Invasive Plants - Blackwood Allen

Today was an invasive plants survey on Blackwood Allen trail. Just Jack, Kathy and myself. The good news was that there were very few invasive species found (1 white lead tree and 1 bamboo). The even better news was that we found 3 Priby bushes, which are listed as critically endangered and were before known only in one place on Montserrat. Very exciting.

The bad news was that the 100m transect off the trail went up an extremely steep muddy slope covered in dense vegetation. At the top we came across this field of ferns which were waist high. You can see Jack manfully reeling out the tape measure. Actually it was a lot of fun and having learned my lesson with the Chiggers I was DEETed up to the eyebrows which seemed to have some effect - although I only remembered to DEET my pockets half way up the slope...

In the afternoon it was a shore bird survey at Old Road Bay for Jack and I while K went off to help run a session at St Augustine's school nearby. In the evening we had the last dinner for Alice who is returning to the UK. I made strawberry crumble - an unusual combination but you make do with what's available on an island :-). I tried adding some of the green bananas we had but they refused to sweeten up - one bit of rapidly cooked caramel later and it was all very tasty.