ABCs of birds - Letter S

[Annette]

Snow Bunting

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Bunting

[Aafke]

S is for Shelduck

The Shelduck is a large kind of Duck.
We have lots of them. In Spring there are lots of babies and they create large groups of babies, 2 young female birds take care of them, they call it creches.

a few movies:
love is in the air for the Shelducks, look at the funny headmoves

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyMCnbMlsOs

for a little while out of the water

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3Qn-q3eT6s

greetings Aafke

[anneintoronto]

S is for Starling (classified in the phylum Chordata , subphylum Vertebrata, class Aves, order Passeriformes, family Sturnidae)  Mynahs, grackles, and (usually) the oxpeckers, are all part of the startling family!  Also called the Common Starling by those with a grudge!!

Okay, I'll take on the Not Beloved Starling.  In general, they are not liked, to put it mildly, as they form loud & noisy flocks and are just a plain ol' nuisance, as they drive smaller, more desirable birds away.  Why is smaller always better...?  They are actually Old World birds, which were introduced into New York, in the latter part of the 1800s, thinking that the Starlings would eat away their problem with an infestation of bugs, but, once they were full to the brim of their crops,  they flew on and spread efficiently across the entire North American Continent.  Gotta love a survivor!!  Well, maybe not...  Anyway, Starlings have black feathers, which are iridescent and caught in the right light, show lovely yellow dots mixed in with greens and blues.  They have a long, yellow bill which is good for debugging and stabbing berries and recognisable short, stubby tails ("Short tail = Starling, Long tail = Grackle"  Learned that saying when I just a little squirt!) .  At night, they love to pick a house covered with vines, fitting every last tail in and creating such a racket that neighbours have been known to secretly rip the vines down in the dark of night, much to the consternation of the house owner!!  Really!  Oddly enough, the word to describe a bunch of these characters is a "murmuration" -- why I don't know, as they sure don't murmur...  They also are known to form into incredibly huge ribbons doing an amazing dance across the sky!  It is quite breath-taking! Check this out:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_9175000/9175793.stm

The strange thing for me was that we had no Starlings all Summer!  The wee sparrows were in seventh heaven!  Nothing to fight with over food, except the pigeons, and they were faster!  But, when I was trying to go to sleep at 5am, it was quiet...too quiet!!  No Starlings!  I asked for an immediate delivery from Rochester, but none came until a few days ago...  It's murder getting anything over our Canada-USA border!!  And the duty tax...well, never mind.

I am attaching three photos -- none of which is much good, but you can find Starlings in them, if you get out your magnifying glass!



These trees have been sitting covered with uneaten red berries, until the Starlings finally appeared a few days ago!  Now these birds are in ecstaticy!  Sorry about the litter -- very windy day and I'd already picked up my 10 pieces of litter for the day...  Oh yeah -- the black spots are the Starlings!



Again, the red berries, the black things, which are the Starlings!



This is tricky...  In the sky, to the (picture's) right of the obnoxious round sign is a large murmuration of Starlings heading for said sign and the building around it, including the metal staircase.  This was at the intersection Yonge and Dundas Streets -- right downtown.  There were hundreds and hundreds of them and could be heard over the downtown noises, which is impressive!  It was interesting how no one else was interested -- although I stopped several groups of people and pointed the Starlings out...  Anyway, get out those magnifying glasses or you'll just have to trust me! 

And, just in case you are into architecture, more than birds, here is another definition of Starling:

star·ling
• n. a wooden pile erected with others around or just upstream of a bridge or pier to protect it from the current or floating objects. (The Oxford Pocket Dictionary of Current English | 2006 )

Each to his or her own! 

Anne in Toronto
 

[gayle]

S is for Shelduck

The Shelduck is a large kind of Duck.

Aafke, your photographs and videos are wonderful!  Thank you so much for sharing!  And for thanks also for devising this ABC of birds!

Gayle

[dale]

Aafke, your photographs and videos are wonderful!  Thank you so much for sharing!  And for thanks also for devising this ABC of birds!  Gayle 

I second that. Thank you again, Aafke. This was a great idea.

[Patti from Kentucky]

S is for Sulphur-bellied Flycatcher.

This bird is primarily a Mexican/Central American bird, but some of them hang out in the mountains of southeastern Arizona, which is where I saw it.

Here's more info on the bird:
http://identify.whatbird.com/obj/396/overview/Sulphur-bellied_Flycatcher.aspx

[Patti from Kentucky]

S is for sucky picture of a Scarlet Tanager!  Taken in Lake Erie this past may, where, like a typical tanager, they like to hang up high in a dark tree canopy, where the camera's flash doesn't reach.

One of my favorite tanager experiences was at a forest in Western Kentucky where we saw a pair in a large oak flying out one a time to catch bees in mid-air!

[gayle]

Snow Geese

More on Snow Geese.  As Patti pointed out, conservation have worked far too well as populations are now in the millions.  The tundra breeding grounds are being degraded and as other species prefer the same areas, those populations are suffering.  A big reason for the rebound of snow geese is the good condition of the birds on their winter grounds.  In Northern California, for example, in  the northern end of the Central Valley the principal agricultural crop is rice.  In the fall, rice growers flood the paddies allowing the geese to harvest the gleanings.  In addition, wild life reserve areas are planted in crops specifically for birds to harvest.

Bag limits on snow geese have been increased to 20 per day.  Even so hunting has not dented the population.

Below are some flocks in Northern California.

There are some amazing photographs from above in the tundra in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge:  Seasons of Life and Land by  Subhankar Banarjee.

And to totally blow your mind see the video of 1.2 million snow geese at Squaw Creek National Wild Life Refuge in Missouri:

http://vimeo.com/3856735

Gayle

[gayle]

Snow Geese (yet again)

Still more snow geese!

These photographs are of snow geese in the air.  By the last one they finally get it together!

Gayle

[Patti from Kentucky]

Snow Geese

More on Snow Geese.  As Patti pointed out, conservation have worked far too well as populations are now in the millions.  The tundra breeding grounds are being degraded and as other species prefer the same areas, those populations are suffering.

Gayle

I shot several videos and photos that attempted to capture the snow geese phenomenon, and couldn't quite do it...but there were only a few tens of thousands at the refuge I visited, not over a million!  I know I should be wringing my hands over the degradation of the breeding grounds (and I am concerned about that), but experiencing thousands of birds swirling in a chaotic, cacophonous mass is one of those top 20 wildlife experiences...

Patti

[gayle]

Sandpiper

I found this little beauty in the Pribilof's and made no attempt to further identify it!

Years ago when I first became seriously interested in birds, a friend and I were strolling along Ocean Beach in San Francisco.  We came upon a group of small sand pipers flitting in and out with the waves,  Confident that I could identify them once I got to my book, I memorized the characteristics.  At home, my book showed fifty or so sandpipers.  Since then, I eschew labels and enjoy them for their themselves!

Gayle

[gayle]

Song sparrow

This is a lovely rendition by Rod McIver, a writer and painter of nature.

Gayle

[gayle]

Starling

I'm with you, Anne.  Starlings may be nuisance foreigners, but individually, they are nice to look at and watch the iridescence change colors n the sunlight!

Gayle

[gayle]

Southern White-faced Scops Owl

This is a fully nocturnal small owl of South Africa.  A screen shot from safari.tv.

Gayle

[Patti from Kentucky]

Starling

I'm with you, Anne.  Starlings may be nuisance foreigners, but individually, they are nice to look at and watch the iridescence change colors n the sunlight!

Gayle

Gayle, I'm sure you have a photo of a starling, but isn't this a grackle?