Amazing to Witness the Pollination of a Kapok Tree

Kapok trees in the Virgin Islands attract local leaf-nosed fruit bats (Artibeus jamaicensis)

One morning at the Unitarian Fellowship meeting my friend Kim mentioned that the big kapok tree by her place nearby was in bloom, and invited us to come over that evening to check it out. We needed to wait until dark because the flowers only open up at night, to attract the nocturnal fruit bats that are their main pollinators. 

This kapok tree is huge, and dominates the skyline. 

Kapok trees can produce thousands of flowers all at once.

I had read that kapoks, also known as silk-cotton trees (Ceiba pentandra), were viewed as sacred trees by the Tainos, the early inhabitants of the Caribbean islands who came up from South America. The Tainos were probably traveling in dugout canoes made from thick kapok tree trunks, and carrying the seeds with them. Reportedly, the Tainos revered the bats attracted to the kapok tree flowers as the spirits of the dead that offered a connection between those still living and the world beyond.  

However I had never actually seen the bats showing up at one of the trees. The kapoks don’t flower very often, and then it’s not always okay to go around looking for bats at night, especially on other people’s property. So we were grateful for this invitation.   

When my husband and I arrived after dinner, it was already dark, a bit late, and it was hard to figure out what was going on. Small areas of the tree were being lit up by other people holding flashlights, and bats were frantically flying around the flowers that were already open. Someone pointed and yelled out ‘there’s one’’ and then that bat quickly sped off and other ones whizzed by out of the shadows. As they flew around they were knocking off dead flower heads, which showered down on us, along with occasional bits of nectar-scented poop. Good to have a hat on.  

I had my telephoto lens with me, which requires two hands, and I couldn’t hold a flashlight as well. Also, I am not skilled at shooting in the dark, and had trouble focusing on the spots people were pointing at before the bat and circle of light had moved on. 

It was all very frustrating and confusing until the tenants on the third floor invited us to come up and look at the mid-level of the tree from their deck. Up there, the bats and flowers were much closer. And one of the tenants was kind enough to hold her flashlight on a few nearby bats long enough for me to get some in-focus photos of them drinking nectar from the center of opened flowers. 

  

By about half an hour after we arrived, the bats seemed to slow down, maybe because they had already drunk a good bit of nectar from the flowers. Instead of zooming around like crazy, they started dropping down and lying on top of clumps of the opened flowers with anthers sticking up full of pollen. 

By then the bats’ faces and brown fur were covered with the yellow pollen. 

The blooming and pollination process lasts for a few weeks as different sets of flowers on the tree open sequentially. Even though it seemed like there might have been over 100 bats coming to feed, they needed to keep coming back to get around to pollinating all the flower bunches as they opened. The tree had to produce a lot of nectar to keep them coming. Once this frenzy of activity was finished, it might be years before the tree would have the strength to bloom again.  

After that first night I went back a few more times to try to understand more about what was happening, arriving well before dark to be ready when the bats started coming. 

I prepared by going to the hardware store to get a strong flashlight. They recommended one called ‘Big Larry’ and I enlisted my husband to hold it steady while I tried to get photos of the bats in flight. The people with the balcony were no longer there, so I tried to find a good viewing spot from the ground. There were some relatively low-hanging branches with flowers, but unfortunately, Big Larry’s beam could not really reach that far. 

The next day I went back and found an even stronger flashlight – all business, no nickname. 

My husband held the flashlight as I tried to video the bats with my phone. (Photo Joan Farrenkopf)

That night I invited the visiting speaker for the Unitarian Fellowship to come with me, because she had missed the first night’s visit. It was particularly thrilling this time because when the bats came several of them swooped down low and circled us. In the dark I heard her exclaim “Mon dieu, il m'a touché”. When I looked over she was rubbing her arm and said she was so surprised she lost her English and reverted to her childhood French. Another night I promised a different tree-loving friend ‘a life-changing experience’ and she was not disappointed. 

  

The bats were not the only creatures attracted to the tree’s flowers. When I went by one day in the late afternoon, I could see that bananaquits were investigating the buds. Some bananaquits seemed to be trying to pry open the flower’s tips. Others were more aggressive, poking their sharp beaks into the sides of the flowers as a short cut to getting at the nectar sac without providing any pollination services in exchange. 

Bananaquit preparing to pierce a flower to reach the nectar

Later on, hummingbirds tried to sneak their long, skinny tongues into the flowers, just as the petals started to crack open.  

