Home
July 30, 1998
|
Previous Entry Today's bird list: 8 ring billed gulls Today's butterfly list: 1 monarch |
x |
x |
x |
Thursday. July 30th. Working the midday shift on the north beach boundary. Greenhead count way down. This is by far the easiest shift I've had this year. All the visitors were friendly and responsive - and there weren't that many of them. The temperature was not extreme in either direction. I wasn't freezing or sweltering or imagining what extra clothing I might have in my car (or what I could take off and still be legal). I finally felt I was dressed just right in long pants (chinos) and my Salton Sea National Wildlife Refuge T-shirt with my official vest and official cap. Visibility was good. It just all seemed too easy. Aren't I supposed to have to suffer to do this job? The piping plovers should be mostly ready to leave pretty soon. What chicks there are have fledged except for one brood from the latest nesting pair. They're all pretty far down the beach - south of where I'm stationed - so I haven't seen any today. I've had such good luck in seeing behaviors that not everybody gets to see (aerial display, parallel run, foot trembling) this year, that I don't mind not having gotten to see the chicks. I just wish there were more of them. I don't know why so many pairs abandoned their nests this year. One of today's visitors tried to tell me it was the gulls, but I don't think it was. Nobody has reported ring billed gulls as a major threat and there aren't that many herring or black backed gulls. This same visitor was asking a lot of questions about coyotes too. I have never seen a coyote on the refuge. Foxes yes, coyotes no. I saw a flock of sanderlings doing their "one mind, 28 bodies" thing. How do they synchronize their movements like that? Do they follow visual cues? Pheromones? Telepathy? [Any bird experts out there who'd like to comment on that can e-mail me.] Nancy claims they are The Borg. One pair of semipalmated plovers started feeding at the water line fairly near me. I was amazed at how unlike the sanderlings they are in their movements. Years ago I used to just categorize all shorebirds as "sandpipers" generically and never really watched them. That was a lot of years ago. Anyway, I watched the semipalmated plovers skittering this way and that independently and the sanderlings darting in and out of the surf as one and I marveled at the diversity of life. The ring billed gulls sat on the sand resting. Four black backed gulls landed and strung themselves across the sand in a line in the middle of the ring billed gulls' sitting area. The cormorants were in the water fishing today and did not join the gathering on the sand this time. |
|
|
x |
x |
|
|
|