Shake your tambourine

Always interesting around here.  Some big wind and waves have washed more (and more) Sargassum to shore and sand away from shore.

Big wave breaking over the dock in the early morning.  You can also see a little Sargassum in the water at the right edge of the photo.  When the day starts like this, there is usually more to come.  :-(

Even though the waves were high at the shore, just a little farther out it tends to be flatter.  A big yacht, I think from one of the big hotels in Placencia, was anchored that morning while their guests took a guided tour up the Monkey River.

Safe anchor about 1/3 mile off our beach.  This is the best spot around for big boats to anchor without damaging the coral.

Click below on JJ Cale, one of the best song writers ever, to hear him and Eric Clapton play "After Midnight" as the musical accompaniment to the rest of this exhibition.

This lovely green headed tree snake (Leptophis mexicanus) was letting it all hang out on the bracket holding our satellite dish.  It apparently likes to eat small lizards.

Just look at that bright green head and that long skinny body.

A black racing strip along the side.

Lovely large eyes.

It really posed for the camera.

The black racing stripe runs the full length of the snake, separating its paler belly from the brown back.

I do believe that this large green iguana would be too much for the green-headed tree snake to handle.  For weeks in late March and early April, we watched this big girl walk at least once a day from north to south along our beach.  She would sometimes climb into palm trees or noni bushes for some sun.  These iguanas, which are quite common, average more than 5 ft in length when mature!  Causing talk and suspicion, she probably laid her eggs on our south lot where quite a few nest sites are located.  In a few more weeks we should see dozens of little baby green iguanas running around.  Talk about shaking your tambourine!"

Female green iguana, stopping for a breather in front of our cabana.  Her foot prints are each about 4 or 5 inches long.

This little basilisk lizard is more the size that the green-headed tree snake would eat.  Can you see him?  No?  He sure hopes the snake won't either!

He blends in very well.

Zooming in a little closer you can see this young fellow still needs to grow up and find out what it is all about.  He will get to be about 2 feet or so long.

Those big back feet help propel it over the surface of water when startled, hence its colloquial name of Jesus Christ lizard.

Another fun group of lizards to see (and hear!) are the geckos, which are nocturnal.  I saw these 2 on the back veranda, hanging around after midnight. Well, not quite that late, but certainly after dark.  They make chirping sounds and for years I thought I was hearing birds during the night; turns out it was geckos all along.

Letting it all hang out on the underside of the pergola on the back veranda.

It has its eyes on the hummingbird feeder.

While I was talking the photo above, I saw a quick movement out of the corner of my eye and turned to see something on the other side of the hummingbird feeder.

"You distract her while I run to the feeder!"

"uh-oh. busted."

"May as well chugalug and shout."

Uhmmmm.  Tastes like peaches and cream.

Now that I found out what that chirping "is all about", I finally understand why these geckos are so plump! 

Rainy Days

The scene below, with the view of Greater Monkey Caye obliterated by heavy rain, has been with us off and on for the last 4 or 5 days.  And during each of those days (and nights), several inches of rain has fallen.  The good news is that our water vats are full.  The bad news is that Monkey River and Black Creek are full - and overflowing.  We hear that there are places on the Monkey River Road that are under seven feet of water!  Three or four sunny days with no rain is all it will take to dry out the road.

We run to lower the sun shades and get them lashed down when see rain like this approaching!  They do a good job of keeping the driving rain out of the veranda. 

The heavy rains and high winds have pushed in some higher than usual tides for us; a beachcomber's delight.  Below are a few of the items of interest that have washed up.  This site is wonderful for exploring sea beans.

Except for the green striped sea urchin, the rest of the objects are loosely called sea beans and are seed of various sorts.  There are 2 sea hearts (middle or top row and bottom right), 2 very different coconuts (top left and top right), a hamburger bean, Mucana sp. (bottom left),  bull's eye (bottom right).  Still haven't ID'd the one in the middle. 

During the rainy spells, we do chores inside the cabana.  Dennis is putting little foam sheets behind all the wall cover plates for electrical outlets and switches since they seem to be an entry point for small insects.  Behind one outlet cover plate he found these little pieces of shell.  They are gecko eggshells.  Apparently the geckos also realized that small insects where coming entering through the wall plates.  We love the geckos because they do eat the insects; we love to have them in the cabana.

Delicate shells leftover from gecko eggs fell out of the wall outlet.

It looks like all but one of them was successfully hatched.

The rain has not been constant.  In fact there has been some very pleasant sunshine.  I get outside whenever possible to see what is going on.  The sun drew out this wonderful pair of baselisk lizards.  They are also called Jesus Christ lizards because they can run on water.  They have an extra row of wide scales on the long third toes of their hind feet that give them this ability.  You can see the scales in the photo below  and on the photo of the female if you click on them to see them bigger.

This guy held his ground as I took pictures.

He let me get quite close for a good look at his crest, which is folded back here.

This female does not have a crest, but is more richly colored than the male. Look at the scales on the long toe of her left foot.  These scales enable her to run on water.

She, too, let me get quite close, although she was poised to run into the wood pile if I made any sudden moves! 

The rains also brought out lots of small flying insects, which brought out lots of dragon flies!

The air was thick with dragon flies! 

Nice photo ops when they would land. 

I have not delved into dragonfly ID's yet, but there are at least 4 different kinds.

During breaks in the rain, I managed to walk along the jungle path and saw a large butterfly or moth flitting along.  It finally landed and I was able to take the photo below.

Owl moth with a great eyespot!

Dennis came out of the generator shed after turning the generator off and said "get your camera!"  So I did, and followed him back into the generator shed to see another  impressive moth.

Ascalapha odorata, Black Witch moth.

This moth also likes to fly into our window screen at night when we have lights on. At such a large size (4 to 5 inches across), it looks and sounds like a bat or a bird trying to get inside.

With all the rain also come rainbows.  This one arched across Greater Monkey Caye and seemed especially broad. 

 

 At this point we will forego the pot of gold and settle for some dryer weather!  Of course, we will look back on this rain fondly when we are in the midst of the dry season, so I will try to enjoy the rain while we have it.