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.

We have been trained by the Reserve Naturelle of Saint Martin in the analysis of sea turtle tracks and nests. Once or twice a week, we are visiting the beaches of Grandes Caye and Petite Caye at the northeast corner of the island to look for tracks and possible nests as part of their nesting survey. Below are photos from our first two trips out there. We didn’t see any tracks or nests yet, but it is a pleasure to be out at the most beautiful and unspoiled corner of the island in the early morning.

Notable sitings from our first trip included a huge mass of laughing gulls at the dump, mysterious (non-turtle) tracks on the beach and a sampling of the Anolis gingivinus that live on the rocky beach area between the two beaches we survey.

Our second visit was great for seabird photos. I was able to capture a female and an immature magnificent frigatebird jousting in the air. There were also many reddish bees that were swarming where the vegetation meets the beach, sometimes stopping to do something that looked like fighting but could have been mating. The nearby flowers had a very curious shape, presumably to facilitate pollination, that can be seen below.

If it’s too hot or rainy to hike up into the hills to photograph butterflies, just leave the porch light on after dark and you’re bound to get plenty of moths. Below are twenty or so different species that came to our veranda in the last month. Unfortunately, I’ve only been able to identify a few so far. They range in size from one centimeter in wingspan to five or six centimeters. If you recognize any of them, please let me know!

Here’s another interesting longhorn beetle. I think it’s prettier than the last one, and I particularly like the way the antennae basically come out of the compound eye. I guess it pays to leave the veranda light on. I also really need to get crackin’ on my Coleoptera identification skills.

Boston.com’s The Big Picture featured an awesome National Geographic photo of some scientists doing Extreme Shallow Snorkeling in a Tennessee creek in search of a 2-inch catfish. Bonus points: the fish is called the smoky madtom.

A couple weeks ago, I obtained a pair of house gecko eggs and was keeping them in a high tech incubator (empty spice bottle) in the closet of our guest bedroom. Over the last couple days, both babies hatched, and a few photos of them are below. After taking the photos, I released them on our balcony (where another young house gecko already resides) and their current whereabouts are unknown. I wasn’t able to capture it in the photos, but their bellies were translucent and you could see the vague shape of organs inside.

Below are some shots of a rather attractive longhorn beetle that I found on the ground near the dive shop. After brushing off the ants (it was already dead), I saved it so I could take some photos. As I have found lately, it is quite hard to take good photos of dark, highly-reflective creatures. Reflections from the flash are inevitable, regardless of attempts to diffuse the light, although they can sometimes be minimized by aiming at areas that will create smaller reflections. It is also necessary to coerce one’s camera into using the correct exposure. With a white background, it will underexpose the subject, so using exposure compensation is a must. Likewise, autocontrast or other similar Photoshop functions tend to be counterproductive for this type of shot, although manual adjustments can be beneficial.

With tens of thousands of species of longhorn beetle in the world, the id on this particular one may take a while.

Tunicates are curious creatures. Although they look very simple and are often mistaken for sponges (the simplest multicellular animals), they are actually Chordates, sharing many features with vertebrates, except the actual backbone. They may be solitary or colonial and are typically identified by the presence of two holes: incurrent and excurrent siphons, which they can close rapidly. The holes on sponges, by contrast, do not move or close. Below are photos of a variety of tunicates living on the Grand Case pier. I have also seen pelagic (free-swimming) tunicates near Petite Plage.

As promised, here are a few photos of the strange beetle I found on Hope Hill yesterday. I think it is a type of weevil based on the long snout and antennae coming out of it. It is, however, quite elongated and quite large for a weevil. Its feet made a very quiet pitter-patter on the paper as it ran around while I was photographing it.

A couple days ago, I found two blind snakes in Chris and Sally’s yard. The first was very small, the second was much smaller. I believe they are an African species, Ramphotyphlops braminus, that has accidentally been introduced by man in many tropical areas and has been seen on nearby Anguilla. Common names for this species include the brahminy blind snake and flowerpot blind snake.

Besides its curious appearance, this snake is also apparently the only confirmed parthenogenic snake and there are no males. They also have scales over their rudimentary eyes, so they can only see light and dark, but not much else. Although they look like worms, they move quite quickly and it is very hard to tell the head from the tail. As with many other snakes, they excrete a smelly substance when captured.