Osprey with Fish at Indian Point Park, Corpus Christi, Texas. Osprey don’t frequent places I normally shoot, but they are fairly common in some nearby areas in winter. Expanding into adjacent areas will certainly expand the diversity of species encountered and photographed.
Over Christmas break and into the new year I have been reviewing my collection of images and deleting clunkers. In addition to freeing valuable hard drive space, this process has been educational. It has also made it possible to set new goals and standards for my photographic work. Addressing defects in the collection has lead to these new resolutions:
1) I will work harder at having the right lens at hand more often. Many of the clunkers need not have been so. The biggest clunker-maker is trying to use a telephoto in place of a macro. Yes, it is technically possible to take a close-up with a 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L that resembles a macro shot taken with a 100mm macro f/2.8L. The former, however, is a poor substitute that will invariably wind up being deleted.
2) I won’t take pictures that I know won’t turn out. The laws of physics dictate that if a bird is too far away or if the light is wrong it is pointless to take the shot, not matter how rare the species or how interesting the behavior.
3) I will weed images immediately after the shoot. Digital photography makes taking photos easy. Without diligent and serious-minded weeding, astronomical numbers build up on the computer.
4) I will endeavor to be more adventurous in choice of shooting location. It’s tempting to return to Brazos Bend State Park and Galveston’s East Beach again and again because I know that I will get some good shots. I have enough shots of Blue-winged Teal, Sanderlings, and American Coots, though!
Digitalispurpurea (Common Foxglove) at Olympic National Park, Washington: a very pretty garden escapee (i.e., alien invasive weed). Sometimes you need a macro lens. Hand-held, 100mm macro f/2.8L IS USM.
Little Blue Heron with Tadpole at Brazos Bend State Park, Texas Gulf Coast.
Over the past several decades the diversity and abundance of Amphibia have declined precipitously: estimates for the amphibian extinction rate range from tens to tens of thousands of times the typical background rate of species loss. Despite conservation efforts (Amphibian Ark) and some publicity, most people I speak to are completely unaware of this catastrophic decline. Over the past decade or so, it has become clear that there are several major causes. The most important appears to be habitat loss. As freshwater swamps and marshes are drained to build the endless suburban sprawl of tract housing, and forests are bulldozed into the chippers, amphibian habitats are dwindling. Acidification of lakes and ponds, other forms of pollution, and an infectious fungal disease (chytridiomycosis), are also implicated.
American Bullfrog (Rana catesbiana) at Brazos Bend State Park, Texas. American Bullfrogs are an abundant food source for waders along the Texas Gulf Coast. Luckily, bullfrogs appear to have resistance to chytridiomycosis.
Many think that the reason amphibians have been among the hardest hit groups in the current anthropogenic mass extinction event (the Holocene mass extinction) is because these animals have aquatic larval stages and a terrestrial or amphibious adult stage, and can be negatively impacted by changes in both the aquatic and terrestrial environments. The process of metamorphosis, which typically occurs in an aquatic environment (or at least an aqueous one–think about the bromeliad treefrog!), is biochemically sensitive. For these reasons, some refer to amphibians as the “canaries in the coal mine” of ecosystems.
Northern Red-legged Frog (Rana aurora) at Olympic National Park, Washington. In some places, the ground-cover vegetation of the temperate rain forests of the Pacific Northwest is alive with amphibians.
As a photographer, one of my favorite subjects is hunting waders: please see Stalking the Hunters. Along with fish, crawfish, and aquatic insects, amphibians (primarily frogs and tadpoles, and to a lesser extent salamanders) form a staple of the wader diet. Other predatory birds, Loggerhead Shrikes, for example, also eat amphibians. Shrikes are fascinating birds known to kill their prey by impaling it on sharp objects, usually thorns. On one, and only one, occasion we heard what we thought was a frog call coming from above. We looked up to notice a Loggerhead Shrike on wire over a frog-filled bayou. Was this a simple case of mimicry? Or deception—trying to get a frog to divulge its location? Research turned up no mention of Loggerheads making frog calls. Shrikes are known to deceive each other away from kills with frightening false alarm calls–so they’re not above trickery. The Asian Rufous-backed Shrike is an accomplished mimic, and, of course, the Northern Mockingbird is known to mimic frog calls, but a Loggerhead Shrike? We will continue to keep our eyes and ears peeled for this phenomenon. If we heard what what we think we heard, we hope the time a Shike’s frog-call goes unanswered never comes.
