Diario del proyecto Biodiversity of Saint Kitts and Nevis

Because I wanted to be able to take a non-stop flight both ways -- here and back home to New York City again -- we are on the island of Nevis early this year, very early, since we are usually in the Caribbean in April, or even in May.

The so-called "shoulder season" of tourism, which is between high season and low season, is what allowed us, back in the 1990s, to visit the private island of Mustique, in the Grenadines, and stay at the Cotton House Hotel at reasonable prices. Actually I think we have never been to the Caribbean this early in the year before. It makes a big difference to what is in bloom of the trees and wildflowers and weeds.

For example, i have only seen one small plant of the Popping Pod. It had two buds on it whereas a few years ago here I saw many, many of them flowering.

And as for the invertebrate life, I have seen a lot of egg masses of the Apple Murex washed up on the beach on Oualie Bay, so I think it must be egg-laying season now for the Apple Murex.

We have had some rain at night on a few days. It also had rained hard on and off for 3 weeks before we arrived, so the landscape did not look at all dried out, although usually that would have been the case in late winter, as we were not in the spring rainy season yet.

Yesterday afternoon we saw in the sky a lot of clouds that are called "Mare's Tails" which mean that rain is on the way. It rained hard for about an hour today at about 8 am, but the sun is out now.