Yellow-throated Warbler

Admittedly, I have some favorite birds among the locals we see out in the Wounded Wetlands. This one is a rather dull monochrome black and white nymph, save for a bright yellow throat which it seems so happy to display. 

It is a true "southerner" among the warblers, breeding throughout  much of the southeastern US but mostly farther north of us on the Florida peninsula. Many spend their winters here in south Florida. It is in the process of invading the more northern States. I even photographed some which were breeding near our (then) second home in northeastern Illinois. 

The Yellow-throated Warbler loves to forage high in the trees, often creeping along gleaning insects among the leaves. :



These elusive habits frustrate my photographic preferences. I encountered one on November 29. I had fleeting views







On December 8, at another location, I was surprised when one of two which were foraging in a Live Oak posed out in the open for a few seconds, enough for burst of photos. The next four were among about a  dozen which I took during a two-second interval:









It showed itself on a higher branch:





They are rather solitary, sometimes appearing in pairs, but I have never encountered them in flocks. They seem disposed to flash their golden throat patches:



This is my first photograph of the species, back on March 1, 2010. It was in a palm tree:



In our our south Florida neighborhood they often glean insects among the flowers and fruit of the many Royal Palms, so high up that the birds are difficult to spot:



Royal Palms carry clumps of both male and female flowers (the latter are to the left) in the same tree, along with ripening nut-like fruit. 



The wispy male flowers attract many insects. Pollen sometimes covers the ground beneath a Royal Palm, "Florida snow:"



Here is MaryLou walking out in front of me with her flashlight just before 6:00 AM on December 11, nearly an hour before sunrise. I took this photo with my new iPhone 11 Pro Max. The gravel road is lined with Royal Palms and the Full Cold Moon was setting in front of us. It was almost pitch dark save for the waning moonlight. Remarkably, the low-light resolution of this camera even captured the stars in the sky (click on image for enlarged view):



Here is an iPhone photo of the pine bank in the lake at 6:47 AM that morning, looking westward about five minutes before sunrise:




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Corpus Christi beach before Hurricane Harvey

We spent 5 days on North Padre Island, just outside Corpus Christi, Texas, with our daughter, her husband and their two daughters. We departed on August 20, less than a week before Hurricane Harvey made a direct strike. Our condominium was located on the beachfront, third floor. Our bed was situated right next to a glass wall which overlooked the beach and the expanse of the Gulf of Mexico:



These are views which greeted us at sunrise:







Mary Lou and I walked the beach early each morning. Our companions along the way were friendly humans...



...and a few feathered critters. Sanderlings scurried back and forth as the surf rolled in and receded:







Laughing Gulls were numerous. They exchange their black heads for "earmuffs" at the end of breeding season:



This adult Herring Gull has a yellow bill and develops a few dark head streaks as winter approaches.



A Royal Tern flew overhead:



The Willet is a large sandpiper with a substantial straight bill. It flashes white wing patches in flight and loudly calls out its name: 





Ruddy Turnstones were quite numerous:



A special treat was this tiny Piping Plover, a threatened species (and endangered in the Great Lakes area) with a yellow-orange flag and a blue-green band respectively on its left and right upper legs. The colors indicate it came from the northern Great Plains states. The light was poor and I could not read the number on the flag, and it flew off before I could draw nearer:





The younger family members went fishing from a pier at night, and I joined them. I tried out the low-light performance of my new mirrorless camera. These images were hand-held and brightened in post-processing but no filters were applied:





I assume that the green lights under the pier are intended to attract fish:



At Port Aransas, we took a successful dolphin-watching boat tour, but I got no decent photos because of my poor reflexes and the annoying shutter lag with my new camera. 

