Fauna

I took a trip to East End yesterday, to the post office (yes, we're still having fun with the mail), and I had planned on writing about it in this space today, but I left the camera in the glove box and HB has the car.

Unsure what else I wanted to write about, I perused the pictures I had on the computer, and I realized that I had a bit of a theme going. Although I'm still a little scared to take pictures of people on the island, for fear of intruding, I seem to really love the animals. So here's a quick snapshot of the Tortola's native, and not-so-native fauna.

These little black beetles like to congregate under the eaves outside, especially near the flood light for the stairs. They're about the size and shape of the "clicker" on a ballpoint pen. Lately, they've taken to flying into the living room at night and mating on the ceiling, something we don't appreciate. HB has become a fearsome indoor beetle hunter.

Blogger doesn't want this guy to appear as I found him, nose towards the sky. I'm pretty sure these anoles are related to the ones we had in Florida, but these have a much greater diversity of patterns and colors.

A representative of the insects we get on our porch all the time. I have seen more, different bugs here than I ever knew existed

Except of course, when they're not on the porch, but in the house. This grasshopper (?) lived on our living room wall for three days, before we found him dead on the floor one morning.

Of course, it's not all insects and reptiles. Although Tortola has no native mammals (think about that for a second!) there are plenty of imports. This goat ran across the road on a drive we took through Carrot Bay a couple of weeks ago. If I were a goat, I think I would hang out in a place called Carrot Bay, too.

And what would a post about animals be without roadcows? Road cows seem to be a special class among all the fauna, as I have an entire folder of pictures dedicated to them.