You probably know that many of the birds passing through St. Martin right now, or just arriving for the winter, are coming from North America. Did you know that, in some cases, you can find out exactly where they came from? If you look closely at these photos, you can see that each of these birds is wearing a band […]

Here are some photos I took last night in Grand Case, mostly insects and other animals attracted to outdoor lights. There were probably well over 100 species in just one location. For parents, or anyone interested in seeing some interesting critters, try leaving the light on on your porch at night and observing the insects that arrive. If you have […]

The canal didn’t look as bad as it does sometimes, but we were still able to get a couple hundred pounds of trash from just the beach side of the bridge. That was just with a handful of folks in about an hour. If anyone wants to join in next time, there’s plenty of trash to clean up on the […]

A couple articles I wrote about birds have been published this week. Learn about yellow-crowned night heron plumage on SXMinfo.fr and the voyage of the whimbrel at The Daily Herald.

A backswimmer flew into our kitchen last night. It’s an aquatic insect from the order Hemiptera, so it’s related to insects like stink bugs, aphids and cicadas. They get their name from swimming upside down. Although they spend most of their time in the water hunting insects and tadpoles, they can fly as well, which is how they get to […]

Right now, migratory shorebirds are arriving on St. Martin from North America. Some will spend the winter here, while others will fly on to South America. Many of these birds have different plumage at different times of year. During the summer, they wear what is known as their breeding plumage, which is usually more distinctive. During the winter they will […]

Yesterday was the first session of a really great program put together by Nature Foundation SXM and Be The Change SXM to do wildlife and marine life training with a group of kids who don’t normally have opportunities like this. I’ll post more about the program during the month, but for now, I’d like to thank the donors who funded […]

Here is a pair of checkered swallowtails mating near Friar’s Bay. This species is originally from Asia and their caterpillars feed on citrus trees (it’s also known as the Lime Butterfly and many other combinations of Lime/Lemon/Citrus and Swallowtail/Butterfly). The first recorded observation of this species in the Caribbean was in the Dominican Republic in 2004, and it spread quickly […]

Following up on the cellar spider, the spiderlings have hatched. The photos where the spiderlings have shorter legs are from the 29th, and since then they have molted and are starting to look more like mom. The photos post-molt, where the spiderlings have longer legs, were taken this morning.

I went to the Garden Groove party at Loterie Farm last night, but ended up spending much of the time walking up to Chewbacca Rock in the dark. It’s probably not actually allowed, but there’s something wonderful about the forest at night. The frogs and insects were making quite a bit of noise, staying up all night to get lucky. […]