While waiting to meet someone at the Pinel ferry dock, I had an unusual sighting of two Hudsonian whimbrels at the edge of Étang de la Barrière. The area is currently cordoned off to allow the mangroves to regrow undisturbed. Also present were egrets, a willet and a yellow-crowned night heron. It’s worth taking a look next time you’re headed over to Pinel.
There were no sea turtle tracks on my beaches when I visited May 6th, but that wasn’t too surprising, because last year there were very few at the beginning of the season. I did find a number of other animals on the way. On my way back through Cul de Sac, I also had the rare opportunity to photograph a syrphid fly that I’ve seen before, but rarely alights long enough to capture.
In early May, I made a quick trip back to the Grotte du Puits de Terres Basses with some gentlemen from the Réserve Naturelle, as it is surely a site of interest on the island that warrants observation and protection. Although it is fairly large, and just a few minutes’ walk from the road, it can be difficult to find if you don’t know exactly where to enter the dense scrub. Since I was just showing them the location of the cave, we didn’t spend much time there, but a few photos are below.
Below is a small gallery of insects and spiders seen near Friars’ Bay in late April. My favorite find was the very small leafhopper with patterned forewings that it held out in the air.
Once again falling behind on my posts, here are a variety of critters I found on Pic Paradis. Most are insects, including some picture-winged flies, a type of fly I have seen laying eggs inside flowers. I also found a number of cricket nymphs, and a nymph of the buck-toothed katydid. Other interesting finds included a tiny white and green spider and some as-yet-unidentified hemipterans.
Yesterday afternoon I went on a quick expedition to the lagoon area off the north beach of Pinel with Pauline from the Réserve Naturelle. Our goal was to check the elkhorn corals to see if there were broken pieces suitable for transplanting. Elkhorn corals are both prone to breakage and often do well when transplanted.
At the large elkhorn we located we found a very interesting scene. The main colony was large and healthy. There were a couple pieces I had wedged into the dead coral substrate on an earlier visit as well as a number of other pieces on the sea floor. While a few of these were loose, many of them had managed to affix themselves and were growing in the areas down-current from the main colony. Most surprising was one particularly large branch that had affixed itself upside-down with the broken part at the top.
It was encouraging to see how well the coral was colonizing naturally with the broken pieces, but we also planned to visit the site regularly. Even though many pieces had successfully reattached, it is unclear what the percentage of successful reattachment is. It is possible that the dozen successes are just a small subset of the total number of broken pieces. A bit more ominous was the presence of a fair amount of algae in the lagoon, perhaps indicating an excess of nutrients that could be problematic for corals. More news to come!
Little Key is a small islet that lies more or less along the ferry route to Pinel. Underwater, it has a nice, shallow reef on the side that faces away from St. Martin, making it worth the swim from Pinel for a little snorkeling as long as you’re careful about watching for boat traffic. Right now, the islet is also a roosting area for dozens of brown pelicans, the largest group I’ve seen on the island. Apparently this flock has been going back and forth between Little Key and Étang Chevrise near Orient Bay. I took a few photos while I was out there, but unfortunately didn’t notice a drop of water on my lens.
After a few weeks of not being able to head out with the hiking club on Sunday morning, I was more than ready to get back into the swing of things. Luckily, this hike did not disappoint. Although the first part, through the Dawn Beach and Guana Bay areas, was too developed for my liking, the Geneve Bay and Back Bay area is probably the best part of the entire Dutch side. It’s a long strip of coastline with two large bays that is almost entirely undeveloped (depending on where you are, there are at most one or two houses visible on the hills in the distance). This walk also took us past the lovely natural pool at Back Bay.
Finishing up near Pointe Blanche, there is unfortunately a large, presumably illegal, dumping area. I guess in some ways it is representative, a beautiful coastline stretches out behind a pile of rusty metal and tires…welcome to Saint Martin!
After a few weeks of very limited island excursions, I took a quick walk down the airport road to see what was new. I found a few birds by the salt pond, including a green heron that seemed to still have a few downy tufts on its head. There was also a dead brown pelican. I checked to see if there were plastics in the body cavity, but didn’t find any. Investigations further down the road turned up a number of spiders and insects.
Many, perhaps most, of the recent acquisitions at the zoo have been donated or rescued animals. Currently, there are three baby raccoons that were captured near the port at Pointe Blanche in the southeast part of the Dutch side. The mother was found dead, and some workers brought the babies over to the zoo. They were somewhat sickly and malnourished, but after a vet checkup and deworming they seem to be doing quite well.
The origin of raccoons on the island is a bit of a mystery. They may have originally come as pets from Guadeloupe, or perhaps were brought over even earlier by Amerindians. The first official sighting was in 1957. Sightings in the wild have traditionally been rare, but seem to be increasingly common.
