Dave's blog - Various & Sundry
Mostly Avocets - Galveston North Jetty - April 20, 2021
/The North Jetty, on the extreme west end of the Bolivar Peninsula, is one of two that protect the ship channel into Galveston Bay. It extends 5 miles into the Gulf. The tide was low during daylight hours and the sun was shining for the first time on my current birding trip.
Six photos taken from the North Jetty on Bolivar Peninsula, TX - April 20, 2021
All were taken with an Olympus E-M1X camera with a 150-400mm f4.5 TC lens.
Anahuac NWR - Two of the Things I Had Forgotten
/I had forgotten that one of the birding trails at Anahuac NWR had honeysuckle plants growing on both sides for the entire length of the trail. Also, I had forgotten how potent the fragrance of honeysuckle could be.
I have forgotten the name of this plant. Will look it up when I get home and modify this text then. I have been informed that this is Showy Pink Evening Primrose or Pink Ladies Oenothera speciosa.
Recent Photos from Texas
/I am on my first photo trip since February 2020. It is good to get out of the condo and listen to the imaginary clicks of my mirrorless camera.
Scissor-tailed Flycatcher - Bolivar Peninsula, TX - April 13, 2021
Olympus E-M1X with 150-400mm f4.5 TC lens @ 275 mm
1/1000 sec at f/5.6, ISO 500, handheld
American Bittern- Anahuac NWR, TX - April 13, 2021
Olympus E-M1X with 150-400mm f/4.5 TC lens @ 500 mm
1/640 sec at f/5.6, ISO 250, handheld
American Bittern- Anahuac NWR, TX - April 13, 2021
Olympus E-M1X with 150-400mm f/4.5 TC lens @ 395 mm
1/640 sec at f/5.6, ISO 250, handheld
American Bittern- Anahuac NWR, TX - April 13, 2021
Olympus E-M1X with 150-400mm f/4.5 TC lens @ 500 mm
1/640 sec at f/5.6, ISO 200, handheld
American Bittern- Anahuac NWR, TX - April 13, 2021
Olympus E-M1X with 150-400mm f/4.5 TC lens @ 500 mm
1/640 sec at f/5.6, ISO 320, handheld
American Bittern- Anahuac NWR, TX - April 13, 2021
Olympus E-M1X with 150-400mm f/4.5 TC lens @ 500 mm
1/640 sec at f/5.6, ISO 200, handheld
American Bittern- Anahuac NWR, TX - April 13, 2021
Olympus E-M1X with 150-400mm f/4.5 TC lens @ 500 mm
1/640 sec at f/5.6, ISO 250, handheld
Hooded Mergansers
/I found some different subjects for testng the new lens and firmware at Sterne Park on Monday.
Click on the image to see a slightly larger view.
Hooded Merganser - Sterne Park, CO - March 2021
Olympus E-M1X, 150-400mm f/4.5 TC1.25x IS PRO lens @ 473mm, handheld
1/1600 sec at f/5.6, ISO 320
Hooded Merganser - Sterne Park, CO - March 2021
Olympus E-M1X, 150-400mm f/4.5 TC1.25x IS PRO lens @ 500mm, handheld
1/2000 sec at f/5.6, ISO 640
Testing a new lens and new camera firmware
/I pre-ordered the Olympus M.Zuiko Digital 150-400mm f/4.5 TC1.25X IS PRO Lens in mid November 2020. Then Olympus sold their camera division and when this lens was supposed to become available, the number of pre-orders exceeded the availability and they delayed shipping. I received mine in late February but there has been so much snow and so few birds in my local birding spots that I had not really tested the lens in my usual shooting conditions until yesterday. It was a sunny day and there were enough birds at Barr Lake State Park to give the lens a chance to demonstrate its capabilities.
Click on the images to see a slightly larger view.
American White Pelican - Barr Lake State Park, CO - March 28 2021
Olympus E-M1X, 150-400mm f/4.5 TC1.25x IS PRO lens @ 473 mm
1/2000 sec at f/5.6, ISO 320, handheld
The 150-400mm focal length with a constant f/4.5 aperture on the Micro Four Thirds camera is equivalent to 300-800mm in 35mm terms. The lens has a built-in 1.25x teleconverter (approximaely 188-500mm f/5.6 which is approximately 376 - 1000 mm in 35mm terms). The lens is compatible with the Olympus 1.4x and 2.0x teleconverters. The weight of the lens is 4.13 pounds. The image stabilization in the camera and the stabilization in the lens are additive. The image above was shot handheld at the 35mm equivalent of 945mm focal length.
