Backyard and Beyond

Arthropods of St. John III

Published January 30, 2012 Fieldnotes 1 Comment
Tags: crabs, St. John

Hermit crabs range from these little guys, scavenging the back end of rocks along the shoreto the landlubbers known as “soldier crabs,” which can get up to baseball sized, shell (usually the West Indian topshell or whelk as below) included.These are the ones who swarm out of the mountains in August to mate by the sea.

There is another land crab, not a hermit, which I only caught glimpses of. Mud around their nest holes is evidence of recent activity below.They are still hunted for food so their shyness is excusable.

Iguana Iguana

Published January 29, 2012 Fieldnotes 2 Comments
Tags: reptiles, St. John

The western edge of Klein Bay is rocky, but I scrambled about three-quarters of the way along its edge the first morning of our trip. I wanted to see the sun come up over Dittlif Point peninsula (unseen to the left in the above image). I found a nice flat rock to stand on – it was too wet from the night’s surf to sit on -and while waiting heard a noise behind me.

St. John, like Virgin Gorda, is hopping with lizards, anoles, and geckos, most of them just a few inches long. And I do mean hopping: they will often jump to get ahead of you. This one, for instance, was barely 1.5 inches long.

But this morning’s noise-maker was a three-foot long iguana.It was obviously waiting for the sun, too, on an outcropping a couple of yards above me.

I don’t think Virgin Gorda, which is smaller, has a drier and more cactus-dominated habitat, has any of these long-tailed reptiles, so this was my first opportunity to see one. So we spent some time waiting for the sun to crest the land, iguana and I. But just as the sun was cresting, it was suddenly obscured in clouds. I scrambled back in time to take shelter under a maho tree before it started to pour. Luckily, these tropical downpours are brief this time of year. I then found this on the way to our villa:I think it’s a piece of shed iguana skin. It looks like it came from the chin, where those large eye-like spots are. It seemed a red-letter day, and was eager to tell my crew about my finds, all before they even awoke.It turned out, however, that this was just the beginning of the iguana watching. We had them as neighbors, just a few feet way. Seven was the high count one day. They loved to hang out atop the trees and bushes and palms right next to the house. I saw one crossing the road slowly, dinosaur-ishly; another time I saw one scramble up a tree rather quickly, monkey-ishly. They were by the side of the roads, in trees, all over, even downtown in Cruz Bay.Unlike a lot of things on the island, iguanas are native to the region. The very name seems be a Spanish version of the Taino name. Though plenty fierce-looking, they are herbivores. Their common name is Green Iguana, Iguana iguana, and are most immediately differentiated from the endangered Lesser Antillean iguana by the bold stripes on their tails.

Arthropods of St. John Part II

Published January 28, 2012 Fieldnotes Leave a Comment
Tags: invertebrates, St. John

One of the ubiquitous arboreal termite colonies, or termitaria, found on the island. Known locally as wood lice or wood ants, this Nasutitermes species builds large nests of partially digested wood pulp mixed with their own saliva and feces. The material looks like mud from a distance. The nests are often found broken up on the ground, brought down by their own weight. Here’s a chunk of the brittle, friable nest: These critters do not like the light: they even turn their trails into tunnels, as this one, snaking up a tree:I found this tunnel across a path. It had been stepped on by an earlier walker:If you look closely, you can see two of the three termite castes in this scrum: the round-headed workers and the pointy-headed soldiers (their heads are also darker). The soldier’s proboscis sprays noxious chemicals in defense of the colony. I didn’t smell anything unusual, probably because the disruption was already over and now the termites were working to repair the damage. The third caste, the reproductives, are generally only seen in the fall when they take to wing.

Termites from a single nest may build tunnels in a territory as large as a football field. They generally don’t eat living wood, so they are recyclers of dead wood in the forest. Their waste pumps nitrogen back into the soil. Wood pulp is really hard to digest, so the termites’ guts are loaded with cellulose-digesting bacteria. It’s a symbiotic relationship — like that of humans and our intestinal flora, which consists of something around 500 species! — one passed on, literally, via the young eating the liquid intestinal stew secreted from the business ends of older termites. “Proctodeal feeding,” to the pros. Now, carry on with your breakfast, and feed that gut flora!

Friday Night Light

Published January 27, 2012 Backyard Leave a Comment

Cobble Hill sunset.

St. John Birds II

Published January 27, 2012 Fieldnotes 1 Comment
Tags: birding, birds, St. John, Virgin Gorda

Last year on Virgin Gorda, the Green-throated Carib was the hummingbird species we saw everyday. The island’s other hummingbird, the Antillean Crested, waited until our last morning to put in an appearance. This year, on St. John, the Antillean was the omnipresent species. GTCs were around, but nowhere in the same abundance. The Crested is tiny, looks black in flight, and, if male, has a diamond-shaped crest that, when the light is right, shines like a jewel.These photos give only a hint of this little bird’s startling beauty. Like most hummingbirds I know, they move very fast and are very hard to photograph with the technology and skill level at hand.Another relatively common species on St. John, as on Virgin Gorda, is the American Kestrel. We seemed to be staying in a pair’s territory. One day I saw the male being chased off by three little black bolts: they were these hummingbirds. Small, but fierce.

