Spotted Sandpiper

Spotted Sandpipers breed across most of Canada and the northern half of the United States. They winter from southern United States to southern South America. With their spotted underparts, breeding-plumaged Spotted Sandpipers are easily identified. In any plumage, their teetering tail bobbing and jerky wing beats are good clues to their identity. Reed et al. (2013) report a number of folk names, due to the tail bobbing—“teeter-peep, teeter-bob, jerk or perk bird, teeter-snipe, and tip-tail.”

When it comes of habitat selection, Spotted Sandpipers are generalists. Mostly they just need some sort of shoreline. This bird is foraging in algae along a bay next to Rockport, Texas, in late March.

Great Blue Heron

“The Great Blue Heron is one of the most widespread and adaptable wading birds in North America. Equally at home in coastal (marine) environments and in fresh water habitats...it also stalks upland areas for rodents and other animals…” write Vennesland and Butler (2011). In Rockport, Texas, last March, Great Blue Herons even foraged on dry land along the highway median.

Mottled Duck

Next to the American White Pelican of my last post swam two Mottled Ducks. In fact, I took the liberty to Photoshop out a coupe of pelican body parts in this photograph. The species is found along the Gulf coast, form northern Mexico across to southern Florida.

These ducks are probably a pair. Most Mottled Ducks are paired by the November prior to their nesting. Mottled Ducks are seasonally monogamous, but only females incubate the eggs. Although a few males remain to help brood the young, most males depart during incubation. The females lead the hatchlings to shallow wetlands to begin their independent lives (Bielefeld et al. 2010).

In Florida Mottled Ducks are imperiled by hybridization with feral Mallards. Conservation education efforts are underway to keep people from releasing domestic Mallards into the wild. Otherwise the danger exists that Mallard genes will end the Mottled Duck as a distinct species.

American White Pelican

American White Pelicans, like this one off Rockport, Texas, last March, are opportunistic feeders. Usually they prefer “trash” fish—carp and minnows, not favored by anglers. Regurgitated hooks and lures suggest that they will occasionally consume wounded “sport” fish. Here in the upper mid-west, they also eat salamanders and crayfish (Knopf and Evans 2004).

White pelicans are the synchronized swimmers of the bird world. They cooperatively forage, forming a circle around fish schools and concentrating the fish in the center of the pelican flock.  Other times, the birds herd the prey into shallow water, where the fish are voraciously consumed. Once caught, the prey is swallowed, and not carried in pelicans' pouches to feed their young.

My early mentor, Roxie Laybourne, was a forensic ornithologist. She identified bird species from single feathers. She told a story of two Texas hunters who illegally shot a large white bird. Afraid they had murdered a Whooping Crane, the men burned the carcass. Much to the hunters’ relief, Roxie identified the few feathered remains as belonging to an American White Pelican—still illegal, but with fewer monetary consequences.

Wild Lupine

Last Friday, Erika and I found a patch of Wild Lupine, Lupinus perennis, in the River Bend Nature Center near Fairibault, Minnesota. This plant’s generic name, Lupinus, originates from the belief that the plant depleted, or wolfed, soil nutrients—Lupus is the wolf’s genus. In fact, like most plants in the family Fabaceae, Lupinus fixes nitrogen into the soil, thus adding to the fertility of the land. The Minnesota Wildflower website does not show Wild Lupine as growing in Rice County, but, on the other hand, the prairie where we found it is not native, but planted by the Nature Center.

I can’t look at a lupine and not laugh. Its Monty Python’s fault. Who can forget the notorious British highwayman, Dennis Moore, and his quest to redistribute Britain's wealth by stealing lupines from the rich and giving them to the poor?

Dennis Moore, Dennis Moore,

Riding through the night.

Soon every lupin in the land

Will be in his mighty hand

He steals them from the rich

And gives them to the poor

Mr Moore, Mr Moore, Mr Moore.

Actually Dennis Moore trafficked in European Lupinus, cultivated species not native, but escaped into parts of the United States, including Minnesota. These plants are larger and have multicolored flowers, varying from white to pink or purple. Due to habitat loss, Wild Lupine numbers have declined. This trend has adversely affected populations of Karner Blue butterflies, since their caterpillars only feed on Wild Lupine (wildfower.org). 

Vesper Sparrow

On 27 May 2015, John Holden and I were greeted by this singing Vesper Sparrow. “Vesper” probably comes from an archaic meaning, referring to evening. John Burrows (1837-1921), American naturalist and conservationist, wrote that this sparrow sings “into the twilight of vespers, after most other birds have become still” (quoted in Jones and Comely 2002). Burroughs, as did Thoreau, probably knew this species as the Bay-winged Warbler. A close look at the bird in the grass below clearly shows this sparrow’s bay shoulders.

Vesper Sparrows were once fairly common birds across its range. Today populations, at least in the East, are declining as fallow fields either return to forest or become urbanized. Further west, this species depends on uncultivated lands near row crops or open rangeland.

Vesper Sparrows usually dust-bathe. In fact, Jones and Comely (2002) give only one citation for this sparrow’s bathfing in water. Ron Dudley blogged and shared photos quite similar to ours. His photos also show a Vesper Sparrow with its head touching the water. His, however, appears to be wetting the top of the head. Ours appears to have the whole side of the head under water—we wondered how the bird did not drown! Do you suppose the bird held its breath?

Finally our Vesper Sparrow took notice of us and suddenly took flight straight up out of the water. One of the dangers of bird baths is supposed to be that, unlike when they are dry, wet birds are more vulnerable to predators. Our wet Vesper Sparrow seemed to have no difficulty taking wing.

White Ibis

White Ibis are fairly common along the Texas Coast at Rockport. The species prefers aquatic crustaceans, amphibians, small fish, and insects (although I have a photo of a Florida bird eating bread). This bird was consuming a crab (much more expected fare).

Common Whitetail 2

Female Common Whitetails joined their males today, 28 May. I blogged about this dragonfly two posts ago. The females look similar to Twelve-spotted Skimmers, but have yellow dots across the lateral sides of their abdomens. The skimmers’ sides have a yellow stripe.

Little Blue Heron

I have previously blogged about how Little Blue Herons are unique in having different color phases for first-year (white) and adult (dark) plumages. The species seems relatively uncommon compared with other egrets and herons, but they tend to be secretive and solitary, so censusing them tends to be difficult (Rogers et al. 2012). I am always surprised, however, to find Little Blues perched on treetops, like this one Erika and I photographed in Rockport, Texas, last March. My first thought is usually “Green Heron,” which this bird clearly is not.

Common Whitetail

Two juvenile, male Common Whitetails on 25 May are the second and third odes of 2015 in Erika’s garden. The first was a shy damsel a couple of weeks ago who refused to be photographed. As this dragonfly matures, the tail will become a chalky bluish-white. The broad, black wing bands and the jagged, yellow lateral abdomen stripe are both good identification marks. As you see here, Common Whitetails often perch on the ground.

Male Common Whitetails are highly territorial. Subordinate males male share territory space, the these males are not allowed access to females. Larger males hold bigger territories, and mate more often than smaller individuals. Copulation lasts three seconds. Females, while guarded by their mate, may lay up to 1000 eggs at a rate of 25 per second Paulson.