American White Pelicans - Barr Lake State Park, CO - March 28 2021
Olympus E-M1X, 150-400mm f/4.5 TC1.25x IS PRO lens @ 375 mm
1/2000 sec at f/5.6, ISO 200, handheld
The latest firmware update for the E-M1X camera included “Bird Detection Autofocus.” This is an Artificial Intelligence trained subject recognition that will focus on the eyes of birds, or their bodies if the eyes are not visible. I was using this autofocus mode for the first time.
Mallards - Barr Lake State Park, CO - March 28 2021
Olympus E-M1X, 150-400mm f/4.5 TC1.25x IS PRO lens @ 406 mm
1/2000 sec at f/5.6, ISO 200, handheld, large crop
Based on a single outing sample, I am pleased with the new lens and impressed with the subject recognition software. Both performed well despite operator errors. The weight of the lens was different from that of the lens I have been using. My “motor memory” needs to adjust to the weight of the new lens. I did not do a good job of rapidly acquiring the target. And I was tracking the bird(s), not letting the camera track the birds. In the “bird tracking” mode, all or many autofocus points are active and the camera firmware selects the proper autofocus point. My attemps to track the subject disrupted the ability of the camera to do so.
American White Pelican - Barr Lake State Park, CO - March 28 2021
Olympus E-M1X, 150-400mm f/4.5 TC1.25x IS PRO lens @ 395 mm
1/2000 sec at f/5.6, ISO 250, handheld, large crop
Note the relative sizes of the Pelicans and the Mallards.
American White Pelican - Barr Lake State Park, CO - March 28 2021
Olympus E-M1X, 150-400mm f/4.5 TC1.25x IS PRO lens @ 375 mm
1/2000 sec at f/5.6, ISO 250, handheld
Impressive wingspan!
Golden Jackal
/Photos taken on a Raymond Barlow Nature and Wildlife Tour in Tanzania with Greg and Shannon. Click on the image for a slightly larger view.
Golden Jackal - Tanzania - Feb. 2020
Olympus E-M1X with 300mm F4 lens + 1.4x tc
1/1250 sec at f/5.6, ISO 800
Golden Jackal - Tanzania - Feb. 2020
Olympus E-M1X with 300mm F4 lens + 1.4x tc
1/2500 sec at f/5.6, ISO 800
Springtime Again!
/I’ve been waiting. I ventured out. I hiked TWO steps onto the patio. With my phone.
Patio Art
Pictorial Definition of Conspicuous Consumption
/Not a pictorial definition of the way the two words are usually used together, but a pictorial definition of the literal meaning of the two words.
conspicuous - adjective - con.spic.u.ous
1: obvious to the eye or mind 2: attracting attention: Striking
consumption - noun - con.sump.tion
1: the act or process of consuming 2: the using up of a resource
Great Blue Heron - Fort Pickens Gulf Islands National Seashore - September 2014
Nikon D4, 300mm f/4 with 2x teleconverter
1/1600 sec at f/13, ISO 1600
Swainson’s Hawk - Squirrel Creek road (CO) - August 2015
Nikon D4, 500mm f/4 with 2x teleconverter
1/2500 sec at f/11, ISO 1250
Backgrounds (and/or Lighting) - Part 2
/While culling obese folders in my Lightroom catalog, I selected a few with backgrounds or lighting I really like. This is part 2, and the end of this thread. I may have posted all of these photos previously, but if so, it was outside the pinhole of my memory.
