Tag Archives: New England Pond Ecology

Fisher Bounding though the Snow

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Lightening in a Bottle x 2 – A second unforeseen and wildly magical encounter with a Fisher!

On a recent evening at dusk, I was walking back to my parked car when a swiftly moving dark shape crossed my path. We had an eye to eye moment before he went bounding off across the snowy landscape.

Note how the Fisher leaps with great power, yet appears to stay on top of the snowpack. Fishers have highly specialized feet that are well adapted to snow. Their five-toed feet are large, distributing the weight evenly, and the soles of the feet are covered in fur; both adaptions creating a “snowshoe effect.”  Anther very cool fact about Fishers is that their ankle joints can rotate nearly 180 degrees, which allows them to descend trees head first, a very rare trait among mammals.

I believe he is a male because he was so large and his fur appears somewhat coarse. The females are smaller, with glossier fur.

Here is another video of a Fisher that I filmed several years ago, where you can see him descending the trees head first:

LIGHTNING IN A BOTTLE – AN UP CLOSE ENCOUNTER WITH A FISHER!

 

 

Which Bird is the Little Blue Heron?

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Can you tell which photo is of a Little Blue Heron?

If you thought all three images are Little Blue Herons, you are correct!

Friends often tell me about the “egrets” they are seeing at our local ponds. You would think yes, a small white heron is a Snowy Egret but look more closely.  Snowy Egrets and Little Blue Herons are about the same size but a quick way to differentiate the two is that Snowy Egrets  sport unmistakeable bright cadmium yellow feet whereas the legs and feet of a first hatch year Little Blue Heron are an even yellowish-grayish-greenish. Snowy Egrets also have yellow lores at the base of their bills that the Little Blues lack (see gallery at the bottom of the page).

In the gallery at the top of the page, the white bird is a first hatch year Little Blue; the calico patterned bird is a second year Little Blue transitioning from white to blue plumage; and the last photo is the adult Little Blue Heron with its body feathers a beautiful deep slate blue and neck feathers a rich magenta. Although the adult plumages of both birds are entirely different, the two species are closely related members of the genus Egretta.

 

You can also tell the difference by how the herons forage. Little Blues when feeding at our local ponds hunt in a stealthy manner. They stride slowly through the mud and hold very still, then strike swiftly for the fish, frog, dragonfly, or other insect. Little Blue Herons have another method of foraging called “aerial hunting.” The LBH flies out over the water looking for frogs. It will hover briefly overhead before plunging into the water to grab its prey.

Snowy Egrets appear much more excited when hunting. They animatedly run back and forth, and with their bright yellow feet, stir up the sand and mud to flush out prey. This hunting strategy is called “foot stirring.”

Watch as the Little Blue Heron gets an easy meal when the dragonfly perches on its leg!

A gallery of Snowy Egrets to compare the differences.

 

 

Dance of the Halloween Dragonfly

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It’s not always the case that a wild creature’s name befits its appearance but I think whoever gave the Halloween Pennant its common name was spot on. The male is the darker orange dragonfly, on top.

Mating Behavior and Oviposition

The mating behavior of Halloween Pennants is similar to that of other dragonfly species. The male will use his cerci (paired appendages on the rear segments) to grasp the female behind her head so that they are hooked together. The female will then curl her abdomen forward so that her genital opening comes into contact with the male genitalia, which are located closer to the male’s thorax than to the tip of the abdomen (Cordero-Rivera and Córdoba-Aguilar 2010). This is known as the wheel formation, as the dragonfly bodies form a closed circle. In a study done in south Florida, Celithemis eponina were observed mating only between 8:00 and 10:30 AM (Miller 1982; Dunkle 1989).

After copulation, the female lays eggs in water, while the male remains with the tip of the male’s abdomen attached to the female’s head (Taber 2005).

Internet Archive Royalty Free Music: Jena-Pierre Rampal, Francoise Bonnet Fantaisie brillante sur des thèmes de l’opéra “Carmen” de Bizet – ℗ 1965

Halloween Pennant Dragonflies Mating image courtesy wiki commons media from the Herrick Lake Forest Reserve

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They’re Not Called Ruby-crowned Kinglets for Nothin!

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Golden-crowned Kinglet Alert!

