Beyond the bounds of Pennsylvania, there are beautiful birds in Florida.
How about this roseate spoonbill!
(photo by Chuck Tague. He took this picture a few weeks ago.)
Yearly Archives: 2010
King and Queen
Speaking of crests, as I did yesterday, here are a couple of crested characters.
These royal terns are common on our southern coasts and found year-round on the coast of Florida. Wherever they occur they’re hard to miss because they’re very noisy and highly social. They always have something to say and someone to say it to.
Both of their given names are a puzzle to me. Why are they called Sterna maxima (largest tern) when Caspian terns are larger? According to Cornell’s Birds of North America, these are the largest crested terns though to my eye Caspians have crests too, they’re just shorter.
And why are they called “royal?” Perhaps because their crests suggest a royal crown. The royal theme carries through to their collective name. A group of royal terns is called a “highness of terns.”
So here they are, a royal highness. I can’t tell which one is king and which the queen, they look too much alike.
(photo by Kim Steininger)
Anatomy: Crest
The word “crest” describes a lot of things — the crest of a hill, the crest of a wave, the crest on a helmet, the crest of a roof — but its primary meaning is “a comb or tuft on a bird’s head.”
Blue jays, tufted titmice and northern cardinals have noticeable crests that they raise or lower depending on their mood. Most of the time their crests appear to be in the “up” position but a really excited cardinal can raise its crest even further, as shown at this link.
Some birds have “crest” in their names. This is an immature crested caracara, a Central and South American bird that also lives in Texas and Florida. (I can tell it’s immature because of its brown plumage and pink cere.)
The crest, indicated by an arrow, looks almost like long flowing hair. When a crested caracara gets excited the “hair” stands up on the back of his head.
After Chuck took his picture, this bird got excited and raised his crest. He looked so funny I nearly laughed. Click on his photo to see why.
(photos by Chuck Tague)
Beyond Bounds: Ruddy Turnstone
If I’m lucky I’ll see this bird in the next few days, but he won’t be this brightly colored.
This is a ruddy turnstone in breeding plumage. By his color you can see why he’s called “ruddy.” “Turnstone” comes from his behavior. This shorebird eats insects, beetles and crustaceans and literally turns stones to find them. Of course he prefers stony, not sandy, beaches.
Ruddy turnstones breed in the Arctic and winter along our Atlantic, Pacific and Gulf coasts. This keeps them beyond the bounds of southwestern Pennsylvania but during migration they sometimes stop on the shores of Lake Erie. If you drive a couple of hours to the lake in August you may see one there. Bobby Greene photographed this one at Conneaut, Ohio.
And why do I think I’ll see a ruddy turnstone soon? I’m on my way to Florida to visit Chuck and Joan Tague and do a lot of birding. At some point we’ll visit a rocky jetty and perhaps find a ruddy turnstone who’s spending his winter there.
(photo by Bobby Greene)
Where is the Nature Observer?
Those of you who read Chuck Tague’s blog have noticed he hasn’t updated it since January 21.
I did too. Around the end of January I emailed him saying “You must be away having fun since there’s no news on your blog.”
No, he isn’t away. He’s alive and well but his blog has a bug. There’s some kind of software problem that causes it to crash the minute he tries to change anything. The best he is able to do is post this comment on his last entry.
JANUARY 28, 2010
DEAR READERS:
MY APOLOGIES. BECAUSE OF A SOFTWARE PROBLEM I HAVEN’T BEEN ABLE TO ACCESS THE NATURE OBSERVER WEBSITE TO ADD OR EDIT FOR THE LAST WEEK. TECH SUPPORT AT APPLE IS WORKING ON THE PROBLEM.
CHUCK
Meanwhile, Chuck’s been busy birding and taking pictures while he waits for Apple to make the bug go away. It’s a pesky one and it’s still not solved.
It may be a real bug but it’s not a “true bug” like this brown marmorated stink bug that plagues us indoors.