Black-necked Stilt - St. Marks NWR (FL)
Nikon D300, 500mm f/4 1/500 sec at f/4.5, ISO 800
Red-shafted Northern Flicker - Washington Park, CO
Nikon D300, 300mm f/4 lens with 1.7x TC
1/640 sec at f/7.1, ISO 800
Red-tailed Hawk - somewhere in Texas
Nikon D4, 500mm f/4 lens with 1.4x teleconverter
1/3200 sec at f/11, ISO 2000
American Redstart - MI
Nikon D500, 500mm f/4 lens with 1.4x teleconverter
1600 sec at f/5.6, ISO 4000
Brewster’s Warbler - MI
Nikon D500, 500mm f/4 lens with 1.4x teleconverter
1/1250 sec at f/7.1, ISO 1100
Backgrounds - Part 1
/While culling obese folders in my Lightroom catalog, I selected a few with backgrounds I really like. The background of the last two photos is the reflection of crabapple trees on a vacant lot adjacent to Sterne Park. A house was built on the lot and the trees are no longer there.
Common Merganser - Sterne Park, Littleton, CO - April 2018
Olympus OM-D EM1X camera, 300mm f/4 lens, 1/3200 sec at f/5, ISO 1250
Double-crested Cormorant- Sterne Park, Littleton, CO - April 2018
Olympus OM-D EM1X camera, 300mm f/4 lens, 1/3200 sec at f/5.6, ISO 3200
Wood Duck - Sterne Park, Littleton, CO - October 2018
Olympus OM-D EM1X camera, 300mm f/4 lens, 1/2000 sec at f/4, ISO 1000
Wood Duck - Sterne Park, Littleton, CO - October 2018
Olympus OM-D EM1X camera, 300mm f/4 lens, 1/2000 sec at f/4, ISO 500
The first and only limerick I ever composed
/Limerick - noun - a kind of humorous verse of five lines, in which the first, second, and fifth lines rhyme with each other, and the third and fourth lines, which are shorter, form a rhymed couplet.
In 2004 I was a participant in a Symposium (Microcircuits: The Interface between Neurons and Global Brain Function) in Berlin. The participants met in small groups to discuss different topics and to create a summary which would be presented to all attendees. One night at dinner there was a limerick contest between the groups. The content was to be related to the research topics being discussed. Each group presented a limerick and then another, until it was forced out of the competition when it could not. The group I was in and one other group were the last two standing. My group had two limerick experts but it was our groups turn to present and they did not have one prepared. So to keep our group in the competition, I presented the one I had written but wasn’t sure it met the qualifications of being a limerick. This gave the two experts time to regroup and the contest continued until it was finally declared a tie.
My Limerick
One microcircuit allows a locust to fly.
Another breathes but can also sigh.
A third is quite different, and
its distribution is wide.
But it moves the head & also the eye.
The pacemakers cause excitation to occur
in the complex Botzinger.
Add a dash of inhibition and
we discover what potassium
leak conductances are fer.
On This Day in 2018 - Jan. 14, 2018 - Bosque del Apache NWR, NM
/I tried to go back in December this year, but NM had listed Colorado as one of the states whose residents were required to go into quarantine upon arrival in NM.
Snow Geese - Bosque del Apache NWR - NM
Nikon D500, 50 mm f/1.8 lens
1/1250 sec at f/1.8, ISO 2200
Snow Geese - Bosque del Apache NWR - NM
Nikon D500, 50 mm f/1.8 lens
1/1250 sec at f/1.8, ISO 1800
Snow Geese - Bosque del Apache NWR - NM
Nikon D500, 50 mm f/1.8 lens
1/1250 sec at f/1.8, ISO 1400
Antidotes to Self-Pity
/The Online Photographer, one of the blogs I follow, had a post on Gratitude last Thanksgiving. It seemed so appropriate after months of staying in my cave. “Gratitude is absolutely a key component in a practical spiritual toolkit. For one thing, it's the antidote to self-pity. The two are incompatible feelings; you can't be grateful and self-pitying at the same time—the two won't arise together and seldom co-exist. Since self-pity is one of the main causes of our unhappiness and discontent—one of the main pathways by which self-will, ego and greed poison our attitudes—knowing of an antidote is powerful. Whenever I'm feeling sorry for myself, or put-upon because things aren't going my way; or when the idea that I'm the one who knows best is festering in my mind; or I'm feeling dismissive or intolerant of others (because this is one of the guises self-pity and self-will often takes), or I'm just feeling grouchy because nothing ever goes my way—I counter it with gratitude. I turn my thoughts around to everything I have to be grateful for, try to put that negative attitude into its proper perspective. Is what's happening to me so bad? When I think of others who really have problems, much worse than mine, and feel compassion for them—immediately, it right-sizes my own complaints, making them diminish like an ice cube in a bowl of hot water. Instead of counting your complaints, which is our natural human tendency, try counting your blessings instead. It works. We can actually make self-pity evaporate using this mental trick. It pays immediate dividends, instantly improving our mood, attitude, and outlook.” This is a link to the entire article.
