Photo Essay from the Coast

My family and I spent a few days on the Mississippi coast last month, mainly to enjoy the wildlife and scenery.  The cool sand made walking up and down the beach a pleasant experience, although the water was a bit too cold for wading.  The birds, including Great Blue Herons, Laughing Gulls, Forster’s Terns, and sandpipers, never minded this, however.  Credit this to the retia mirabilia (https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/neuroscience/rete-mirabile) in their feet, which are basically heat exchange systems of blood vessels.

Laughing Gull flying over Great Blue Heron.

Laughing Gulls and Forster's Terns (one of which is clearly visible on the right) congregating.

Even though the temperature was slightly low, there were plenty of reminders that it was indeed mid-March.  Hot-pink azaleas seemed to be one of the most common shrubs (after wax myrtle, yaupon, and privet, I’d say) in both town and rural environments.  The color of the blooms really “popped” against the typical backdrops of sandy soil and live oak leaves.

Azaleas

But we didn’t spend all of our time at the beach; the Pascagoula River Audubon Center provided us with great opportunities for walking and observing coastal plants and animals.  

Spreading leaves of palmettos

Near one of the trails, which was flanked by stands of wax myrtle, yaupon, and palmettos, a fledgling Great Horned Owl peered out from its perch in a tall pine tree.  Like many of the Great Horned Owls on the Gulf Coast, the pair that had produced this young bird had nested on a wooden nesting platform that had originally been made for Ospreys.  I took several photos of the fledgling.

A huge bird, even if not yet fully-grown.

"Who?" -- looking indignant, as owls tend to do.

Look at the finely-barred adult feathers replacing the downy juvenile ones.

Still looks fierce!

I saw one of the adult owls—probably the female, as I was informed by the staff at the center—in another pine around a hundred feet or so from the nest site.  As you can tell from the pictures, adult owls are sleeker—without downy feathers—and have larger ear tufts than the juveniles.

Mama owl quietly keeping watch.

A view of the vegetation and water.

Even though the Great Horned Owls had taken over the nest platform for the time being, there were still plenty of potential nesting sites for the Ospreys in the area.  I saw three of these graceful raptors flying over the river while I was at the Audubon center.  They are quite common in coastal regions, and their high-pitched, piping calls—which seem somewhat incongruous in such large birds—carry well and help me to know that they’re nearby even when I don’t see them.

Osprey in flight.

Circling around!

Ospreys are also sometimes called “sea eagles,” but there are actually Bald Eagles on the coast, as well.  I tried to snap pictures of this adult one as it flew over the Audubon building.  You can see the white head and tail, at least.

Bald Eagle flying over.

Gulf Islands National Seashore was another stopping place.  The coastal scrub and marshes provide habitat for numerous species of wildlife.  I heard Clapper Rails and saw Red-tailed Hawks, Laughing Gulls, Brown Pelicans, Red-winged Blackbirds, Great Blue Herons, Snowy Egrets, and more.  Large alligators prowled close to the shorelines, and cricket frogs called from the marsh grasses.

Saltmarsh

A prowling Great Blue Heron.

An American alligator in the marsh.

The cycle of storms, salt damage, and flooding always leaves its mark on the landscape of the Gulf Coast—it is an essential part of the ecosystem.  Sometimes, however, there are particularly obvious signs of recent disturbance, like this damaged boardwalk. 

Flood damage

The beaches, Pascagoula River Audubon Center, and Gulf Islands National Seashore were some of the places we traveled to during the first full day of vacationing on the coast.  The next day involved more trips to the beach, where I watched Brown Pelicans from a public fishing pier.

Brown Pelicans are commonly seen here.

Coastal regions tend to host a wide variety of birdlife, and not all of the birds seen near the shore will necessarily be seashore specialists like Laughing Gulls and terns.  For example, this Loggerhead Shrike, a species that occurs more generally in fields and other open habitats, had apparently staked out some territory around one of the parking areas near the beach.

Loggerhead Shrike

As I mentioned earlier, the Mississippi coast is home to numerous Ospreys.  They can be heard and seen practically anywhere that there is water, and they are equally adaptable in their nesting habits.  In the photo below, you can see an Osprey nest—with an adult Osprey on it—sitting atop the tower.

Osprey nest

Less adaptable are the Mississippi Sandhill Cranes, a local, nonmigratory, federally endangered subspecies of the common and widespread Sandhill Cranes.  The Mississippi subspecies is restricted to pine savanna environments in the breeding season, and these habitats have been threatened by human development.  Prior to this trip, I had never seen Mississippi Sandhill Cranes, so I tried looking for them at a number of sites.  Finally, my family and I spotted a pair of these secretive birds at—of all places—a landfill!  They departed with loud, guttural, rattling calls.