A Wetlands Strategy

Published January 26, 2012 Art Culture Politics , Fieldnotes Leave a Comment

The New York City Wetlands Strategy document is available in a draft for public comment. I hope you’ll give it a look and perhaps even submit your thoughts about it: the comment period ends on Feb. 18th. Comments can be sent to planyc@cityhall.nyc.gov. (A tip of my Panama here to the excellent A Walk in the Park blogger, who covers the waterfront and the rest of city park news.)

The draft document looks pretty good, considering. One can’t imagine a real Republican mayor’s administration producing anything like it. I mean, a recognition of climate change, rising water, and science?

It begins with a recognition that wetlands are vital to the city: “Much of the city’s natural waterfront consists of wetlands, the biologically rich area where water and land meet. Wetlands help improve water quality, control floods, capture stormwater runoff, sequester carbon dioxide, moderate storm surges, provide habitat for local and migratory birds, fish and other wildlife, and create a
unique opportunity for New Yorkers to observe wildlife and to undertake other quiet, contemplative recreation.”

Legally, the city is required to come up with “a strategy to avoid and minimize wetlands losses and achieve no net loss of wetlands in the city; standardize and improve the management of wetlands and associated buffer areas; and balance the needs for wetlands protection with other, competing land uses that are in the public interest.”

That last clause is, of course, a caveat you could drive a truck through. A truck filled with fill, presumably. I’d like to see that notion of “balance” (weighed in the scale of the development/corruption nexus) swept away like a house in a tidal surge. The city’s (and the region’s, for the estuary system encompasses three states) wetlands loss has already been tremendous. “No net loss” is merely the base-line: expansion of wetlands should be the goal.

So something I’d like to see in this document, something that would make it more visionary, is a renewal of Civilian Conservation Corps like entity, putting people to work in the assessment, restoration, and reclamation of wetlands. The city is going to have to invest in sea walls to protect some of its watery edges, and the sooner we start, the better, but natural buffers, which do so much more than just blunt the rising sea, are a necessity as well.

Arthropods of St. John Part I

Published January 26, 2012 Fieldnotes 5 Comments
Tags: insects, invertebrates, spiders, St. John

An antennae-span of nearly three inches to greet the early risers.When this moth flew into the veranda, everyone thought it was a bat with it’s 4-inch wingspan.Katydids, part of the night chorus, could usually be found lazing around during the day. This one was caught in a brief rain shower.Saw the same species on Virgin Gorda last year.Paper wasps known locally as Jack Spaniards (perhaps because they can be stinging annoyances), nesting under a Tyre Palm, the only native palm species left on the island. The wasps were to be found under many a leaf. Open this image up to get a closer look at their smoky, mahogany-colored wings. This spider, with its ornate spiny abdomen, has some prey in its silky clutches.18 degrees north of the Equator, things will have a tendency wander into your bathroom and just die there. Several species of scorpion are found on the island. About four inches long, these big African millipedes, known locally as gongolo, originated in Madagascar and probably came over during the slave trade. Will spray a nasty cocktail at you if they don’t like you, evidently, but I’m pretty lovable and thus remained unscathed.

St John Birds I

Published January 25, 2012 Fieldnotes 4 Comments
Tags: birding, birds, St. John

Small islands are tight confines for birds, particularly when the mix of habitats (dry and moist forests, mangrove, salt pond, shoreline) on them is only a portion of the whole. There are just a handful of resident songbird species on St John. [See under: mongoose.] The ubiquitous Bananaquit is one:Its whistle songs enlivening mornings and evenings. Another is the Lesser Antillean Bullfinch. I watched a pair of these “rob” flowers of nectar by going to the base of the long blossoms, which are perfect for hummingbirds, with their short bills. By robbing, I mean they don’t pay the toll of picking up much pollen this way.

The richest bird habitat on the island are the salt ponds, which are often ringed by mangroves. I was halfway around the Francis Bay Trail at Mary Point despairing of seeing anything but Pearly-eyed Thrashers and Zeneida Doves, when I noticed the gallinule above. Which gallinule was the question. A new bird can often be discombobulating. It looked like nothing in my Princeton Field Guide to the Birds of the West Indies. (James Bond, where art thou?) There was a touch of red on the forehead. While I was trying to follow this with my eyes through the reeds, something else swam back and forth furiously, but for only a moment. It was much smaller than the chicken-like thing I was looking at. Two mysteries at once. The smaller bird resolved into a Sora, which I didn’t realize could swim. (As it happens, I saw my first Sora in Prospect Park.) When I got to the observation platform, the mysterious red-forehead began to make sense when I saw an adult Common Gallinule (Gallinula galeata), which used to be called Common Moorhen (G. chloropus).From the observation platform, two more life birds: the White-cheeked Pintail which I had hoped to see, and the Least Grebe, which was unexpected.

