The first ice of the season on the Wetlands.

The ice will soon be history, all gone. I, or we, know that the ice will be gone within a day or two since the TV, internet, and radio tells us these things ahead of time. But for some of the creatures that live in and depend on the Wetlands for food, ice is not a good thing and it can’t be predicted when it will go away. The kingfisher who needs to dive into water to catch fish, the heron, egret, mergansers, and others don’t know when the ice will melt. Should they move on, or wait it out?

The birds can afford to hang out for a few days to see what will happen, after all, they have wings and can move to bigger water if things don’t improve. They can be at Falls Lake in minutes and there are many other local ponds that are a bit deeper than our Wetlands and which may not freeze as quickly.

A frozen shiner.

The photos that you see here were taken on January 4th and show some of the birds who decided to stick it out long enough to see if the water would open up for them.

But first, some of the shiners which have been huddled up in a shallow corner of the Wetlands for nearly a month now did not fare well. However, most of them, the ones not yet eaten by the birds that you see in the photos, are still splashing around in the water and have actually kept a small bit of water open because of their thrashing about.

The Great Egret (below) is probably the same bird seen in the Wetlands on the 22nd of December (it was also seen on the 24th).

The new addition to the Wetlands, a Great Egret, rests while the ice melts.

This egret is more people tolerant than its larger relative, the Great Blue Heron, and allows for a closer approach.

A closer look at our new friend.

Kingfisher and GBH decide to stay and see what happens.

The hawk looks over its shoulder at some, unheard by me, noise coming from behind.

One of the local Red-shouldered Hawks has resumed its hunting strategy of sitting quietly in the willows watching for the slightest movement to pounce on any unsuspecting frog, tadpole, shrew, or rat.

Despite the cold, it was a good day to be outside.

By the way, it may reach sixty degrees by the end of the week! Are you going to be sitting inside reading blogs about nature, or outside experiencing some of the things those blogs speak about?

Hooded mergansers diving for fish. The mergs also take tadpoles, aquatic insects, and even crayfish.

The mergansers sometimes fish in groups from two to four, but often the entire dozen can be seen steaming across the Wetlands diving for fish as they go.

Our mergs are rather shy and don’t allow a close approach, but at times I catch them near shore on the north side of the Wetlands diving among the dense tangle of willows and rushes that reside there. The fish concentrate near the cover of the willows and other plants seeking protection from what would eat them.

I’ve also noticed groups of mergs in the smartweed on the west side of the Wetlands. I know that tadpoles congregate in the smartweed for much the same reason as the fish do in the willows, protection from predators. I assumed that the mergansers that I sometimes flush from that area of the Wetlands were taking advantage of the high concentrations of tadpoles.

Smartweed growing along the boardwalk. I often flush mergansers from the dense weeds and under the boardwalk.

On December 9, as I walked past the area along the boardwalk where the smartweed grows I glanced over the rail, as I often do, and noticed much activity in the water below. I at first thought it was the tadpoles which usually gather in that corner of the Wetlands.

The arrow points to the area of heaviest activity.

A closer look revealed hundreds of fish, Golden Shiners, all crowded up to the shore in just three to six inches of water. There were some tadpoles present, but the vast majority of the commotion was coming from fish.

A seething mass of golden shiners.

A closer look at the boil of shiners, some can be seen gasping for air, or water.

So why are these fish all piled on top of each other in this little corner of the Wetlands? The fish naturally school together and in trying to avoid being eaten by the mergansers who swim across the Wetlands in pursuit of them the school, or shoal, frantically looks for cover. Since there is little or no submergent vegetation in the Wetlands the fish seek out any cover that they can find, like the smartweed along the shore.

Once the fish find a place to hide, in this case the smartweed, they swim into it for the protection that it provides. The mergansers follow behind and push the fish further and further until they can go no further, in effect, herding them into a corner. The fish are crowded up against the shore with nowhere else to go.

Half of the dozen resident mergansers steaming across the water in pursuit of fish.

It’s a feast. For the ducks, it’s like swimming in a barrel full of fish, scooping up the fish at their leisure. For the fish, it’s like being the fish in the barrel.

The local Great Blue Heron and Belted Kingfisher also benefit from the dilemma that the fish get themselves into. After all of the Museum Guests have dispersed and gone home and there’s no one around but the wildlife, the heron and kingfisher sneak over for a meal too.

In a moment of weakness I scooped up some of the fish in a net and released them into deeper water. I felt bad for the fish. It’s difficult sometimes to see an animal in distress and not lend a hand. But, by helping the fish I was making it more difficult for the birds. And besides, those fish got themselves into that mess, they should get themselves out of it, although I doubt that they will. Why, I’d bet that the fish that I caught in the net swam right back into the smartweed
after being released.

Some of the many hundreds of shiners in the shallow water just below the boardwalk.

An added benefit of this fish story is that I was able to get close looks at the fish. All of the fish in this school were about four to five inches in length. They were all golden shiners, so far as I know the only species in the Wetlands. The fish, being the size that they are, are all sexually mature. And, if they aren’t eaten first, each has the potential of laying 200,000 eggs throughout its lifetime. That’s a lot of future shiners!

Cooper’s Hawks and, since the second week in September, Red-tailed Hawks have been seen consistently. Some are locals and some are migrating through – I’ve seen adults and immatures of both species. An adult Sharp-shinned Hawk was seen 29 November.

