I visited the Roy H. Park Preserve a couple more times in recent weeks in order to explore the northern part of this small, quiet, and absolutely lovely place. The preserve's northern trail winds through meadow and wetland, and along the forest's edge (another trail branches off into those woods, which are part of neighboring Hammond Hill State Forest). I'm thoroughly enjoying this preserve, and I found lots of interesting sights during my recent visits.
When I visited the preserve one morning in the last week of July, a (young?) Green Heron was hunting small fish:
The heron didn't appreciate that the trail brought me so close to its perch, and it soon flew off to find a new hunting spot:
A male Common Yellowthroat foraged next to the water:
An American Robin was chowing down on the berries of what I presume is an invasive bush honeysuckle:
Another robin landed on a perch just above my head, and I took the opportunity to admire this handsome bird up close:
A perfect little butterfly (some sort of crescent) sat on a perfect Queen Anne's Lace cluster:
A Muskrat passed quickly through the water near the boardwalk:
When I came back to this same part of the preserve this past Sunday, the Muskrat appeared again, this time pulling a large flowering Joe-Pye Weed stem through the water after it; the Muskrat dove underwater, and the plant went down as well, presumably into a den to be munched on:
I was very happy to see Red-spotted Newts swimming in the water; I love these little guys!
A juvenile male Rose-breasted Grosbeak made a brief appearance (again, in a honeysuckle), showing off its still rather patchy pink breast and black head:
A set of neat tube-like structures in a dry stream bed posed a bit of a puzzle, although my guess is that these are the work of a wasp or some other insect that's good at building things with mud:
So now I know that the Roy H. Park preserve is wonderful throughout, and the trail into Hammond Hill State Forest's woods was very inviting. I have a feeling I'll be back and exploring more soon!
I visited the Arcata Marsh last Saturday (May 7) and again on Monday, curious to see how the place is changing as spring progresses. I am sorely missing my familiar eastern spring migration, and I haven't found anything so dramatic here, but there is certainly seasonal change. And there were plenty of May-ish things to see at the marsh!
Big purple lupine blooms (I'm not entirely sure of the species) filled big patches of field near the paths:
On Sunday, I saw a Green Heron keeping watch over a rather precarious-looking nest:
And I watched an adult Orange-crowned Warbler gathering caterpillars and other goodies:
While its frumpy fledgling waited in the bushes (look at that stump of a tail!):
Monday afternoon was sunny and warm, and a Red Admiral was out and about:
These two dragonflies were gearing up to produce the next generation; they flew around a lot while interlocked like this, which strikes me as quite a feat:
Dozens of Cliff Swallows were swarming around and under the eaves of a building near the bay. This must be a good nesting place! I love watching swallows in any situation, but it was especially cool to see all these birds in one place, and to watch the patterns of their shadows on the bright wall:
Here's a video of the Cliff Swallows swooping and swarming:
Great Egrets adorned rocks in the bay:
In a nearby pool, an Eared Grebe hunted over (I think) an eelgrass bed:
I've only seen Eared Grebes before in their plainer winter costumes, and I'm really liking this individual's fancy bronze face-tufts:
The coolest part, though, was seeing what the grebe brought up from underwater. I'm not sure what this little morsel is, but it looks soft and shiny:
At one point the grebe brought up a pipefish, a fish in the same family as seahorses, and certainly not a creature I've ever seen in the wild before:
I think I can see the seahorse resemblance from this angle:
The pipefish was quite a big catch for a little grebe, and it took some struggling, but the grebe finally worked the pipefish down, head first and tail waving:
Toward the end of the afternoon, I watched a male Allen's Hummingbird doing his absolute best to impress a female. Here's the male (I'm identifying him as an Allen's Hummingbird because of the green feathers on his back, although it's not impossible that he's actually a similar looking Rufous Hummingbird, since those birds are also in this area now):
And here's the discerning female:
The male would alternate between perching, feeding, and performing aerial acrobatics that involved swoops and dives and whistlesof air through his feathers. At one point I watched him dance back and forth in the air right in front of the female's face, dazzling her with his fancy feathers and fancy moves. (I really should have thought to take a video.) All of this took place in the middle of a huge and blooming blackberry patch; the plentiful flowers clearly made this an attractive spot for the hummingbird pair:
Here's the male again:
I only got to see the full effect of his costume a few times, but those moments made quite an impression!
While I was watching the hummingbirds, a male Common Yellowthroat popped out for what is surely the closest and clearest view I've had of these usually secretive birds:
I'm sure it wasn't a coincidence that I was standing in a blind at the time. What a gorgeous creature!
Nests, courtship, flowers, babies.... That sounds like May to me!
It's May! So many different birds are moving in and passing through right now, many of them with amazing colors and costumes that are wonderfully offset by the just-emerging leaves on the trees. My goal is to post weekly digests to keep up with the constant avian parade in our yard this month. There's so much going on! And with that, here are some new arrivals (and some familiar creatures) from the past week.
Pretty much as soon as the calendar rolled over into the new month, this bizarre silhouette appeared in one of our trees:
OK, I guess you really never know what creatures will show up in May! I certainly never expected to see a Green Heron in our yard, let alone at the top of a tree, calling out like some sort of songbird. Perhaps this bird was attracted to a neighboring pond; I actually saw a few more Green Herons flying around later in the week as well. Really, though, what a weird sight:
Ruby-throated Hummingbirds now blaze through our yard like tiny buzzy helicopters. I met up with this little guy while he rested in between sips of Virginia Bluebell nectar:
This male Eastern Bluebird has been hanging around for a while, but he finally sat still long enough to have his picture taken; that's some blue!
