Reporting from the Coast

How about a nice, long walk?  I find that strolling up and down a stretch of seashore helps me to decompress.  Any time of the year can be good, but springtime is surely one of the most interesting seasons for avian life—especially on the Mississippi coast.

It is late afternoon.  A lone Reddish Egret stalks fish in the cobalt waters.  Its blue-gray body—with touches of white—and rust-colored head and neck echo the tints of the waves.  Found almost exclusively in coastal regions, this species occurs in a white form as well as the more familiar “reddish” morph.  This individual appears almost stately—perhaps it is wary of beach walkers—but Reddish Egrets are frequently very lively foragers, darting back and forth and flicking their wings outward to startle their prey. 

Reddish Egret

The egret isn’t the only wading bird braving the waves: a trio of Marbled Godwits—migratory transients on the Gulf Coast—also feeds in the surf.  They’ll likely have moved on, northward, in a month or two.

Marbled Godwits

The same cannot be said for the ubiquitous Laughing Gulls.  These coastal residents remain here all year long, and are as opportunistic as they are common.  Many people view Laughing Gulls as nothing more than nuisances, but I think this is an unfair assessment of these long-lived and clever birds.  Like crows, raccoons, and black bears, they have figured out how to exploit human resources, and we hate them for it!  I don’t think the gulls are too concerned about this, however.

Laughing Gulls

The Reddish Egret from earlier paces in front of the group of gulls.  Are the pickings better over this way?  Maybe, maybe not.

Reddish Egret and Laughing Gulls

A Snowy Egret shows up to survey the surf for small fish.  As you can probably tell from the photo, this species is considerably smaller than the Reddish Egret.  Like its larger relative, it often displays a particularly active foraging style, with lots of “dancing” in and out of the waves.  The larger wading birds, such as Great Blue Herons and Great Egrets, tend to be more sedate in their hunting behavior.  This Snowy, however, mostly stands still and makes itself compact, probably as protection from the wind.

Snowy Egret and Laughing Gulls

Farther up the beach, a Ruddy Turnstone turns over … not a stone, but a leaf.  What is it finding in the sand?  Tiny insects?  Possibly so—this is a fairly opportunistic hunter.  Like the Marbled Godwit, it’s a species that breeds farther north.  It will probably migrate soon, but, in the meantime, it frequents the beaches with other migratory shorebirds, flashing its stunning black-and-white wing patterns whenever it flies up the shoreline in search of prey.

Ruddy Turnstone

Tire tracks show where someone has driven an ATV up the beach.  Laughing Gulls, Black Skimmers, and a few Sanderlings congregate just past these markings, while Dunlin rest closer to the dunes.  They remind me of cattle, with their (tucked-in) heads all turned in the same direction. 

Beach birds

Laughing Gulls and Sanderling

Dunlin

A close-up of snoozing Dunlin reveals subtle markings, which would help to camouflage these birds in the sand and mud.

Dunlin markings

Other migratory shorebird species on the beach sands are Black-bellied Plovers and Willets.  The plovers are still mostly in drab winter plumage, but they’re showing signs of molting into breeding plumage, in which they will have black bellies.  The Willets are similarly dull and gray, since they haven’t finished molting into their barred-and-mottled breeding plumage.  Willets are common all over the beaches at this time of year.

Black-bellied Plovers and Sanderlings

Black-bellied Plover and Dunlin

Willets and Laughing Gull

Rounding out the beach bird community are Black Skimmers.  It’s still early enough in the day that these crepuscular birds probably haven't made too many trips away from the shore.  They will head out in larger numbers closer to evening, when they fly low over the water and drag their ultra-long, red-and-black bills along the surface to find fish to snap up.  Right now, resting along the beach, they look a bit odd and awkward, propped up on their stumpy legs and with their colossal bills slanting downward.  At evening, however, their unusual adaptations will serve them well, making them highly efficient hunters.

Black Skimmers, Laughing Gulls, and Dunlin

For a diurnal mammal like me, though, it’s about time to turn in for the night.  Since this is spring, coming back to the beach later will likely mean reporting on a slightly different group of birds—a unique mixture of resident species and transients—as migration continues.

An Afternoon at the Beach

As regular readers probably already know, I love spending time on the Gulf Coast.  This spring, I was able to spend a few days enjoying the natural sights in parts of coastal Mississippi and Alabama.  Let’s take a look at some of the avian life that I observed in an afternoon on the Mississippi coast!