An Antillean crested hummingbird explored the opening flower buds

At dusk, hummingbird moths and bees gathered around as the scent of the opened flowers started spreading through the area. I though the bees would be sleeping by then, but I guess this was an opportunity worth staying up for.

 

What an adventure to stand underneath this marvelous tree at dusk and join the wild company drawn to its exuberant blossoming. 

And then, when it got dark and the bats arrived, there was a wild frenzy that made my heart race. My time there certainly felt like a spiritual experience, connecting me with so many other ways of being in the world, in the night, on this island. 

A pollen-covered bat stood still for an intoxicated moment before flying off

March Showers Brought Sweet Flowers from Native Trees

 

Sugar Ant flowers

March Showers Brought Sweet Flowers from Native Trees

 

A morning of heavy rain brought out the Sugar Ants. Not insects, but flowering trees that grow in the wetlands area near our house. I smelled the perfume of the flowers and went out behind the house to look for what was blooming.

 

Sugar Ant flowers grow directly off the branch

 

The scientific name for these Sugar Ant trees is Ginoria rohrii. They are found in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands as well as some of the other Caribbean islands. It is strangely sometimes called ‘bastard gri-gri’. ('Non-bastard' gri-gri trees, Bucida buceras, which are also called ‘black olive’, are large trees with local spiritual significance.)

 

I’m not clear about the ‘ant’ name either, but it might be that the flowers seem to crawl along the branches like a line of ants. 

 

The cascade of flowers down the thin branches is actually very graceful. However, the individual little flowers are extremely fragile. When I went out later that day, after the sun came out, the petals were already drying out and shriveling up. 

 

There was a Pearly-eyed Thrasher in among the bushy branches, and it seemed to be eating something. At first, I thought the thrasher was nibbling on the buds. Later I wondered if insects were attracted to the flower’s fragrant nectar and the thrasher was eating them. I couldn’t get close enough to tell.  

 

Pearly-eyed Thrasher in Sugar Ant bush

 

Nearby, I saw another tree that I thought at first was also a Sugar Ant. It had similar small, white flowers, but when I got closer I saw it was more like a vine.  

 

Hoop Vine flowers

 

From the way the flowers and buds grew opposite each other on the ends of the thin branches I concluded it was Hoop Vine, Trichostigma octandra. The flexible branches were traditionally used in the Virgin Islands for making baskets. The small fruits this vine produces will turn deep purple, and also line up opposite each other on the ends of the branches. I noticed that some of the flowers were already starting to produce their fruits.

 

Sugar Ant flower at left, Hoop Vine flower right

 

The Limber Caper flower in our yard (Capparis flexuosa) looked huge in comparison, though it turned out to be no more robust than the Sugar Ant flowers. By noon it, too, was done blooming and started sagging.

 

Limber Caper flower

The even larger Spider Lily plant (Hymenocallis caribaea) was already blooming. It was grateful for the rain, but its flowers are sturdier and didn’t immediately start drooping when the sun shone on them.   

 

Spider Lily 

 

A few days later, after another morning rain shower, I noticed that the Wattapama tree down the road (Poitea florida) had suddenly blossomed. Now I really knew it was spring. 

 

Wattapama tree

 

Wattapama trees are special because they are native only in the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. And they are delicately delightful to see.

 

 

Wattapama flowers

Who Was Nibbling on Our Passion Fruit?

  

We were delighted to have a bountiful passion fruit harvest this year. However, we got frustrated when they kept hanging on the vines high up in the trees until long after our holiday guests were gone.  

My husband went out every morning to check if any fruit had ripened and fallen, and finally one day came in triumphantly with a perfect yellow one. He cut it in half and shared it with me. It smelled heavenly and we just slurped out the seeds and pulp. Then there were no more for maybe a couple of weeks.   

When more started dropping, he realized they were rolling and not just lying right under the trees. Some of them went back pretty far into the bush and maybe eluded him for a day or so. 

Most of them were fine, though they weren’t all yellow yet. As they ripen their skins get crumply and messy looking on the outside. Then they are the sweetest.   

But there were quite a few that turned out to have been nibbled. And nibbled in a very particular way – just an area of the skin was taken off. The pulp and seeds were still intact behind the membrane that contains them. 

We thought this was very strange. Who would bite a passion fruit and not eat the juicy pulp? We thought about possible fruit bandits. So many possibilities.

Birds? 

I saw some pearly-eyed thrashers up on the vines. I didn’t think they would be content with just the skin, though. They have sharp beaks and can hollow out our papayas entirely, just leaving part of the skin hanging there. However, passion fruits have much thicker skin, and I didn’t see any hanging ones that seemed partially eaten. So maybe not thrashers.

