Trochilus Polytmus

Tro - what? Yes, bird lovers, we're back in Jamaica and have a new resident at Whimsey Hall South - an adult male Trochilus Polytmus, commonly called a Red-billed Streamertail or Jamaican Doctor Bird. He was here back in the spring as a juvenile, and much to our delight is still here now that his tail has grown out. The long tail feathers make a very distinctive trilling sound when he flies.

It has been very wet here this year - over eight inches of rain in the first three weeks! This has made the road in to our place pretty much impassable. To deal with having to bring all of our supplies in the quarter mile from the "bump", Tom built a two wheeled pull-behind cart. This has worked quite well, although the wheels do tend to pick up quite a bit of mud.

The cart worked, but we decided it needed a paint job.

All of that rain did make the plants grow! Here are pictures of our front yard in 2010 and 2017. We have already started having to cut some plants down to keep our view of the sunset.

Some more of our plants. The chicken wire is to keep the goats from eating them.

Five of our Agave plants decided to bloom at once. They look like 15' tall asparagus!

Of course we are doing more tile work. Here is Binghi working on the north wall.

While working in the back yard we found this interesting Brachiopod fossil.

We have some interesting bugs here. This guy was about 1.5" long.

And of course a sunset.