😉
(photo from Wikimedia Commons, via The Bugwood Network at the University of Georgia. Click on the photo to see the original at Wikimedia.)
Who cares if it snows?!
Believe it or not, spring is coming. I can tell because the peregrines are courting.
Despite deep snow in the nestbox Dorothy and E2 have been bowing and courting at Pitt’s Cathedral of Learning.
The motion detection camera captured two of their visits last weekend: an extended one with lots of bowing on Saturday and a quick visit by E2 alone on Sunday. Here, E2 seems to be saying, “What are you looking at?” In fact he’s probably wondering why Dorothy did not answer his call at the nest box on Valentine’s Day.
Here’s a slideshow of both visits. (Click on any image to open the slideshow in its own lightbox.)
A whisp of wings enters from above
(photos from the National Aviary webcam at University of Pittsburgh)
Evidence
Put on your detective hat. It’s time to solve a minor mystery.
First the clues, then the quiz.
The clues: I took this picture during the last four weeks in southwestern Pennsylvania.
The quiz:
- What happened to this tree and who did it?
- What land feature is this tree near?
- How long do you think it took to get the tree into this condition?
- What kind of tree is it?
- Will the tree fall?
- If the tree falls will anyone get hurt?
- Approximately when in the last four weeks did I take this picture?
- Can you guess where this is?
Click the photo for the answers or, rather, my best guesses at them.
(photo by Kate St. John)
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Happy Valentine’s Day
American avocets look so romantic when they court.
Before they mate they do some ritualistic preening and splashing. Afterward they dance together. He puts his wing over her shoulder, they entwine their necks, cross their bills and strut a few steps. How sweet!
Happy Valentines’ Day
(photo by Kim Steininger)
Anatomy: Axillaries
12 February 2010:
If you thought we were done with bird anatomy because we reached the tail last week, think again.
There are plenty of obscure anatomical words that I haven’t covered yet. For instance, what about axillaries?
Axillaries are the bird’s armpits, circled above in yellow. Usually they’re unremarkable because they’re a single color but every once in a while there’s a surprise.
For instance, notice the American robin above and the black-bellied plover below.
And how about this illustration of rose-breasted grosbeaks? Who knew that the males have rosy armpits and the females have yellow?
If birds don’t soar, we get only a fleeting glimpse at their axillaries.
(photo credits: American robin by Marcy Cunkelman, black-bellied plover by Chuck Tague, rose-breasted grosbeak illustration from Wikimedia Commons; click on the caption to see the original)
Beyond Bounds: Snowy Plover
I had promised myself that for the next two blogs I would not mention snow, but this is the photo that came up in rotation for my “Beyond Bounds” series. I can’t help it. He’s a snowy plover.
Once upon a time, in August 2002, a snowy plover stopped at the pond at Imperial grasslands in Allegheny County. This bird is so rare in southwestern Pennsylvania that many, many birders made the trip to see it but I procrastinated. For a short time the pond was the Mecca of Birding and then the bird was gone. I had procrastinated too long. I missed him — and he would have been a Life Bird (the first I’d ever seen in my life).
Snowy plovers are uncommon in North America. Because they rely on sparsely vegetated beaches they are listed as endangered in Mississippi and threatened in Florida and along the Pacific coast. Fortunately they also breed at inland alkaline lakes so they’re not completely dependent on the sandy coast.
Eventually I saw my Life Bird snowy plover at Henderson, Nevada’s sewage treatment plant, also known as the Henderson Bird Viewing Preserve. As I scanned the empty empoundments with my binoculars I stopped my gaze at a little group of shorebirds. When I saw one that looked like this I thought, “That’s a snowy plover.” Years of flipping through the field guide had paid off. It felt like I’d seen him before.
But I haven’t seen one since.
Steve Gosser photographed this one in Florida.
(photo by Steve Gosser)