Little Frog.....

Not much to say about this really - its just a tiny, tiny frog. Sometimes that is, of itself amazing. I mean this little guy can breathe, catch stuff, eat stuff - amazing. There's even a microscopic skeleton in that package - how wonderful.

Its an Eleutherodactylus sp. - I can't be sure which and it was rescued from the house (amidst the washing pile again). That is my finger (and I again feel the urge to point out that (in spite of the lack of a scale object) I do not have enormous ogre hands).

Bad photos of a rare bird....

...another pigeon in fact; the stunningly pretty bridled quail dove. This stunner is a caribbean endemic which likes dry tropical forests across the antilles. As the name suggests it likes to stay on the deck with the end result that it frequently ends up as catfood.

Its cat/dog/mongoose feeding tendencies have made it rather rare so that prior to my trip to Guana I'd only ever seen one which waddled off into the distance away from me at speed. Now Guana is essentially cat free so the reintroduced BQD's there can reproduce free from mammalian predation.

And reproduce they have. In the aptly named Quail Dove Ghut (a ghut is like a dry drainage valley) there is a plentiful flock. Of course they still like to hang out in the deep dark undergrowth which is why these pictures are partially obscured and dark as hell even postphotoshopping.

In spite of the frustrations of shooting them it was a delight to see these birds doing so well. I think they're beautiful and those red-eyes glaring out of the darkness will stay with me for a while.

Younglings

Hooray - I love opening packages especially when they contain cycad seeds or seedlings. Actually I couldn't open this one as it was delivered to mes parents back in the UK but I got to enjoy the thrill by means of email and pixels.

The plants in question are:

1. Cycas debaoensis (a multipinnate Cycas);

2. Dioon spinulosum (the Giant or Spiny Dioon - I hope this grows into something like this);

3. Cycas elephantipes (the Elephant Foot Sago);

4. Cycas thouarsii (the Madagascan Sago);

5. Cycas simplicipinna (this name means the undivided leaflet cycas which makes no sense at all (as most have undivided leaflets) until you learn it was split out of one of the few that does C. micholitzii);

6. Dioon angustifolium (this is a species relatively recently split out of Dioon edule, it flushes a beautiful silvery blue/grey so one might call it a Silver Dioon); and

7. Cycas diannanensis (Red River Sago).

Would you believe I got each and everyone of these from ebay? The bulk of the Cycas sp. are from Asia where more and more species are becoming recognised and available for growers as research continues apace. They look to be in great condition and at some point in the future I'll be putting up some macro work of each seedling and a little more about the species in question.

'Guana headbob

In the immortal words of Dr. Dre (who by the way I suspect is not an MD)"I know you're bobbing your heads". Or at least I know Cyclura iguanas somewhere will be bobbing their heads - its kind of a big thing for them - the way they communicate in territorial disputes and seduction attempts. Here's a video of a Stout Iguana telling me the iguana equivalent of "get off my lawn".

As an example of how tame these guys are in a predator free environment this was shot, beer in hand off the balcony of the cottage we rented on Guana - this guy ambled right up and gave us the display right at our room.

BTW that three whistle note you hear in there isn't a strange bird - its something I use occasionally as a variant on pishing. I was gonna post this yesterday but I didn't want anyone to think it was a broken animatronic iguana twitching for april foolery.

Just Another Bananaquit

Another of Guana's colour-ringed Bananaquits. After Blue-Light Green the other week, here's Red-Dark Green showing off its gymnastic side....