St. Croix field season begins

We arrived in St. Croix for the 2009 field season on July 31. We all met at the airport and were together for the flight to San Juan. We discovered that some were on an early flight to St. Croix, while others were scheduled later. A few were able to switch to the sooner flight and arrived in the early afternoon.

We had arranged for a 12 passenger van, but it turned out to be unavailable, so the rental company gave us two smaller vehicles: a minivan and a Jeep. We checked in to Cottages by the Sea, met Mike Evans at the refuge (where the students were staying) and then split up: Buzz went back to the airport to pick up the rest of the team and I led an expedition to the grocery store (not only for groceries, but also beer and liquor.)

After a quick visit to the beach, we went to the Lost Dog for pizza and beer. Both Daniel and Jonathan had been keenly anticipating their favorite pizza restaurant in the world. We returned around 10pm and I was exhausted and ready for sleep.

We went early to the farmer's market to buy fruit and fish. I got genips, sugar apples, and a couple other odd fruits I hadn't seen before. My previous experience with sugar apples has been uneven, but these have been perfect: almost crunchy with sugar.

We finally went out to the refuge in the mid-afternoon to put out traps. Buzz led one team out into the scrub a bit west of the saltpond to put out a grid of 15 traps. I took the other team out to the end of the road and we put traps in pairs about 300 feet apart along the side of the road. We rejoined the other team and together laid out some mouse traps for a student project.

The following morning, we went out to the field early to check the mouse traps, but hadn't caught any. The next night, we reset the traps using a more attractive bait and caught several mice. We heard from Mike that Peromyscus have been observed on the island. The mice looked like Mus, but were brownish, which is unusual.

We've begun to settle into a routine: check the mouse traps early and close them for the day; check the mongoose traps before lunch; process mongooses after lunch; and return the mongooses in the late afternoon and open the mouse traps before dinner. In between each stage, we go swimming, have meals, and run errands. And run interference among the children.