A true sign of winter’s arrival, or at least it being at the doorstep, was the appearance overhead of an adult male Northern Harrier in the clear blue sky of 26 November. The nearly all gray adult males are the last in line to migrant through, following the brown-hued immature and female harriers. It was the first of its kind that I’d seen at the Museum.

Harriers are birds of open country – extensive farmlands and coastal marshes are more likely places to see them. There, they cruise low over the vegetation watching and listening for small mammals and birds to prey upon. Harriers have an owl-like facial disk (B&W image at left) which aids in picking up faint sounds coming from potential prey below them as the hawks sail and hover a few feet above the fields and marshes. It’s not likely you’ll see a Northern Harrier at the Museum except in passing, so keep at least one eye skyward, especially after a few days of northerly winds!

Crows are well know for harassing hawks and owls whenever they can. So, it’s no surprise that on November 29, a small group of crows (about 5) couldn’t resist ganging up on a Barred Owl when they spotted it perched in a Loblolly Pine in the swamp just below the entrance to Catch the Wind on the back side of the Explore the Wild/Catch the Wind Loop. The owl, after several minutes of cawing and badgering by the crows, was rousted from its perch and took off flying with the crows in hot pursuit – much to the amazement, and delight, of Ornithopter Operator John as the owl flew within ten feet of his head.

A pair of these dark-eyed owls were spotted earlier in the period by two of the Museum’s Animal Keepers near the main entrance to Catch the Wind. Keep an eye out for these birds as you stroll along the Explore the Wild/Catch the Wind Loop!

The resident female Belted Kingfisher has been spending considerable time at the Wetlands. Even when she can’t be seen splashing and diving in the water for fish, her raspy rattle of a call can usually be heard somewhere back among the trees on the far side of the Wetlands.

While standing on the Wetlands Overlook video taping the local Great Blue Heron gently preening its long blue-gray primaries, I heard a splash in the water to my right. As I turned to see what had made the noise, the kingfisher was already up and flying towards the boardwalk in front of the Black Bear Exhibit. It had something large in its bill. A kingfisher is not a small bird, a little over a foot from end to end. As the bird landed on the railing of the boardwalk I could see that it had a sizable Golden Shiner in its bill (image at left). The fish was easily half, or more, the length of the bird.

After several unsuccessful attempts to flip the fish head first so that it could swallow it, the kingfisher flew off to the far side of the Wetlands to perch on a low willow branch. Through the eyepiece of the video camera I could see the bird again and again try to turn the fish around, all the while the fish struggling to get free of the bird’s grip. Finally, the bird lost its hold on the shiner and it fell to the water below, the bird crashing in behind. When the bird flew back up to its perch, only scales remained in its long dark bill. Apparently, the fish was not mortally wounded by this encounter. I’m not sure whether the bird could have swallowed such a large fish had it been able to hold on to it, but it would have been fun to watch it try.

There was a flurry of bird activity with the approach of a low pressure system on the last Saturday of November. Birds often feed heavily ahead of impending inclement weather. Among the birds seen was a Brown Creeper (photo at right), the first I’d seen at the Museum since last January. These small, secretive, brownish birds creep up tree trunks gleaning small invertebrates along the way. Their presence is often given away as they fly from a high point on one tree to the base of another to start a new ascent.

Also seen feasting that day were Brown-headed Nuthatches, Hermit Thrush, Ruby-crowned Kinglet, several sparrows including Chipping Sparrow, White-throated Sparrow, and Dark-eyed Junco (image here), Pine Warbler, and a lone Common Yellowthroat. With the cooler weather and the lack of flying insects to hawk, the Myrtle (Yellow-rumped) Warblers have been feasting on Wax Myrtle berries.

A wandering of Cedar Waxwings sailed over the Wetlands on 20 November. You don’t often see waxwings alone; this group consisted of about twenty-five individuals. Unless there’s a reason to stop, like a good supply of berries or crab apples to eat, these traveling bands of birds are usually seen flying overhead in search of the same.

The in-flight flocks look a bit like starlings as they wheel and whirl about. Although noticeably lighter in color, in outline the individual birds appear starling-like as well. However, that’s where the similarity ends. Cedar Waxwings are one of the most elegant of birds (image at left). Their soft fawn-beige plumage fading to yellow on the belly, their yellow-tipped tail (sometimes orange), black facial mask, and crest make it hard not to find them attractive. They appear to never have a feather out of place, always neat and trim. The name waxwing comes from the small, red, wax-like spots on their wings (not shown).

Closing Shot

As anyone with a bird feeder in their backyard can tell you, Northern Cardinals are usually the first to arrive and the last to leave the party. The photo at left shows a female grabbing one last meal of sunflower seeds from the feeders in Catch the Wind before calling it a night.

A floating dead fish caught my attention on October 18, just off the Wetlands Overlook. It was a Golden Shiner of approximately 6 inches in length. The largest fish previously seen by this observer was about 3’’ long. The dead fish in the water had marks on its side as though something had held it in its mouth, a larger fish or, more likely, a turtle since there are no large fish (I don’t think) in the Wetlands.

I went to get a net to scoop up the fish for a closer look. By the time I returned with the net (from a distance of perhaps 100 feet) the fish was gone. A mystery, but further testimony that you never know what will show up in the shadowy shallows of the Wetlands.