Getting To Know Your Virgin Islands Lizards

Crested Anole lizard

                                                       

During the Virgin Islands ‘safer at home’ phase, I have found myself engaging more frequently with my non-human housemates - especially the lizards.

Most days I’ll be working at a table on our screened ground-level porch. The screen door is loose along the bottom, which has allowed a small lizard to come inside and share my work space. It is a Crested Anole (Anolis cristatellus), which has a permanent ridge along its back and tail. (Smaller crested anoles with light stripes on their back are either young, or female.)  

Anoles are quiet and mostly eat bugs, which I appreciate. (The name rhymes with ravioli.)

They are curious, and not scary or threatening. However, this one sometimes shows aggressive behavior if another anole enters its territory – even if it is on the outside of the screen – by doing push-ups and extending the dewlap under its chin.  

Anoles are quite plentiful, and a favorite food for the American Kestrels, and Great Egrets living in the neighborhood. Recently I saw a kestrel blast over and snatch an anole up from the ground just outside the porch in a split-second attack. It definitely would have been safer inside the house.

Kestrels in the Virgin Islands mostly eat anole lizards

Outside the front door is a small entry deck, where my husband puts a bowl of kibbles for the neighborhood cats. If they don’t finish it, a Ground Lizard (Ameiva exsul) might stop by to grab a bite. This lizard is sometimes called a ‘skink’ in the Virgin Islands, although that name generally refers to a different, rarer species. The ground lizard is larger and beefier than the anoles, with a snake-like body. It moves very quickly, swinging from side to side, more like a ‘slink’.

Ground Lizard eating cat food 

                                        

 

There is an old teak chair by the door, which for some reason recently attracted a bright, young Green Iguana. They don’t usually come into the house, though there was that time when my son’s girlfriend came to visit and reached into her suitcase to find an iguana sitting in there. Someone must have left the door open. 

Young Green Iguana

These iguanas get darker, spiky-backed, and considerably less attractive when they get larger – especially when one decides to take a dip in the pool. 

Adult Green Iguana relaxing in our pool

I had another eek! moment recently when I got out the large pasta pot and something dark was crawling around in it. After I jumped, I realized it was not a gross roach, but a Dwarf Gecko (Sphaerodactylus macrolepus), which some people call a ‘wood slave’. They are nocturnal, and I only seen them occasionally, like when I move a picture frame on the wall and one is sleeping behind there and quickly runs off.

I have never been able to get a good look at one, so I grabbed my camera and took a few shots of this one before it crawled up the side of the pot and hopped out.

The photos turned out to have a surprisingly existential quality, I thought, capturing the general feeling of safer-at-home isolation, confinement and vertigo.

Dwarf Gecko in the pasta pot

Red, White and Blue Birds in the Fish Bay Wetlands

Even though the ponds in the Fish Bay wetlands are mostly dried up now due to lack of rain, there are a couple of places where there is still some water, and those are attracting a variety of birds. 

The celebrity Scarlet Ibis is a new winter resident, maybe a stray from the group at Necker Island in the British Virgin Islands, or maybe a wanderer from farther away. It arrived in the Fish Bay area in December and was still around in early April. There has also been another one near Annaberg.

The one in the Fish Bay wetlands wanders around sticking its long bill into the mud and pulling out fiddler crabs, insects and other treats. Sometimes it then walks out into the water and rinses off its bill - interesting behavior to observe. At other times it walks through the water, seeming to snap up bugs and maybe small fish.

The largest white birds are Great Egrets, and they are year-round residents. They can be seen walking the roads hunting for lizards, and they are also going after the fish now trapped in the remaining pond water. Meanwhile they are showing off their long, wispy breeding plumage, along with green coloring around their eyes, in preparation for finding a mate.

You can also sometimes see another permanent resident, the smaller Snowy Egret, which has a dark bill and striking yellow feet.

The Little Blue Herons are less visible but they are also resident birds, hunting for fish in the ponds and bays. Interestingly, the juvenile ones are white until they are about one year old. After that they begin to add blue feathers, a few at a time. They are smaller than the Great Egrets, their legs are light green rather than black, and their bills are a two-toned gray and black rather than a yellow.