It is a  typical  June that has arrived on Bonaire.  Incessant dryness, perhaps in some years as long as 3 1/2 months of unrelenting aridity, since the last showers of the rainy season.  But then "the small rains"arrives and we have a few days of pre-dawn showers that result in a few puddles that dry up by noon.  But something quite different happens out in the "mondi".  A resplendent blossoming takes place within 3 days of the mornings of rain.  It is the kibrahacha tree, which has been unnoticed all year.  This morning,  as I looked out on Kralendijk's horizon that takes in Seru Largo I can see great patches of intense yellow up near the rim of the escarpment.  One cannot delay going out and taking this show in because the flowers remain on the tree only for about 3 days and then they are shed.  What makes this floral display so spectacular is that there is no other color that dilutes the intensity of the yellow because the tree only has the energy and moisture to either produce all flowers or all leaves--never both at the same time.  After the flowers drop off, the leaves will develop and the fruit from the pollinated flowers will began to grow into elongated round pods.   The yellow of the flowers attracts many types of bees and wasps and, as usual, the ubiquitous little "sugar thief", the Bananaquit, which seems to be mocking the intensity of the flower's yellow with his own bright yellow underparts.  After the fruit ripens, Yellow-shoulderd Parrots and Caribbean Parakeets will flock to these trees and consume the seeds from the elongated, cylindrical pods.

Another similar tree is called the West Indies or pink cedar tree which often grown as a large shade tree in local yards and differs from the kibrahacha in that it blooms for a longer period of time in the dry spring season, when the tree has leaves and does not need to be awakened by early morning showers  for it to burst into flower.  I have noticed that the local birds love to peel open the pods of this common tree and eat the seeds, especially birds like the Bare-eyed Pigeon (know locally as ala blanka- whitewing).  One often sees flocks of these rather large, gray pigeons sitting in groups on telephone lines that put them in close proximity to the fruiting pink cedar trees