Tag: birds

Astoria

February 16, 2026

Scrolling the NY Times Headlines feed, I came across a bird who has captured the attention of New Yorkers.  The bird arrived in Manhattan’s Battery Park and eventually settled in the area near the Sea Glass Carousel, just north of the Staten Island Ferry terminal. Three human women have become her self-appointed caretakers and visit her daily.  New Yorker’s regularly fall in love with celebrity wildlife, including unusual ducks, a pair of coyotes, and Flaco the escaped owl in Central Park.  Sunny Corrao, the deputy director of the city parks department’s wildlife unit, said, “She’s the only known turkey in Manhattan, “but this is not unusual.”  A turkey was known to hang out in Inwood Hill Park in Upper Manhattan in the past and there are large flocks in the Bronx and on Staten Island.  Smaller groups come and go to Queens and Brooklyn.  Astoria got her name because she was first spotted in Astoria, Queens, before making her way to Roosevelt Island and, finally, Manhattan.

When I went online, I found Astoria is a descendant of the wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) first domesticated in Pre-Columbian Mexico.  The Classical Nahuatl word for the turkey (huehxōlō-tl) and the Spanish guajolote are still used in modern Mexico.  Mayan aristocrats and priests had a special connection to turkeys, with ideograms of the birds appearing in Mayan manuscripts.  Spanish chroniclers Bernal Díaz del Castillo and Father Bernardino de Sahagún describe the multitude of food (both raw fruits and vegetables and prepared dishes) offered in the vast markets (tianguis) of Tenochtitlán, noting there were tamales made of turkeys, iguanas, chocolate, vegetables, and fruits.  Turkeys were first exported to Europe via Spain around 1519 and gained immediate popularity among the aristocratic classes.  English settlers brought turkeys to North America during the 17th century.  There were an estimated 10 million turkeys in the US during the 17th century, but by the 1930’s only 30,000 remained.  In the 1960’s and 1970’s, biologists started trapping wild turkeys and re-introducing them into other states. 

The three self-appointed caretakers of Astoria coordinate their schedules in group chats and text messages, sharing photos and updates on Astoria’s location and condition.  Keiko Komiya visits the turkey in the morning, and Stella Hamilton and Anke Frohlich are generally there in the afternoon, and for bedtime.  Astoria spends her days strutting around on the ground, then every evening (at 20 minutes after sunset) she flies up into a tree to spend the night.   Hamilton is a retired nurse and birder who was previously a big fan of Flaco, the Eurasian eagle owl set free from Central Park Zoo.  Komiya is an English student and avid birder whose first New York City celebrity bird was the mandarin duck she photographed daily in 2018.  Frohlich started photographing birds during the covid-19 pandemic and runs an alternative healing practice in Greenwich Village which allows her to give the birds priority.  The women do not worry about Astoria, but everything and everyone else.  Young kids chase her, dogs scare her, and people press on her for selfies.  Astoria also crosses State Street to bask in the warmth emanating from the Starbucks on the corner and the friends fear she will be hit by a vehicle.  Their fears are not unfounded.

THOUGHTS: While Astoria has grown a devoted fan club, she is not the only wild Turkey residing in New York.  “New York City is actually great habitat for a wild turkey,” Jessica Wilson, the executive director of NYC Bird Alliance, said. She noted that the birds are native to the area, have plenty to eat here and do not necessarily need turkey friends.  “They often join flocks, but they also are fine on their own — and in general, we try not to interfere with their social life.”  Perhaps we should treat people with the same respect.  Act for all.  Change is coming and it starts with you.

DET

February 14, 2026

I found it appropriate that in the middle of the Great Backyard Bird Count 2026 (February 13 to 16, 2026) that my Sunday paper (delivered on Saturday) would have a USA Today article on an annual lottery for the bald eagle tour in Monroe, Michigan.  There were approximately 1,200 entries for this year’s 30 lottery winners and their guests.  “It’s the largest number since the event began in 2008.  It shattered our previous record,” said Maddie Drury, park ranger with the US Fish & Wildlife Service who sponsors the tour.  Winners were driven out to the wooded area on the south end of the power plant, where Plum Creek and the power plant’s warm water discharge meets Lake Erie.  In winter the warm water draws fish, and the fish draw predators.  Amanda Schaub, communications strategist for the plant said, “Consistent with our Michigan Public Service Commission approved plan, the plant is scheduled to retire in 2032.”  DET Energy is committed to working closely with the community as they plan for the site’s future.

