The Sparrow and the Bunting

 

The Overlook, Halibut Point State Park

It's been a quiet season for upland birds. The Overlook is the place to check the water and sky for marvels of migration and the winter shoreline. Eyes aloft, Don and I almost stepped on a little creature that burst up from the gravel in a flash of white feathers. Even though it was only the second day of November it had to be a Snow Bunting. How could it have been almost invisible?

Snow Bunting

The bird landed nearby and resumed its industrious search for seeds. On the ground its elegant plumage actually makes excellent camouflage. The conspicuous whiteness only shows when it flies. Here's an example from a previous year.

Snow Buntings in flight

Besides its stunning beauty, the Snow Bunting is a photographer's delight because it's fairly tolerant of people.

The Snow Bunting is the little white speck at the grass line

Don was able to get almost eye to eye with the prize.

The sparrow and the bunting

Interestingly, another bird flew in. It stayed for some time to join in the hunt for seeds. It seemed uncharacteristically comfortable with our presence. I wondered if that was the Snow Bunting's benign influence.

Savannah Sparrow

The newcomer was a Savannah Sparrow. Despite their very different plumage the two birds shared similar outlines and appetites. Why have ornithologists assigned them to separate families? There are spectacular color and pattern variations among the various buntings. Feather distinctions can't be the explanation.

What is the difference between a sparrow and a bunting?

I consulted AI, which said Snow Buntings aren’t sparrows nor true buntings in the family sense, but belong to a different family from both. Because they're more northerly and migratory, they tend to be larger, plumper, and longer-winged than most sparrows.

It acknowledged "they are relatively close relatives."

I took the matter to our local expert Chris Leahy. He replied, "The answer to your bunting question has as much to do with etymology as taxonomy," and supplied this passage from his master work The Birdwatcher's Companion to North American Birdlife, Princeton University Press, 2004. 

*  *  *

"BUNTING: Standard English name for a large heterogeneous assortment of birds in two families. In British terminology, bunting refers to seed eating birds in the family Emberizidae, which includes the New World sparrows and longspurs. In North America, only three Emberizids, the Lark, Snow and McKay' Buntings, are so named, but the term is also used here for the smaller, brightly colored species in the family Cardinalidae, e.g. Indigo and Painted Buntings. For further untangling of the confusing taxonomy... (more cross-references here)

Lockwood (1993) says that "bunting" literally means (or meant) "a plump or thickset person or creature," and its first recorded use in a bird name c.1300 referred specifically to the prototypically plump Emberizid Corn Bunting of Europe. The Cardinalid buntings are also on the plump side, and one can see how all of this confusion might have begun.

Blue Jay, Part 2

 

An encounter with this industrious fellow today reminded me that it's been over a year since I abruptly ceased circulating Notes from Halibut Point, after posting "Blue Jay, Part 1". I regret the sudden unexplained departure and of course the interruption to my pleasure in preparing those essays over 626 consecutive weeks.

I'd like to say it will be possible to resume the series but persistent medical hurdles prevent a return to full vigor.

Here is a belated tribute to the Blue Jay, with gratitude.

There are no other birds as raucously companionable as the Blue Jay. If you had never seen one before you would be stunned by it's spectacular plumage. That sense of glory may stay with you in a lifetime of sightings.

A stop-action camera can capture the marvel of its feathers in flight.

And once in a while the bird offers a stationary portrait on the ground.

More typically it lords over the landscape from the treetops.

Blue Jays are ever ready to put a spark in your day.

Blue Jay I

 

Blue Jay

The Blue Jay is a dependable year-round companion on Halibut Point. Even when things are quiet it makes itself known in a way that makes you feel acknowledged. It seems very deliberate in its movements and social network. Its flamboyant plumage pattern and brassy voice suggest a comfort with itself and with us ground-dwelling humans as we amble along below.

But do we really know what's going on in that Blue Jay mind?

Considering how often I've seen Blue Jays, I realized how little I knew about them.

It's a little like my unrequited relationship with the Kingfisher, of whom I've written recently.

One day a Blue Jay joined this Kingfisher on a lofty perch. I'm not sure if they exchanged words. The Kingfisher turned its head for a look at the intruder.

 

The Kingfisher gave the Blue Jay the ultimate snub of ignoring it, and resumed its forward gaze over the realm.

The building spectacle attracted a second Blue Jay as the valiant First Challenger took to the air.

The Kingfisher whom I've previously censured as The Devil Bird had only a moment to react. Was I witnessing an exorcism?

The Blue Jay extended itself to its full span, formidable bill in the lead. Did it resent the Kingfisher's blue plumage, rakish crest, and maniacal screech as competing claims on its own distinctions? Was it out to expunge the intruder?

Evidently the Blue Jay's sally failed to change the order of things on that barren perch. The natural world flinched but held in this battle of incorrigible spirits.