Pearly-eyed Thrasher with papaya fruit

I have seen bananaquits pecking at our sugar apples, especially when the fruits are super soft. Again, though, they tend to go after fruit on the tree and anyway might not have been able to puncture the passion fruit skin.   

Bananaquit with Sugar Apple 

Deer?

There are plenty of deer foraging around our house. Mostly they eat leaves and young shoots. Probably they would eat passion fruit lying on the ground, though I think they would chomp down the whole thing, not just nibble.   

Iguanas?

These days we don’t have many iguanas near the house. When I do see them, they are lounging around on the trees down by the pond. They are vegetarians and can climb trees or grab fruit on the ground. But they are more gobblers than nibblers

 

Bats?

I thought of the local fruit bats - they are small and might be nibblers. I asked my friend Kevel Lindsay, who has done bat research on St. John, but he was doubtful since they feed up on the trees I wasn’t seeing any damage to the fruits hanging on the vines. 

Kevel thought it could be either a hermit crab or a land crab doing the nibbling. 

Crabs?

We did see an enormous hermit crab roaming around out back during the passion fruit dropping period. It sometimes eats kibbles out of the cats’ bowl and sleeps in the storage area. I put a partially eaten passion fruit in the bowl to tempt the hermit crab, and it crawled in to investigate but left without touching it. Maybe just not hungry.

Hermit Crab

Since we live next to the wetlands, there are large land crabs that often come by to scavenge along the ground at night. They eat fruits and leaves as well as insects and worms, and also check out spilled cat food. They are likely nibblers since their mouths might not be able to bite deep into the interior of the passion fruit.   

Land Crab

Or there are various insects that might also be attracted to a fruit lying on the ground.   

All that’s left of the passion fruits now are the seeds sprouting in various pots and a jar of frozen pulp I extracted for flavoring drinks. Meanwhile besides having fun gathering and savoring the tasty fruits, we also enjoyed the backyard investigations of our creature neighbors. 

Rare Ducks Were VIPs in the 2024 St. John Christmas Bird Count

Female Hooded Merganser duck 

At Francis Bay, we were thrilled to spot a group of four Hooded Mergansers diving for fish in the deepest part of the pond. I had never seen one before. 

Laurel Brannick recognized them by their fuzzy, back-combed crests. An adult male in breeding plumage has an unmistakable black and white hood. Since these were cinnamon colored, I thought they were probably females, though it is possible they were immature males. I didn’t get any close-up pictures then but then later found one posing nicely at the edge of the pond at Frank Bay. They might have moved over there because the Francis Bay pond has been getting a bit shallower as the weather becomes drier.   

The Hooded Mergansers normally breed in the northern part of the U.S. and Canada, and then in the winter head down to the southeast states. It is quite unusual for them to come into the Caribbean, so these are real adventurers. But not the first to come. There was one recorded on St. John in 2008, and one on St. Croix in 2004. 

I had never seen a Ring-necked Duck either. However, when I was going through my photos, I saw an unidentified head with a yellow eye. After I shared it with Laurel, we decided it was this other type of rare duck. 

Male Ring-necked Duck

Then we also spotted a female Ring-necked Duck, which has a very different eye – dark with a white ring around it.   

Female Ring-necked Duck

Unlike the mergansers, these Ring-necked Ducks are more frequently seen in the Caribbean. Yet they are still not common in the Virgin Islands, so we were excited to be able to include them in the annual bird count. Unlike the mergansers, they mostly eat aquatic vegetation rather than fish.

A couple of Ruddy Ducks were also sharing the pond on Christmas count day. They dive down and forage by pushing their bills along the bottom to collect aquatic vegetation, insects and small crustaceans. They are more regular winter visitors on St. John, and a few have nested as close as Puerto Rico.

Male Ruddy Duck

We also saw some of the ducks that live on St. John all year - the White-Cheeked Pintails. They are dabbling ducks that mostly pull vegetation off the bottom of the ponds. They can dive if necessary, but they mostly don’t like deep water. Many of them moved to shallower places during the height of the November heavy rains, but now more of them are showing up in Francis Bay. 

White-cheeked Pintail Duck

Along the shallow edges of the pond at Francis Bay we counted more Yellow-crowned Night Herons than usual. Maybe because we were looking earlier in the morning and they hadn’t finished eating. The night herons mostly roost in the mangroves during the day. Then in the evening and early morning they hunt for the big land crabs that live in deep muddy holes around the pond. 