When I went online, I found several endangered or rare species have a home at the Detroit Edison (DTE) power plant facility.  Since the mid-1990’s, DTE Energy has supported peregrine falcon (Falco peregrinus) reintroduction and breeding programs in southeastern Michigan and near their power plants.  Employees assist with banding, tracking and rescuing at-risk chicks. Peregrines have been recorded nesting on the Monroe Power Plant grounds since 1994.  Over 100 adult and juvenile bald eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) have been counted near the shoreline at the Monroe Power Plant and nest regularly at the Fermi 2 Power Plant.  Apprentice linemen install utility poles in various bird projects, such as eagle habitat at the Lake Erie Metropark and Humbug Island within the Detroit River International Wildlife Refuge, as well as a great blue heron rookery at Lyon Oaks County Park.  These projects foster the bird population while giving apprentice linemen experience in installing tall poles without energized lines or power transmission equipment.

The DET Monroe Power Plant is home to other endangered species.  The American lotus (Nelumbo lutea) is listed as a threatened species in Michigan.  The plant naturally cleans the water in which it lives, which is important for the native fish and wildlife.  In partnership with the Lotus Garden Club of Monroe, DTE Energy opens the Monroe Power Plant property for guided tours of the flowerbeds.  Lake Sturgeon (Huso fulvescens) are the longest-living fish species in Michigan, with a lifespan of up to 100 years.  They can be over eight feet (2.5 m) in length and weigh 800 pounds (363 kg).  Sturgeons are listed as threatened or endangered by 19 of the 20 states within their original range in the US.  DTE deposited 765 tons (694 mt) of coal cinders (a byproduct of coal combustion), cobble and broken limestone in the Detroit River off Belle Isle to create spawning beds.  Common Terns (Sterna hirundo) once numbered in the thousands along the Detroit River but now only 250 breeding pairs can be found there.  DTE Energy partnered with others to create an artificial nesting island and nesting habitat.

THOUGHTS: Drury, who is based at the Detroit River International Wildlife Refuge in Trenton, calls bald eagles the “most successful conservation story of the US”.  For decades the insecticide DDT was widely used to kill insects.  Fish ate treated vegetation, birds ate the fish, and affected bald eagles laid fewer viable eggs.  In 1963, the continental US had just 417 mating pairs of bald eagles.  DDT was banned in 1972, and the eagles have bounced back.  In 2007, the US had 9,700 bald eagle mating pairs, and the bald eagle was removed from the endangered list.  By 2020, there were 71,000 breeding pairs.  The lottery for the DET Monroe Power Plant eagle tour typically opens right after Thanksgiving.  Act for all.  Change is coming and it starts with you.

Birds 2025

January 31, 2026

Today’s local newspaper (“Sunday”) ran a front-page story on how the cold weather is prime birding season around back yards and feeders.  This reminded me that I am even later this year in reporting my annual birding totals.  Once again, I saw several red-tailed hawks (Buteo jamaicensis) on the power lines going to and from town but was unable to get a picture, so they were not added to my count.  While I was able to take my usual trip to the wildlife area this year and did record five different species (long range).  However, the lighting was so bad I was unable to identify any but the wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) flock I noticed while trying to capture several deer (again long range) in a filed.  Another miss.  The end-of-year presence on my feeders was good as the cold weather brought the sparrows (genus, Passer), along with house (Haemorhous mexicanus) and purple (Haemorhous purpureus) finches.  The northern cardinals (Cardinalis cardinalis) did come back in mass but I saw only one or two blue jays (Cyanocitta cristata).  I have yet to clean out the bluebird (Sialia sialis) house but have seen the sparrows nosing around the entrance so I will need to get rid of the old debris for this year’s nesting.