It was a pleasant day at the Ocean Springs public beach, and the area was teeming with birds.  Snowy Egrets waded near the shore, darting back and forth in the shallows as they searched for fish and aquatic invertebrates.  They occasionally stopped and flew farther up the beach to find better pickings.

Snowy Egrets

Gulls, terns, cormorants, and pelicans perched on old pilings.  The size difference between the species Laughing Gull and Herring Gull is apparent in the next couple of photos.  Most of the Herring Gulls that I saw had not yet attained adult plumage—probably because it takes the birds four years to reach maturity.  Herring Gulls’ slow maturation goes hand-in-hand with their longevity, though; individuals have been known to live for several decades in the wild.  I imagine that the older ones are the wiliest of beach marauders. 

Herring Gulls, Laughing Gull (foreground), and Double-crested Cormorant (at right)

Herring Gull in middle, Laughing Gulls above and below

In addition to the Herring Gulls, there were dozens of Laughing Gulls milling around on the beach and foraging over the water.  Their raucous calls rang out in the salty air.

Laughing Gull flock

Black Skimmers, which, as their name suggests, hunt for fish by gliding low over the water and skimming the surface with their long bills, formed their own sizeable flocks on the sandbars.  They also sometimes mingled with the Laughing Gulls, but they did not fly out to hunt.  Unlike the more diurnal gulls and terns, skimmers tend to be crepuscular, foraging mainly during dawn and dusk.  I can relate; I don’t always feel so energetic during the heat of midday, either.  Skimmers actually have more rods than cones in their eyes than most birds do, which makes it easier for them to hunt in dim light. 

Gulls and Black Skimmers

A few Ring-billed and Bonaparte’s Gulls were mixed in with the enormous flocks of Laughing Gulls.  Ring-billed Gulls bear distinctive black markings on their bills, and Bonaparte’s Gulls—during winter and spring, at least—have smudgy dark spots on their heads.  Both species are common on the Gulf Coast from fall to spring, although they’re far less numerous than Laughing Gulls.

Ring-billed Gull strolling along

Bonaparte's Gull swimming

At one point, most of the roosting and foraging birds were stirred up by … something.  The flocks of gulls and skimmers simply exploded upward in a flurry of wingbeats.  What was going on? 

Stirred up!

Looking around, I deduced that the source of the consternation was an adult Bald Eagle that was perched in a giant live oak tree.  Wow!  Bald Eagles will certainly catch gulls and other shorebirds if they get the opportunity, but, given that this one had been detected already by its potential prey, I think that its chances of obtaining a poultry meal at this site were slim.

The Bald Eagle

Apparently, even a predator as fierce as a Bald Eagle is a bit less frightening to smaller birds if they can let it know that they can see it.  This is probably why a bunch of the Laughing Gulls dive-bombed the eagle—taunting it prevented it from launching a surprise attack on the flock. 

Gull flying over eagle's head

Overall, it was a great afternoon for birding on the Gulf Coast.  Stay tuned for more in later posts!

Tricky Birds, Part I

I would guess that most birders start out separating birds in the field primarily by plumage colors and patterns.  I know that it was like that for me; the first field guide that I used contained photos that showed birds engaged in a variety of behaviors in their natural habitats, and even went so far as to categorize so-called “perching birds” by color.  Any given page spread would show six related (or, in the case of the “perching birds” section, not closely related) species, often in completely different poses and with no real sense of scale.

I want to emphasize that photographic guides aren’t necessarily bad—the problem I experienced was only that I came to subconsciously expect what I saw in the field to match the pictures in the book, and when that didn’t happen, I was sometimes a tad frustrated.  I simply lacked the experience at that stage to quickly and accurately discern the differences in shape, size, and usual posture between various species of birds.  That skill had to come with time.

Not to discount plumage, of course, but shape, size, posture, and behavior are usually far more diagnostic than intricate feather details, at least for some species.  Comparing several related or somewhat similar birds at once also helps immensely, although it’s not always easy to find an opportunity to do so.  That’s why I was pleased to be able to compare multiple species of gulls, terns, and shorebirds—of various ages—this year at Dauphin Island, Alabama.  This occurred on the 14th and 15th of March, which meant that some of the gulls and terns (and other species) were in alternate (or breeding) plumage, while others were still in basic (or winter) plumage, or in the middle of molting.  The first part of my photo essay will focus on gulls and terns, although shorebirds do show up in some of the pictures!