Today I read another article that, for me, is an antidote to self-pity. A quote: “I am alive. I have food, I go out, I go for walks, I do some shopping. And I remember: No one wants to kill me.” A link to the article.
Juxtaposition
/juxtaposition noun
jux·ta·po·si·tion | \ ˌjək-stə-pə-ˈzi-shən \
the act or an instance of placing two or more things side by side often to compare or contrast or to create an interesting effect
Thick-billed Murre, St. Paul Island, Alaska - July 2014
Nikon D7100, 300mm f/4 + 1.7x tc, 1/1000 sec and f/8, ISO 2000
Sandhill Crane, Bosque del Apache NWR, NM - February 2019
Nikon D4, 300mm f/4 + 1.4x tc, 1/2500 sec at f/5.6, ISO 360
Wilson's Phalarope, St. Marks NWR, FL - May 2010
Nikon D300, 500mm f/4 + 1.7x tc, 1/540 sec at f/6.7, ISO 320
Reddish and Snowy Egrets, Bolivar Peninsula, TX - June 2019
Olympus E-M1 Mark II, 300mm f/4, 1/2500 sec at f/5.6, ISO 640
Lesser Yellowlegs, Opal Beach, FL - September 2009
Nikon D300, 500mm f/4, 1/1600 sec at f/8, ISO 640
White Morph Reddish Egret & Black Skimmer, Opal Beach, FL - June 2012
Nikon D300s, 300mm f/2.8 + 2x tc, 1/1600 sec at f/9, ISO 500
White Morph Reddish Egret & Black Skimmer, Opal Beach, FL - June 2012
Nikon D300s, 300mm f/2.8 + 2x tc, 1/4000 sec at f/9, ISO 800
Snowy Egret & Roseate Spoonbill, Bolivar Peninsula, TX - August 2016
Nikon D500, 500mm f/4 + 1.4x tc 1/1250 sec at f/6.3, ISO 640
Royal Terns, Fort Pickens Gulf Islaands National Seashore, FL - July 2009
Nikon D300, 500mm f/4, 1/2000 sec at f/6.3, ISO 200
Royal Terns, St. Augustine, FL - May 2009
Nikon D300, 300mm f/4 + 1.7x tc, 1/1250 sec at f/8, ISO 200
Snowy Egret & White Ibis, Bolivar Peninsula, TX - August 2016
Nikon D500, 500mm f/4 + 1.4x tc 1/2500 sec at f/5.6, ISO 800
Atlantic Puffins, Newfoundland - June 2009
Nikon D300, 300mm f/4, 1/250 sec at f/9, ISO 200
Atlantic Puffins, Newfoundland - June 2009
Nikon D300, 300mm f/4, 1/250 sec at f/11, ISO 200
Black Skimmers, Opal Beach, FL - July 2014
Nikon D4, 500mm f/4 + 1.4x tc, 1/3200 sec at f/7.1, ISO 800
Forster’s Terns, Bolivar Peninsula, TX - November 2014
Nikon D4, 500mm f/4 + 2x tc 1/1600 sec at f/11, ISO 2200
White Morph Reddish Egret & American Avocets - Rollover Pass, TX - January 2016
Nikon D4, 500mm f/4 + 1.7x tc, 1/2000 sec at f/9, ISO 200
Great Egret & Cormorant, High Island Boy Scout Woods, TX - May 2017
Nikon D500, 300mm f/4 + 1.4x tc, 1/3200 sec at f/7.1, ISO 360
Brown Pelican, Pensacola FL - March 2007
Panasonic FMC-FZ50, 88mm, 1/80 sec at ISO 100
Marbled Godwits & Cruise Ship, Bolivar Peninsula, TX - November 2019
Olympus E-M1 Mark II, 300mm f/4, 1/1600 sec at f/5.6, ISO 3200
Great Egret & American Alligator, Gatorland, FL - February 2010
Nikon D300, 70 - 200mm lens at 180mm, 1/1000 sec at f/7.1, ISO 250
A Spoonbill Smorgasbord
/A Spoonbill Smorgasbord
This blog post is a mix of some of my favorite photos of Roseate Spoonbills, a general description of the bird and its feeding behavior, clips of colorful sentences from the literature, and a summary of other things I found interesting while searching the web to learn more about this species.