All that said leads to my “great reveal” concerning my birder totals for 2025.  The number of feeders has fluctuated throughout the year as I began with 12 feeders offering different types of food.  The squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis) and grackles (Quiscalas quiscula) managed to take out my camera feeder, and the finches have all but abandoned the thistle seed feeder for some reason.  I also switched to safflower kernels rather than black oil sunflower in my two window feeders hoping to discourage the squirrels (it sort of works).  That leaves me with 9 active seed feeders to go along with the 9 hummingbird feeders.  Now, on to the results.  You may recall I recorded 26 species in my first year (2020), ended with a high of 52 species in 2021, dropped to 44 species in 2022, a low of 30 species in 2023, and then rebounded to 39 species in 2024.  During 2025 I was able to rise a little higher and recorded 44 different species.  My European sightings happened again as we took two trips, one to the Greek Isles (9 birds) and another up the Danube River (8 birds).  The bus ride to the Neuschwanstein Castle (Disney’s type site for his princess castles) also yielded 4 different species of raptors, but I was unable to document them.

Most of my sightings have been limited to the immediate area, but we are planning to expand that during 2026.  We are taking the RV along the interior to the Atlantic side of Florida and then back along the Gulf of Mexico as our return.  This will hopefully produce some new shore bird sightings.  We are then driving across Oklahoma to Arizona with a return through Utah.  This should record a few species of desert birds.  Then we are scheduled for an Alaskan cruise in June which should score some Pacific birds.  I am hoping between our trips I can raise my totals (and overall species count) to new levels this year.  We will see.

THOUGHTS: I am looking forward to participating in the Great Backyard Bird Count 2026 again this year.  The 2025 count had hundreds or thousands of people from all over the world and found 8,078 species of the world’s known species, or 158 more than in 2024.  Be sure to mark your calendars for the Great Backyard Bird Count 2026 (February 13 to February 16, 2026).  You can sign up and find how to participate at https://www.birdcount.org/participate.  Once again, birds are the (literal) canary in the mine shaft (earth) when it comes to gauging the health of our ecosystems.  Act for all.  Change is coming and it starts with you.

Snake-tail

December 30, 2025

It seems fitting that just before New Years I come across an article on ending relationships.  Female praying mantises are notorious for eating their mates during or after sex.  According to Christopher Oufiero, head of the Towson University Mantis Lab, mantis has some of the most diverse camouflage strategies in the animal kingdom and much of mantis behavior, especially mating, remains a mystery.  “Mantises are good at not being found.  It’s kind of what they do,” says Lohitashwa Garikipati, a doctoral student at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.  However, Oufiero and Garikipati were part of a study that found a dwarf mantis species in which males avoid this fate with an elaborate dance where it moves its abdomen.  Sometimes this is sinuously like the coils of a serpent and sometimes jerkily like the tail of a rattlesnake.  Their behavior inspires its name, the snake-tail mantis.

When I went online, I found the snake-tail mantises (Ameles serpentiscauda) are in an order of insects (Mantodea) that contain over 2,400 species in about 460 genera in 33 families.  The discovery of the snake-tail mantis began with a chance encounter in the summer of 2024 when on a remote beach in Sardinia, an Italian island in the Mediterranean Sea.  Battiston’s colleague Oscar Maioglio spotted some dwarf mantises on shrubs along the shoreline he thought resembled a known species of dwarf mantis (Ameles andreae), except that their wings were smaller than expected. He collected a few individuals to rear back in his lab.  When he and Maioglio saw the specimens mating they knew these mantises did not belong to any other known species.  The small wings and serpentine courtship dance of the collected specimens strongly suggested they belonged to a unique, never-before-documented species, and genetic analyses confirmed it.

One major open question is the function of these courtship displays.  Whatever the deeper meaning, scientists theorize that performing a courtship dance reduces the male’s risk of the female eating him after mating.  It seems to succeed as the researchers observed no sexual cannibalism among the lab-reared snake-tail mantises.  “Why or how selection for this mating display may have occurred remains to be seen,” says Garikipati. “But I think it is an interesting clue that tells us that these little animals are probably a lot more complicated than we give them credit for.”  There is some urgency behind Battiston’s eagerness to learn more about the snake-tail mantis. As far as he and his colleagues can tell, the new species is only found in a restricted area of a few hundred yards along the Sardinian coastline.  While most of this habitat lies inside a protected area, increasing tourism and overgrazing by sheep and goats could threaten the entire species’ existence.  To ensure the future of the snake-tail mantis, Battiston and his colleagues have proposed that the IUCN categorize it as Critically Endangered and recommended stricter measures to preserve its habitat.

