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**Walking Iris See The "I" Page IRISES -- Walking Iris

Water Hyacinth Eichhornia crassipes
From: S. America
Photographed: In the Botanical Garden at the Hotel Atitlan on Lake Atitlan in Guatemala.
Planting and Care: This water based plant will do fine in full sun or semi shade. Do not plant the water hyacinth in an open water situation as it is invasive and will be hard to control once it gets started. We saw it once having overtaken in a small pond in southern Louisiana. Its appearance wasn't all that bad, bu the smell was something I still remember and not particularly fondly.
Text & Photograph Copyrighted ©KO 2010

WATERLILIES

Water Lilies Nymphaea
These exquisitely beautiful flowering plants will grow in what seem to be very small water containers as you can see in the photograph on the left.
Photographed: At the Hotel Atitlan on Lake Atitlan in Guatemala.
Planting and Care: Plant them in full sun in a watery or swampy environment.
Text & Photographs Copyrighted ©KO 2010

Watermelon
Link: http://www.urbanext.uiuc.edu/veggies/watermelon1.html

**West Indian Locust Tree, Stinky Toe Tree (in Montserrat) Hymenaea courbaril L.
The extremely hard large oval pods of this tree are smelly as the local name implies, but despite the smell some folks in Montserrat eat the powdery material inside. This is also a popular treat in nearby Antigua. The West Indian locust is is a handsome tree growing eventually to be about sixty-five feet tall with its deep green shiny leaves providing welcome shade in a tropical climate. We have several at varying ages.
Benefits: The seed pods are great favorites of the largest local wild animal, the agouti. We can often hear them outside in the early morning knawing on the hard shells of the pods.
Blooms: In Montserrat, they usually bloom in June and July.
Photographed: Below our banana garden our home in Montserrat.
Text & Photograph Copyrighted ©KO 2009

White Rattle Shaker Calathea crotalifera
Photographed: At the Hotel Atitlan on Lake Atitlan in Guatemala.
Text & Photographs Copyrighted ©KO 2010

Yellow Rattle Shaker Calathea crotalifera
Photographed: At the Hotel Atitlan on Lake Atitlan in Guatemala.
Text & Photographs Copyrighted ©KO2010

WILDLIFE IN OUR TROPICAL GARDEN AND IN OTHERS

Animals, birds, lizards, snakes, insects and more!

Montserrat does not have a long list of sizeable or dramatic wildlife -- our own pretty wild chickens and the daily visit to our vegetable gardens by a few agoutis (large rodents endemic in the Caribbean), an iguana or two and our neighbor's cats and dogs all make the short list of what we think of as animals here on the island. But, just yesterday I woke to the braying of a young bull. Since my husband entertains us with his very carefully crafted animal noises, I thought, "Oh, it's just Stassi." When I went out to water our small plants at about 5:00 P.M., I spotted the calf's droppings at our front door and realized the noise was indeed coming from a calf. Stassi and I headed out for our evening walk and soon ran into our neighbor, Derek. We told him where we had last seen the calf which we believed to be his and he was quickly off on the search speeding around the neighborhood in his "mini" look alike. Animal husbandry is an activity not allowed in a few of Montserrat's neighborhoods like Olveston, but the law is ignored along with that of mixing commercial and residential properties.

ANIMALS

**Agouti, Rabbit (in Montserrat)
Here is one of our garden visitors which is very similar in looks to a guinea pig and about the size of a large house cat. Their fur is dark brown, almost black, and they have soft pink ears. These charming little fellows are members of the rodent family. They are vegetarian and when in a safe environment they are creatures of the day. If things get tough, they easily become nocturnal. They have a peculiar habit of stopping when scared, then jumping straight in the air and "poof" they are gone!
Photographed: From our deck looking over the national park toward St. Peter's at our home in Montserrat.
Text and Photographs Copyrighted ©Krika.com 2009

BIRDS

**Green Backed Heron Butorides virecens
Below are photographs of Bob, a lovely bird that made us and our pool his close friends. He stops by regularly on the rim of our pool and dips his beak in the water every now and then, either getting a drink or catching a bug. As a person totally unable to identify birds, even after buying Peterson's Guide I simply named him Bob and then struck up a conversation with him. He seemed to like to hear my voice and over the last year or so he has dared to come as close as four feet, reminding me very much of a long ago trip to the Galapagos Islands where wildlife had little fear of humans.
Photographed: From our deck looking over the national park toward St. Peter's and by our pool at our home in Montserrat .
THANK YOU: Bob was identified by our neighbor Jotinder B. from Britain now living for a while in Montserrat.
Links: For more information click on the following
http://www.jaxzoo.org/animals/biofacts/GreenBackedHeron.asp
Text and Photographs Copyrighted ©Krika.com 2008

**Killihawk, Chicken Hawk (in Montserrat)
These very small hawks are remarkable in their ability to perch at the very top of a tree, telephone pole or as yet unopened palm frond waving in the wind.
Text Copyrighted ©Krika.com 2009

**Caribbean Doves
These sweet birds are as common here in Montserrat as is the pigeon pictured above. The dove pictured on the left found a unique way to court his love. He sits on the chair on our deck right outside our bedroom window and calls to her in the tree just thirty feet away. She flies in and sits with him on the chair for a few minutes. Soon they jump up to the wooden deck railing to walk a bit and fluff their feathers. Within a few minutes they fly off to her tree and, hiding behind the pothos leaves, they.....!
Photographed: On a chair on our deck just outside our bedroom window at our home in Montserrat.
Text and Photographs Copyrighted ©Krika.com 2009/2010

