Hunting Digital Plumes in the US and Beyond: Superb Sparrows featuring Nelson's, Swamp and Savannah plus Eastern Meadowlark and Western Kingbird

Friday, January 30, 2015

Superb Sparrows featuring Nelson's, Swamp and Savannah plus Eastern Meadowlark and Western Kingbird

[SW Florida. December 2014]

Nelson's Sparrow has proven to be stubbornly averse to photographic observation with this blogger's prior attempts having been resoundingly defeated and rendered utterly fruitless on more than one occasion. Would a winter trip to SW Florida finally break the jinx?

A quick tour of hotspots in Southwest Florida including Bunche Beach Preserve (Ft. Myers), Church Rd (Felda) and Festival Park in Cape Coral, yielded a thrilling assortment of iconic species -- including the elusive Nelson's -- with species such as:

Nelson's Sparrow
Swamp Sparrow
Savannah Sparrow
Florida Scrub-Jay (endemic)
Eastern Meadowlark
Western Kingbird; and,
Loggerhead Shrike

We start with the sparrows:

Optimistic that the time was ripe for lifting the curse of the "no show" Nelson's, this blogger jumped at the opportunity to meet up with Bob Pelkey behind the Publix at John Morris and Summerlin at Bunche Beach Preserve.

Nelson's Sparrow seen at Bunche Beach Preserve

After diligently slogging through the tall grass in marshy habitat, and frustratingly beguiled into mis-identification by the odd Palm Warbler, our quarry was finally sighted. However, it would take a repeat attempt before the Nelson's Sparrow would acquiesce to photography.

Nelson's Sparrow seen at Bunche Beach Preserve

Both Nelson's and Saltmarsh Sparrow can be found at this venue (indeed, both were seen) and their similarity can spark confusion. The difference boils down to the degree of buffiness and the boldness of the streaking on the flanks -- Nelson's is buffier overall while Saltmarh's streaking is crisper and bolder.

Nelson's Sparrow seen at Bunche Beach Preserve

Elation over the successful sighting and (digital) capture of the Nelson's outweighed any concern over soggy footwear due to water-logging in this marshy area. A small price to pay for a Lifer!

Not too far from the Nelson's was the other sparrow species -- Swamp Sparrow:

Swamp Sparrow seen at Bunche Beach

With a grey face, black eyeline, reddish back and an unmarked grey breast, the Swamp Sparrow ranges across the Eastern half of the US. Contrast this with the Nelson's Sparrow which is much more restricted in its distribution -- found breeding only in the interior US and coastal North Atlantic.

Swamp Sparrow seen at Bunche Beach

Our third sparrow in the series is Savannah -- observed well at Harns Marsh:

Savannah Sparrow seen at Harns Marsh

Harns Marsh has been reliable for sparrow observation on prior occasions (eg., a Grasshopper Sparrow in Feb 2013) and Savannah Sparrows on this visit were found fairly commonly -- alternately flushing from, and dropping into, the thick grasses.

Savannah Sparrow seen at Harns Marsh

Compared to its breeding plumage (eg., a specimen from Michigan in May), there is less yellow on the supercilium but otherwise both alternate and basic plumages are similar. Savannah Sparrows are found coast to coast in the US and it is uniquely the Western subspecies, the Belding's Savannah Sparrow, that tends to be darker and larger billed.

In Cape Coral, the target species was the Florida Scrub-Jay:

Florida Scrub-Jay seen at Festival Park

Endemic to Florida and classified as "Vulnerable", it is a delight to see these beautiful corvids amidst the ugly suburban sprawl of Cape Coral.

Florida Scrub-Jay seen at Festival Park

Also reliable at Festival Park is the unsung Icterid, Eastern Meadowlark:

Eastern Meadowlark seen at Festival Park

While many of our blackbirds are atrocious songsters (Grackles, Red-winged and Yellow-headed Blackbirds, etc), it is only the Orioles and Meadowlarks that can truly musically impress.