(Speaking of blue birds, I saw our first male Indigo Bunting of the year yesterday, but he wasn't in very good light. Here's hoping I'll get more chances to admire these birds in the coming weeks.)
A pair of Baltimore Orioles has been hanging around this week, and I even saw the female carrying long bits of nesting material up to the top of a nearby tall tree. A few days ago, the pair was eating nectar from a neighbor's blossoming apple tree:
Mmm, flowers:
The male Baltimore Oriole really is gorgeous; this is one of those birds that just seems too brightly-colored to belong in this part of the world, but here it is!
I think I startled the female oriole earlier today, because she landed in a nearby bush and yelled at me. She's very pretty, too, although not nearly as fancy as her mate:
And of course, the warblers are starting to pass through (Blackburnian; Nashville; Yellow-rumped; Black-and-White; Black-throated Green!), although they've been generally keeping their distance from me and my camera. A couple of male Chestnut-sided Warblers (one of my favorites) were foraging above my head the other day, showing off their dark suspenders:
This female Common Yellowthroat was mostly hunting inside the bushes, but she made some very brief appearances in the open; I've never noticed that faint wash of chestnut on her forehead before:
The Gray Catbirds are back, calling and singing from shady perches (I've missed these funny birds!):
We've got all these new characters showing up, and the familiar birds keep on doing interesting things, too. Yesterday I came across a male Northern Cardinal singing so, so gently at the female perched just below him:
And this is a little outside the purview of this post (it happened at the end of April rather than the beginning of May), but I was excited last week to watch a White-breasted Nuthatch hunting. It was actually peeking up into the bark crevices on its chosen tree trunk, turning its head to look with one eye:
And then the other:
I don't think I've seen this behavior before, although of course it makes a lot of sense. Bugs are hidden everywhere, and nuthatches have their own ways of looking for them!
I can't believe one whole week of May is already over. I plan to take full advantage of every day in this awesome month!
There are Clapper Rails in the marshes at Silver Sands State Park. I know they're there because I've heard them calling almost every time I've visited this summer, and I even caught a couple distant glimpses earlier this year of these secretive birds.
Or, I should say, normally secretive. Twicelast summer I happened to see Clapper Rails (including two babies) up close and outside of the tall grass where they usually hide. This past Wednesday morning was apparently another weirdly bold days for the rails, because I saw seven (!) of these birds out in the open in different parts of the marsh. The first rail I saw, though, definitely gets the prize for boldness. It stood on this spot right next to the boardwalk -- with plenty of people (and dogs) walking by -- for several minutes, calm as could be. You might think that's a discarded hat in this picture, but no, clearly it's a Clapper Rail perch:
After standing for a bit, the rail settled down for a rest. How nice of some person to leave this perfectly rail-sized wicker seat here in the marsh!
I couldn't tear myself away from this awesome -- and let's face it, hilarious -- bird. A few passing people stopped to admire it, too, and to wonder what in the world kind of bird it was. (A duck? A plover?) So I got to share some information, and everyone seemed to agree that this bird was both cool and cute. Yay, Clapper Rail, you gathered admirers!
After the rest period, it was time for a thorough grooming session:
With some major feather fluffing:
And a big stretch or two (boy, that hat is good for all sorts of activities):
Finally, the rail hopped down into the mud:
It spent some time foraging in the shallow water:
And then it made its way back into the thick marsh grass (this view is much closer to how I usually glimpse rails, when I see them at all):
So that was awesome, and way more rail-time than I ever expected. But then later in my walk, on the other side of the marsh, I noticed some fuzzy black creatures wandering across the mud...:
Oh my goodness, baby Clapper Rails! And wait, are there three babies here? No! Four! (Do you see them all in this next picture?)
An adult wandered out after the babies (I'm not sure whether this is Mom or Dad, since males and females look the same, and the internet tells me that both parents take care of the growing chicks):
The parent was trying to forage for food, but that's kind of hard to do when one of your babies just wants to cuddle:
These baby rails were in such an exploring mood! Where are you going, little guy?
I love that white-paint-dipped beak, those huge pale ears, and those tiny wings. You are one cool little bird!
So yes, there are definitely rails at Silver Sands State Park, and every once in a while you actually get to see them! :)
The rails were the highlight of the trip, but there were several other cool creatures around, too. This small Green Heron was stealthily stalking food in a pond:
A juvenile Fish Crow was trailing after its parent and begging for food (it's the bird on the right in this picture, with pink at the corners of its beak):
The young crow stayed mostly away from my camera, but an adult Fish Crow let me get some close views:
I usually see Fish Crows at the beach and at our local supermarket's parking lot; around our apartment, we get mostly American Crows. The two species look basically identical, so I have to wait until they make some sounds before I can identify them. These guys kept talking to each other, so Fish Crow it is! What a handsome bird:
Hey, there are flowers at the beach, too. These Partridge Peas (Chamaecrista fasciculata) were lighting up the beach's sandy borders:
Toward the end of my walk, I came across a trio of Willow Flycatchers, which (like the Fish Crow) look pretty much exactly like a few other species, and so they usually need to call before I can identify them. These guys were silent, but since I've seen and heard Willow Flycatchers in this spot every time I've visited the beach this summer (and they were probably breeding here), I feel pretty confident giving this creature a name. Willow or not, though, you have to admit this is one adorable little bird:
So many active animals, and such wonderfully cool weather! Yes, it was definitely a great morning at the beach. :)
