Flamboyant!
It’s that time of year again. We see brilliant splashes of scarlet on our hillsides among the greens and browns.
The flamboyant trees are in bloom! We have three in our yard. When I first moved into this neighborhood, there was one that the chickens used to roost in. We’d watch them fly up into the tree at night. It was lovely! Then our brilliant neighbors cut the tree down and burned the stump with some noxious chemicals or something. The wind carried the fumes to my little house for DAYS. It was disgusting!
But we have planted the neighborhood, once again with these beautiful, useful trees and we see scores of hummingbirds flitting about enjoying the nectar. One of them came from Michael’s house in tide village. And it’s one of the gold-colored ones! This is the first year that it’s bloomed and it’s gorgeous! We also have “Poor Man’s” orchid (Bauhinia monandra), lots of hibiscus, bougainvillea, and frangiapani. The birds are loving it!
But the sugar birds still come to the window asking for food every day. And I feed them a couple of times each week. They go through an entire feeder (2 cups of sugar water) in 8-10 hours. If I fill the feeders in the morning, by late afternoon they are almost empty. But I love watching them drink and I especially love watching them splash around in the bird baths.
Obviously, I’m not listening to the radio today 
…La la la, lala la la….
June 19th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
I saw some of the blooms heading to the airport last week. Stunningly beautiful.
Oh, I cleaned my machete this morning. The blade is bent slightly from when I used it as a boy scout.
Soon it will have a new home in St Croix. There’s just not many coconut trees here.
June 20th, 2008 at 6:20 am
The BEST flamboyant I’ve seen this year is at the entrance to Beach Side Cafe south of Frederiksted. On June 12th it was a totally dense glowing red-orange with only very small sprigs of leaves.
So many of the trees are gone since the blight. There were lots of driveways lined with the red flowers that mean summer is here. The big ones in La Grande Princesse are very spotty this year.
A wave is heading this way - we need rain, but soon the ground will have the red carpet.