Yellow-collared Scape Moth

Lately I have been seeing a few Yellow-collared Scape Moths (Cisseps fulvicollis). The one in the image above was photographed at Willowwood Arboretum; the one in the two images below was at Cape May Point State Park. Adults of this species are often present around flowers, particularly goldenrod, where they sip nectar. These brightly-colored moths mimic the appearance of wasps to discourage predators.

Yellow-collared Scape Moths are very similar to another moth species, Virginia Ctenucha (Ctenucha virginica). One character that differentiates the two species is that the Virginia Ctenucha has metallic blue on its thorax while the Yellow-collared Scape Moth has an all-black thorax. (Both have metallic blue abdomens.) Virginia Ctenuchas are also less likely to be active late in the season.

Shorebirds at Sandy Hook

There were lots of birders at Sandy Hook yesterday, perhaps inspired by the news of favorable weather for migration. I did not see many warblers (only 5 species), but it was clear that there was substantial movement last night. There were dozens of Yellow-rumped Warblers, particularly along the Fishermen's Trail near the hawk watch bunker. At Plum Island, the birds were changing over to a winter cast – Ruby-crowned and Golden-crowned Kinglets, White-throated Sparrows, and my first Dark-eyed Junco of the fall. Out on the beaches, most of the Laughing Gulls have moved on, and large flocks of Herring Gulls, Ring-billed Gulls, and Great Black-backed Gulls are taking their place. Winter waterfowl are not present in significant numbers yet, but it is only a matter of time until they are.

I enjoyed spending some time with the Sanderlings and Black-bellied Plovers at the end of the Fishermen's Trail. Sanderlings tend to cluster along the ocean's edge. As a wave recedes, they chase it to feed in the newly washed sand, and then they run back up the beach as a new wave breaks. When not feeding actively, they often loaf just a few feet from the waterline, as these Sanderlings are doing.

The dry spit where they were resting cannot have been very wide, perhaps two feet, with water on both sides.

As I was watching and photographing the Sanderlings, five Black-bellied Plovers flew in to join them. The birds all cleared away when a wave (probably amplified by the wake of a passing boat) washed completely over their resting spot.

Damselflies from Cape May

In addition to the masses of buckeyes and other butterflies, there were quite a few dragonflies and damselflies active in the marshes. Cape May usually sees a fair amount of southward migration from dragonflies, particularly Common Green Darners. Dragonflies are drawn to the cape for the same reasons that birds and migratory butterflies are: prevailing winds pushes migrants towards the coast, and southern New Jersey's geography funnels them towards the point. I was not very successful in photographing dragonflies because they insisted on flying around instead of perching nicely where I could shoot them. However, I did photograph a few damselflies.

The first is a forktail. I think this is a female Rambur's Forktail based on the orange thorax and the lack of a black shoulder stripe.

The second is a species I have posted here before, Familiar Bluet. I saw quite a few of these around Cape May Point State Park and the Meadows.

The third is one I have not identified yet. The posture suggests a spreadwing, but the markings suggest a bluet, possibly Familiar Bluet. I would be inclined to go with markings over posture, but I am going to try to find some more information before settling on an identification for it.

Loose Feathers #258

Bushtit / Photo by George Gentry (USFWS)

Birds and birding news

• A fossil penguin was recently discovered in Peru with intact feathers on its left wing. The feathers were preserved sufficiently for scientists to determine that the penguin had gray and brown plumage rather than the black and white familiar from modern penguins. For more on this discovery, read the blog posts at Laelaps and Not Exactly Rocket Science.
• Raptors can use one of three types of soaring to save energy while they are hunting or migrating: slope updrafts, thermals, or wind.
• Desert-nesting Bald Eagles in Arizona, a population still classed as endangered, increased their breeding population over the past year. There are now 104 breeding adults, and 44 eaglets fledged in 2010.
• The US Fish and Wildlife Service decided that the Gunnison Sage Grouse deserves protection under the Endangered Species Act but that they are precluded from protecting it because other species are more deserving.
• Climate change poses a significant risk for long-distance migratory birds since it may upset the timing of when food is available on their breeding grounds and stopover habitat.
• Birds native to New Zealand produce a smelly wax for preening; the scent is pungent enough to attract predators.
• The new president of Audubon is visiting the relatively new Debs Park in Los Angeles, an urban nature park. The park offers family nature walks in Spanish.
• The oldest Whimbrel in the world was banded in 1986 and was found breeding this year on the same island where it was banded. 
• New colonies of the Baudo Oropendola – and endangered species – were found in Colombia. The discovery raises the known world population of the species from less than a dozen to almost one hundred individuals.
• Birds in urban areas are exposed to more predators than birds in rural areas, but the greater number of predators does not increase the amount of nest predation.