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When the tiniest of songbirds with the fanciest of names flits alongside on your walk, you may be lucky enough to catch a photo. Well-camouflaged in their generally olive plumage, they elusively dart about the wooded edge of the path but flashes of their little golden crown gives them away.

Kinglets, both the Golden-crowned and Ruby-crowned are migrating through eastern Massachusetts. They are laser focused on insect meals and are often found along shrubby woodland pond banks where there is typically no shortage of bite-sized-for-kinglets arthropods.

For previous posts about kinglets, see the following –

Invasion of the Golden-crowned Kinglets

Pocket-sized Ruby-crowned Kinglet

Hello Rainbow Wood Duck!

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Feeling thankful that our Charlotte got to see this male Wood Duck on a sunny morning. And, that he was swimming towards us, not away, as Wood Ducks are want to do. She dubbed him Rainbow Boy.

Wood Ducks are named as such because they are one of the very few ducks that perch and nest in trees. Unlike most ducks, Wood Ducks have sharp claws that allows them to perch.

Wood Ducks are another conservation success story; a direct result of the passage of the Migratory Bird Treaty  Act of 1918. By protecting woodland and marsh habitat, enforcing hunting regulations, and erecting nesting boxes, Wood Duck populations have rebounded. Another reason why the population is growing is because of the return of the North American Beaver. Beavers create the ideal forested wetland habitat for Wood Ducks!

You really need to see iridescence in strong sunlight, otherwise the creature’s features just look muddy.

For comparison sake, in the above photo, the female is in the foreground and the male in the background.  The male Wood Duck in this photo is in ‘eclipse,’ or mid-molt.

Thank you Beavers!

Pocket-sized Ruby-crowned Kinglet

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Only weighing about as much as a quarter, the Ruby-crowned Kinglet’s tiny stature belies its vigorous foraging habits. The Kinglet flits and forages along the pond’s muddy edge, energetically snatching insects, all the the while flicking its tail. He leaps from stem to stem then takes off to hover mid-air, simultaneously pecking spiders from slender stalks.

The Kinglet’s ruby crown is well-hidden and mostly seen in spring during courtship display. RCKinglets are so incredibly fast; I was just hoping to capture some tiny bit of footage/documentation and was absolutely delighted when one flew to an adjacent bush only several feet away. He began floofing after his bath, with brilliant vermilion crown on full display.

We are at the tippy northern range of the Ruby-crowned Kinglets wintering grounds. Perhaps with the warming weather trend, we will see more and more.

For comparison sake, two years ago (November 2022), a flock of Golden-crowned Kinglets graced our eastern most shores, staying for about a week.

 

Are Beavers Tool Users?

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In thinking about the happy outcome for Nibi the orphaned Beaver, Massachusetts newest wildlife ambassador, I was reminded of some footage I took of a Beaver over the summer (for the full story about Nibi, visit the Newhouse Wildlife Rescue Facebook page here).

The Beaver dove down to retrieve some kind of vegetative tuber or rhizome, a behavior I have seen countless times. He/she resurfaced, ate half, and then proceeded to use the half eaten rhizome to scrub his face. Okay that’s interesting but perhaps just a fluke. A few minutes later, the Beaver dove again and returned with a fresh rhizome, this time with his left side facing the camera. After munching away for a few moments, he then groomed the left side of his face with the rhizome in his left paw. Wow, so thorough to scrub both sides, and with a “tool!”

The video footage is longer than the usual post but he’s so cute at the end I had to include that, too. You can see his long orange tooth at about 1 minute 20 seconds in.

I wondered, are Beavers considered “tool users?” They build their lodges by cutting down and arranging trees, packing all with mud and that may or may not be called tool use, but to use vegetable matter to groom his face? That certainly seems as though it would qualify as tool use.

 

ECO FILM AWARD! Thank you BFF and Supporters!