High Island Smith Oak Rookery, High Island, TX - April 2017
Nikon D500, 500mm f/4 +1.4 tc, 1/3200 sec at f/9, ISO 720
Roseate Spoonbill (Platalea ajaja)
The roseate spoonbill is a large wading bird of the ibis and spoonbill family (Threskiornithidae). The body and the long legs are pink while the neck, breast and upper back are white. The adult bird has a bald, pale green head, a bright red shoulder patch and a long extremely flattened bill that is widened distally. The eyes are bright red. Juveniles have feathers on the regions of the head that are bald in adults and their pink feathers are lighter.
High Island Smith Oak Rookery, High Island, TX - March 2013
Nikon D7100, 300mm f/4 +1.4 tc, 1/4000 sec at f/8, ISO 640
The most distinctive feature of Platalea ajaja is the spoon-shaped bill. Over time, the beaks of birds adapted to the many different environments in which they live and once the forelimbs became devoted to flight, the beaks had to serve functions performed by the forelimbs of most mammals. This includes preening, manipulating objects, constructing nests, feeding young, courtship, defending territory, and acquiring and handling food. The size and structure of a bill is often directly related to species-specific feeding behaviors.
Spoonbill taking a bath - Jefferson Island Rookery, Abbeville, LA - April 2014
Nikon D7100, 500mm f/4 +1.4 tc, 1/2000 sec at f/8, ISO 720
The roseate spoonbill feeds in shallow water and forages by sweeping its open bill from side to side in the water to acquire food such as small fish, shrimp, mollusks, snails and insects. Some of the crustaceans it eats feed on algae that are the basis of the pigmentation that gives the feathers their pink color. The nostrils are at the top of the bill permitting the bird to breath while most of the bill is underwater. The wider distal part of the bill is similar to the bills of some ducks that sieve small prey out of sediments or water, but the bill of a spoonbill does not have the lamellae necessary for sieving (Allen, 1942). How, then, do spoonbills detect and capture its prey? Because the prey are not visible when the bird is feeding in murky water or in low light levels, senses other than vision must be involved. Insights into alternatives are based pimarily on studies in other species.
Bolivar Peninsula, TX -September 2019
Olympus E-M1 Mark II, 300mm f/4 + 1.4x tc, 1/2500 sec at f/5.6, ISO 640
Bolivar Peninsula, TX -September 2019
Olympus E-M1 Mark II, 300mm f/4 + 1.4x tc, 1/2500 sec at f/5.6, ISO 1250
“The birds of estuaries and mud flats are full of talk but the spoonbill is silent, and rarely even rattles his huge spoon. He feeds on the small molluscs, crustaceans and little flounders which swarm in the shallows and soft mud by a method so peculiar that it is small wonder that the gulls, in their humanlike distaste for the unfamiliar, sometimes harass and bully him. He wades through the water, and sweeps the great bill from side to side like the pendulum of a grandfather clock, tick-tock, dickery dock, swaying the body over the hips to keep the rhythm of the movement.”
From: Untrodden Ways - Harold John Massingham. Chapter V: The Spoonbill 1923
Bolivar Peninsula, TX -September 2019
Olympus E-M1 Mark II, 300mm f/4 + 1.4x tc, 1/2500 sec at f/5.6, ISO 1000
Remote Touch
Shorebirds that feed by probing their long, thin bills into mud, sandy substrates or areas covered in water have numerous small cavities (pits) near the tip of their bills. The pits have high concentrations of Herbst and Grandry corpuscles, mechanoreceptors that respond to the movements of adjacent objects or fluids. These densely packed somatic receptors, known as ‘bill tip organs’, allow the bird to detect, and possibly identify, objects which are not visible. Thus, the shorebird's bill is viewed as not merely a structure for capturing, holding, and manipulating objects, but also as a ‘tactile exploratory organ’ (Martin 2018).