Green Tree Frog (Hyla cinerea) on Rose Thorn. Elisa captured this macabre image of a Loggerhead Shrike-impaled tree frog at Sabine Woods, Texas Gulf Coast. The shrike had just killed this frog and a mouse, whose decapitated body was impaled on some more rose thorns and whose head was impaled on some nearby barbed wire. As soon as Elisa finished the shoot and walked away, the shrike returned and reclaimed the mouse’s head.
As we’ve grown older, Elisa and I, like many people, have agreed to slowly divest ourselves of many of the material things that clutter our lives. I, for example, have decided that if I buy a new book, then I must discard two old books. If I acquire a trinket, I must discard two, and so on. As part of this process, we have decided to collect experiences and images rather than material objects. Birding is very much a part of this process. Becoming serious about birding has forced us to think about visiting places and acquiring experiences that we would have never considered before–for there is no reason to visit some of these places other than the birds. Many birders have life lists of species that they have observed. But as a near-novice birder, I have purposely avoided this approach because I fear that this would turn birding primarily into a quest for rare birds. Perhaps as I gain experience in birding I will switch to a “life list” philosophy, but for now I find as much interest and joy in a common sparrow as I do in the rarest of birds.
Whooping Crane at Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, Texas Gulf Coast. With only about 600 individuals surviving in the wild and in captivity, Whooping Cranes are among the rarest birds in the world. These majestic birds, the tallest in North America, summer in the Canadian Arctic and winter along the southern Texas Gulf Coast. Photo taken from a boat.Swamp Sparrow at Brazos Bend State Park, Texas. Swamp Sparrows are common but delightful winter residents along the Texas Gulf Coast. Photo taken near Pilant Lake.
This female Argiopeaurantia (aka, the black and yellow garden spider or writing spider) easily subdues a grasshopper that launched itself into her web after an unlucky jump.
While most visitors to Brazos Bend State Park keep an eye trained on the water for alligators, I seek the park’s lesser championed predators suspended in plain sight along swampy summer paths. But it wasn’t until I spotted this Argiope tending to her prey late last month that I realized we had missed the usual spider-o-rama fest that normally occurs late each summer and early fall – or did it miss us? A conversation with one of the park’s excellent naturalists confirmed that this has been a bad year for the conspicuous black and yellow spiders that typically drape the pathways with their giant webs. Two species’ females with this general description are readily observed–Argiope aurantia pictured above, and Nephila clavipes the golden silk orb weaver or banana spider, shown below.
The golden silk spider is known for its gold-colored silk that the female spins into webs reaching up to 3 feet in diameter. Visitors to Brazos Bend State Park can typically see large concentrations of these spiders along paths bordering swamps from late summer to early fall.
Why would spider populations plummet in one year’s time?
Could it be that last year’s drought put these spiders (most likely prey of last resort given their warning coloration and the danger of entanglement) in the precarious position of being the most conspicuous food source around for hungry, desperate birds? Perhaps the effect was compounded by a collapse of the arthropod food web?
In any case, we’ll be watching spider populations next season.
As a birder it seems that there is always something to look forward to–and not just the work-a-day longings for the next weekend or vacation. The precession of the equinoxes now deeply affect what I see and do. Like some pagan Celt or a boy waiting for the thaw, I connect with the seasons, how the tilted planet travels around the sun, and the flow of energy across the solar system and into the biosphere . . .
Male Pileated Woodpecker in nest cavity at Brazos Bend State Park, Texas. Woodpeckers in nest cavities are one of the real treats of spring. Sadly, this dead old tree, simultaneously home to at least three woodpecker nests (Downy, Red-bellied, and Pileated) fell over this spring.
