, I did a drift snorkel over a large patch of shallow water between the two beaches. The current is very strong and the entire area, perhaps 100 meters or more in diameter, is less than two feet deep. Much like trees on a windy coastline, the soft corals were stunted and permanently swept to one side. I even saw an elkhorn coral growing in water so shallow the branches were growing downward. A very exciting site!

What’s smaller than a dwarf gecko? A baby dwarf gecko! I found this baby Sphaerodactylus sputator on Pinel today and I think he’s easily the smallest lizard I’ve ever seen. For scale, in the first photo he’s hiding in the folds of a crushed soda can, and in the others he’s climbing out of a regular size spice jar, like one of those McCormick’s ones. I just measured it and the hole he climbs out of is exactly 1/4″ in diameter. If you’ve seen a cuter little lizard, send me a photo.

Yesterday was Sunday, which means the workers building a new development at the base of Pea Tree Hill were gone for the day. I took advantage of this fact to head up for a look around. The area is a mix of lowland forest and hilly pasture. Heading up the hill I encountered a few cows, saw my mysterious microteiid and surprisingly few anoles.

After crossing the pass between Pea Tree Hill and the neighboring hill to the west, I found an official hiking path, marked with red and white ribbon. The path led upwards towards the summit of Pea Tree Hill and through a barbwire fence. Although it isn’t tall (214 meters), there are some good views from the summit. To the northeast, the wilderness area of the island can be seen, along with Pinel and Tintamarre. To the southeast, Hope Estate is nestled beneath Hope Hill and Montagne France with Petit Fond in the distance.

I headed around Pea Tree Hill to investigate a rock formation for caves, but found only a few small crevices. Descending towards Route de Esperance, I headed through an area of abandoned concrete and junk before heading back home. Near the airport pond, I saw a couple very young, very green iguanas.

I was in NYC for a few days and one afternoon I went to Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn with Andres. I didn’t do any E.S.S., but we did see some turtles.

Also, the blog here has been quiet for a while because of the NYC visit, but also because my laptop hard drive died. Luckily, they’re easy to replace and now I have a 640GB drive in my laptop. More stuff coming soon!

Since we arrived in November, the bridge in Grand Case has spanned a stretch of sand rather than a canal to the salt pond that surrounds the airport. As we prepare for the coming hurricane season, however, that is changing. A couple days ago a digger began excavating the sand to create a canal leading out to the bay in preparation for potential rains that may fill the salt pond and require an outlet.

Although it is probably necessary, it is also disturbing because it will inevitably release the very dirty pond water into the bay, polluting the water and the beach. Without knowing for sure, I would guess that the pond is not only a dumping ground for visible trash, but also contains sewage from nearby homes and businesses. Although there are mangroves surrounding the pond and plants and animals absorbing and filtering some of the pollution, it’s clearly not nearly enough to handle the amount of waste that accumulates there. It will be interesting to see the impact on the bay and the pond when the canal is fully open.

Le Trou de David (David’s Hole), is a large natural hole with two arches leading out to the sea near Baie Rouge. We’ve known about it for years, but only just went out to visit. On the sides of the hole, green iguanas are common, and I even spotted one climbing down the cliff-face on the sea-side of the hole. The hole is located near a couple other interesting spots: Pointe du Bluff, where a narrow isthmus leads out to a patch of forested land and La Belle Creole, an abandoned resort that is rumored to be built beside an ancient native burial ground.

Since we were nearby, we also undertook a reconnaissance mission to Le Grotte de Puits des Terres Basses, which is supposedly a large cave near Morne Rouge that serves as a roost for several species of bat. Unfortunately, due to time constraints we did not locate it this time, but will return soon.

I’ve gotten photos of over a dozen species of spider since I’ve been here, but I’m not very knowledgeable about them. Here’s a small and rather delicate looking spider that I found in our apartment the other day.

Bell Valley is what I’ve decided to call the unnamed valley between Bell Point and Anse Marcel. I headed down to there, in part to check on the dead raccoon I found earlier, and see if its skeleton had been picked clean yet. As you can see below, the flesh is basically gone, but there’s still plenty of dried skin and fur. At least the smell was gone, though! The same could not be said of the dead dog I found there. On the lighter side, I saw a cute calf nursing. Did you know that sometimes a cow will lap up another cow’s urine right from the stream as it is coming out? It’s true!

I took a new route out to Bell Point the other day, from Petite Plage and via the bouldery shore. Heading up the ravine past where I saw the turtle shell, I found a large recess under a boulder, but it seemed empty save for a few scattered goat bones. I also saw two of the very small microteiid that I had seen on the way to Friar’s Bay and a bird egg that had perhaps been washed out of the nest by the recent rains.

The water near the shore was quite clear, so I decided to round the point and climb up the side facing Anguilla. The views were quite nice and I discovered another potential cave on a cliff face on the side of Bell Hill. Heading up to investigate the potential cave, I made my way through some forest and to the cliff face. It was probably scalable, but I wasn’t quite foolish enough to try. After crossing below the cliff, I headed up the hill beside it and crossed the top as well and was able to locate the potential cave, which was just a small recess in the side of the wall.

Switching to my macro lens, I photographed quite a few small creatures, including what I believe were some newly-hatched babies of the red hemipteran I’ve seen on the island, some interesting color variations of Anolis pogus and a stripier version of the dwarf gecko Sphaerodactylus sputator. Along with sightings of Sphaerodactylus microlepis, Anolis gingivinus and Amieva plei, I had seen six species of lizards on my walk.