Here’s all the birds I saw, with life species in bold: Least Grebe, Brown Booby, Brown Pelican, Magnificent Frigatbird, Great Blue Heron (St. Thomas), Great Egret, Green Heron, Blue-winged Teal, White-cheeked Pintail, Osprey (resident birds have very white heads), American Kestrel, Common Gallinule, American Coot, Spotted Sandpiper, Rock Dove (St. Thomas), Zeneida Dove, Common Ground-Dove, Mangrove Cuckoo, Smooth-billed Ani, Green-throated Carib, Antillean Crested Hummingbird, Gray Kingbird, Pearly-eyed Thrasher, Yellow Warbler, Hooded Warbler, Bananaquit, Black-faced Grassquit, Lesser Antillean Bullfinch, House Sparrow (also seen inside the St. Thomas airport terminal). (This is the checklist I used.) The only “common” resident species that eluded me was the Scaly-naped Pigeon.

Mongoose Dem

Published January 24, 2012 Fieldnotes 4 Comments
Tags: mammals, St. John

Off the Reef Bay Trail is a short sidetrack to a waterfall and pool with petrogylphs carved into the water-smoothed rock. The carvings are thought to be 1100 years old, the work of the Tainos who originally inhabited the Caribbean before the twin plagues of Caribs and Columbus.

Another invader is the mongoose, introduced to the island in a misguided attempt to control the rat population, which munched away at sugar cane and hence profits. The rats, of course, were also introduced to the island, accidently and inevitably.The problem with the idea was that mongooses turn out to be diurnal, rats nocturnal. Rats can also climb trees, mongooses don’t. So instead of rats, the mongooses multiplied and ate most of the island’s snakes and put a good dent into bird populations, particularly those that ground nest, and settled into the lizards and frogs. O, they love eggs. Turtle eggs are another mongoose delicacy, meaning yet another insult to already overburdened sea turtle populations. Like squirrels, they also scavenge human garbage and thus thrive, predator-less.So what is a mongoose? Rikki-Tikki-Tavi is probably remembered by children who read Kipling’s story, although all week I kept saying “Rikki-Tikki-Taki.” They’re dead ringers for ferrets, but are unrelated to the weasel family, and come from Africa and southern Eurasia; there are over 30 species. I don’t know which species it is on St. John and the other USVI. We were five days there before we saw one rather boldly approach our party having lunch at the Petroglyphs during the National Park’s jitney in/boat out Reef Bay hike.The smell of snacks. “Mongoose dem,” by the way, is the St. Johnian plural for mongoose. For more information, including efforts to reduce the population, see here.

St. John

Published January 24, 2012 Fieldnotes 1 Comment
Tags: St. John

I spent last week on St. John, in the United States Virgin Islands. I had a wonderful time, but not without some ambiguity. Future posts will celebrate the naturalist wonders to be found by this bug-savaged (some kind of no-see-um made the mosquitos look like pikers) amateur naturalist, but this introduction attempts a wider view. Yes, reference to my last post about Thoreau staying home intended.

Most of St. John is a National Park and thus protected from some of the pressures of development. But paradises are always embattled: St. John hasn’t been a virgin in a very long time. The very fact that that sections of it are undeveloped — albeit full of the ruins of the past, including grim slavery — attracts more development.

On our second day, I took a morning walk down to Fish Bay, and was surprised by this:White-tailed deer were introduced in the 1930s. (A Park Ranger said they were already smaller than mainland average; dwarfism is a large animal response to the confines of islands.) Goats, donkeys, pigs, chickens, all of whom have left the confines of the yard, now run feral, the hogs in particular a threat. The introduction of mongooses, which I will detail in a later post, was a disaster. There are some 400 species of trees found on the island, the great majority of them non-native. After slavery was outlawed in 1848, the sugar industry tanked; islanders tried cattle, and citrus fruits, and coffee, and chocolate. There’s even a boabob tree on the island. St. John, like all the Virgin Islands (excepting the coral Anegada) is the peak of a submerged mountain chain. At 20 square miles, it’s a mess o’ steep, with plunging valleys, locally called guts, that rush stormwater (and soil, and pollutants) down into the sea. Speaking of pollutants, oxybenzone in our sunscreen helps to kill coral reefs.A view of Reef Bay, within the National Park, and only accessible by foot or boat. Picture perfect. Outside the Park, however, it’s more like this, which is still a step above house-littered St. Thomas:The house the nine of us had for the week (lower far right) was on the market for $5 million (and it was ALL about the view and location, for the construction was iffy), although this nearby Xanadu on Difflit Point put us in our place:The Ranger who led the Reef Bay hike answered a question about what islanders grew now with: “tourism”.