I am on the lovely Caribbean island of Nevis for four weeks, but I have my left foot in a stiff and heavy medical CAM boot, and the right foot with a big rubber "even-up" layer strapped onto my sneaker. This is because of severe Achilles tendinitis (correction -- tendinosis) in the left leg, and therefore I am also under doctor's orders to minimize my walking as much as possible.

This has some pluses as well as some minuses. Although I can't walk down to the main road and go to the various beaches every day on foot or on the bus as I usually would, I can nonetheless walk around the small yard of the rental house to some extent, or even go up and down the lane a little bit, as long as I am careful not to do very much.

Because my scope for exploration is severely limited, this is causing me to concentrate my awareness and my searching efforts, in order to find as many different species as possible within this small and somewhat ecologically impoverished area of a few houses and a few vacant lots that are mostly overgrown with invasive species.

I think this is actually good discipline for me as a naturalist! I have to focus really intently and therefore manage to find things that normally I would not notice.

I have included here some of the more picturesque things I have found so far in this small area.

At 4:26 this afternoon it felt like an explosion had taken place on the island of Nevis, like a dynamite charge had gone off, but no "bang", just the whole island going "WHUMP". Then I could feel rocking, clear waves back and forth, about one every half a second. However that only lasted about 8 or 9 seconds, and then it stopped.

I recognized it as an earthquake, having been through one or two when I lived in California. However this one was lower frequency and higher amplitude waves than the ones I felt there, and therefore more impressive.

So it turned out it was a 4.7 earthquake going off under Antigua and Barbuda, which is only 60 miles east of where I am, on the island of Nevis. This counted as a "light" earthquake, not at all serious. Interesting though, and it sure makes you pay attention. :)

I did not hear any birds or dogs responding with alarm, but maybe they take it all in stride.