Adult Yellow-crowned Night Heron

The young Yellow-crowned Night Herons are grayish with stripes on their chests and triangular white spots on their wings. They blend easily into the dense tree branches around the pond. However I recently saw one that was close to the road, easily visible as it grabbed some last bits of breakfast from a muddy, broken crab shell.

Juvenile Yellow-crowned Night Heron with crab shell

Laurel and I counted 33 different bird species around Francis Bay on December 14, 2024, the day of the island-wide count organized by the VI Audubon Society. That was a lot! There were 43 other people counting on St. John that same day and the overall bird total was 67 different species, about 1460 individual birds. 

Meanwhile many thousands of bird lovers participate in local bird counts around the U.S. in late December. We all report our results to the National Audubon Society and help build a database for bird protection and conservation activities.  

The most-counted bird on St. John this time was the Bananaquit (273). All the rain produced lots of flowers with nectar for them to eat, and people also often put out sugar for them. 

Bananaquits (also locally called Sugar Birds)

Next highest was the Gray Kingbird (121). They are insect eaters, and we have had plenty of those around to feed them.

Gray Kingbird

One promising new development was the presence of three American Flamingos that seem to have taken up residence on the south shore of St. John. Maybe they will form a permanent colony one day.

American Flamingos

Meanwhile the lone Scarlet Ibis is still holding court in the Fish Bay ponds, often accompanied by a long-time close friend – a Snowy Egret.

Semipalmated Sandpipers and Plovers Are Showing Up at Virgin Islands Beaches

Semipalmated sandpiper (left) and Semipalmated plover 

I think of these small birds as the ‘semipalmated sisters’. Though they are not actually related, they do share a first name, and it’s a mouthful. 

In Latin, semipalmated means ‘half like a hand’. Here it refers to the birds’ feet: two of their three toes are partially webbed together. That seems to be helpful when they run across the wet sand looking for tiny bugs and crustacean snacks. However, you rarely get to see their tiny feet clearly enough to check out the webbing. 

The semipalmated plovers are the more dramatic looking ones, especially in the spring when they are in their breeding plumage. They are easily identifiable from a distance by their distinctive necklaces. They also have puffy white breasts and bellies, orange legs, and matching dabs of orange on their black bills. 

Semipalmated plover

The plovers are quite small, no more than six inches long, and weigh only about an ounce and a half. It’s hard to see them from a distance, especially on a rocky shoreline.  

They tend to travel in small groups, foraging along secluded beaches.

Semipalmated plovers 

The semipalmated sandpipers are close to the same size as the plovers, and share the same beachy habitats. However they are more streamlined, and less colorful. 

Semipalmated sandpiper

Semipalmated sandpipers have white bellies and gray/brown mottled backs. Their bills are longer and thinner, with no bright spots, and their legs are dark. 

Semipalmated sandpipers

Both types fly north to breed in the Arctic tundra in the spring, when they can find lots of flies and other insects hatching. They need those protein-rich insects to nourish their chicks. Along their way to the breeding grounds, these birds can be seen feeding together along the North American coastlines, building up large fat reserves to give them energy for the next leg of their journey.

Semipalmated sandpipers in flight

Then in the fall they fly back to more southern shorelines, waiting for the right wind to help propel them. They move at night and in groups, probably for safety from predators. 

Since they can’t see much at night, they find their way by using the location of the setting sun and the position of the stars to orient themselves. They can also sense variations in the earth’s magnetic field.  

Although there aren’t large flocks of these semipalmated birds wintering in the Virgin Islands, there are definitely some that come and stay. And we should be grateful for the ones that do come, because they remove some of the bugs on the beaches, including the larvae of the obnoxious biting beach flies. 

At the same time, we should be in awe of them for their ability to move confidently through the night, over dark continents and oceans, somehow knowing from maps in their heads how to find the secluded tropical beaches where they hope to wind up. 

Sugar Apples and Soursops Have Stateside Relatives: Pawpaws

The North American Pawpaw tree (Asimina triloba) is a member of the Annonaceae or custard apple family – the only member that is native to the mainland United States (the eastern part  of the country). The other members of this family are tropical trees from the Caribbean and South America. These trees are not the same as Papayas, which are also called ‘pawpaws’ in the Caribbean.  

I saw a few Pawpaw trees in New York City recently, labeled in a botanical garden area highlighting native plants. I was curious because I haven’t heard much about them, even though they were described as producing the largest native fruits in the U.S. I was particularly interested because we have other members of the custard apple family – Sugar Apple and Soursop trees – growing in our yard in St. John.

We have also grown Papayas, and the use of the same name for two different and unrelated fruits is quite confusing.     