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Dear PiPl Friends,

I hope you are enjoying these fleeting days of mild weather. Our local and migrating wildlife surely are! As many of you are aware, while developing the Piping Plover film, I have been filming the third documentary in the trilogy (loosely referred to as The Pond Film). Filming is taking place at area freshwater locations; ponds and marshes of every kind at a multiple of Massachusetts sites. Yesterday I was back at Niles Pond and saw a first at the Pond, a migrating Bobolink! He/she surfaced for a brief moment while foraging in the reeds, long enough to capture a few seconds of footage. During the spring and summer, we can see Bobolinks at a number of Greenbelt properties that manage their sites for grassland nesting birds. Bobolinks are one of the longest distance migrating songbirds, traveling about 12,000 miles every year. When migrating, they are usually seen in flocks and hope this lone Bobolink finds his way.

I want to again thank all who attended our premiere at the Boston Film Festival, and to everyone who couldn’t come but have championed the Plovers along the way. If you receive these email updates, you have been a supporter in one way or another and we are so grateful for your help. I am honored to share that we received the Eco Film Award from the Boston Film Festival! We are so appreciative of the tremendous gift provided by Robin Dawson and the BFF team for filmmakers to share their stories with the public. The Boston Film Festival is a stellar organization, in every way, and we are so proud to have been a part of the 40th annual festival. Congratulations to all the films and filmmakers for your beautifully crafted outstanding films!

We had a fantastic houseful and I was beyond delighted that the audience saw both the humor and the vulnerability of our tiny feathered shorebird neighbors. Thank you also to Michelle Akelson and her fantastic team at Rockport Music for sharing the stunning Shalin Liu. And a very special shoutout to Cape Ann’s incredibly dedicated Piping Plover Ambassadors, and an extra, extra shoutout to the Ambassadors who were at the Shalin Liu lending a hand. Thank you Deborah Brown, Jennie Meyer, Jill Ortiz, Paula Niziak, Barbara Boudreau, Kim Bouris, and Sandy Barry.

More good news to share for the film. We have been accepted to two festivals in Ontario, one headquartered in Toronto, and the other Brooklin. I have also applied to several additional festivals in eastern Canada as Plovers breed along the coasts of Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, PEIsland, New Brunswick, the Magdalen Islands of Quebec, and on both the US and Canadian sides of the Great Lakes. I was so hoping there would be interest in our documentary from our PiPl Friends in Canada and there very definitely is!

We are currently raising funds to bring The Piping Plovers of Moonlight Bay to public television. If you know of an individual, organization, business, or foundation that may have a particular interest in Massachusetts, wildlife, birds, conservation, eco/environmental films, and would like to be an underwriter, please let me know. In our funding presentation deck, we provide a great deal of information showing how it works and the extensive benefits to the underwriter.

And please write and let me know of any interesting and unusual wildlife sightings you encounter during this beautiful fall migration.

Happy Sunday!
Warmest wishes,
Kim

Nature’s Jewels

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Jewels from my misty morning walk today. Which do you prefer – the desaturated image or the untouched image with the green.Dew drops on an Orbweaver’s web

Eyeball to Eyeball with Bullfrogs

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The bulging eyes positioned atop the head gives Bullfrogs a field of vision of almost 180 degrees. They can see to the side, in front, and partially behind them, allowing frogs to see both predator and prey.


Bullfrogs come in a range of shades of green and brown and I thought this was a particularly beautiful Bullfrog

Mature American Bullfrog Tadpole

Eye to Eye with a Painted Turtle

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The extraordinary eyes of a Painted Turtle. Just one of a number of recent eye to eye encounters with pond wildlife, including a Coyote!
Double click on the photo to get a close-up view of the turtle’s eyes.

Beaver Belly Rubbing!

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Why is this adorable Beaver rubbing his belly?

The Beaver is waterproofing its fur! At the base of the tail are both a pair of inverted castor sacs and a pair of anal glands. The Beaver uses its front feet to get oil from the anal glands and then rubs it all over his body. Beavers are constantly grooming and oiling their fur not only to waterproof, but also to remove debris. The sticky yellowish substance from the castor sacs is used for an entirely different purpose, to mark their territory and to identify each other.

Fat Little Beaver Breakfast Roll-ups

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Overjoyed to happen upon this one enjoying his breakfast of lily pad roll-ups! Or perhaps the technique is more enchilada-like. Either way, we were impressed by the speed and efficiency in how he ate the pads.