Eastern Meadowlark seen at Festival Park

Southern Florida is fortunate to attract a unique mix of overwintering flycatchers -- besides the drab Eastern Phoebe, there are the more flamboyant Scissor-tailed Flycatcher, Vermilion Flycatcher, and Western Kingbird as well.

While a trip with Bob to Church Rd failed to offer up Scissor-tailed Flycatcher, we were kept amused by a small group of Western Kingbird:

Western Kingbird seen at Church Rd

It is always a delight to observe these bold and noisy tyrant flycatchers.

Finally, Southern Florida is one of the few places where Loggerhead Shrike is thriving -- even in suburban areas:

Loggerhead Shrike seen at Festival Park

We end with a Bonus Bird:

Sandhill Crane seen at Harns Marsh

A Sandhill Crane flyby seen at Harns Marsh.

Sparrows are the "little brown jobs" that can both confound and delight in equal measure and a Lifer in the form of Nelson's Sparrow assured that this excursion to SW Florida was a success on many levels -- not least for finally breaking the Nelson's jinx!

1 comment:

Bob Pelkey said...: It is wonderful to be reminded of the sparrows wintering at San Carlos Bay, and see the other species you represent so well close to home in SW Florida, Hemant.

There was news of the government considering the install of billboards at the approach to Cape Coral at the bridges this week.; January 31, 2015 at 6:06 AM

What is Plume Hunting?

Plume hunting was big business in the late 1800's. Unfortunately, the dark side to the beauty of plumes led to the slaughter of millions of birds so women could wear fancy hats (Read about Plume Hunting).

Thankfully, in this age of digitization, we can capture most anything we want -- books, music, video, etc. -- digitally. And, with the advent of digital photography at the turn of the millennium, we can once again hunt for plumes -- but digitally; with none of the accompanying destruction. This blog is dedicated to capturing the beauty of nature reflected through the incredible diversity of our avifauna.

Reproduced below is ecofeminist Celia Thaxter's, "Woman’s Heartlessness" (Boston 1886; reproduced from Google Books) which was published at the time when plumes were worth their weight in gold and many species of birds were fast headed toward extinction:

WOMAN’S HEARTLESSNESS
By Celia Laighton Thaxter

When the Audubon Society was first organized, it seemed a comparatively simple thing to awaken in the minds of all bird-wearing women a sense of what their “decoration” involved. We flattered ourselves that the tender and compassionate heart of woman would at once respond to the appeal for mercy, but after many months of effort we are obliged to acknowledge ourselves mistaken in our estimate of that universal compassion, that tender heart in which we believed. Not among the ignorant and uncultivated so much as the educated and enlightened do we find the indifference and hardness that baffles and perplexes us. Not always, heaven be praised! But too often,--I think I may say in two-thirds of the cases to which we appeal. One lady said to me, “I think there is a great deal of sentiment wasted on the birds. There are so many of them, they will never be missed any more than mosquitoes. I shall put birds on my new bonnet.” This was a fond and devoted mother, a cultivated and accomplished woman. It seemed a desperate case, indeed, but still I strove with it. “Why do you give yourself so much trouble?” she asked. “They will soon go out of fashion, and there will be an end of it.” That may be,” I replied, “but fashion next year may order them back again, and how many women will have human feeling enough to refuse to wear them? It was merely waste of breath, however, and she went her way, a charnel-house of beaks and claws and bones and feathers and glass eyes upon her fatuous head.

Another, mockingly, says, “Why don’t you try to save the little fishes in the sea?” and continues to walk the world with dozens of warblers’ wings making her headgear hideous. Not one in fifty is found willing to remove at once the birds from her head, even if, languidly, she does acquiesce in the assertion that it is a cruel sin against nature to destroy them. “When these are worn out I am willing to promise not to buy any more,” is what we hear, and we are thankful, indeed, for even so much grace; but alas! birds never “wear out.” And as their wearer does not carry a placard stating their history, that they were bought last year, or perhaps given to her, and she does not intend to buy any more, her economy goes on setting the bad example, or it may be her indolence is to blame, one is as fatal as the other. Occasionally, but too rarely, we meet with a fine spirit, the fire of whose generous impulse consumes at once all selfish considerations, who recognizes the importance of her own responsibility, and whose action is swift as her thought to pluck our the murderous sign, and go forth free of its dishonor. And how refreshing is the sight of the birdless bonnet! The face beneath, no matter how plain it may be, seems to possess a gentle charm. She might have had birds, this woman, for they are cheap and plentiful enough, heaven knows! But she has them not, therefore she must wear within things infinitely precious,--namely, good sense, good taste, good feeling. Heaven bless every woman who dares turn her back on Fashion and go about thus beautifully adorned!

