Advent of the Seed-eaters and Fly-catchers: February 2021 Summaries
Hello, Everyone!
We’ve finally got our February 2021 data collated and cataloged. A lot of data was gathered and I will dole it out piece by piece over the next few days rather than overwhelm everyone with a long and drawn out thesis.
QUICK SUMMARY:
The presence of silvery bait fish species continued to be lower than seasonal expectations. Early signs of Eco-system recovery were pushed back by continued rough Winter waves combining with higher sea levels to keep the lagoon saturated with high levels of ocean water. This was evident by the rare clarity of the lagoon waters indicating a lack of fresh and brackish water that encourages algae growth. Ultra high and ultra low tides meant a faster drainage from the lagoon and masses of eggs/zygotes that normally would be protected within the mangrove roots were washed into the open ocean. Other evidence was provided by a brief reproductive surge of Ragged Sea Hares (Bursatella leachii sp.) that quickly died of due to lack of their algae food source.
Brown Pelicans (Pelecanus occidentalis) and migratory pelagic birds continued to have a lower than seasonal presence, as did the large egrets. Smaller birds, however, enjoyed the retreat of the larger species. Birds loosely categorized as Fly-catchers and Seed-eaters began to brave the water’s edge foliage in greater numbers. Smaller heron/egret species also were more comfortable in the open and the high volume of their numbers was surprising. St. Thomas Conures a/k/a Brown-cheeked Conures (Eupsittula pertinax) made daily appearances zipping from hillside tree to hillside tree in small flocks.
With the larger birds absent, Red-tailed Hawks a/k/a Chicken Hawk and American Kestrels began making lower-than-normal passes along the water’s-edge portion of the swimming hole, salt pond and back lagoon.
Mongooses have been seen in higher numbers and are becoming braver around humans. What significance this has, I have yet to determine. The mongooses appear young, so perhaps there is a burgeoning food/population problem in this invasive species’ adopted domain.
Fisherman Bats a/k/a Greater Bulldog Bat ((Noctilio leporinus) are easily finding nightly food in the shallows, picking off tiny fry and young mullets. This is done to the eerie nightly calls of Black-crowned and Yellow-crowned Night herons, whose presence has not been impacted by the reduced sprat and shad occurrence.
TODAY’S CREATURE PICTURE HIGHLIGHT:
The Bananaquit (Coereba flaveola) is the Virgin Islands State Bird and is an obvious choice to start our February pictorial commentaries with. I’ll attempt to do a creature a day until the February summary is complete.
Bananaquit presence appeared to be higher as they actively flitted about collecting nesting materials, flew courtship rituals and made constant mating calls. They were observed feeding and building multiple tree-borne nests made of twigs, straw, dry leaves, cotton and plastic shopping bag fragments.
CAMP GROUND STATUS:
There is good news on the re-opening front, although we will be taking things slowly as a ‘soft’ re-opening. Renovation construction work continues as the over night camping areas are made more hurricane resilient. Public day-time activities will be assessed in meetings during the coming week. Following this, we will have a much better picture of a calendar for roll-out of resumed activities and publish it for you.
Earlier than planned resumption of lagoon water tours and conduct Environmental Rangers marine research has been greatly enhanced by a donation of kayaks from the superyacht Skyler. We appreciate their unsolicited donation that significantly reduced the cost of COVID-safing our Eco-activities.
FOR OUR VALUED PATRONS:
Patrons get full-sized non-watermarked versions of images from this article for personal use. Download here: “Patron-only Bananaquit images”.
If you are not yet a patron of Camp Umoja’s Non-profit Eco-learning Center, you can sign up HERE for as little as $5 a month. Your contribution helps our youth education and research efforts in the Mandahl Bay and St. Thomas, Virgin Islands Eco-systems continue. Patrons get special values such as gifts, rare wildlife alerts, sponsorship credits and much, much more! BE A PART OF SOMETHING GREEN™ today.