THOUGHTS: While the male snake-tail mantis avoids the female abruptly ending the relationship, many human pairings end around Christmas and New Year’s.  Psychology Today says the holidays highlight how reality may not match one’s ideal.  The gift-giving, travel and parties also increase stress around money, a top area of conflict.  Meeting parents or navigating whose family to visit creates further tension and pressure, along with a perceived pressure to “define” the relationship.  The New Year acts as a natural reset point for evaluating life choices and can lead to a post-holiday breakup surge, causing January to become “breakup month”.  While breaking up may seem like getting your head bitten off, at least you are not a (male) mantis.  Relationships require work.  Act for all.  Change is coming and it starts with you.

Iguana

November 11, 2025

Credit…Daniel Mulcahy

The Morning Read of the NY Times feed included an article on a possible reprieve for a previously invasive reptile species.  Biologists say DNA evidence proves the lizard landed on Clarion Island nearly half a million years ago, long before any humans might have transported them from the mainland.  Researchers reported the discovery last month in the journal Ecology and Evolution, and the finding means that the animals should be able to continue living on Clarion Island, a remote, mostly uninhabited Mexican archipelago in the Pacific Ocean.  There are around 100 iguanas there, and scientists and locals alike assumed that they had been introduced by humans in the late 20th century because they had gone unmentioned in prior accounts of the island’s fauna.  “It was all speculative that they were introduced — no one ever tested it,” said Daniel Mulcahy, an evolutionary biologist at the Museum of Natural History in Berlin who is an author of the new study.  The government was planning to exterminate the invaders to protect island’s delicate ecosystem.  Mulcahy and his colleagues compared mitochondrial DNA, passed down maternally, from the Clarion iguanas and the mainland spiny-tailed iguanas and found a 1.5 % difference in their DNA.  That meant these spiny-tailed iguana are genetically distinct and could not be recent invaders.

When I went online, I found the spiny-tailed iguana (Ctenosaura pectinata) is a species of is a species of iguanid lizard found in eastern Mexico and extreme western Guatemala.  This iguana has distinctive keeled scales on its long tail, to which its common name refers.  It is one of the larger members of the genus Ctenosaura, capable of growing to 4.3 feet (1.3 m) in total length (including tail), with females being slightly smaller than males at 3.3 feet (1.0 m).  It usually has a brown or grey-brown colored back (dorsally), with a yellowish underbelly (ventral surface).  It has a crest of long spines which extend down the center of its back.  Mating generally occurs in spring with the male showing dominance and interest by head bobbing before chasing the female until he can catch her and subdue her.  Within eight to ten weeks, the female will dig a nest and lay clutches of up to 24 eggs which hatch in 90 days with the babies digging their way out of the sand.  Hatchlings are often bright green with no body pattern and juveniles are typically green with brown markings, although all-brown hatchlings have been recorded.

Some wonder how a 4-foot (1.2 m) black-and-yellow lizard went unnoticed on Clarion Island for decades.  Clarion’s landscape has changed dramatically in recent years. The island was covered in prickly pear cactus (genus, Opuntiathat) that made exploration difficult, but was consumed by sheep (Ovis aries) and pigs (Sus domesticus) introduced by thew Mexican Navy in the 1970’s.  Those animals are gone and a shrubland community (chaparral) remains.  The iguanas are wary of humans and hide when approached.  The destruction by sheep and pigs underscores the damage invasive animals can cause.  Island ecosystems are particularly vulnerable.  Rayna Bell, an evolutionary biologist at the California Academy of Sciences said, “This type of work is fundamental to conserving some of the world’s most unique and imperiled diversity.”  Mulcahy’s colleagues are working to spread the news to government officials in Mexico to stop the eradication program.

THOUGHTS: The spiny-tail iguana is a traditional food in Mexico, listed as “Least Concern” by the IUCN Redlist, but the species is listed on the Mexican Red List as threatened and it is illegal to hunt them.  Their presence on Clarion suggests a 700-mile trip on a floating mat of vegetation.  It would be the second-longest known iguana aquatic journey, topped by another species of iguanas traveling 5,000 miles from North America to Fiji.  Humans thought the 1947 Kon-Tiki expedition was amazing.  We are always outdone by nature.  Act for all.  Change is coming and it starts with you.