Mississippi Sandhill Cranes--lifting off at the landfill.

As much as I would have liked to stay longer at the coast, the vacation nevertheless had to come to an end.  The Gulf Coast region has such a diversity of wild creatures and habitats, though, that returning again and again never gets old.

Current and Past Springtimes

A vestige of autumn--a sweetgum ball--hanging on a limb with new spring leaf buds.  Note the spring foliage in the background, as well.

Blue-gray Gnatcatchers, White-eyed Vireos, and Ruby-throated Hummingbirds have arrived on their breeding grounds in the area where I live.  That’s to be expected, just as it’s getting closer and closer to the departure times for wintering Cedar Waxwings, Ruby-crowned Kinglets, Yellow-rumped Warblers, and White-throated Sparrows.  I have seen or heard all of these migratory species, plus permanent residents like Brown Thrashers, Northern Mockingbirds, Red-bellied Woodpeckers, Downy Woodpeckers, Eastern Phoebes, Red-tailed Hawks, and Canada Geese, on my most recent walks through the neighborhood.  This time of year is a lot of fun for those of us who enjoy birding, because the species palette changes so rapidly from week to week, day to day (or even hour to hour, in some migration hotspots).  

If you’ve been a birder for a while, then data that you collected in previous years can serve as a guide to what birds you might expect to see on any given day in the spring.  That said, there is also an element of unpredictability, which helps to keep things exciting.  After my walk, I started thinking about my early days as a birder: what sorts of observations had I made on this date, several years ago?  I looked through some of my old field notebooks to find out!  

Revisiting these old notes turned out to be more interesting than I anticipated.  Since I started birdwatching in May 2000, the first spring in which I really paid attention to birds was 2001.  As it turns out, I did bird on March 31, 2001.  I was with other Okatibbee Creek Audubon Society birders at Tallahala Wildlife Management Area, in Bienville National Forest.  This was a noteworthy day for me because I not only saw Wild Turkeys during the car trip to Tallahala, but I spotted my first-ever Belted Kingfisher—a male bird (lacking rust-red belly strap of the female) perched on a power line over a pool of water, just north of Meridian.  It’s a common species, yes, but it was a “life bird” for me back then, and I remember how cool it was that I could see the white dot in front of the kingfisher’s eye and the bristly crest on the somewhat comically oversized, slate blue head.

This kingfisher was photographed on December 31, 2015 at Choctaw Lake, MS.  Similar position on the wire, but viewed from the back, unlike my "lifer" Belted Kingfisher.

I wasn’t able to see very much on the actual field trip, unfortunately—I suppose that I had yet to develop the birder’s skill of tracking down tiny, fast-moving songbirds moving through tall trees and tangled branches.  My birding mentor pointed out the thin, high-pitched songs of a few newly-arrived migratory species, including Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, Northern Parula, and Black-and-white Warbler, but since I wasn’t very good with birdsong identification, either, I didn’t end up adding those species to my life list until quite a while later.  It was still a pleasant trip, though, in part because the woods were so beautiful with all of the trees either in blossom or just leafing out, and wildflowers filling in the sunny gaps on the forest floor.  On the drive back from Tallahala, I saw a Wood Duck (another lifer, technically, although I had definitely observed this species a number of times before I became a birder), Great Egrets, and Barn Swallows.  Not bad for a beginner, I guess!

March 31 wound up being significant again during the next year, 2002.  By that point, I had studied bird sounds from both the old Thayer birding software and a CD of 50 common species recorded by Lang Elliott, so I was much better at auditory identification of birds.  I was eager to put my new abilities to use, so I got up early in the morning and spent some time waiting for migratory songbirds at the edge of the woods on my family’s property in Collinsville.  Although I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect, I had a feeling that the mixed, shrubby woods on our land might be good for Black-and-white Warblers at this time of year.  Sure enough, after five minutes or so, I heard the squeaky wee-see-wee-see-wee-see song of a male Black-and-white.  I spished loudy, and the warbler came closer to investigate.  Another life bird!

It looked just like this Black-and-white Warbler that I photographed in Arkansas on March 25, 2014.  The northwestern Arkansas woods were nowhere near as green at that time as springtime Mississippi woods, though.

Interestingly, I also saw a pair of Wood Ducks flying through the backyard on this day, exactly a year after my “life bird” sighting in 2001.  We didn’t have ponds on the property, but a few of the neighbors did.  Even so, Wood Ducks coming through the yard were definitely not a daily occurrence.

Although I birded even more during 2003 than I had in previous years, I don’t have any field notes from the specific date of March 31, 2003.  March 31, 2004, however, has an entry.  By this time, I was living in Macon, Mississippi, so the progression of spring migrants may have been a day or two behind that of the more southerly Collinsville.  The habitat was different too—much more open and orchard-like.  And, of course, every year brings slightly different weather, which can affect bird migration.  On March 31, 2004, the weather was cool and windy.  I saw the usual resident Brown Thrashers, Northern Mockingbirds, and Downy and Red-bellied Woodpeckers—very similar to my March 31 list for this year, actually!  

