Gordon: We were walking down a small road towards a viewpoint when Ruth suddenly sucked in her breath and clutched my arm. My eyes darted about looking for the threat. “What is it?” I said. “Dead rat” Ruth replied. I relaxed and dismissed the threat, saying “We see those all the time.” And we do. An introduced species, as are all non-marine mammals in the Azores save one species of bat, dead rats are a common sight on the roads. They are the subject of a sustained control effort, with many signposted “Zona Deratizado”, which are plastic boxes containing Warfarin. I don’t think this is a battle that will ever be won.
The Azores have a gentle climate, so all sorts of life thrives, both the native and the introduced. We have noticed many more species of pests here than we are accustomed to at home.
There is a brown, inch long cockroach that is a common sight at night, mostly outside, but occasionally in our accommodations. Small, slow-moving black millipedes are very common, creating a decorative curve on the white walls. In our house in Santa Barbara, on Santa Maria Island, we had a wild, leggy centipede running around the place. Google told us that it was a house centipede, helpfully killing and consuming other pests.
There are lots of ants, which seem to quickly find our food, as well as small biting flies and the usual mosquitoes.
I know that our blog is endlessly positive and encouraging (probably because we’re almost always enjoying ourselves) but I wanted to point out one of the potentially annoying features of the Azores. We have generally not been bothered by any of pests here, though we are currently dealing with a pair of assertive felines, who have put us to the expense of purchasing food for their exclusive consumption.
Vacation pests. 🙂 There were geckos at the motel, and when we turned the lights off at night, we could hear their chirping vocalizations and the tiny pop-pop-pop of the adhesive toe pads on their feet. They made another noise as well that we couldn’t figure out, different from the sound of them walking on the walls and ceiling and communicating with each other. We bought a litre of Kahlua because it was so very cheap and we all liked vodka, coffee, and sugar. The big bottle also made a fine bookend against which to lean the four or five paperbacks we always had with us. One night, we turned off the lights at bedtime and waited until the geckos came out. When we heard them making their strange noise, we flipped the lights back on and saw a gecko standing on his hind legs on top of the paperbacks, his front legs on the neck of the Kahlua bottle, his head stretched upwards. With his long tongue he was licking the crusty underside of the cap, and he seemed to be enjoying it very much.
Great story Neil!
Warm climates have pests year round. When I was in New Orleans I was surprised to see “palmetto bugs” which are just big cockroaches. I said to a local man, “If they got into your cereal box they would make it sound like a maraca” and he replied, “They pour their own cereal”
Haha, yes the bugs are big here too.