200 meters (actually 200 metres for everyone except poor Americans like me who barely know what a metre is) doesn’t seem like a whole lot. But if you’re talking altitude—and we are—it is a pretty big deal around here. Take a trip upward in the latest Wild Statia:
Wild Statia takes a second look at the wealth of information presented in the recent Journal of Caribbean Ornithology article about Statia. In addition to compiling records of species never seen on the island before, the article also shares data on populations that have been changing in recent years. The full article from the JCO is available as well.
In this week’s Wild Statia, we take a look at a recent publication collecting records of new bird species sighted on Statia. You can access the original article for free at the Journal of Caribbean Ornithology.
The Zebra Longwing is one of Statia’s most beautiful and captivating butterflies. It also has a truly amazing life history with plenty of surprising details.
A survey of Statia’s birds from the early 1950s reaches back to summarize all that science had learned until that point and became a milestone marking a more modern era of ecological study.
What can we learn about Statian wildlife and the history of Statian natural history studies from a museum collection thousands of kilometers away? Quite a bit, in fact!
Little migrants, sometimes heard but rarely seen, in Wild Statia:
In this week’s Wild Statia article, we take a close-up look at one of the challenges of creating a wildlife guide: wildlife photography! Of course, to be fair, the photography is also one of the most fun and rewarding parts of working on the book.
I spent last week in the field working on the upcoming Statia wildlife book with Hannah Madden and it was a blast. We saw—and documented—many things, and I’m still going through my photos. In the meantime, the most recent Wild Statia article explains a bit about working in the field.
Anyone with an interest in Statia and its wildlife is in for a real treat: a free ebook—Wild Statia—was just released by naturalists Hannah Madden and Mark Yokoyama. The 55-page book is illustrated with captivating photos taken by the authors.
The book’s fifteen chapters each take a closer look at a unique aspect of Statia’s wildlife, from majestic tropicbirds to extraordinary nocturnal insects, and all the lizards in between. Readers will also discover more about the habitats that support wildlife and the work being done to understand and protect natural heritage. The format of the book emphasizes the fascinating stories that are often left unexplored by scientific publications.
Madden and Yokoyama will be in the field this week doing research for their upcoming guide to the wildlife of Statia, which will be the first book of its type for the island. The authors aim to complete the wildlife guide in 2016. This project is managed by the non-profit association Les Fruits de Mer, with support from the St. Eustatius Tourism Development Foundation and funding from NuStar Terminals, N.V..
In addition to documenting the animals themselves, the authors are excited to learn about wildlife from the people of Statia. According to Yokoyama, “One thing that you will notice in Wild Statia is a passion for connecting natural history with human culture—the names given to animals, the stories told about them and the ways that we have impacted nature over time. If you have any information about wildlife on Statia, we’d love to hear it.” Stories, info and names for Statian wildlife can be shared by sending them to info@lesfruitsdemer.com.
Many of the chapters are adapted from articles in Yokoyama’s ongoing Wild Statia series in the Weekender section of The Daily Herald. The ebook can be downloaded for free on our Extras page.