Brown Thrasher -- March 30, 2018

Great Blue Herons and Great Egrets flew overhead during the day, though, and there were also two Yellow-crowned Night-Herons early in the evening.  Night-herons—and Yellow-crowned Night-Herons in particular—usually are not found in northeastern Mississippi throughout the year, but instead arrive there in the spring and depart in the fall.  

Other migrants on this day in 2004 were Cedar Waxwings, in a flock of about 10, and Blue-gray Gnatcatchers—one species about to check out and head northward to nest, the other just arriving to nest in Mississippi.  Going and coming.  As you may remember, those species made my 2018 list, as well.  Is it a surprising coincidence?  Not really.  Both of these birds are typicallly quite common this time of year.  Still, it’s both fascinating and rewarding to see these patterns and connections in birdlife over the years.  If you have older field notes of your own, or access to someone else’s old records, I strongly recommend taking the time to look at them anew.

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher April 12, 2014, in Arkansas.  The species is very common in the breeding season.

Signs of Spring

There has been significant rainfall across much of the Southeast this month, as well as more-or-less steadily increasing temperatures.  It’s spring already, and the weather has brought myriad changes to the ecosystems of my neck of the woods.  One of the first of these changes that I noticed was the sudden appearance of the early spring frogs; upland chorus frogs and spring peepers seem to be everywhere in this part of northeastern Mississippi.

All sorts of trees are beginning to bloom.  The most obvious ones, in both urban and semi-rural areas, would have to be the Bradford or Callery pears (Pyrus calleryana), with their profusions of medium-sized white flowers.  These trees originated in China and Vietnam, but have a long history of cultivation.  Even though they are invasive, I have to admit that they tend to have a nice shape, and the bright blossoms catch the eye in the predominately gray-brown landscapes of late February.

Callery pear

Winged elms (Ulmus alata) are other early bloomers.  In fact, it seems that most of the elms in my neighborhood have already moved past the blooming stage and into the fruiting one.  Elm fruits are known as samaras, which means that they are dry, winged, and do not naturally split open along “seams” in the manner of, say, hickory nuts or walnuts.  Maples produce samaras, too; theirs are the familiar propeller-shaped fruits that spiral down to the ground later in the season.  The elm samaras in the photo are oval, notched at one end, and edged with short “hairs,” or pubescence.

Elm fruit

While there are plenty of trees and shrubs with fuchsia-colored flowers, the eastern redbud (Cercis canadensis) is one of the relatively few native ones in this part of the world.  White redbuds exist—cultivated from the related western redbud—but I much prefer the striking purple-pink of the wild ones.  Redbuds are understory trees, rarely attaining heights of more than 30 feet.

The redbud tree is just a little above the center of the picture.  Look at those fuchsia flowers!

Obviously, herbaceous plants (that is, those lacking woody tissue) also bloom this time of year.  Native wildflowers such as wild garlic, eastern spring beauty, bluet, clover, henbit, and many others can be found on lawns and in fields right now. 

wild garlic (Allium ursinum)

spring beauty (Claytonia virginica)

Certain colorful cultivated plants, such as daffodils, are hard to miss!  These particular ones grow near the driveway, under the shade of oak trees.

These warm, sunny days bring out lizards, like this basking Carolina anole.

Hawks and vultures come out, too.  This Red-tailed Hawk—a juvenile, its tail brown with horizontal bars rather than solid red—flew from its perch after spotting me as I was strolling down the driveway. 

The Turkey Vultures often soar in small groups, taking advantage of the rising warm air.  These two look like random punctuation on a bright blue page of sky.

Hawks, owls, and vultures will be nesting in this part of Mississippi very soon, if they’re not already doing so.  Most of our breeding birds nest a bit later in the season, though, and many of them have yet to arrive from their wintering grounds in the tropics.  The Eastern Phoebes, however, stay here year-round, and have begun to build a mud-and-moss nest atop old, unused mud dauber nests in the garage.  This looks a little precarious to me, but maybe the nest will stay in place for the duration of the breeding season.

Within another month or so, the phoebes will likely be joined in the garage by Carolina Wrens, constructing their domed straw nests in the nooks and crannies.  Mockingbirds and thrashers, which are already singing to defend their territories, will build their messy twig nests in the privet shrubs.  Choruses of green, Cope’s gray, and squirrel treefrogs will replace the spring peepers and upland chorus frogs in the moist woodlands.  The wild places are in a state of rapid transition right now.  Don’t miss it.