As he calls to his love, the little fellow plumps up his neck and brightens his coloring. We believe that doves mate for life so all of this courting seems to have real benefits. Maybe we can learn something from them.
Text and Photographs Copyrighted ©Krika.com 2009

CHICKENS

After the Soufriere volcano erupted for the second time in three hundred years -- 1995 was the first and 1997 was the second -- the southern two thirds of Montserrat was completely abandoned by humans. Tragically many domesticated animals were left behind. Farm animals including chickens, sheep, goats and cows could not easily be evacuated along with their owners. In many cases neither were family pets, cats and dogs and probably other little critters. There are many tragic tales told of the human losses incurred during this volcanic crisis, but not so often tales told of what the animals experienced.
What we have seen and experienced first hand is the number of feral or wild chickens roaming neighborhoods and living on once fairly impressive properties. We decided to look into the idea of eating free range chicken and have had many an adventure in doing so.
Link: To our own chicken hunting story
Link: See The "C" Page CHICKENS IN THE GARDEN
Text and Photograph Copyrighted © Krika.com 2008

FROGS AND TOADS

**Toads These large lumpy toads are commonplace in Montserrat. During dry season they spend much of their time in moist garden pots as you see in the photograph. If you are having trouble seeing them look for two pairs of eyes on the left hand side of the pot.
Text and Photographs Copyrighted © Krika.com 2008

**Tree Frogs
Take a look at the little fellow in the photograph to the left. Every evening for weeks he came in through a small space in the screen of our kitchen window. He spent the night with us in our jar of rosemary cuttings and was almost always gone in the morning. These tiny tree frogs are adorable until you step on one barefooted in the night. When that happens these sweet tiny creatures secrete a toxin that you won't find very appealing.
Text and Photograph Copyrighted ©KO 2008

LIZARDS

We have an extraordinary variety of lizards -- all sorts -- from tiny to enormous, from dull colored to bright turquoise and they pop up out of everywhere! To the left is a photograph of our potted celery plant which I use in the evening when I need a sprig or two of celery in the kitchen. One night I went out and reaching into the pot to cut a stem I found the little fellow in the photo. We both jumped!

The surprising thing about the small lizards here is that they are so aggressive. A tiny three inch lizard will turn to face you as if it had a chance in combat with a giant that chose to fight. The larger lizards in the garden, those that are twelve to fifteen inches long and a dull turquoise in color, seem less aggressive or maybe they are just smarter. As I approach, they run which is just fine with me. I do find them endlessly entertaining when I watch them in the gardens from my perch on our deck. Then of course we have huge iguanas. These are not friends of gardeners as they voraciously eat everything that is planted.
Text and Photographs Copyrighted ©Krika.com 2008

**Ground Lizards
These are tough insect eating lizards, little tanks in the garden. They seem to be able to "hear" what is beneath the soil as we have seen them digging and certainly have had to clean up their messes, soil pitched this way and that as they chase a below the soil snack. These lizards which can be more than eighteen inches long are extremely skittish around humans. This always seems surprising because little fellows like the three inch green lizard in the celery in the photograph above will often stand up to fight when we approach.
Text and Photographs Copyrighted ©Krika.com 2008

**Iguanas
The fellow in the tree below is about two feet long, nose to tip of tail. He is a serious eating machine. Sadly he is a vegetarian and prefers whatever is featured in a tropical island vegetable garden. Obviously he is not one of our favorite creatures, but he is magnificent!
Text and Photograph Copyrighted ©Krika.com 2009

**Young Black Crab or Mystery Crab?
One day we discovered this creature on the first stair of our pool. When he realized we were there and intent on pool cleaning he decided to let us know that he was NOT PLEASED! It is surprising here in Montserrat how aggressive very small animals are. This little fellow, two inch lizards and more will stand up and fight when they could simply scamper away.
Text and Photographs Copyrighted ©Krika.com 2009

INSECTS

**Ants
Ants are the green revolution insects in the garden. They bring and care for aphids and a host of other insects who all produce products the ants harvest. Though there might be beneficial effects of having ants in the garden, I’ve never heard of even one. We just learned from an older fellow in Montserrat that his parents used their urine directly on sorrel, cassava, tomato plants and lime trees to eliminate the ants that find the roots of these plants and trees to be especially delectable. We used a ten to one dilution (10 parts water/1 part urine) and found far fewer ants the next day. The plants were fine and seemed to appreciate the absence of ants.
Text copyrighted © KO 2008

**Cutworms
These are unattractive one inch long thick whitish grub like creatures that live in the soil and whose sole purpose in life is to cut the stems of your young newly planted vegetables and flowers right at ground level. The cutworms don't usually cut all the way through the stems, but do enough damage to ensure that the plants do not survive. We had them in New England gardens and now find them here in the Caribbean as well.
Treatment: Shielding your plants with card paper collars which surround the stem from a few inches below ground to a few inches above ground will do the trick.
Text and Photograph Copyrighted © Krika.com 2008

**Canna Lily Caterpillars
As you can see to your right these nasty critters have eaten to shreds our three varieties of cannas. We used our usual soapy water spray on them, but these caterpillars seemed to love the shower and they kept on eating.
PLEASE WRITE IF YOU HAVE AN ORGANIC SOLUTION!!
Email: krikaworks@gmail.com

**Mole Crickets
Pictured at the right these are highly specialized grass and garden killing machines. They are also triathlon champions as they can swim and fly and burrow under the soil -- truly worthy adversaries.
Text and Photograph Copyrighted © Krika.com 2008

**Bug Mystery Below, but perhaps it could be called the tire bug!

Wood Sorrel See the "S" Page -- SHAMROCK I AND SHAMROCK II