Saturday, August 30, 2008
Panning
Originally uploaded by eclectic echoes.
This is one of my older shots, but right now it is most appropriate for Wild, the theme of the current Life Photo cycle.
This great blue was captured launching itself out of the brackish pool on the property of UCONN’s Avery Point, headed for who knows where after getting a few fish and frogs from the pond. They are around the pond this time of the year. With my current situation Johann and Tammy accompany me to the school often and have taken to walking the pond area as well as running around the campus.
Watching Johann chase under the dragonflies and run with the swallows, like this heron he is free and just a little wild and it is beautiful. I am chaffing to be able to run with them and be just a little wild as well. Soon.
Classification
- Kingdom
- Animalia
- Phylum
- Chordata
- SubPhylum
- Vertebrata
- Class
- Aves
- Order
- Ciconiiformes
- Family
- Ardeidae
- Genus
- Ardea
- Species
- Ardea herodias
Life Photo Meme
Saturday, August 23, 2008
On our recent trip to Enders Island, we were treated to a marvelous display of a pair of Common Terns flying in formation as they hunted for schools of fish near the surface. The terns would hunt and swoop over the fish about 60-70 meters out into the sound, then race back to the rocks along the island. They repeated this at least four times before I noticed the juvenile sitting on a rock further down the island calling to the two adults. The lead adult had a small clupeoid fish in its beak and the trailing tern would not let the lead bird get clear. Eventually it did get clear long enough to and next to the juvenile and transfer the fish. The adult was airborne again in probably 5 seconds.
Terns are considered threatened in many states, including Connecticut and Rhode Island where the colony nesting sites are protected.
These two were hitting the water going after herring or some other clupeoid fish that were breaking the surface to escape submerged predators. Fish such as herring and sand lance make up the majority of the terns diet. They terns will also eat crustaceans, polychaetes and insects though that is less common.
- Kingdom
- Animalia
- Phylum
- Chordata
- Subphylum
- Vertebrata
- Class
- Aves
- Order
- Charadriiformes
- Family
- Laridae
- Genus
- Sterna
- Species
- Sterna hirundo
Update:
I should clarify that the common tern is not considered threatened on a national basis. Some states list them as threatened and there have been significant local declines in many areas – possibly tied to waterfront development trends and beach usage patterns. The IUCN considers them as Least Concern with a global population of 1,000,000 to 5,000,000 individuals globally (and they are truly a global species!)
One of two horseshoe crabs, Limulus polyphemus (Linnaeus, 1758), seen on a recent trip to the beach. The horseshoe crab is an ancient resident of the shores of Eastern North America, having changed very little since the early Paleozoic Era some 450 million years ago.
The name horseshoe crab is a bit of a misnomer as they are not crustaceans as crabs are, but are chelicerata like spiders, scorpions and ticks. All chelicerata lack the mandibles of crustaceans and other arthropods to chew food, but have pointed appendages called chelicerae (think spider fangs) to bring food to the mouth. Because the lack chewing structures though most chelicerates drink blood (ticks & mites) or inject digestive enzymes into their prey to pre-digest they food so they can then drink it. Horseshoe crabs are scavengers, eating molluscs, worms and bits of flesh. Lacking jaws they use their legs to tear food up and a gizzard filled with gravel and sand to further process the food.
Horseshoe crabs are primarily used as bait for fishermen. Unfortunately they are hacking up enough of them to significantly contribute to recent declines in the number of horseshoe crabs. Another contributing problem is beachfront development and traffic. Horseshoe crabs make their nests on beaches on the spring tide. There females make 15-20cm depressions in the sand just below the high water mark and lay a batch of eggs in the nest before dragging a male, clinging to her tail with special claspers, across the nest to fertilize the eggs. In total a large female may lay 60,000 eggs. On the next spring tide the eggs hatch and the larvae emerge. They will swim in the plankton for 5 to 7 days before settling to the bottom and spending a dozen years molting and growing before becoming sexually mature. They can live another 10 15 years as adults.
The egg nests are important for a number of migratory shorebird species which time their return to be on the beaches of the Del-Mar-Va peninsula and especially Delaware Bay during the horseshoe crab nesting season. Unfortunately with decreasing number of adults breeding there are significantly fewer nests. The cascading impact was enough to prompt New Jersey to ban taking horseshoe crabs for any reason other than for medical purposes.
The medical industry uses horseshoe crab blood to test serums for contamination as the blood of horseshoe crabs has a unique substance that clots in the presence of harmful bacteria. Horsecrabs are gathered and “donate” blood for use, then are returned to the sea where their blood volume quickly returns to normal levels. Oh, like cephalopods (and other molluscs) these are true blue bloods, since their blood does not contain iron based hemoglobin (like ours) but instead copper based hemocyanin which turns blue when exposed to oxygen.
Kingdom Animalia
Phylum Arthopoda
Subphylum Chelicerata
Class Merostomata
Order Xiphosura
Family Limulidae
Genus Limulus
Species Limulus polyphemus (Linnaeus, 1758)
Life is hard, but beautiful. Like all monarchs this little caterpillar will need to go through 5 instars then pupate before it can emerge as an adult and migrate south early this October. All along the way many predators will eat it if they discover the caterpillar. The compounds in milkweeds do help, but they are not a complete protection against all predators.
We watched the mother lay her egg on a butterfly weed plant in our garden. A few days later the egg was gone, along with a sizable chunk of leaf. Looking around carefully I found the caterpillar under another leaf on the plant.
Unfortunately we have not seen the caterpillar since. We are thankful that the the mother felt our garden was good enough, especially considering where it started from and all the work we’ve put into it. The garden was designed for the birds (lower garden) and butterflies (upper garden) and I think having a butterfly mother lay an egg in the upper garden was a mark of success. Hopefully, if we are here next year we will be able to report a successful egg to adult life-cycle from within the garden.
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Lepidoptera
Suborder: Macrolepidoptera
Family: Danaidae
Genus: Danaus
Species: Danaus plexippus
