We had a terrific time on the endemic bird walk and saw 7 of the 8 locally-endemic species/subspecies that were on the flyer. (No kestrels this time!) One of the highlights was seeing a yellow warbler sitting on her nest. Thanks to everyone who came!

Today I went down to the Sister Marie Laurence Primary School to talk about the different types of habitat on St. Martin and the different animals which live in each habitat. Once again, the students were great and had lots of interesting questions. Next week I’ll be back to do a nature walk near the school and I think we’ll […]

I had a great time at the Montessori School book sale on Wednesday! I got to answer the question “And what is this one?” about 200 times. I learned that there are a lot of tarantulas in Pointe Blanche, and “at least seven” were seen in one house. I also learned that there is a funnel web spider in Australia […]

I made a little handout featuring some of the birds that are endemic to our area and can be seen on the walk to Happy Bay that we are doing on Saturday. Most of them are species that are endemic to the Caribbean or Lesser Antilles, and some are found in more places, but the subspecies found on St. Martin […]

This Saturday at 9am, I will be doing a bird walk on behalf of Environmental Protection in the Caribbean (EPIC) as part of the Caribbean Endemic Bird Festival. Endemic means being unique to a specific place. Although there are no birds that are found only on St. Martin, the island is home to a number of species and subspecies that […]

The 11th annual St. Martin Book Fair is coming up soon: May 30 – June 1. The book fair is one of my favorite events on the island and I’m sure this year will be better than ever. This year’s theme is Drum Beats, and on June 1st I will be conducting a workshop as part of the fair. In […]

Here’s a planthopper (Ormenoides venusta) we saw on the field trip with the Montessori students. These tiny insects are very common on St. Martin. Like all members of the order Hemiptera, they have straw-like mouthparts and drink their food. In this case, this planthopper feeds on many different plants. I don’t take a lot of photos when doing a field […]

I went on a field trip with students from the Sint Maarten Montessori school on Friday and it was a blast! We saw kleptoparasitic spiders, ants moving their nests, lizards that live only on St. Martin and many other interesting things while walking through Bellevue. Word on the street is that the kids had a really great time and learned […]