Here’s a female jumping spider hiding in a palm frond. At times I’ve seen five or six species of spider living in the fronds of a single palm tree, and there are probably more than that on some. Although they aren’t as diverse as insects, there are still probably several hundred species of spiders on St. Martin, easily enough for […]

Stilt sandpipers winter in the Caribbean, Central America and South America, and spend the summers in North America where they breed. There were twenty or thirty on Grand Étang in Terres Basses a couple days ago. As their name suggests, they look like other sandpipers but have very long legs. Like many shorebirds, they have long bills, and use them […]

I spent a great day in Terres Basses/The Lowlands yesterday and saw quite a few interesting critters. Pictured below is a lacewing larva, which hunts insects and other invertebrates, then attaches their empty exoskeletons to its back for camouflage. Lacewings and their larvae are often considered beneficial insects because they eat other insects that are considered agricultural pests. Their fashion […]

Does anyone recognize this? It’s a killdeer nest, but they haven’t laid eggs yet. There are several species of bird that build nests on the mudflats around our salt ponds. (I use the terms “build” and “nest” pretty loosely here, because there isn’t much of a nest to speak of.) Right now, we’re at the beginning of the nesting season. […]

Yesterday I went back to Tintamarre for a second expedition in search of the elusive skink. I spent a lot of time looking at old stone walls and I actually did see a skink for about one second before it ran back into the wall, but no photos of it. Of course, I did see plenty of other great stuff. […]

This yellow-crowned night heron was taking a morning nap on a rock. They are generally most active at night when they hunt crabs and similar prey. This particular one seems to be molting into its adult plumage. Its head looks adult, but the body is closer to the plumage of a juvenile bird.

My, how fast they grow! While many of the snowy egrets are still sitting on eggs, some of the great egret chicks at the cemetery pond in Grand Case are getting pretty big. Our three egrets often nest in multi-species colonies, and typically the great egrets start first. The colony at the cemetery pond has spread out quite a bit […]

We were having dinner with friends last night and Jenn suddenly cried out in pain because she got bit by a giant centipede (Scolopendre in French, genus Scolopendra). Luckily, it was a tiny baby giant centipede. We have multiple species on the island, some native, some introduced. Below is a photo of a baby of an introduced species, Scolopendra subspinipes, […]

If you scroll down to a couple past posts, you’ll see that this insect went from what looked like a strange, goo-covered caterpillar to a bizarre, armored alien looking pupa. As it turns out, it was a tortoise beetle all along and this is what it looks like as an adult. I believe it is the mottled tortoise beetle, Deloyala […]

Environmental Protection in the Caribbean (EPIC) has been doing conservation work and biological research on St. Martin for over ten years, including some of the longest-running bird studies in the Caribbean. EPIC’s U.S. non-profit has also partnered with me to accept contributions towards my program to get my wildlife book in schools, libraries and other public institutions, and to do […]