Three Fat Little Kingbirds and Their Damselfly Breakfast

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Early one morning this past week I watched as a pair of Eastern Kingbird parents fed nonstop their fat little fledglings. No sooner was a damselfly delivered to one of the the three, the other two clamored for their turn. No rest for the weary!

The Eastern Kingbird’s diet consists of a wide variety of insects including damselflies, butterflies, moths, cicadas, ticks, spiders, and millipedes  Eastern Kingbirds often nab their prey mid-air. During the winter months when there are fewer insects, they will often consume fruits and berries.

The Eastern Kingbird family was feeding in the exact same location that I saw a pair of Kingbirds courting and singing to each other during the spring months. I can’t help but think it is the same pair.

Currently on the menu

Phoebe-Phoebe

Eastern Kingbird

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Listen to the distinct song of a pair of beautiful Eastern Kingbirds calling back and forth. 

 

Warblers and Whatnots – A Handy Guide to Identifying Backyard Warbling Songsters

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May is the magical month for migration through Massachusetts (along with many other states and regions) and this year seems extra magnificent. The past several weeks have brought an abundance of exquisite creatures passing through, on their way to northern breeding grounds, along with familiar favorites arriving here to breed in our backyards, local woods, ponds, and fields.

I created this short video for all of we who are “warbler challenged,” that is, struggle to identify these tiny choristers warbling and darting through the treetops. Each spring and autumn migrations I turn my camera’s eye to try to capture what charmer is flitting about in hopes of capturing even a fleeting moment, deciding to try to id when I return home and can have a longer look.

The clips that were chosen are meant to show the birds from all angles – belly, butt, front view, side view, wings in flight, and male and female when captured. The warblers/kinglets/vireos are organized by color to better help make side-by-side comparisons, i.e. all the yellow together, etc.  I’ve done my best to give the proper name and will eventually add the audio recordings.

A few notes – a recent tip I learned for discerning whether a Palm Warbler or Yellow-rumped Warbler: The PW has yellow feathers under it’s tail, while the YRWarbler has a patch of yellow on top of it’s tail. Another distinguishing characteristic of the Palm Warbler is that it continually wags it’s tail and you can see the tail wag in the PW clips. The first shot of the Magnolia Warbler, the feathers are so strongly orange -hued I wasn’t sure what I was looking. The second shot shows the more characteristic yellow.

To my songbird friends, please write and let me know if I have made an error; this is a work in progress and we can change anything 🙂

The last clip is a mystery bird, possibly a female Blackburnian Warbler??

 

Rose-breasted Grosbeak Fly-by!

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When you hear Baltimore Orioles, but a Rose-breasted Grosbeak flies by instead- what fabulous underwing color!!.

 

Happy May! Red-tailed Hawk Casting a Pellet

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Hello Friends,

So many wonderful wildlife stories to share and I am so very behind is posting. We are in the final, final week of editing the Plover film for film festival release. After the film is “in the can,” so to speak, I’ll be able to get caught up sharing stories.

May is truly the magical month for migration in Massachusetts. Not only are we seeing a riot of migrants, but some birds are laying eggs, others are already raising babies, and the creatures that stay year round are letting themselves be known to prospective mates.  The earliest days of May in New England are especially magical not only for the heightened wildlife activity but because the trees, for the most part, have not yet leafed out.

This past week, I was able to film the return of the Brown Thrasher, Baltimore Orioles, a Kingfisher up-close (very briefly), Warbling Vireos, Northern Flickers, a not-so elusive female Red-winged Blackbird and male Black-crowned Night Heron, Piping Plover battles, Catbird building a nest, three Hummingbirds and a Red Admiral Butterfly in our garden, Wood Ducks, cygnets, and perhaps one of the most interesting, a young Red-tailed Hawk.

The hawk perched on a limb in the midst of an area where a number of songbirds were nesting. This of course created a mini ruckus. All the blackbirds in the vicinity flew in and began to harass him, including Grackles, Orioles, and Red-winged Blackbirds. They perched on adjacent branches and bravely dove at his backside, repeating the attacks over and over again for about one hour. The hawk eventually moved on, but not before he cast a pellet, to my great surprise. Just as do owls and kingfishers, hawks cast pellets. Although the pellets are much smaller than the owl’s pellets I have seen, that they cast them is no less interesting. Now if the tree had been fully leafed out, we would very likely not have seen this behavior.

