Today in the garden, I found a wheel bug (Arilus cristatus) that had just caught a bee in the backyard. I got a few pictures, click on them to see the larger images. A wheel bugs catches its prey by plunging its beak into them and holding them with legs. It the injects them with an enzyme that paralyzes them and begins dissolving them drinking up the victims body fluids. A bite from a wheel bug can be pretty nasty and can take months to heal. Some say it hurts 10 times worse than a hornet sting. I would recommend staying clear of them and letting wheel bugs roam your garden and eat up your ‘pest’ insects. Charlie Moores at 10000 Birds also caught something similar when he was in Toronto. Check it out on his post.
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I was walking around my butterfly bush/sneezeweed/salvia garden and I happened across an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail, caught in a spiderweb. The spider was already working on the swallowtail so I quick got my camera to document the process. The second time I went out the butterfly was gone, stored away for later eating. I searched for it quite a bit without any luck.
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Three hours after waking up and driving 140 miles east to the coast, we set off at 5 AM from the marina at Belmar, NJ. Since it was still quite dark, the only birds I could see were Laughing Gulls streaming overhead and Great Black-backed Gulls loafing on the docks. Things really got exciting once we were 20 miles out when we came across a Fin Whale feeding frenzy. The whales were lunge-feeding, Common Dolphins were feeding all around us and Cory’s and Greater Shearwaters and Wilson’s Storm-petrels were all around. Photos below are all from flickr because I wanted to focus on seeing the birds instead of trying to photograph them. After leaving the feeding frenzy and heading out to our destination of 85 miles from shore, we came across a few small flocks of shearwaters.
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All the plants I put in my hummingbird garden this spring are attracting good numbers of butterflies.The popular plants are the butterfly bush, sneezeweed, and marigolds. Silver Spotted Skipper are easily the most common butterfly in my backyard, sometimes with numbers in the double digits.
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The newest edition of IatB is online at Sycamore Canyon, hosted by Kathie, a birder/blogger from the Santa Rita Mountains in Arizona.
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Much has been written about the identification of Semipalmated and Western Sandpipers. Most of it focuses on minutia, those little differences in plumage that are indeed very helpful in distinguishing these very similar species. The problem is, in order to use all those fine plumage details successfully, a good understanding of how to age shorebirds is required. Rather than rehashing ageing criteria and plumage details, this article will focus on the basics: the more fundamental differences between Semi and Western that should be the foundation upon which any plumage-based identification is made. Tigrina Times Online Birding Magazine Cape May Bird Observatory » Semipalmated and Western Sandpipers: Start With The Basics So starts Michael O’Brien’s article at birdcapemay.org. With several recent Western Sandpipers being found in Lancaster County at Octorara Lake among flocks of Semipalmated Sandpipers, this is a skill that is very timely to pick up.
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Looking through about 30 pictures of the Glossy Ibis allowed me to piece together the band number- 116-50010. I submitted this info to the Bird Banding Lab. Unfortunately the bander hasn’t submitted their banding data yet but hopefully I will hear back soon.
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At Conejohela Flats today, a young Glossy Ibis was hanging out on Avocet Point. Ignoring the seven birders walking around the flats, it foraged non-stop in shallow water from the time I arrived at 8:30am until I left at 12:30 pm. The most interesting thing about this bird was that it was not only banded on one leg with a U.S. Fish and Wildlife band, but the left leg also had a band. Since the left band had only three numbers, it was much easier to read. 011. This Glossy Ibis was banded by New York Audubon, which is trying to study the behaviour of herons that roost near Staten Island. They have banded several ibises, as well as Great Egrets and Double-crested Cormorants to see where they are dispersing. Check the Meadowlands blog for more info on this.
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The crew at 10000birds.com has started an effort to raise money for a survey of an endangered and endemic bird in Kenya; the Sharpe’s Longclaw. The longclaws belong to the same family (Motacillidae) as the American Pipit and wagtails. According to BirdLife International, there are only between 10,000 and 20,000 Sharpe’s Longclaws remaining. The Sharpe’s Longclaw has an extremely restricted range, basically limited to the remaining grasslands in sw Kenya which are quickly disappearing due to development. As you can see in the range map below, the Sharpe’s Longclaw is very vulnerable to even small amounts of development in its territory. The surveys are going to be conducted by 26-year-old Kenyan Dominic Kamau Kimani. He has been birding since he was young and has previously worked on research related to birds and wildlife conservation.
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