View allAll Photos Tagged hammonassetstatepark
I was very surprised to have this bird surface 6ft. away from me. I followed it down the beach for a while snapping pictures when it surfaced.
Hammonasset State Park, Connecticut, USA.
There was a tornado warning the night we arrived at Hammonasset ... it had been raining all day and at one point we were washed off the road and into a diner at Fall River. At the campsite, wardens instructed everyone to batten down. How do you batten down a tiny tent?! So we got some beer and crawled into our tents, where we watched the most amazing surround-sound storm. The following morning, we heard that the tornado had touched down a few miles away ... at Fall River!
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.
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.
I made my way down to Hammonasset on a mild winter day in hopes of finding a Snowy Owl. I did not see one. I did see lots of birders and bird photographers though!
Juvenile whelks about to hatch. I cannot relate how excited I was to see them in their little 'houses'. Many invertebrate larvae have a planktonic stage (ie: they are released into the ocean and have to feed on other plankton to grow/survive) but these do not. These here are released as fully developed (though TINY) snails. Amazing to think that the adult shells are the size of your hand or larger!
Seen at Hammonasset in Sept 2013, on its way south to its wintering grounds in Mexico. Word is the Monarchs are now on their way back north again. If you have a garden, I hope you'll have some Milkweed (Asclepias) for their arrival!
At Hammonasset State Park
Just at a guess: the one showing off the left is a male, and the one on the right is a female who likes his style.
Photos of mollusks at Hammonasset State Park on 10/19. East of the popular beaches is the rocky walk to Meig's Point, with the waters of Long Island Sound on one side and marsh on the other side. The 3rd photo shows the scene where I found all these mollusks. At first I thought they were empty shells left by seagulls, but a closer look showed these shells were still inhabited by living creatures. Last photo shows human disturbance of the area.
We are so lucky to live near wonderful state parks like this!
Male portrait. Hammonasset Beach State Park, Madison, Connecticut, USA. 22 April 2019. © Frank Mantlik
Did you know Monarchs are not the only long-distance migrators? I recently learned Common Buckeyes also migrate south for the winter! Since I rarely see Buckeyes during the summer, and would like to, I decided to do some research into what kinds of host plants might entice them into my yard. Strangely, the plants on which adults lay eggs are all non-native, "introduced" plants (aka weeds) and exotic annuals - apparently no native plants. As it turns out, their "original ancestry has been traced to Africa" - which means the Buckeye is not native to our area either. But I can't see any harm in encouraging them. Host plants include narrowleaf plantain and snapdragons. I will be planting snapdragons in my yard next summer!
www.butterfliesandmoths.org/species/Junonia-coenia?fbclid...
www.thespruce.com/growing-and-caring-for-snapdragons-1402915
Seen along the Meig's Point trail at Hammonasset