Happy May!

 

Our favorite bandits, the Cedar Waxwings

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Don’t you just love the gorgeous wing patterning of the Cedar Waxwing!

Cedar Waxwings dining on multiflora rose hips at Niles Pond

Hooded Merganser Catches a Whopper!

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Cinnamon Girl catches a large Yellow Perch! Her fellow female Merganser chased her around the pond as she tried to position the fish head first to swallow whole.

Female Hooded Merganser

HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY FROM HUBBA HUBBA BOY AND CINNAMON GIRL!

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With the warmer than average temperatures this past week, our winter resident ducks were in courtship mode.  The spunky Hooded Merganser drake seen here positioned himself at the edge of the reeds. He threw back his head, exhibiting his striking crest, while calling repeatedly to his girl.

Listen to the Hooded Merganser’s distinct courtship call, which sounds more frog-like than duck-like.  She, with her richly hued cinnamon colored crest, after a time appeared, and they then drifted off together to forage in the shallow waters of the pond.

UP CLOSE WITH A YOUNG GLOSSY IBIS!

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Not a creature we see at Niles Pond everyday! The young Ibis stayed for awhile, resting, floofing its magnificent iridescent feathers, and drinking water before heading back out over the ocean. I used to see them only over on the west side of Gloucester, but this year there was a very large flock at pastures in Essex, and a beautiful flock foraging in the tidal marsh at Good Harbor Beach, too.

According to Cornell, “Glossy Ibises are found throughout the world. In North America, populations increased by an estimated 4.2% per year between 1966 and 2015 (indicating a cumulative increase of nearly eightfold over that period), according to the North American Breeding Bird Survey. In 2002, the North American Waterbird Conservation Plan estimated 13,000–15,000 breeding Glossy Ibises in North America and listed it as a species of low concern.”

The Glossy Ibis breeding territory is indicated in orange and the coast of Massachusetts is part of that territory.

BLUET DAMSELFLIES MATING IN THE CATTAILS

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“Get a room,” my friend Lauren laughed when we arrived at the Pond, noticing within moments dozens upon dozens of bluet damselflies readying to mate. The little pond is surrounded by a magnificent variety of vegetation however, the damselflies were only interested in perching on the cattail blades, in some instances three pairs per blade!

During mating, the male clasps the female by the neck while she bends her body around to his reproductive organs, forming a “mating wheel.” The damselfly photos here show the damselflies in the initial stages of mating.

There are no fewer than twenty different species of bluet damselflies in Massachusetts. One quick way to tell the difference between a damselfly and a dragonfly when out in the field is to look at the eyes. Dragonfly eyes are large and spaced very close together, whereas the eyes of damselflies are smaller and separated.

Cattail flowers are not bright and showy because they do not need to attract pollinators. Multiple tiny florets grow on the cylindrical-shaped stalk and are pollinated by wind. After releasing pollen, the flowers fall off leaving behind the spikes. The spike falls apart eventually to release the fluffy seeds, which are also disseminated by the wind. Clearly, the blades of Cat-O’-Nine-tails are useful to damselflies. The fluff is also wonderfully beneficial to songbirds, such as Red-winged Blackbirds, for lining their nests.

RARE MAGICAL FEATHERFOIL PLANT BLOOMING AT LOCAL PONDS!

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The other worldly and elusive Featherfoil (Hottonia inflata) has been spotted at two of our local ponds. Weather conditions must have been just right  this year for there are reports of its presence from different locations around coastal Massachusetts, including Gloucester, Georgetown, and Chilmark, Martha’s Vineyard.

This aquatic member of the primrose family grows in wetlands from Texas to Maine, however as wetlands are disappearing so, too, is this vanishing beauty. Featherfoil is rare in five of the six New England states and In Massachusetts, Featherfoil is on the state’s “Watch List.” The Watch List identifies species that are of conservation concern because of being “rare, declining, or vulnerable.”

Many thanks to Heidi Wakeman for sharing her sighting of Featherfoil. I am so excited to be including this aquatic beauty in my pond film!

Read more about Featherfoil here – https://www.indefenseofplants.com/blog/tag/featherfoil