Northern gannets were the most numerous sea bird on my whale watch trip this year. Some were adults, some were juveniles, but few had the peachy colored head feathers of these breeding adults.
This pair was a lucky shot. When the photographer took their picture they were mirror images of each other.
Posed perfectly. Frozen in time.
(photo by Des Colhoun via Wikimedia Commons. Click on the photo to see the original, including a link to its geographic location.)
True confessions. When I’m in Maine I usually go on a whale watching trip but my real goal isn’t whales, it’s pelagic birds.
I’m not the only birder on the whale watch boat. There’s usually a dozen of us keeping our eyes peeled for gannets, shearwaters, jaegers and storm petrels.
Storm petrels are my favorites because they’re so dainty. Only the size of starlings, they appear to walk on water as they search for food.
The most common type in the Gulf of Maine in early September is Wilson’s storm petrel, pictured above. When I learned where they came from I was amazed.
Wilson’s breed in colonies on the coast of Antarctica. Like most storm petrels they nest out of sight in crevices and burrows and only visit their nests under cover of darkness. That’s how they hide their eggs and young from raiding gulls and skuas.
When not breeding they live on the open ocean and never come to the land, but they’re easy to see on a pelagic trip because they’re willing to approach boats.
So while it’s winter on the southern ocean I get to see this Antarctic visitor off the coast of Maine. Soon they’ll journey back.
(photo by Patrick Coin via Wikimedia Commons. Click on the photo to see the original)
4 September 2012
The other day at Acadia National Park I watched a female common eider (Somateria mollissima) climb up on a boulder and eat the barnacles. At one point she opened her wings and I saw that they were surprisingly short.
Since eiders are the largest duck in the northern hemisphere they need substantial wings to fly but this bird’s wings weren’t long enough to carry her. Why? She was molting.
Like many ducks and geese, common eiders completely molt their tail and wing feathers in late summer after the breeding season. This means they can’t fly for 3-4 weeks.
This isn’t a terrible hardship for eiders because swimming is their most important skill. It’s how they get their food (marine crustaceans) and how they avoid predators.
Like eiders Canada geese go through a flightless period, too, but I never noticed it. They hide it well.
It’s taken me a long time to realize that I’ve never seen a common eider fly because I only visit their home when they’re flightless.
(photo by Stuart Burns via Wikimedia Commons. Click on the photo to see the original)
When ruddy turnstones arrive on the U.S. coast in August, they’re still decked out in their calico colors: black, white and rusty red.
Though all of them are born in the Arctic, ruddy turnstones spend only three months up there. The adults arrive on the breeding grounds in late May or early June and lay eggs by mid-June. The eggs hatch by mid July. The young fledge by early August. As soon as the young are independent their mothers, then their fathers, leave for the south. By mid-August most of the adults have left. The young follow soon.
This schedule means that the first ruddy turnstones we see in August are probably adult females. I saw some early turnstones, probably female, at Cape Cod on August 2nd. Chuck Tague saw his first in Florida around August 22.
Perhaps they’re in a hurry to go south. I haven’t seen any on the coast of Maine this week.
(photo by Steve Gosser)
When I’m at Acadia National Park, as I am right now, I make sure to visit to the southwestern edge of Mount Desert Island where migrating song and shorebirds stop before launching across Blue Hill Bay. This lighthouse marks the southern tip.
The Bass Harbor Head Light has warned sailors of the rocky entrance to Bass Harbor since 1858. It was automated in 1974 so there’s no access inside, just a pretty walk down to the shore where the view of the lighthouse dominates the sky.
But don’t take that walk in the fog. The path is rocky and steep.
You need fair weather to go to the lighthouse.
(photo from NOAA via Wikimedia Commons. Click on the photo to see the original)
Last April I wrote about the Best Birds on my trip to Nevada. Now I’m back from Florida and happy to report many Best Birds there too.
Thanks to Chuck and Joan Tague for showing me so many wonderful birds!
(…and thanks to Chuck Tague for these photos)
I come from a place where I can identify most of the trees, but so few are evergreen that I’m overwhelmed by the number and variety of conifers in Maine.
As I walk in Acadia National Park I try to identify what I see. I usually can’t see an entire tree (they’re tall!) so I focus on the needles, twigs, and cones to figure them out: pines, spruces, firs and hemlocks.
Pines: If the needles are in bundles attached to the branches, then it’s a pine.
White pines are unique because they have 5 needles per bundle, shown above. It’s easy to remember “5” because the word “white” has five letters. Pitch pines have three needles per bundle. Red pines have two. Unfortunately their names don’t help to memorize them.
Spruces: If the needles are sharp, four-sided (square or rhomboid) and grow all around the twig it’s a spruce, shown above. Maine has black, white and red spruces but I’ve not made the effort to tell them apart yet.
Firs: Firs have flat needles, green on top and white-striped below. The needles appear to grow in rows so the twigs sometimes look flat. Hemlocks share these characteristics but their twigs droop at the tips while balsam twigs are stiff and stand straight out. If the balsams had cones I could identify them easily because the cones stand erect on top of the branches. I don’t see fir cones in September because they disintegrate when they mature at the end of the summer.
Hemlocks: Hemlocks also have flat needles with two white stripes on the underside. The needles grow in only two rows on opposite sides of the twig. The twig is flat and flexible and droops at the tip. Hemlocks have tiny cones that hang below the branches. Of all these conifers I know hemlocks best because they’re native to Pennsylvania.
As hard as I look I still get confused, first by spruces, then by firs.
I’ve got a lot to learn in this coniferous state.
(photo from Wikimedia Commons. Click on the photo to see the original)
… on my favorite trails at Acadia National Park in Maine.
This is the view from the top of Cadillac Mountain, 1,530 feet above sea level.
It’s an easy (long) climb from north or south but there’s an ice cream reward at the summit shop.
How civilized!
(photo by Ralph Roach from Shutterstock)
On my last day in Nevada, I encountered this critter slithering across the trail while I walked the dikes at Henderson Bird Preserve. He was brown and gold and five feet long!
From a distance he didn’t look like a rattlesnake, but I carefully examined his head and tail. (Binoculars are so useful!) No rattles, no diamond-shaped head. I felt fairly sure he wasn’t venomous so I got a little closer than this to take his picture.
Later I showed my cellphone photo to a Bird Preserve volunteer who told me he’s a gopher snake. The snake wouldn’t hurt me as long as I didn’t mess with him.
No chance of that!
Click here for a close-up of a gopher snake.
(photo by Kate St. John)
Fifteen years ago I learned about Best Bird from Chuck Tague when I took his Spring Warblers class at Presque Isle State Park.
As the class wrapped up two intensive days of birding Chuck asked each of us, “What was your best bird?” Mine was a least bittern, a life bird(*) who flushed from the reeds when I stepped alone to the edge of the marsh.
Best Bird is now a tradition with me. At the end of every outing I think back on the birds I’ve seen and their behavior. Who was most beautiful? Who did the most interesting thing? Which bird took my breath away? I enjoy thinking back on the birds that made the outing worthwhile.
My trip to Nevada was so full birds that it’s hard to pick the best. I saw 127 species, nine life birds and thousands of individuals. Rather than pick a single Best Bird, here are some of the many “bests” of my trip:
(photo from Wikimedia Commons. Click on the photo to see the original)
(*) A life bird is a species seen for the first time in my life.