In one of the most widely circulated newspapers the fashionable news from Paris begins: “Birds are worn more than ever.” Birds “are worn!” Pitiful phrase! Sentence of deadly significance! “Birds are worn,”—as if that were final, as if all women must follow one another like a flock of sheep over a wall, and forget reason, forget the human heart within, forget everything but the empty pride of being “in the fashion.” Ah me, my fire-flecked oriole, watching your airy cradle from the friendly swinging elm bough, go get yourself an inky coat. Your beauty makes you but a target for the accursed gun that shatters your lovely life, quenches your delicious voice, destroys your love, your bliss, your dutiful cares, your whole beautiful being, that your dead body may disfigure some woman’s head and call all eyes to gaze at her! But no,--that will not save you. Blackbirds are not safe, they “are worn.” Carrion crows “are worn,” unsavory scavengers though they be. No matter on what they may have fed,--they “are worn.” Soar, swift sea-swallow,--I would it could be millions of miles away from the haunts of men; to the uttermost parts of the earth and the ocean carry your grace, your slender loveliness of shape, your matchless delicacy of tint and tone of color, soft, wondrous like gray cloud and silvery snow,--fly! dear and beautiful creature; seek the centre of the storm, the heart of the Arctic cold, the winter blast, they are not so unkind as—woman’s vanity. Do I not see you every day, your mocking semblance writhing as if in agony round female heads,--still and stark, sharp wings and tail pointing in stiff distress to heaven, your dried and ghastly head and beak dragged down to point to the face below, as if saying, “She did it.” The albatross of the Ancient Mariner is not more dreadful. Yesterday I saw three of you on one hat! Three terns at once, a horrible confusion of death and dismay.

Does any woman imagine these withered corpses (cured with arsenic) which she loves to carry about, are beautiful? Not so; the birds lost their beauty with their lives. Today I saw a mat woven of warblers' heads, spiked all over its surface with sharp beaks, set up on a bonnet and borne aloft by its possessor in pride! Twenty murders on one! and the face beneath bland and satisfied, for are not "Birds to be worn more than ever?" Flit, sandpiper, from the sea's margin to some loneliness remote and safe from the noble race of man! No longer in the soft May twilight call from cove to cove along the shore in notes that seem to breathe the very spirit of tender joy, of happy love, of sweet content; tones that mingle so divinely with the warm waves' murmur, with the south wind's balm, and sound in music through the dusk, long after the last crimson flash of sunset has faded from the sky year after year you come back to make your nest in the place you know and love, but you shall not live your humble, blissful, dutiful life, you shall not guard your treasured home, nor rejoice when your little ones break the silence with their first cry to you for food. You shall not shelter and protect and care for them with the same divine instinct you share with human mothers. No, some woman wants your corpse to carry on her head. You shall die that vanity, that "Fashion" may live.

I fear we no longer deserve these golden gifts of God. I would the birds could all emigrate to some friendlier planet peopled by a nobler race than ours, where they might live their sweet lives unmolested, and be treated with the respect, the consideration, and the grateful love which are their due. For we have almost forfeited our right to the blessing of their presence.

But still we venture to hope for a better future, still the Audubon and other societies work with heart and soul, to protect and save them, and we trust yet to see the day when women, one and all, will look upon the wearing of birds in its proper light,--namely, as a sign of heartlessness and a mark of ignominy and reproach.

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Friday, January 30, 2015

Superb Sparrows featuring Nelson's, Swamp and Savannah plus Eastern Meadowlark and Western Kingbird

1 comment:

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