It was not visible from a distance…in the julie mango tree…
…the large spider’s web…
…and, entangled by its leg…
…a small, dead bird…a bananaquit (Coereba flaveola)…with its bright yellow chest feathers and distinctive white eyebrow….
Sometimes a spider’s web catches something unexpected. Traps are like that.
Although they are called cattle egrets, you often see them in areas where there are no cattle. In a car park on the University of the West Indies (UWI) Mona campus, for example, which is where I saw these egrets. Not a cow in sight.
Egrets are one of the most easily identifiable birds in Jamaica, with their white plumage, long legs and necks, bright yellow beaks and their distinctive walk and head movements. A pretty common sight in many parts of Jamaica.
Yet they haven’t always been here. I found this report interesting, of an early sighting by Dr T. P. Lecky of egrets among the cattle at Bodles on November 21, 1956…nearly sixty-seven years ago…
I am so used to seeing egrets around that I hadn’t really thought about their origin and that they haven’t always been in Jamaica or been a common sight here. They are a fairly recent invasive species and a very successful one.
This article by Wayne J. Arendt – “Range Expansion of the Cattle Egret (Bubulcus ibis) in the Greater Caribbean Basin” – gives more information about the advent of egrets in the Caribbean:
Abstract
The Cattle Egret (Bubulcus ibis) was first reported in the Greater Caribbean Basin from Old Providence Island in 1933. It was not reported again from the region until 1944, when an individual was sighted in Aruba, Southern Netherlands Antilles. Within 4 years, the species was reported in Puerto Rico and Jamaica more than 800 km north of Aruba in the Greater Antilles. By 1957, Cattle Egrets were successfully nesting in nearby Cuba and St. Croix. Today, the species is known from more than 50 major islands throughout the Caribbean Basin. Cattle Egrets show strong dispersal tendencies and migratory behavior. The first Cattle Egrets to reach the Caribbean islands were probably migratory individuals. Rapid range expansion in the Caribbean and throughout the neotropics was concomitant with increased animal husbandry and intense agricultural practices, including irrigation and burning regimes. The success of the Cattle Egret in the Caribbean region is also attributed to its high reproductive rate, exponential population growth, extended breeding seasons, and few vertebrate predators, owing to the region’s insularity.
And it’s not only in the Caribbean that egrets have been successful. In this article – How Egrets Took Over the World – Justine E. Hausheer discusses the fact that “In the past 150 years, cattle egrets have self-populated nearly every continent on earth” but says “Just how, and why, remains somewhat of a mystery.”
Hausheer says “These birds are so closely associated with their mammalian foraging friends that one birder I know refers to cows as ‘cattle egret attractant devices.’ And while most birders will see cattle egrets with cattle, they’re quite happy to follow any large, herding mammal, whether it be cows, wildebeest, or elephants.”Â
Cattle egrets originated in tropical Africa but can now be seen in almost everywhere in the world. “And while it may seem like they have nowhere else to go, vagrants are still turning up in Alaska and offshore Antarctic Islands.”
So back to Jamaica and the UWI (Mona) campus, where I photographed these egrets…
…that weren’t following a large herding animal, but rather a ride on lawn mower. It was stirring up the insects in the grass just as well as hooves.
Gaulin…Bubulcus ibis…cattle egret…
There are many beautiful trees on the University of Technology (UTech) campus and one of the most beautiful is the iconic elephant ear tree in front of the Faculty of the Built Environment (FOBE)…
It is clear that the tree was taken into consideration when the building was designed…
…which was very appropriate for a building that would house the Caribbean School of Architecture and the School of Building and Land Management.
The tree and the building are in close contact…
…on the upper floors.
It is a wonderful, spreading tree…
…and masses of such delicate leaves….
The pods under the tree show why these trees are called elephant ear trees (Enterolobium cyclocarpum). The oldest tree at Hope Gardens is an elephant ear tree that is more than 200 years old. I wonder how old this tree is.
A beautiful sight/site, whether you look in towards it…
Leave me alone, please! Yes, yes, sunset photos are a dime a dozen. But watching the sun set is one of the things I love to do. Taking photos of the sunset sky is another thing I love to do. And sharing sunset photos is something else that I love to do. So…
Once upon a sunset, a woman noticed the evening light against a cluster of palms….
She grabbed her camera and climbed the stairs to the roof of her house. From that vantage point, she saw the sunset sky…
She smiled…and looked closer…click…
She played with the zoom on her camera and looked at the trees, the hills, the clouds, the light…
From speakers somewhere nearby, oldies but goodies were playing. John Holt was singing: “I love you, darling, and that’s no lie, oh-oh, Stick by me and I’ll stick by you…”
Once upon a sunset, on a roof in Kingston, Jamaica, life felt really good….
Every sunset different. Three hundred and sixty-five of them every year and every one of them different. And then consider all the different places from which you can view the same sunset…different geographical locations, different elevations, seaside, city centre, middle of a field on a plain…different, different, different.
A cloudy sunset, seen from up in the Blue Mountains, looking down towards Kingston…
I looked up at the sky. Clouds and a criss-cross of utility wires. Cupped by trees. Click.
There was a total eclipse of the moon last night (Sunday, May 15, 2022), which was visible to us here in Jamaica. I love staring at the night sky and decided to watch the eclipse of this Super Flower Blood Moon. Wonderful name!
The sky was very overcast, which wasn’t promising, but I got this clear picture of the full moon early on.
…at times almost completely blocking it out.
However, every so often, there was a break in the clouds and there was a clear view of the shadow covering more…
…and more of the moon.
Sometimes I could see the shadow encroaching, even though the clouds…
…until there was only a sliver of the moonlight still visible.
And then, total eclipse…
A little less shadow, a little more light.
Until finally, the full moon was back, in all her glory! Beautiful in all her phases, be they monthly cycles or short shadows of an eclipse.
My almost five hours of moon gazing ended after 1:00am. Well-spent hours.
Large leaves of a vine on a tree in my garden…during a cloudburst one afternoon…water pouring off in streams…
…or a drop at a time…
There was a time when once a week I did a blog post consisting of a photograph and a few words. It was in response to an online photo challenge. I really enjoyed the practice but when the photo challenge ended, my weekly photo post ended too. I’ve sometimes thought about reviving it. Maybe I will, maybe I won’t. But just for today, here’s a photo and a few words…
A bird and a plant called Old Man’s Beard…on wires…at sunset…a view from a window of my house….
I love gazing up into the night sky, so when I read that the longest partial lunar eclipse in centuries would be taking place between Thursday night and Friday morning, I set my alarm to wake up so that I could take a look.
And it was beautiful! The moon was a deep orangey-red at the time I was looking at it, similar in colour to a moon in full eclipse I watched a couple of years ago. The sky was almost cloudless and gave a clear view of the moon.
My attempts at photographing what I saw were stunningly unsuccessful, however. My phone camera doesn’t do well with night shots and this was the best I managed with it:
And my camera has developed an internal twitch that needs repairing and so wasn’t much use either:
No good saying, “Next time!” as the next time there is a partial lunar eclipse this long will be on February 8, 2669. Though there will be one two minutes shorter on November 30, 2039.
I had much better luck with the Super Blood Wolf Moon in January 2019. It will have to do….
If you’d like to see some photos of the eclipse from Friday morning, you could take a look here.
Right Steps & Poui Trees 