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.

Fine Dining on the Gulf Coast

When I looked through my photos of Alabama birds from my springtime trip to the Gulf Coast, I thought that there was a pretty obvious theme running through most of them: food!  After all, birds eat a lot, and their efforts to find food provide birders with plenty of entertainment.

The Bald Eagle that I watched on the Ocean Springs beach may have been thwarted in its hunting attempts, but this Osprey that I saw the following day on the Alabama coast clearly hadn’t been.  It devoured its prey, a large fish, while perched in a tall slash pine.  In a way, it was lucky for the Osprey that it found this relatively secure site to enjoy its meal; Bald Eagles are known to chase after Ospreys and steal their catches.  This Osprey did appear slightly wary, but it still clung tightly to the fish that it had caught, as if it wondered if I might try to take it.

Osprey in pine -- warily looking back

Back to lunching

Such a gorgeous and impressive bird! 

Although large species like Ospreys and Eagles are the most obvious predatory birds in marshes and on beaches, some much smaller birds also make a good showing.  Boat-tailed Grackles, the coastal cousins of the abundant and familiar Common Grackles, are extremely opportunistic, feeding by preying on invertebrates and other small animals, scavenging dead creatures along the shore, and nabbing snack food from tourists.  I saw several of these large, glossy grackles strutting along the beach, mainly near the pier.

Female Boat-tailed Grackle

Male Boat-tailed Grackle with food

Male Boat-tailed Grackle

Gulls, obviously, are opportunistic, too, although sometimes this tendency is misdirected.  I spent several minutes observing a small group of gulls loitering in the drier sand, away from the waves.  Take a closer look at the immature Laughing Gull (the one without a dark hood) on the left side of the following photo.  It was attempting to eat a wrapper or some other piece of garbage that it had found on the beach. 

Laughing Gulls on the sand

The Laughing Gull eventually dropped the piece of trash, which was then picked up by a young Ring-billed Gull.  Notice the pattern?  Immature birds tend to be worse at hunting than adult birds.  It’s apparently a skill that they have to gain through experience.

Mine!

All mine.

Like the Laughing Gull, the Ring-billed Gull relinquished its “prey” and moved on. 

Gak!

In the flock of Laughing Gulls was a strange and sad sight: a gull missing part of its foot.  I had seen another disabled Laughing Gull in the same location a few years before, but that bird was missing the opposite foot.  Unfortunately, this is probably the indirect result of humans hunting for food on the beach.  Fishing line can get tangled around birds’ feet and cut off the circulation, and I suspect that this is what had happened to the two gulls.   

Injured Laughing Gull

 

A different injured Laughing Gull in 2018

This particular bird didn’t seem to be too perturbed by its handicap, but I’m sure that foraging was much harder for it as a result of the injury.

Preening with that leg would be difficult, too.

On a lighter note, anyone who has seen my other posts on coastal birds can probably identify the species in the next photo.  The large, brownish, chunky gull on the left is an immature Herring Gull; the small, brownish birds in the center are Sanderlings; the two pale gulls to the right of the Sanderlings are Ring-billed Gulls; and the larger flock of gulls on the right are Laughing Gulls.  Happy birding!

A mix of species on the beach

Herring Gull

Sanderlings

Ring-billed Gulls

Laughing Gulls

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!