Pterodactylus

September 24, 2025

Toward the back of the front section of my local newspaper was a Reuters article about the demise of two flying reptiles.  Scientists suggest both specimens were caught in the powerful winds of tropical storms which snapped the upper arm bone (humerus) that helped support its membranous wing, then flung the helpless animal into a lagoon where they drowned and were covered by mud.  The exact same wind-caused fracture appeared during examinations on fossils of two individuals unearthed years ago in separate locales in the southern German state of Bavaria.  The fossils, of slightly different ages, were stored in two museum collections.  Paleontologist Rab Smyth of the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and lead author of the study published in the journal Current Biology, said, “We noticed the injuries completely by chance.”  Researchers nicknamed the two hatchlings Lucky and Lucky II.  While it was bad luck to be doomed by storms, it was good luck that paleontologists have been able to learn from their fossils about the anatomy of young pterosaurs.

When I went online, I found Pterodactylus (Ancient Greek, ‘winged finger’) is a genus of extinct pterosaurs thought to contain a single species (Pterodactylus antiquus).  This was the first pterosaur to be named and identified as a flying reptile and one of the first prehistoric reptiles to ever be discovered.  Fossil remains of Pterodactylus are primarily found in the Solnhofen limestone of Bavaria, Germany, which dates from the Late Jurassic period (Tithonian stage), about 150.8 to 148.5 million years ago, but fragmentary remains have been identified elsewhere in Europe and Africa.  Pterodactylus was a small pterosaur, with an adult wingspan at about 3 feet (1 m).  They possessed relatively short and broad wings, a lightly built body and a long, pointed beak lined with small, conical teeth.  Pterodactylus was a generalist carnivore that fed on invertebrates and vertebrates.  The wings were formed by a skin and muscle membrane stretching from its elongated fourth finger to its hind limbs and supported internally by collagen fibers and externally by keratinous ridges.  The species was small compared to other famous genera such as Pteranodon longiceps and Quetzalcoatlus northropi which lived during the Late Cretaceous.

Pterodactylus was the first pterosaur described by science in 1784 and fossils of more than 50 individuals of various sizes have been discovered.  The two in the study were a few days to weeks old when they died, with a wingspan less than 8 inches (20 cm).  The fossils of both animals show the upper arm bone broken in a diagonal split along the shaft which suggests the wing was bent under tremendous pressure (i.e., strong winds or waves during a storm).  The storm likely carried them several miles (km), from their original habitat and into the lagoon.  Smyth said, “While a broken wing alone probably would not have been immediately fatal, the fact that they sank quickly to the bottom suggests they inhaled water and drowned.”  They were rapidly buried in the fine sediments of the storm beds where the oxygen-poor conditions protected their delicate bodies from scavengers.

THOUGHTS: I was fascinated with dinosaurs as a boy and one of my favorites was Pterodactylus.  My small plastic models were marked with the name, length, and weight that I had committed to memory.  Paleontology began as a formal science in the early 1800’s and the discovery of dinosaurs in England was crucial in establishing the field.  The end of the 1960’s saw a surge in dinosaur research activity that is ongoing.  The large predators first depicted as sluggish creatures have been replaced by agile (often smaller) individuals.  When we take time to examine what we do not know it always leads to new comprehension.  That is also true with other people and cultures.  Act for all.  Change is coming and it starts with you.

Digger

August 21, 2025

Following my disappointment fishing while at the coast last week I decided to walk through the beach community and see if I could spot some birds that were not yet on my list.  I took the road through the community first to try and spot land birds.  I was able to see two species I already recorded, an American Crow (Corvus brachyrhynchos) and a flock of house sparrows (Passer domesticus).  It was not until I returned along the beach that I picked out several forms of gulls (California gull, Larus californicus; western gull, Larus occidentalis; short-billed gull, Larus brachyrhynchus) and a flock of white-winged scoter (Melanitta deglandi) ducks.  The beaches along the Puget Sound tend to be small well-worn rock rather than the sand I associat with other coasts.  This is harder to walk on, and it took me a while to get back to the house.  When I arrived, my daughter-in-law showed me a picture of the unusual wasp they had encountered on their beach walk (other direction).  It was a large golden digger sand wasp.

