The other day I saw dozens of red-eared sliders who were eating some dead fish, but only the most persistent (hungriest?) stuck around once I came over to take photos. These turtles are an introduced species that I’ve mostly seen in Fresh Pond. They are very popular as pets, and they were probably introduced to the island as escaped or […]

You can help me promote wildlife awareness on St. Martin. Download this poster, print it out and post it somewhere so people know about the upcoming book launch: http://www.sxmwildlife.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/book-launch-poster.pdf If you post a photo of the poster and tag it with The Incomplete Guide to the Wildlife of St. Martin, I’ll give you a 9″x6″ photo of an animal from […]

The bellyache bush has tiny flowers that are popular amongst nectar drinking insects like butterflies, bees and flies. But it’s a dangerous meal. They’re the best place to find crab spiders and lynx spiders. These spiders typically wait near on or near the flowers to attack unsuspecting insects. The crab spider in particular is often extremely well camouflaged. As you […]

This afternoon I walked from Grand Case to a meeting in Anse Marcel and stopped along the way to take photos of some of the blues and hairstreaks that were feeding on the flowers of bellyache bush on the hills around Bell Valley (or whatever the real name is for the valley between Grand Case and Anse Marcel…if you know, […]

Here’s a brightly-colored leafhopper with four nymphs (immature leafhoppers) of different sizes. I don’t think I had ever seen it before yesterday when I took this photo. Even after over three years, there is always a new animal to discover on St. Martin. I haven’t identified this one yet. There are thought to be perhaps 100,000 species of leafhopper in […]

I may have saved this gulf fritillary butterfly this morning. It was newly emerged from its chrysalis, but had fallen on the ground before its wings had hardened. After emerging from their chrysalis, butterflies have soft, wrinkled wings. They typically suspend themselves while they pump fluid into their wings to expand them. Then the wings harden. This butterfly had already […]

I had some time to kill near Philipsburg yesterday and I didn’t want to bring too much camera gear, so I decided to do some macro photography using natural light. Normally when I take photos of very small things, I use a flash, because the depth of field (the part of the photo which is in focus) is very small […]

Lately I have been seeing quite a few Least Terns fishing in Grand Case Bay and then flying inland. Perhaps they are nesting in the Salines de l’Aéroport. With a large area of mudflat, this pond offers plenty of good nesting areas for terns and a variety of shore birds as well. If there is a nesting colony of least […]

We have big plans to do events with school classes this fall: presentations, nature walks and hands-on workshops. You can help us by sponsoring a school visit. Your contribution of $50 will cover transportation, expenses and a copy of The Incomplete Guide to the Wildlife of Saint Martin for the class. To find out more and sponsor a class visit, […]

If you find a butterfly chrysalis, you can take it home and wait until it hatches into a beautiful butterfly. But not always. There are a variety of wasps and flies that parasitize caterpillars and chrysalids, so sometimes that chrysalis may hatch into a bunch of tiny parasitic wasps or flies. The top photo below is a chrysalis of the […]