Birds in the blogosphere

• Birding Dude: Floyd Bennett Field Blue Ribbon Panel Meeting (Queens)
• Tetrapod Zoology: The Cretaceous birds and pterosaurs of Cornet: part I, the birds / part II, the pterosaurs
• Round Robin: Do Siskins Move in Straight Lines?
• Sibley Guides: Bill size, not shape, distinguishes Cackling and Canada Goose 
• Punctuated Equilibrium: Fossil virus leaves evolutionary footprints in songbird DNA 
• ILBIRDER: Sparrows of Fall

Oil spill

• A progressive think tank argues that BP's oil spill could have been prevented with better regulation and enforcement.
• Gulf Coast Oil Spill: Addendum to Part I: An Interview with LSU Ornithologist Dr. James Van Remsen About the Gulf Oil Disaster
• Gulf Coast Oil Spill: Part 2: An Interview with LSU Ornithologist Dr. James Van Remsen About the Gulf Oil Disaster
• The Coast Guard is worried about the potential for an oil spill from Cuba's deepwater drilling.
• BP will pay $15 million for Clean Air Act violations at a Texas City facility.

Environment and biodiversity

• Reintroduction of gray wolves significantly changed the ecology of Yellowstone National Park. Elk numbers are reduced, and they tend to be more wary. That in turn allowed many streams to start flowing again, and the beaver and pronghorn populations have increased.
• The California Energy Commission issued a response to comments on the Ivanpah solar development.
• Heavy rains cause sewer overflows in New York City because the system is too antiquated to handle the volume of sewage and storm water.
• Twenty-two percent of the world's plants are at risk of extinction, with species in tropical rainforests having the greatest risk, according to a survey by the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, the Natural History Museum, and the IUCN. Another third of the species surveyed are too poorly documented to evaluate. 
• Montana and Idaho want to hold a hunt for gray wolves even though the species is federally endangered. According to a study, the hunt in Montana would halve the state's wolf population.
• 'Tis the season for brown marmorated stink bugs. The bugs try to find shelter within houses as the weather gets cooler.

Carnivals

• Circus of the Spineless #55
• I and the Bird #135
• Berry Go Round #31

Backyard Diptera

Lately I have been blogging a lot about butterflies, but those are not the only insects I have come across. Over the course of the summer, I saw a nice variety of flies in the backyard, and now that is is autumn, I am seeing a slightly different set of species. Flies are as Diptera, a large and diverse insect order that includes midges, gnats, crane flies, mosquitos, bee and wasp mimics, and a variety of other forms. Some of them, like mosquitos, no-see-ums, greenheads, and deer flies can be nasty biters. Many others are benign and perform useful services like preying on other insect pests, breaking down decayed material, or pollinating flowers. Here are a few that I have seen in the last week.

The first is a green bottle fly, a type of blow fly. This is in the genus Lucilia, probably L. sericata. It is consistent with that common species's features, anyway. A few other species have similar characteristics. I posted one of these back in June.

The second is a syrphid, Eristalis dimidiata. I have photographed other Syrphidae in the yard, including Toxomerus marginatus and Sericomyia sp. Earlier in the summer, another species in the genus, E. transversa, was very common in the yard. I only started seeing the E. dimidiata recently.

The last is an Asian Tiger Mosquito (Aedes albopictus). The bushy antennae and large palps suggest that this individual is a male. These mosquitos were introduced accidentally to North America in a shipment of tires in the 1980s. Their range is mostly in the southeast, but it extends northward at least as far as New Jersey. In my backyard, these are the only mosquitos I see (and feel) with any regularity. It may be just a subjective impression, but they seem to have a nastier bite than a lot of other mosquitos.

Winter Finch Forecast for 2010-2011

Purple Finch / USFWS Photo

Ron Pittaway, a respected Canadian ornithologist, recently released his winter finch forecast for the upcoming winter. It has already bounced around a few birding listserves; that link points to the version on eBird. The forecast will eventually be posted on the Ontario Field Ornithologists website, where you can see an archive of forecasts from past years. Pittaway's forecasts are written primarily for birders in Ontario, but they are useful for birders in the northeastern and mid-Atlantic U.S. as well.

