10 March 2013

Today we finally retrieved our traps and now have 38 set in the refuge. I look forward to capturing 8-10 mongoose tomorrow. We captured a new male and a new female today in the nine traps that we had set yesterday.

Male mongoose #0106784302

Female mongoose #010780622

While Brad, Jonathan, and I were working on the Refuge, Diane, Dianne, and Brenda baked brownies to celebrate my birthday. The wind blew the candles out but the brownies were tasty.

After lunch we went to Great Salt Pond on the southeast side of the island. After several wrong turns, we found the place where Roy Horst and I entered the pond more than 30 years ago. That access is not so choked with mangroves, we could not get into the pond. I know my memory is not 100% accurate, but it appears to me that more than 90% of the open water that existed 30 years ago is now filled in with mangroves. I need to find some aerial images of the pond in the 1970s and more recently to verify my perception. While we were there we saw and heard several mongoose arguing over some conch scraps that had been left there recently.

We returned in time to swim in the waves and watch the bright orange orb drop into the sea. Although the horizon was clear, we did not see the green flash. My birthday dinner, as it has been for the past several years, was pizza at the Lost Dog.