Welcome to the Vinalhaven
sightings report- Jan 2, 2015!
Happy 2105 everybody!
And thanks to MCHT
and VLT for their continued support
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| purple sandpipers photo by John Drury |
Highlights – Seal
island in December, Otters, yellow-bellied Sapsucker, Tree Swallow, Red-necked
Grebes, Black-legged Kittiwakes, Razorbill, other stuff
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| 3 outta 4 otters agree they are cute |
Tiit trick – click on photos to make them bigger.
our simple dream is to one day have otter spraint shots in 3-D posted on the VSR, which will be amazing! Then you can click on them and they would get jumbo.
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| male Grey Seals patrolling the cove photo by John Drury |
Upcoming events – 2
Events –
MCHT Basin Snowshoeing/Tracking – Sat. (1/17 – 10am – meet at Skoog to carpool) hopefully a snowshoe, but maybe just a fine winter’s walk!
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| yellow -bellied sapsucker photo by Sally Conway |
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| sapsucker photo by Sally Conway |
Hillary Bunker reports a
sighting of a Tree Swallow in her
yard. The bird – which according to Maine bird lists “should” have left the
state a few months ago – has been observed for two weeks or so, and has been
seen swooping and diving - apparently snaggin’ food out of the air (no winter moths
though!). Hillary, being the kind
person that she is, has grown concerned about the future of this swallow
(B.O.T.L.) and called Avian Haven (also kind people) who told her that if she “doesn’t catch it, it will die”. So how
do you catch a swallow? Gaff hook? Maybe the genes from this particular swallow are best “not
passed down”. (We've all thought that about someone, haven't we?) Anyway, if any ideas come to mind please share them with Hillary.
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| big fella on the left. this year's stud? or is it a "too early" arrival? photo by John Drury |
Seal Island – (12/16)
Captain John Drury
and the entire crew of the Skua (that
would be pretty much John) took some camera
people out to Seal to set up the “seal
camera” (formerly known as the Puffin Camera). The camera is up “for the viewing pleasure of the wonderfully
horsey looking grey seals and their cute pups”.
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| purple sandpipers are cool photo by John Drury |
Anyway check this site out for all the tasty seal
pup watching action you can handle - http://explore.org/live-cams/player/seal-pups-cam
And then go outside and find yourself
something on your own. Time better spent (biased opinion)….
Anyway, here’s what John reports from the day
- 50 seals ashore, 10 or so new pups,
10 eagles, 150 purple sandpiper, 3 snow bunting, one song sparrow,
3 harlequin ducks at Seal, 8 at Otter, 4 gannet, 6 kittiwake one Iceland
gull, red necked grebe, 15 Razorbill, guillemots, loons and long squaws,
mergansers and black ducks.
Thanks to John for sharing the report and the
photos – check out his blog - http://sightingsfromskua.blogspot.com/ - for all kinds of shots!
From the ferry - Capt. Pete gave us the heads up on "lots of Razorbills these days" and so it is, with Razorbills and (personal fav) Black-legged Kittiwakes regular sightings from the ferry these days
Great Horned Owls
(GHOs)
– (12/30) a sunrise walk at Fox Rocks
had a Great Horned calling, and
being mobbed by a murder if crows (in the
1st degree!)… (12/31)
A sunrise walk on Wharf Quarry Road had
another murder (of f’in crows!) without the GHO calling. The mobbing took
place in an area of historic nesting GHO presence. Whatever that means – probably a GHO
out there...
And in other news, last year’s GHO nest that we documented on Long Cove
has now officially fallen out of the tree it was in. Tough
loss, but we are sure the owls will adapt and we will remain in pursuit of
their nests. It’s what we do (the royal “we”).
Otters – photo gallery - well, we (the royal
“we”) just don’t know where to begin – the
trail camera we use is a little funky and temperamental (aren’t we all…), and has battery issues (don’t get me started!).
And yet we (the royal “me”) go back to it for those comforting views of the old
harbor otters that we get from no other spot.
“The” latrine of/on old harbor pond (one of
several really) is a classic marking spot - with otters returning every few days to check in and "stop, drop, and roll"
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| "the drop" - the one on the left is sprainting, the one on the right is rolling |
And to make a long story short (too late!) for the
fourth year in a row the otter latrine at old harbor pond is pumping out the
otter photo shoots. Each visit of the otters is in the 5-20 second range, so
the action (and sprainting!) is fast and furious.