Let’s start by analyzing this small assortment of birds:

All of these are pretty easy to identify.  Breeding adult Laughing Gulls, like the one on the left, have black hoods, dark-red bills, slate-gray backs and wings, and mostly black wingtips.  The bird in back, an adult Ring-billed Gull, has the conspicuous black ring on a yellow bill, yellow legs, a somewhat lighter gray back, and a little more white on the primary feathers.  You can probably tell that the Ring-billed Gull is larger than the Laughing Gull, as well.  The two birds in front, shorebirds, are also drastically different from each other: the large, lanky one is a Willet, and the tiny one is a Sanderling.

Lone birds can be slightly trickier, especially if they’re not in full adult plumage.  For instance, look at this younger Ring-billed Gull:

The bill lacks an obvious dark ring, being pink with a black tip.  The legs are a dull pink, as well, and the plumage looks scruffier and more mottled on this “teenager” bird than on the adult in the first photo.  The body shape is basically the same, though.

Now, compare that bird to the Herring Gull in this photo:

Although both the Herring Gull and the Ring-billed Gull have black-tipped pink bills, pink legs, mostly grayish backs, and whitish heads, they’re subtly different in shape.  The Herring Gull has a bulkier build and a thicker bill.  Also notice that the Ring-billed Gull’s primary feathers extend pretty far past the tail.  The Herring Gull’s primaries look much shorter.  And, of course, the Herring Gull has a lot more brown feathers in its plumage.  (An adult bird would show more white, but this one is a subadult.)

Of course, if the Herring Gull had been standing next to the Ring-billed Gull, another difference would have been obvious: Herring Gulls are giants in comparison to Ring-bills.  In the photo below, the Herring Gull is on the left, dwarfing the Laughing Gull (without a black hood) and the Royal Tern (the bird with the orange bill).

Herring Gull, Royal Tern, and Laughing Gull

Speaking of Royal Terns, there were dozens of them on the beach, along with over a hundred Black Skimmers.  Skimmers are mostly crepuscular (i.e., active at dawn and dusk), so these birds were just roosting together in the late morning on the shore.  Their distinctive looks didn’t present any identification challenges, but they did provide a nice basis for comparison with other birds.

In the photo below, you can see how some of the skimmers have their heads resting on their backs, while a few of the birds are alert, with their cartoonishly large, red-and-black beaks visible.  Skimmers forage by flying low over the water, their long mandibles slicing through the surface.  If they touch fish, they snap them up quickly.  Terns, like the Royal Terns in the photo, are more specialized than gulls in their feeding habits, and usually dive for aquatic invertebrates and fish.  Their bills are longer and more dagger-like than those of gulls, but much smaller than those of skimmers.  Some of the Royal Terns had already completed the molt into breeding plumage, while others still retained the characteristic white foreheads of winter plumage. 

There is also a Ring-billed Gull in the picture.  Can you spot it?

A few Caspian Terns were mixed in with the group.  In the next picture, you can see a Caspian Tern on the right.  It has a fairly stocky, red bill with a smudge of black at the tip, and its head has a more rounded crest, unlike the long and spiky one of the Royal Tern.  The orange-billed Royal Terns in the photo are congregating with Black Skimmers, and do you see the winter-plumaged Laughing Gull on the left, and the Ring-billed Gull in the background?

Here’s another type of tern: the Forster’s Tern.  These are considerably smaller than the other two species I mentioned.  They have red legs, and, in winter plumage, black bills.  Distinguishing them from the similarly small, closely-related Common Terns can be tricky, but they don’t pose an identification challenge when seen with Royal and Caspian Terns.

Forster's Tern (with Royal Terns and Black Skimmers)

You might have noticed that the tern at the upper left has a much redder bill than any of the others in that photo.  If you were simply relying on bill color for identification, you might be tempted to call this individual a Caspian Tern.  However, the bill is relatively slim, like that of a Royal Tern, and lacks the black smudge that you would expect to see on a Caspian Tern.  The bird’s crest clinches the ID: it is long and shaggy in the classic Royal Tern shape, rather than short and rounded.  Noticeable variation can and does occur within species of birds!

That’s the end of Part I.  Stay tuned for Part II, which will focus on the shorebirds.