The one thing I really like about Bonaire is the abundant reptile life.
Bonaire has no shortage of blau blau lizards, anoles and their bold, proud, green iguanas.
The first couple of times in our quest to find iguanas we got sucked into going to Bonaire's Slagbaai National park.
Slagbaai is rocky,rough, desert terrain in the middle of Bonaire's version of "death valley". Heaven forbid if your truck broke down, you ran out of water and had no sun protection. You might as well bend over and kiss your ass good bye.
I also found out that iguanas and blau blaus really like raisens.
I spotted a few iguanas in the scrubby brush. I approached them very cautiously by tossing a few raisens on the ground. One approached, then another and another, and then, there was this stampede of iguanas and blau blaus boldly confronting you for raisens.
My husband thought, at first, that this was kind of cool but then when close to two hundred iguanas, anoles and blau blaus surrounded us, he ran to the truck and rolled up the windows. He left me standing outside the truck with a, now, empty box of sunmaid raisens.
At popular resorts such as the "Divi flamingo beach resort" lives 'friendly' resident iguanas that sun themselves at the dock and look for french fry hand-outs from the tourists.
At the, now, demolished "sunset house resort" commonly known as the 'front porch" dive site is one of the best places to watch iguanas in action. The demolished concrete slabs provide housing for many iguanas. The defunct cess-pool basins provide a place for the iguanas to lay their eggs.
In the dirty rain water gathered in the basins I could see quite a few eggs hunkered down amongst the twigs and dirt. I like to hang out here between dives to watch the iguanas.
The males will stand defiantly on top of the debris with their dewlaps unfurrowed like a great sail. Some will bob their heads with great vigor and some will do it lazily. Some will bob their heads at another iguana and some will do it because they think somebody is looking at them because they are just so great.
It is not unlike watching a bunch of guys posturing at a sports bar with one another.
* I took this picture!
Oh, yeah. That's what I think too, V.
ReplyDeleteOr, it's a little like dogs lifting their leg on every tree, even though they have nothing left to spray, just to go through the motions of marking their territory.