When I went online, I found the golden digger sand wasp (Sphex ichneumoneus), or great golden digger wasp or great golden sand digger, is a wasp in the family Sphecidae.  The wasp’s name comes from the Greek word for “tracker,” and is most well-known for its parasitic nesting behavior.  It is identified by the golden pubescence on its head and thorax (chest), its reddish orange legs, and partly reddish orange body.  Golden hairs cover the head and thorax (hence “golden”).  The digger has a long, slender waist (petiole).  Their hind region (metasoma) is black with the first couple of segments a brilliant orange-red that matches their legs.  Size varies from 1/2 to over 1 inch (1-1/4 to 2.5+ cm) long.  This wasp is native to the Western Hemisphere, from Canada to South America, and provisions its young with various types of paralyzed Orthoptera (grasshoppers and crickets). 

From May through August, great golden digger wasp females build their nests in sandy soils.  These consist of a descending shaft and side chambers for the young at right angles.  This makes it difficult to pull prey into a brood chamber without getting stuck and is one possible reason why the wasp always checks to ensure the path is clear before pulling its prey down by its antennae.  Female wasps commonly build their burrows nearby those of other females of their species and may even share a nest.  However, they will fight other wasps if they encounter them inside their burrow during prey retrieval.  By inspecting the unattended nest, the wasp avoids risking an encounter with another wasp while carrying its prey.  The digger will track and hunt their prey (i.e., tracker) and sting it with a paralyzing venom that keeps it alive, then flies (or drags) the prey to the nest.  At the nest the digger wasp lays down their paralyzed prey and enters her tunnel and checks to ensure that all is well.  Then she brings the prey down into a side chamber, lays an egg on the prey, and seals the chamber.  When the egg hatches it feeds on the prey through the winter, and the new wasp emerges from its side chamber in the spring and begins the cycle again. 

THOUGHTS: The golden digger sand wasp is like the cicada killer (Sphecius speciosus) I saw last week in Arkansas.  Both are large, solitary, build nests in the ground, are harmless to humans, and do not defend their nest or behave aggressively.  While they have stingers, they rarely sting humans unless they are stepped on.  The digger is a pollinator that preys on insects that are harmful and are helpful to have around your garden (or beach house!).  These are possibly the only wasps known to be attacked by birds.  House sparrows and American robins (Turdus migratorius) will attack to force the digger to drop its prey for the bird to eat.  I guess both the young and the birds are looking for an easy meal.  Act for all.  Change is coming and it starts with you.

Red-bellied

July 14, 2025

Last weekend Melissa called me into the kitchen to watch the large bird that had been battling two squirrels over “rights” to what was left in my soot feeder.  I grabbed my camera and by the time I arrived the squirrels had been driven off, but the bird was still there.  Melissa said she had watched the bird attack the two eastern gray squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis) for about 20 minutes.  The bird alternately flew at both squirrels keeping them at bay.  This was a new species identification for Melissa, and the bright red head led her to believe this was a red headed woodpecker (Melanerpes erythrocephalus).  I occasionally see one of these birds at my feeders and had even identified one early in January (although without a photo).  At first, I also thought it might be a red-headed woodpecker.  My apps instead identified this as a red-bellied woodpecker.

When I went online, I found the red-bellied woodpecker (Melanerpes carolinus) is a medium-sized woodpecker of the family Picidae.  While the species breeds mainly in the eastern US, it ranges as far south as Florida and as far north as Canada.  The most prominent feature is a vivid orange-red crown and nape, but this is not to be confused with a separate species in the same genus, the red-headed woodpecker.  The red-headed woodpecker has an entirely red head and neck, a solid black back, and white belly.  Red-bellied woodpeckers are 9 to 10.5 inches (22.85 to 26.7 cm) long, have a wingspan of 15 to 18 inches (38 to 46 cm), and weigh 2 to 3 ounces (57 to 91 g).  The red-bellied earns its name from the pale reddish tint on its lower underside.  Adults are mainly light gray on their face and underparts and have black and white barred patterns on their back, wings, and tail.  Adult males have a red cap going from the bill to the nape while females have a red patch on the nape and another above the bill.  White patches become visible on the wings in flight.  The reddish tinge on the belly is difficult to see in field identification.