I was going to have to sharpen my investigation of the Blue Jay.

Upside-down Birds

What does it take to spend time upside-down?

Chickadee

It's a combination of leg strength and light weight, such as you find in some small birds like finches and this chickadee. By feeding upside-down they are able  to investigate places that they otherwise wouldn’t be able to reach. Perhaps not competitors, either. 

Downy Woodpecker

Some species with very strong legs do well hanging below stout branches.

Cedar Waxwing

Others stretch themselves without unusual anatomy, for a bird, and can reach down occasionally, 

Black-and-white Warbler

A few songbirds like this Black-and-white Warbler are adept at gleaning insects from the crevices of tree bark, in almost any body position. Then can look for prey from all angles.

White-breasted Nuthatch

White-breasted Nuthatches defy logic by seeming to walk down tree trunks in their search for food. How do they hold on? How do they manage excessive blood flow to their heads?

As they descend, nuthatches alternately catch and release themselves by the claw on their hind toe. In a sense they maneuver by skillfully falling down the tree.

Red-breasted Nuthatch

Nuthatches exploit a different niche from other birds even in the same tree. Seeds that they store in the bark from an upside-down position might be less visible to other birds.

Brown Creeper

A nuthatch lookalike, the Brown Creeper, almost always works its way from the bottom to the top of a tree. It has similarly oversized feet and claws for its lifestyle but longer, stiff tail feathers for propping itself upright. It's a slightly different niche specialist that rarely goes upside down.

All through the natural world creatures are adapting to their circumstances, even upside down.

The Least of These

 

The Birdcase, Peabody Essex Museum

Sandpipers grouped just above the boy's head

During a visit to the Peabody Essex Museum this week I was struck by how small the preserved birds appeared to be. The little shorebirds in particular gave a smaller impression than my sense of them on the coastal edges of Halibut Point. The tiniest of all, the Least Sandpiper, was said to weigh about the same as a penny.

Least Sandpiper

A penny? This sparrow-sized bantam spends its life navigating the natural forces of wind and water.

Least Sandpipers can be found regularly along our coast during the migration season, en route from tundra breeding grounds to wintering territories in South America. When they leave here they may fly nonstop more than 2,000 miles over the ocean.

It seems ironic that these creatures look bigger in the vast landscape than they do in the two-dimensional proximity of the glass case.

The sandpipers hunt energetically along the tide line for the miniscule morsels that fuel their journey.

Their plucky animation in the world of their being fulfills a presence and purpose that shrinks to a shadow when that life force is extinguished and brought indoors.

Cattail Revelations

 

Cattails have found their wind-blown way to the quarry margins.

Cattail Corner

They have steadily enlarged their domain in Cattail Corner with a root mass extending over submerged ledges and engulfing an old beaver lodge.

Cattails are well supplied in their stems, leaves and roots with a spongy tissue that creates air channels to facilitate the exchange of gases with their lower parts growing directly in water, or in hypoxic soils. 

An American Eel foraging in the cattail roots

The cattail colony provides both a sanctuary and a larder.

Painted Turtle

Green Heron with minnow

Cattail Corner bereft of flowers in early August

Oddly, hardly any of its bottlebrush flower spikes dramatized Cattail Corner this summer, though the foliage has been lush and verdant.

An adjacent colony in bloom

At the same time, just down the shoreline, another stand of cattails began taking on a tired look as their flower spikes bloomed prolifically.

Narrow-leaved cattail, Typha angustifolia

A close look reveals that this second colony is formed of a different species. Its spikes are separated into two parts, the sausage-shaped, seed-bearing female flowers topped by a less conspicuous array of male flowers, usually with a gap between the floral sexes.

Common cattail, Typha latifolia
Male flowers above the female flowers

In the Common (Wide-leaved) cattail the floral sexes are contiguous.

A winter rendering

Cattail Corner inspires imaginative images year round. It gratifies the eye as well as the wildlife it harbors. Hopefully after this sparse flowering season it will return to its typical productivity.

Heron Views, II

Herons come in different shapes and sizes. They have long legs that most use for wading in shallow water. They usually capture prey by striking out their coiled necks from a stationary posture.

Green Heron hovering

More versatile than other species, the Green Heron is capable of plunge diving on fish as well as stealthy shoreline ambushes.

Green Heron flying past a Black-crowned Night-Heron

Still-fishing relatives like the Black-crowned Night-Heron watch motionless while the Green Heron deploys its dexterity.

This one waited patiently at the edge of the quarry until a small fish rippled the water surface.

After a short flight the bird plunged, relying on momentum to catch its prey.

The heron submerged completely in its dive but the fish escaped this time.

Buoyancy and lack of webbed feet limited its pursuit under water.

Those feet did help propel it back into the air to return to its hunting perch.

The Green Heron's skillful marshalling of anatomy makes it a marvel in its niche.

Often enough it succeeds. For the bird, life goes on.