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| "the stop" - plenty of sniffin' even if its only for a moment |
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| and the roll - to get covered in smell, possibly whatever you "dropped" their moments before |
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| and sometimes all four come to shore |
Red-necked rule! – here’s an extended shout out to a species that may get overlooked on certain days - Red-necked Grebes (Podiceps grisegena) – with a series of videos taken out at state beach. here's a bunch floating floating with a white -winged scoter in the foreground..
Now - We have been mentioning the impressive (to easily
impressed observers) numbers of Red-necked Grebes that “hang out” for much of
late fall (or autumn) at state beach. “it’s
very grebey” I have been known to say to myself.
What's cool about Red-necked(?) and
Grebes in general, is that they are most famous for eating
their own feathers. Hard core, no?
“Perhaps because the
idea of swallowing hair is so unpleasant to us, it is difficult to believe the
stories of birds deliberately eating their feathers”.
This is how the essay
on “eating feathers” in “the birder’s handbook” (best book ever)
begins.
But, really? Because hair is so (overrated and) unpleasant to eat it’s hard for the author to believe that birds of a different class of vertebrates (I'm not talking "socio-economic" here) might eat something that grows out of/on them. What seems more unpleasant to me is what dogs eat (poop), and what otters roll in and we actually are in the same class as them (even if you are bald).
Well, I think I have eaten way more hairs than feathers – in fact I don’t think I have ever eaten a feather. I have no idea how unpleasant that might be. The type of feather would make a difference I would think. I bet flight feathers would not be pleasant to eat! Downy feathers? They are soft and cuddly….here’s more –
But, really? Because hair is so (overrated and) unpleasant to eat it’s hard for the author to believe that birds of a different class of vertebrates (I'm not talking "socio-economic" here) might eat something that grows out of/on them. What seems more unpleasant to me is what dogs eat (poop), and what otters roll in and we actually are in the same class as them (even if you are bald).
Well, I think I have eaten way more hairs than feathers – in fact I don’t think I have ever eaten a feather. I have no idea how unpleasant that might be. The type of feather would make a difference I would think. I bet flight feathers would not be pleasant to eat! Downy feathers? They are soft and cuddly….here’s more –
“Grebes, for example,
consume their feathers by the hundreds” – Does this mean like a hundred at one time? or
even hundreds at one time? Has to be downy feathers (or some glorified downy like "filoplume" or whatever). That can’t be anything like if we ate 100 strands (or
hundreds even!) of hair in one sitting. Is this grebe in the video eating it's feathers?
“Feathers taken from
parents are found in the stomachs of chicks only a few days old!” we love
this…”50% of the stomach contents of
Horned or Pied-billed Grebe may be feathers. This odd behavior seems to have a
purpose” . Yeah – "no spraint" it must serve a purpose –
I bet if there was a
good reason to eat our own hair - like we could digest corn easier (or something) – we would all be mackin' on our
own hair. Baldness would have been removed from the gene pool over the millennia simply by
survival rates. Dream world? Too good to be true... because in reality no good (like really good) reason for keeping hair
exists anymore….
Here’s the purpose – “the
action of the gizzard in these primarily fish-eating birds is insufficient to
crush the bones that are swallowed. The feather balls are thought to protect
the stomach by padding the sharp fish bones and slowing down the process of digestion
so that the bones dissolve rather than pass into the intestine.” How hot
must the feather balls be to digest bones in them? Hot.
Anyway – we all know that cool stuff – here’s some other
stuff about
Red-necked Grebes – (Podiceps grisegena) – stats - L 18”, ws 24”, wt 2.2 lb (1,000g).
Nest – floating platform in shallow water, anchored mass of fresh and decayed reeds.
Closest nesting – other side of Lake Superior – Minnesota up thru Alaska.
And then across much of Eurasia.
Also known as “Holboll’s Grebe” with an umlaut on the second “o”. Probably somewhere in Eurasia
Red-necked Grebes – (Podiceps grisegena) – stats - L 18”, ws 24”, wt 2.2 lb (1,000g).
Nest – floating platform in shallow water, anchored mass of fresh and decayed reeds.
Closest nesting – other side of Lake Superior – Minnesota up thru Alaska.
And then across much of Eurasia.
Also known as “Holboll’s Grebe” with an umlaut on the second “o”. Probably somewhere in Eurasia
“Recent declines due to egg in viability and shell thinning
from pesticides and PCBs, and to increased egg predation by raccoons” – Damn Raccoons!
This was written in 1988.