This is a view of the harbor over the "fence" on the stern of the boat. I did not realize how drastically this scene would change only a few days later:



The boat captain pointed out a flock of Roseate Spoonbills, which he called "Texas Flamingos:"



The Lydia Ann Lighthouse, placed into service in 1857, guards the passage between the Gulf and the bay. Hurricanes destroyed the outbuildings several times, the worst in 1916 and 1919. It was deactivated in 1952 and is now under private ownership. The light was restored and returned to service in 1988 as a private aid to navigation:



On my 82nd birthday, just a week after I took these photos, the eye of Hurricane Harvey had already passed directly over Port Aransas and was then producing massive devastation in Houston, Texas.  My birthday occurs at the height of hurricane season. In recent years, four Atlantic and Gulf hurricanes made landfall on August 29: Katrina (2005) Gustav (2008) and Isaac (2012). 

At this point I have not heard how the lighthouse fared. I was reminded of how I spent my birthday when we lived New Orleans in 1969. I was in a school which served as a hurricane shelter, providing medical care to hundreds of evacuees after Camille struck on August 17. At that time it was the worst hurricane to ever strike the US mainland. See: Remembering Hurricane Camille

An excerpt: Remarkably, these words were written in 1999: “For many, Camille is a distant memory, an historical footnote from a time long gone. But Camille is also a harbinger of disasters to come. Another storm of Camille’s intensity will strike the United States, the only question is when. When this future storm strikes, it will make landfall over conditions drastically different from those in 1969. The hurricane-prone regions of the United States have developed dramatically as people have moved to the coast and the nation’s wealth has grown. Estimates of potential losses from a single hurricane approach $100 billion.”

[Thirty Years After Hurricane Camille: Lessons Learned, Lessons Lost, by Roger A. Pielke, Jr., Chantal Simonpietri, and Jennifer Oxelson ,12 July 1999]

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Please visit the links to all these memes to see some excellent photos on display

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Contemplating Red-shouldered Hawks

The entrance to our humble birding patch is defined by a gate and chain-link fence. Royal Palms line both sides of the gravel road which leads to a wet prairies, woodlands and a lake:



This is the view looking back down the road before sunrise:



View of the lake on a murky morning this week, just before sunrise:



This past year our Homeowners Association planted hedges of Firebush (Hamelia patens), a most welcome innovation. Their blooms attract wintering hummingbirds and also butterflies such as this Zebra heliconian:



A roosting Red-shouldered Hawk strikes a characteristic pose. It appears to be deep in thought, with head gently bowed, chin to chest. Its mind must be so far off, meditating, contemplating its place in the order of nature? Might I startle it into awareness by touching its red shoulder?



Of course, this is far from the truth. The hawk is keenly aware of the surroundings. Sharp eyes are actually watching for any scant movement which might betray the presence of a prey item, whether insect, reptile, amphibian, small mammal or bird. Immobility and stealth are essential assets for a successful hunt.

Adult Red-shouldered Hawks vary from very colorful (as above) to rather pale. Those native to Florida tend to have a sun-bleached appearance, due to genetic variation rather than the effects of UV rays:





Immature Red-shouldered hawks also vary somewhat in the intensity of their streaked plumage, which they retain for about 18 months:





The red on the adults' shoulders shows up best in flight:



This juvenile Red-shouldered hawk exhibits a more useful identifying mark. The outer primaries are white at their base, creating a light band or "window" near its wingtips:



I usually hear and see one or more of this species on our morning walks in the local wetlands. This is a handsome adult bird:



They prefer wetland habitats, and their diet varies by location. Amphibians, reptiles and invertebrates comprise about three-quarters  of their prey in southern states, but studies in Quebec, Massachusetts, Wisconsin and Maryland have revealed a predominance of mammals. They also capture birds but are usually unsuccessful in such attempts.

One immature Red-shouldered Hawk currently favors an area along the entrance to our birding patch. It roosts in the tall Royal Palms along the sides of the road. Here it perches on a clump of the palm's fruit:









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Linking to Misty's  CAMERA CRITTERS,

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Linking to WEEKEND REFLECTIONS by James

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Linking to Wild Bird Wednesday by Stewart

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Linking to Wordless Wednesday (on Tuesday) by NC Sue
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Please visit the links to all these memes to see some excellent photos on display
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