I have never noticed the red spot on a red-bellied woodpecker and have instead identified them by the black and white barred pattern on their backs.  I always wondered why they were called red-bellied, and now I know.  Predators of adult, red-bellied woodpeckers include birds of prey such as sharp-shinned hawks (Accipiter striatus), Cooper’s hawks (Astur cooperii), black rat snake (Pantherophis alleghaniensis), and house cats (Felis catus).  Known predators of nestlings and eggs include red-headed woodpeckers, owls (Order, Strigiformes), pileated woodpeckers (Dryocopus pileatus), black rat snakes, and eastern gray squirrels.  When approached by a predator, the birds either hide from or harass the threat with alarm calls.  They will defend their nests and young aggressively and may directly attack predators that come near.  While this bird did not have a nest, it was aggressively defending its food supply.

THOUGHTS: By driving off the gray squirrels the red-bellied woodpecker was it was exerting its territorial rights.  A defended territory is typical of songbirds but is also found in many other orders of birds.  Territory may be held by one bird, a pair, or a flock and can be held for all or only part of a year.  It may be very large (eagles) and provide all the resources the bird needs or be very small such as nesting territories.  It may be vigorously defended or loosely guarded.  Typically, territories are defended against others of the same species but may also be defended against other species.  Humans also claim both small and large areas we define as ours and actively defend.  These are also shared, but generally only with those we define as “us”.  Globalization is forcing humans to make new choices on us and them.  Cooperation and sharing resources may provide for all.  Hoarding resources has and will always lead to conflict.  Act for all.  Change is coming and it starts with you.

Long-beaked

June 14

Charles Hamilton Smith circa 1837.

Biologists have confirmed the existence of a 200-million-year-old species of egg-laying mammal thought to be extinct.  Footage was captured in 2023 by Oxford University during an expedition to the Cyclops Mountains in Indonesia.  Researchers said the species had not been recorded in the region for more than 60 years (a dead specimen), but evidence of the animal’s existence was found in recent decades.  In 2007, researchers found “nose pokes” in the Cyclops, or the trace signs made when they forage underground for invertebrates.  Indigenous groups also reported sightings of the species in the past two decades.  In 2017 and 2018, researchers combined participatory mapping with indigenous and other knowledge to assess the probability the animals still existed.  Camera traps deployed in the Cyclops in 2022 and 2023 garnered 110 photos from 26 individual events.  In a paper published in the journal NPJ Biodiversity in May 2025, by combining modern technology with indigenous knowledge researchers confirmed the long-beaked echidna had been found,

When I went online, I found the Attenborough’s long-beaked echidna (Zaglossus attenboroughi), also known locally as Payangko, is one of three species from the genus Zaglossus that inhabits the island of New Guinea.  The species lives in the Cyclops Mountains near the cities of Sentani and Jayapura in the Indonesian province of Papua in Western New Guinea.  It is named in honor of naturalist Sir David Attenborough.  The long-beaked is the smallest member of the genus Zaglossus, being closer in size to the short-beaked echidna (Tachyglossus aculeatus).  The weight of the type specimen when it was alive was estimated to be 4.4 to 6.6 pounds (2 to 3 kg).  The male is larger than the female and is further differentiated by the spurs on its hind legs.  The species has five claws on each foot like the eastern long-beaked echidna, and has short, very fine and dense fur.  The diet of the long-beaked echidna consists primarily of earthworms, in contrast to the termites and ants preferred by the short-beaked echidna.  The long-beaked is listed as critically endangered by the IUCN, and there had been no confirmed sightings between its collection in 1961 and November 2023, when the first video footage of a living individual was recorded. 

The long-beaked echidna is not a social animal and only comes together once a year, in July, to mate.  The female then lays the eggs after about eight days, with the offspring staying in their mother’s pouch for around eight weeks.  The long-beaked is nocturnal and rolls up into a spiky ball like a hedgehog (family Erinaceidae) when it feels threatened.  According to the research paper, these are the “sole living representatives” of egg-laying (monotreme) lineage that diverged from marsupials and placental mammals (therians) more than 200 million years ago.  The long-beaked echidna also once lived in the Oenaka Range of Papua New Guinea, but the Cyclops Mountains are the only location where the long-beaked has been recorded in modern times.  The long-beaked echidna is one of just five egg-laying mammals in existence today, including the platypus and two modern echidnas.

