October 10, 2021: Early Fall Flowers
The shorebirds we have been enjoying have headed south. Bird migration is at its peak. As I walk around the lagoon these lovely fall days, I can’t help but notice the colorful flowers that are in full bloom. One of my favorites – Asters.
Here at the Mill, we have white and violet or blue varieties. They are about 1 to 2 feet in height, bushy with many small daisy-like flowers. While they are difficult to identify precisely, my Peterson Wildflower Guidebook gives me several possibilities.
We have pictured the New England Aster and Small White Aster.
Many pollinators and small birds can be found among the flowers and leaves. Several types of Goldenrod add to the color mix, and soon the trees will begin their fall transition.
Hope to see you out there, happy birding!
The Lesser Yellowlegs is a graceful, slender, medium-sized shorebird recognized by its bright yellow legs and distinctive “tu tu” call. It is an active forager, often running in shallow water to catch invertebrates, especially snails, flies, beetles, and dragonflies of all life stages.
The Spotted Sandpiper is a regular spring and fall visitor. The spots are part of their spring breeding plumage. Although they lose those spots in fall, they can be easily identified by their scurrying over the rocks and mud, their tails often bobbing up and down, imitating wave action, hoping to capture an unsuspecting insect.
species of sandpipers. As they return to their wintering grounds in South America, they make stops at our inland lakes and ponds. One of the smallest is the Least Sandpiper, only 6 inches in length. However, if you look closely, you will notice yellow legs, although they are sometimes obscured by the mud that gets splattered around!
Many birds are flying over the Lagoon. Maybe you have seen the Cedar Waxwings and Tree Swallows. But one of the more interesting birds is the Chimney Swift. They can be easily identified by their silhouette in flight. Very dark with a cigar-shaped appearance, this bird spends almost its entire life airborne. When it lands, it can’t perch—it simply clings to vertical walls.
Chimney Swifts now nest primarily in chimneys and other manmade sites with vertical surfaces and low light (including air vents, old wells, abandoned cisterns, outhouses, boathouses, garages, silos, barns, lighthouses, and firewood sheds).
TREE SWALLOWS – The Tree Swallow is about five inches long. It has a forked tail, metallic green to blue head, back and wing feathers, and white feathers on its underside. Females are duller in color.
A very large population of CEDAR WAXWINGS – A treat to find in your binocular view field, the Cedar Waxwing is a silky, shiny collection of brown, gray, and lemon-yellow, accented with a subdued crest, rakish black mask, and brilliant-red wax droplets on the wing feathers. Cedar waxwings were discussed in a Spotlight from February 2021.
Just back from a month-long family reunion, I was greeted by the lovely sound of a House Wren. A small birdhouse under my deck had remained empty. Now–nest-building activity, with the hope of another wren family!
They eat a wide variety of insects and spiders, including beetles, caterpillars, earwigs, and daddy longlegs, as well as smaller numbers of more mobile insects such as flies, leafhoppers, and springtails. Maybe our natural insect control?
Sure enough, you have just heard the Gray Catbird make some of its very loud vocalizations. The males keep up an almost continuous chatter trying to sound very attractive to the females. A medium-sized gray bird with a black cap and bright rusty feathers under the tail, Gray Catbirds are relatives of mockingbirds and thrashers.
By now many of you have been hearing and seeing the very bright red male Northern Cardinal–calling from the treetops, trying very hard to defend the territory that he has selected. He will chase off intruding males, even going so far as to crash into windows, thinking his reflection is another male.
Be a part of birding’s biggest team! Global Big Day on May 8th is an annual celebration of the birds around you. Migration is in full swing. They are singing their best songs and are in their best colors.
Global Big Day runs from midnight to midnight, and you can report what you find to hersheysmillnature#gmail.com. For each observation, please note the time and location (Village name is fine). HMNG will compile our sightings and send in a report.
An interesting duck-like bird has been frequenting the small pond area along the nature trail. The American Coot can be identified by its dark grey color and white beak. A small detail that’s often overlooked is a faint red strip near the very tip of its beak.
Although it swims like a duck, the American Coot does not have webbed feet like a duck. Instead, each one of the Coot’s long toes has broad lobes of skin that help it kick through the water. The broad lobes fold back each time the bird lifts its foot, so they don’t impede walking on dry land. When taking flight, they must patter across the water, flapping their wings furiously, before becoming airborne.
They eat plant material, including stems, leaves, and seeds of pondweeds, sedges, grasses, and many others, as well as a lot of algae. Insects, tadpoles, fish, worms and snails can also be part of their diet