The bone of the upper bill tip of a Southern Brown Kiwi is shown below. The keratin sheath has been removed to reveal the numerous pits where clusters of touch receptors are housed.
Image taken from The Sensory Ecology of Birds by Graham R. Martin, Oxford University Press, 2017
Researchers use the phrase 'remote touch' to describe cases in which the bill tip does not need to make direct contact with an object in order to extract information about its presence in the mud, water, or sand that surrounds it. This could occur, for example, if the moving prey produced vibrations within the surrounding mud/sand/water or if the water displaced by the probing bill encountered a nearby object creating a detectable back pressure (Piersma et al. 1998).
Sanibel Island, FL - February 2012
Nikon D300, 300mm f/2.8 + 2x tc, 1/2000 sec at f/9, ISO 500
The external events that activate the receptors in the bill tip organs, the transduction of those physical events into electrical signals that are transmitted to the central nervous system, the nature of the signals generated by the receptors, and the central processing of the signals that permit the bird to detect and capture the prey are unknown or poorly understood.
Jefferson Island Rookery, Abbeville, LA - May 2013
Nikon D7100, 300mm f/2.8 + 1.7x tc, 1/3200 sec at f/8, ISO 800
How do we know that this remote sensing is based on somatosensory signals rather than olfactory or taste cues?
Anatomical studies reveal large numbers of Herbst corpuscles in the pits on the bony tips of the bill of red knots (Calidris canutus). In operant conditioning experiments (Piersma et al., 1998) red knots were able to distinguish buckets containing only wet sand from buckets of wet sand containing either deeply buried live bivalves or stones similar in shape to the bivalves. It seems unlikely that visual, acoustic, olfactory, gustatory, vibrational, temperature, or electromagnetic cues could be used to discriminate between the buckets that contained only wet sand and those that were filled with wet sand and a stone. The birds were not able to discriminate between containers filled with dry sand and those with bivalves covered with dry sand, indicating that the interstitial water in the wet sand is an important factor in the detection process. Hypotheses about the physiological processes involved in detection include the possibility that the rapid movements of the knots bill in the wet sand at the observed frequency of about 10 HZ generates a wave that is reflected back to the bill tip organs. The experiments required to test hypotheses about the physiological processes involved in detecting and decoding remote sensing signals would be extremely challenging technically. Imagine, as a first step, trying to record the electrical potentials generated by the receptors in the bill tip organs while the red knot is making repeated probes into the sand or while the bill of the spoonbill is being swept back and forth.
Jefferson Island Rookery, Abbeville, LA - April 2009
Nikon D300, 300mm f/4 + 1.7x tc, 1/2500 sec at f/6.7, ISO 800
While considered to be tactile feeders, the structure and function of mechanoreceptors in the bill of roseate spoonbill and their role in feeding behavior has received little scientific attention. In their paper describing the basic morphological features of the bill and the alimentary tract of Black-faced Spoonbill, Swennen and Yu (2004) described the layout and distribution of numerous pits observed in the skeletons of spoonbills. The pits are large enough to accommodate a series of Herbst corpuscles similar to what is observed in shorebirds. Although it seems highly likely that the pits in the beak of spoonbills are filled with mechanoreceptors, I could not find an article that verified this histologically.
Jefferson Island Rookery, Abbeville, LA - April 2010
Nikon D300, 500mm f/4 , 1/1250 sec at f/8, ISO 640
Visual Adaptations
As with the somatosensory system, over time, the visual system of birds has also adapted to the many different environments in which they live. One area of active research is concerned with how variations in visual field topography among birds is related to the foraging behavior of the different species (Martin & Portugal, 2011). The visual field of an eye is defined as the volume of external space which is imaged upon the retina when the eye is stationary and in the middle of the orbit. The combination of the visual fields of both eyes is called the cyclopean visual field and this defines the complete region of the external world at a particular instant in time from which visual information can be obtained when the eyes and head are in particular locations. The regions where the visual fields of both eyes overlap is the binocular field. In humans, our most precise perceptions of the relative depth of objects (stereopsis) is obtained from neural computations based on the subtly different views which each eye has of the same scene.