Papayas (Carica papaya) are classified as part of the Caricaceae family. Early European explorers/invaders called these fruits ‘papaya’, based on the indigenous people’s name for them, which for some people devolved into ‘pawpaw’. When similar-looking fruits were found by European colonists in northern territories they got called ‘pawpaws’ too. Even though the fruits aren’t really that similar. 

Papaya fruits are bigger and rounder than the mainland Pawpaws. However, both types of fruits do grow in clusters, and can look similar from below.

Pawpaw fruit

Papaya fruit

However, Papayas are larger, and the skin of their fruit turns yellow/orange when it’s ripe.  

Photo 3

Also their leaves are quite different. 

Papaya leaves are hand-shaped and have with deep lobes. Pawpaw leaves are also large but have a simple, teardrop shape.

Pawpaw leaves

Papaya leaves 

And Papayas are not really trees, but large herbaceous plants that are relatively short-lived.  

Anyway, it is clear that these North American Pawpaw trees are not botanically related to Papayas.

The next question is how they fit into the mostly tropical custard apple family. Annonaceae  is a large family of trees, containing over 2000 species, which are further differentiated by subfamily, tribe and genus. The Soursops, Sugar Apples and North American Pawpaws are directly linked until you get to the genus level: then Pawpaws are classified in the Asimina genus, while soursops and sugar apples are in the Annona genus. 

What do they all have in common besides their botanical ancestors? 

They do all have simple leaves with smooth (not serrated) edges. 

Soursop leaves

Sugar apple leaves

And they have similar custardy fruit with multiple dark seeds.

 

Pawpaw inside

Sugar apple inside

Since I love Sugar Apples and Soursops, I had to wonder why hardly anyone is eating these native Pawpaws in the U.S.   

One reason is that those sweet, soft insides, plus soft skins and numerous seeds, make the Pawpaw fruit difficult to process for commercial distribution. (Like the Sugar Apples and Soursops.) Some Native American tribes reportedly dried the Pawpaws and made cakes out of them that could be stored for later use. Early European colonists may have done the same, but certainly by the time there were imported tropical fruits available the native Pawpaws were left behind. 

Another reason they aren’t widely consumed could be that fairly early on they became viewed as low-class fruits. While some mainland names like ‘American custard apple’ and ‘Quaker delight’ referenced the sweet, flavor of the Pawpaw fruits, other nicknames that developed were more pejorative, like ‘Indian banana’, ‘poor man’s banana’, and ‘hillbilly mango’, reflecting racial and class prejudices.  

In addition, Pawpaws don’t grow fruit very easily on their own. Although these trees have been around for over 50 million years, they now may be having trouble adapting. Their flowers are designed to be pollinated by flies and beetles that seem to be scarce these days, or just not that interested or effective, which creates reproductive challenges.  

The Pawpaw trees can replicate themselves through root suckers that create connected groves of the trees, so you might find them growing in a group. But when all the trees in the grove are genetically identical, they aren’t able to produce fruit because they evolved so individual trees can’t pollinate their own flowers. (More genetic diversity is helpful for long-term survival.) So even if the appropriate flies and beetles show up to pollinate the trees’ flowers, they need to bring pollen from a genetically different pawpaw tree, and there might not be one close by.  

Even when there is fruit, it is hard for the Pawpaw trees to spread because they need seed dispersers. Their fruit with its big seeds was originally designed to be eaten by large mammals that roamed the western hemisphere before the Ice Age (like wooly mammoths and giant sloths). Later, bears took over consuming the Pawpaw fruit and dispersing the seeds across the countryside. And then for a long time Native Americans carried the seeds and cultivated them. Now there are not many farmers and gardeners planting them.   

These days, birds, squirrels, racoons and opossums may be the ones most likely to eat the wild Pawpaw fruits. But small mammals can only move the seeds short distances and the seeds are too big for most birds to eat and then disperse elsewhere, so these trees are not going very far.  

This Pawpaw story is seeming pretty sad, but it could turn out to have a sweet ending if the fruit now gets cultivated by more people and becomes more popular and appreciated. 

A couple of weeks ago I was excited to find a Pawpaw tree with fruit on it, and I got to taste one for the first time. It was definitely sweet, sort of like mushy banana with a bit of mango flavor. 

I would be happy to eat more Pawpaws, but I’m afraid I may not find many more of them. Still, it has been a wonderful experience to explore the history of this small, largely forgotten fruit and be connected so vividly with a variety of people and animals that lived ages ago. Unexpected food for thought.