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Updated: OK, this is how herons' circulatory systems work:
- Warm blood circulates in the body.
- Warm blood goes downward from the body toward the legs.
- As it passes the cooler blood returning from the legs toward the body, the warmth is passed from the downward blood to the upward blood.
- So because it gave up its warmth to the upward blood, the downward blood is cool as it arrives in the legs. This means there is little difference between the temperature of the legs and the temperature of the water (or air) the legs are standing in. Since there is little difference, the legs are not additionally cooled by exposure to cold water (or cold air).
- And because it received warmth from the downward blood, the upward blood is warm as it arrives back at the body. It stays warm in the body because of all those lovely feathers of insulation.
As far as the missing leg? I can't tell you where he hid it, but this heron does have two legs - the other one is simply tucked up out of the way - probably staying warm...
The tide was pretty high on the jetty and from a distance (I used digital zoom for this shot) they looked as though they were standing on water. No photoshopping was done to make them look as though they are standing on the water. I assume they all stayed in their spots until the tide went out because jetty was mostly under water
The rocks at Meigs Point, Hammonasset are all loose sediments, transported here by moving ice. They range in size from fine silt to large boulders. Connecticut and Long Island Sound were covered with glacial ice at least a mile thick about 21,000 years ago.
They have a perfectly good nest on the other side of the pond, but on this rainy afternoon they must have thought a spare nest would be a good thing. (Or maybe they were practicing their nest-building skills.) The new location, though, is right next to a picnic area so they are not likely to end up using it.
"Nest an open bowl in a large mound of aquatic vegetation, grasses, and rushes, lined with softer vegetation and a little down. Usually placed on mound on bank, island, or reed bed." - www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Mute_Swan/lifehistory
Here is a video I made of the "event." www.youtube.com/watch?v=HG-AEyBGu6g I got a kick out of applying Tchaikovsky's "Dance of the Swans" - it adds a little drama, don't you think?
On 10/19 I took my camera to Hammonasset, not knowing what I would find. I was surprised to see THOUSANDS of Tree Swallows flying everywhere. I guess they were in migration from farther north. It was in the 30s at 9 a.m., so I don't know how many insects they were finding in the air, although as time went on I did see insects closer to the ground. For a while I tried to capture the action, but the birds flew too fast and too erratically for me, so I just stood there and watched and listened. I could hear the snap of their wings as they passed, sometimes so close to me I could have reached out and touched them (if I could have moved my arm fast enough!). As I walked to the tip of Meig's Point I came upon a large Cedar in which hundreds of birds were taking turns resting. There was a lot of coming and going. From a distance, so as not to disturb them, I took these photos (at 1/2000 of a second). The close-ups are not very clear because they are massively cropped. In the 5th photo you can get a sense of how far away I was standing. By late morning the activity had died down, probably because they had continued their journey south.
Adult in flight. Hammonasset Beach S.P., Madison, Connecticut, USA. 24 February 2020. © Frank Mantlik
Seagulls may be a common sight, but they are interesting nonetheless. I made a "video" of 14 stills. The last five shots show a Herring Gull flying into the air (about 30 feet or more) above the Hammonasset park road with a shell, then dropping it to the road below. These shots were taken 30 seconds apart. Eventually the shell broke open and the gull was able to eat the creature inside.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDczpe0E26k
I've learned to distinguish between Herring Gulls (red spot on lower beak, dull pink legs) and Ring-billed Gulls (black ring around beak, greenish-yellow legs). Herring Gulls are slightly larger than Ring-billed Gulls. And, according to Cornell, Herring Gulls are pretty interesting:
- Herring Gulls prefer drinking freshwater, but they'll drink seawater when they must. Special glands located over the eyes allow them to excrete the salt that would otherwise dehydrate most animals, including us. The salty excretion can be seen dripping out of their nostrils and off the ends of their bills.
- Breeding brings special dietary challenges for Herring Gulls. During courtship, males feed their mates, losing fat reserves in the process. Then egg-laying reduces the females’ protein and bone calcium, and they seek out marine invertebrates and fish to replenish stores. After chicks hatch, both parents feed them day and night for up to 12 weeks, splitting foraging shifts to offer each chick up to half a pound of food per day as it nears fledging.
- Sibling rivalry is a problem in the bird world, too. The third chick in a Herring Gull clutch can have it especially tough. While the first two chicks hatch the same day, the third is born a day or two later, weighs less, gets less food, and grows more slowly.
Incubating Herring Gulls often pant to cool off. They orient their bodies to keep darker plumage out of direct sun as best they can, but short of dipping their feet and legs into water, their mouth lining is their best means of shedding heat.
- An adult Herring Gull was spotted bait-fishing. It floated bits of bread on the surface of a Paris pond and attacked goldfish feeding on the bread. It ate none of the bread itself, indicating deliberate tool use.
- Herring Gulls patrol shorelines and open ocean in widely scattered groups, soaring raptor-like and spiraling down to pick scraps off the surface. Individuals plunge-dive from near the surface and dip while paddling to take shallow prey. Rallying around fishing boats or refuse dumps, they are raucous and competitive, threatening and stealing from other birds. They'll prowl tide flats seeking out invertebrates, gobbling small items whole, picking apart larger prey, and dropping shellfish onto rocks to break them open. Tighter groups follow foraging whales, groups of dolphins, or schools of large fish in open water, hovering to nab small prey driven to the surface. Their opportunistic scavenging punctuates hours of bathing, preening, and “loafing” near food sources. (“Loafing” is a term behaviorists use to describe a bird that isn’t doing much of anything; many seabirds spend long hours this way.) Males establish breeding territories and both members of a bonded pair defend it with threatening postures, warning calls, and chase-attacks in air and on ground. Courtship rituals include mate-feeding, and pairs remain bonded as long as both live. They return to the same territories each breeding season and share the work through a month of incubation and three months of chick-raising. One parent is always at the nest until the chicks are at least a month old.
Cornell's range map shows Belted Kingfishers live year-round in CT. In early October this one had attracted a small crowd of birders at the salt pond at Meig's Point. Periodically it flew off the rock and dove into the pond. (I did not catch any action shots.)
Belted Kingfishers live mostly on a diet of fish including sticklebacks, mummichogs, trout, and stonerollers. They also eat crayfish and may eat other crustaceans, mollusks, insects, amphibians, reptiles, young birds, small mammals, and even berries. A kingfisher looks for prey from a perch that overhangs water, such as a bare branch, telephone wire, or pier piling. When it spots a fish or crayfish near the surface, it takes flight, dives with closed eyes, and grabs the prey in its bill with a pincer motion. Returning with its prize, it pounds the prey against the perch before swallowing it head first. It may also hover above the water instead of searching from a perch. As nestlings, Belted Kingfishers digest the bones and scales they consume, but by the time they leave the nest they begin disgorging pellets of fish skeletons and invertebrate shells.