Jefferson Island Rookery, Abbeville, LA - May 2013
Nikon D7100, 300mm f/2.8 + 1.7x tc, 1/2500 sec at f/9, ISO 800
Why is the size and layout of the visual field of an animal of interest to the biologist? Basically, the visual field defines the region of the world in which visual stimuli can affect the behavior of the animal. Most birds have laterally placed eyes that provide a large field of view with the region of binocular overlap as well as the blind area behind and above the head being relatively small (middle graph below). Since most birds are also potential prey to many animals, including other birds, the large visual fields, resulting from the laterally placed eyes, allow large sectors of the environment to be monitored continuously for predators, potential prey, and other things of importance to the animal. Highly predatory birds such as eagles and owls have frontally placed eyes and excellent binocular vision but this is associated with a large blind area above and behind the head (see left graph below).
The eyes of Woodcocks are large and placed high in the skull. This provides visual coverage in which there is no blind area above or behind the head (see the graph on the right). As their bills probe into soft substrates for earthworms or other invertebrates, tactile and/or chemical cues are used to detect and capture their prey. Since woodcocks feed, roost and nest exclusively on the ground, they are always vulnerable to both aerial and terrestrial predators. Martin (1994) suggests that, freed from the constraint that vision is essential for location of prey or for precise control of bill position, visual fields have become primarily adapted for surveillance of the birds' environment.
Bolivar Peninsula, TX - August 2016
Nikon D500, 500mm f/4 + 1.4x tc, 1/1250 sec at f/6.3, ISO 640
Back to the spoonbill!!
Martin & Portugal (2011) predicted that since their foraging and feeding is guided by tactile cues from the bill, the visual fields of ibises and spoonbills would be similar to those of the woodcock and have comprehensive visual coverage of the celestial hemisphere. However, they found that the visual fields of the four species of ibis (2) and spoonbills (2) they tested had large blind areas above and behind the head. The spoonbills also had a blind area below the enlarged spatulate tip of the bill. Given the ability of spoonbills to forage successfully in highly turbid water using their bill-sweeping technique (Swennen & Yu 2005, 2008), seeing the bill and beneath it is not critical for prey detection and capture. How, then, does one explain the failure to confirm the prediction? The authors suggest that the identification of prey after its capture and possibly the transport of prey from the bill tip into the oesophagus requires visual representation of the space in which the bill resides.
Jefferson Island Rookery, Abbeville, LA - April 2009
Nikon D300, 300mm f/4 + 1.7x tc, 1/2500 sec at f/6.7, ISO 800
“If things, again, are not beautiful because they are rare, too many things are rare because they are beautiful, not through nature being sparing of her gold, but man so prodigal in spending it.”
The quote is from the book Untrodden Ways written in 1923 by Harold John Massingham. In this way, he introduced a description of the last account of the Eurasian Spoonbill breeding in England. He quotes Sir Thomas Browne who wrote in 1662: “They come in March and are shot by fowlers, not for their meat, but for the handsomenesse of the same, remarkable in their white colour, copped crowne and spoone, or spatule-like bill.”
Jefferson Island Rookery, Abbeville, LA - May 2016
Nikon D500, 500mm f/4, 1/3200 sec at f/7.1, ISO 1600
"This beautiful, large, and gregarious bird was nearly hunted to extinction in the last part of the 19th century. Its pink feathers were used in ladies' hats, and its wings were sold as fans. By 1939, about 30 birds remained in Florida. Interestingly, the spoonbill's pink plumage quickly fades once the feathers are no longer attached to a living bird. The good news is Roseate Spoonbills have made a comeback and currently have many champions monitoring and advocating for them, particularly the Gulf Restoration Network and Audubon of Florida. Now over a thousand pairs nest in Florida where they are stable along the Gulf Coast, yet still sinking in numbers in the broad estuary between the Everglades and the Keys." Quote from Shelley Hesse, an artist who lives in New Orleans. I found the quote below an image of her painting of a Roseate Spoonbill. Click on this link to see the image.