THOUGHTS: The long beaked echidna were one of more than 2,000 “so-called lost species”, or species that have gone undocumented for sustained periods of time.  The research paper said, “Rediscoveries offer hope that others survive, especially in places where biological research has been limited.”  Only 3% of the earth’s land mass is unexplored, but over 80% of the ocean remains unexplored.  It is estimated that between 15,000 and 18,000 new species are discovered annually, in addition to lost species rediscovery.  While all types of species are discovered every year, insects are by far the most common.  There is still a lot that humans do not know about the earth and new discoveries are always possible.  Act for all.  Change is coming and it starts with you.

Inca

June 12, 2025

As I looked out my back window this afternoon, I saw a flash of copper as a bird flew from our window feeders to the pool deck.   At first, I thought it was one of the elusive mourning doves (Zenaida macroura) I see and hear frequently around our property (but not at our feeders or been able to get a picture).  The problem was that it seemed a little smaller than a mourning dove, and then there was that copper flash as the bird landed on the deck.  I enjoy watching the small passerines that flock to our feeders in the morning and evening.  I will even tolerate the common grackles (Quiscalus quiscula) that drive the other birds off and eat the entire feeder in short order.  That is as long as they do not arrive en masse.  I have watched them strip all eight feeders along the fence in less than 10 minutes.  Now I have taken to occasionally send Loki out to scare them away.  While he does not do anything except run into the yard, the grackles seem to be afraid of his size.  The bird on the deck seemed to be a species I was unfamiliar with.  I was able to get a photo of the bird before it flew off and I checked it against the google identification app.  It turns out it was a new bird, an Inca dove.

When I went online, I found the Inca dove (Columbina inca), also called the Mexican dove, is a small New World dove first described by French surgeon and naturalist René Lesson in 1847.  The Inca reaches 6.5 to 9.1 inches (16.5 to 23 cm) in length, weighs 1.1 to 2.0 ounces (30 to 58 g) and has an average wingspan of 11.2 inches (28.5 cm) and a max wingspan of 12.6 inches (32 cm).  The Inca is a slender species, with a gray-brown body covered in feathers that resemble a scaled pattern.  The tail is long and square and edged with white feathers that may flare out in flight.  The underwings are reddish (hence the copper I saw) and on takeoff produce a distinctive, quiet rattling noise.  The species ranges from Costa Rica in the south to the American Southwest in the north and is often common to abundant in suitable habitat.  This terrestrial species forms flocks in desert, scrubland, and cultivated areas and may also be found in urban settings where they feed on grass seeds and take advantage of the availability of water from agricultural and suburban irrigation.  During winter, Inca doves roost in communal huddles of 10 or more birds by making a pyramid formation that aids them retain body heat.  They often flock outside of their territories, with flocks growing up to 100 birds.  Its range has been expanding northward and southward in the past few decades. 

Despite being named after the Inca Empire, the species does not occur in any of the lands where the Inca empire existed.  When I looked at the range map for the Inca dove, I noticed it did not include Arkansas.  The closest it came was toward the top of Texas, or several 100 miles (320 km) to the south and west.  The Inca has in the past escaped or been deliberately released in the state of Florida in the US, but there is no evidence that the population is breeding.  It may only persist due to more releases or escapes.  The single bird I saw may have been blown off course by the current round of storms which have been coming up from Texas.  Or perhaps it just wanted to be a tourist in the Natural State (i.e., Arkansas).  Regardless, this qualifies as a rare bird sighting.  A rare bird sighting is observance of bird species that are uncommon in a particular region or that are considered at risk of extinction.  These sightings can include birds that are not typically found in a specific area due to changes in migration patterns, unusual weather conditions, or simply because they are very rare.

THOUGHTS: When I identified the Inca dove it became my first rare bird sighting.  I was a little skeptical being a newbie birder, but my daily rare bird notification listed another Arkansas sighting as well.  I posted the picture and have already gotten a Like.  Being an amateur and posting on a site of experts made me nervous.  Perhaps more of us should follow the advice of Eleanor Roosevelt – “Do one thing every day that scares you.” Act for all.  Change is coming and it starts with you.