Most migratory songbird species, such as wood warblers and thrushes, migrate south each winter because their primary food sources (invertebrates) are not available during northern winters. Other species, such as cardinals and chickadees, tend to stay where they are since their food sources are usually not disrupted. A small group of boreal species, mostly finches, migrates south in some years but not in others. These migrations, known as irruptions, are triggered by year-to-year changes in the seed crops of conifers, birches, aspens, and mountain-ashes in the boreal forest.

Which bird species will irrupt in a given year can be predicted on the basis of which seed crops are abundant and which are scarce. Here are a few species that may migrate south this winter:

Purple Finch: This finch winters in the north when the majority of deciduous and coniferous seed crops are abundant, which is not the case this year. Most Purple Finches will migrate south of Ontario this fall. A few may frequent feeders in southern Ontario. Purple Finch numbers have declined significantly in recent decades due in part to a decrease of spruce budworm outbreaks since the 1980s (Leckie and Cadman in Atlas of Breeding Birds of Ontario 2007).

Common Redpoll: Redpolls should irrupt into southern Canada and the northern United States this winter. The Common Redpoll's breeding range in Ontario is mainly in the Hudson Bay Lowlands from the Manitoba border southeast to southern James Bay (Leckie and Pittaway in Atlas of Breeding Birds of Ontario 2007). Redpolls in winter are a birch seed specialist and movements are linked in part to the size of the birch crop. The white birch crop is poor across much of northern Canada. Another indicator of an upcoming irruption was a good redpoll breeding season in 2010 with double and possibly triple broods reported in Quebec. High breeding success also was reported in Yukon. Samuel Denault of McGill University has shown that redpoll movements at Tadoussac, Quebec, are more related to reproductive success than to tree seed crops in the boreal forest. Redpolls will be attracted to the good birch seed crops on native white birch and European white birch in southern Ontario and to weedy fields. They should be frequent this winter at feeders offering nyger and black oil sunflower seeds. Watch for the larger, darker and browner "Greater" Common Redpolls (rostrata subspecies) in the flocks. It is reliably identified by its larger size and proportionally longer thicker bill and longer tail in direct comparison with "Southern" Common Redpolls (nominate flammea subspecies).

Hoary Redpoll: The breeding population in northern Ontario is the most southerly in the world (Leckie and Pittaway in Atlas of Breeding Birds of Ontario 2007). Careful checking of redpoll flocks should produce a few Hoary Redpolls. There are two subspecies. Most Hoaries seen in southern Canada and northern United States are "Southern" Hoary Redpolls (exilipes subspecies). During the last large redpoll irruption in 2007/2008, several "Hornemann's" Hoary Redpolls (nominate hornemanni subspecies) were found and supported by photographs. Hornemann's Redpoll was previously regarded as a great rarity south of the Arctic, but it may be more frequent than formerly believed. Hornemann's is most reliably identified by its much larger size in direct comparison with flammea Common Redpolls or exilipes Hoary Redpoll. Note that white birds loom larger than life among darker birds and size illusions are possible.

Red-breasted Nuthatch: This nuthatch is a conifer seed specialist when it winters in the north, thus its movements are triggered by the same crops as the boreal winter finches. The southward movement, which began in the summer, signaled the generally poor cone crops on spruces, balsam fir and white pine in the mixed coniferous/deciduous forest region across Ontario and in Atlantic Canada, New York and New England States. Red-breasted Nuthatches will be very scarce this winter in central Ontario such as Algonquin Park. White spruce crops are excellent in the northern half of the boreal forest, but it is uncertain how many Red-breasted Nuthatches will winter that far north.

Most other species are unlikely to come south because they have abundant food sources somewhere in the boreal forest. See the full forecast for comments on the rest of the irruptive species. The species comments are informative, even for birds that will not come south. Past forecasts usually included some notes on boreal raptors as well, but those seem to be left out this year.

Monarchs in Cape May

When I was in Cape May last week, the Monarch migration was not quite as spectacular as a week or two earlier, when thousands were counted as they left Cape May Point. Besides an apparent reduction in numbers, the Monarchs had to compete for my attention with the eleventy-billion Common Buckeyes around the state park, as well as numerous other species. Still, there were plenty of Monarchs around Cape May's gardens and natural areas.

This Monarch went deep into a flower to find some nectar.