Antiguan wildlife

[urbpan]

Hey! How would you like to see some of the wildlife of Antigua? These are all creatures that do well around humans, naturally, since I'm not exactly traveling to the deep wilderness. All of these pictures are from the house or by a restaurant. This is an Antiguan anole, a colorful little insect-eating lizard seen scurrying across walls and walkways.



These little holes in the yard are the daytime retreat of nocturnal tarantulas! One of my goals of the trip is to get a picture of one.


The Lesser Antillean bullfinch is a bold songbird that picks crumbs off of plates! This is a male, mostly black with red accents.


The waitress in the restaurant hosting this big spider called it a "money spider." I'm not sure what it is, but it reminds me of the huntsman spiders of Australia.


Here's my hand for scale. EDIT 4/18/13: thanks to wirrrn for pointing out to me that this spider is recently mo(u)lted, thus her pale color, and the fact that my sister-in-law noticed the spider changed color in the time we were there.


The restaurant had bullfinches too.


It was an open air restaurant, so the Carib grackles came in to check things out, too!


Is it looking at the goat curry, or the spider?


A bullfinch enjoys the colorful backdrop of beach wraps for sale.


The female bullfinch is a brown bird, with a light spot on its chin. This one kept coming to watch us eat lunch only to be chased off by a male.


Outside the restaurant a cattle egret hangs out near the parking lot.


The little pond outside the restaurant was full of these cute ducks, white-cheeked pintails--a new bird species for me!

Comments

Re: Tarantulas

[bedfull-o-books.livejournal.com]

When I was as the Asa Wright Nature Center in Trinidad (you should totally go), they told us not to put our hands into the open-ended metal railings, as they tended to hang out in there. We saw one, but it was too far back to photograph.

Not sure if this type of tarantula does the same, but figured I'd mention.

The bullfinches are adorable.

[ruthling.livejournal.com]

d'awwww, except for the spiders, which are only sort of cute.

that sounds like a great choice to go birding for me next time.

[uneko.livejournal.com]

So many birds :D

Interesting, about the spider... I grew up in Hawaii, and we also had "monkey spiders" (which I believe were cane spiders--entirely different in coloration, but not build from your 8 legged friend there)... Of course, I'm not sure if Monkey spider was common local term for that type of spider or if it was something from my dad who lived all sorts of places growing up... but it's interesting... as I'd bet we in Hawaii got the phrase from immigrants.. as many things in our melting pot culture did.

[kryptyd.livejournal.com]

Lovely pictures! I love the expression on the grackle.

If ever you take a tiny spider off your shoulder or out of your hair (my fluffy barnet has always been a net for them) some Irish person will say "Ooh, a money spider! You're going to come into some money!". I must say I never noticed any windfalls. I wouldn't like to find a thing that size in my hair.

Re: Tarantulas

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

Don't put your hand into open-ended metal railings, that's my policy.

(Unrelated: I do put my hand into rat holes, though)

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

I bet you're onto something there: any spider in an inconvenient or off-putting place can be dismissed as a "money spider."

[uneko.livejournal.com]

Man I'm an idiot.. read 'money spider" as "monkey spider" ... I'm literate, I swear.

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

If anything, "monkey spider" seems more plausible!

[uneko.livejournal.com]

Maybe :) Thought NOW I"m trying to remember if I heard anyone but my dad call them Monkey Spiders or if maybe that was a ... mishearing on his part. And this is how language is made and evolves, folks.