Jefferson Island Rookery, Abbeville, LA - April 2010
Nikon D300, 300mm f/4 + 1.4x tc, 1/5000 sec at f/7.1, ISO 320
The quotes are from the book Wings Over the Wetlands: Wading Birds in Louisiana. A PDF version of the book can be viewed by clicking on the link to the right. LINK
“Nicknamed the “Cajun Flamingo” by some Louisiana birders because of the plethora of “flamingo” reports which pour in each summer from uninitiated observers, the Roseate Spoonbill is actually a very close relative of the ibises.”
Note: Three hurricanes have made landfall in LA this year (2020). Strong winds and flooding have affected several of the regions mentioned in the report on the breeding status of the Roseate Spoonbill given below.
“The United States Gulf Rim, from south Texas eastward intermittently to south Florida, represents the northernmost breeding range for this primarily tropical species. Nevertheless, post-breeding wanderers have shocked bird-watchers as far north and west as Utah, Nebraska, and Pennsylvania. Just after the early 20th century harvest by plume hunters, the Roseate Spoonbill’s United States breeding range had shrunk to but a few isolated/protected coastal haunts in Texas, Louisiana, and Florida. These few colonies managed to survive until the mid 20th century when the United States Fish & Wildlife Service began to actively acquire more coastal lands for its National Wildlife Refuge Program. Today, the outlook for this species in the United States is considerably brighter. In Louisiana, according to the 2000 Louisiana Breeding Bird Atlas, breeding Roseate Spoonbills have been identified in no less than 18 mixed wading bird rookeries spread over 9 Louisiana parishes, including some as far inland as Evangeline, St. Landry, and Iberville Parishes.”
Jefferson Island Rookery, Abbeville, LA - April 2009
Nikon D300, 300mm f/4 + 1.7x tc, 1/2000 sec at f/8, ISO 800
“The long neck and bill were stretched out taut like a duck's, and the line was held straight through out, the rigidly extended legs being on the same level with the shapely body, so that the balance, with the body tapering to the neck in one direction and the tail and legs at the other, and with the thicknesses of the feet and widened tip of the bill at each end, was perfect.”
From: Untrodden Ways - Harold John Massingham, Chapter V: The Spoonbill - 1923
“They are like huge flowers, with wings! nearly three feet tall, with a long wingspan of more than four feet 1.2 m. skinny red legs, bright pink wings, and long white necks. no feathers on their greenish heads, and their eyes are a glowing red.”
From: Roseate Spoonbill: Pretty In Pink. by Stephen Person, 2013.
This is a photo of Plumeria, a genus of eleven species of shrubs and small trees in the dogbane family (Apocynaceae) native to tropical America from Brazil to Mexico and the Caribbean. The image is one I copied from a free source on the web. Why is the photo in this blog entry? When I was searching for information about spoonbills, I stumbled upon this article: Plumerias the Color of Roseate Spoonbills’ - Continuity and transition in the symbolism of Plumeria L. in Mesoamerica. Thomas J. Zumbroich. Ethnobotany Research & Applications 11: 341-363 (2013). From the abstract: “This study explores the complex symbolism which the genus Plumeria L. engendered from around the beginning of the common era to the present time in Mesoamerica. In much of this cultural area an intense interest in sensory pleasures can be traced to great antiquity, and, consequently, flowers became a central metaphor in the Mesoamerican cosmological discourse. In the Maya pantheon, plumeria was associated with deities representing life force and fertility and therefore plumeria flowers became strongly connected with a wide range of expressions of female sexuality. Among Nahuatl speaking people of central Mexico, especially during the height of the Aztec empire, the most prominent association of plumeria was to signify élite status, with plumeria trees planted in the gardens of the nobility, the blooms ex-changed at feasts, or the stylized image of plumeria flowers inscribed on ceramics and codices. In the context of the hybridized religious systems that developed in response to the introduction of Christianity across Mesoamerica, plumerias developed new meanings, e.g., as elaborate decorations for the worship of the Virgin Mary. When in the sixteenth century plumeria was dispersed beyond the Americas into Southeast Asia, likely through Spanish hands and by way of the Philippines, it gained a wide- spread association with graveyards as a plant promoting contact with the deceased.”
On page 348 I found the link to the spoonbill.
“In the 1570’s Francisco Hernández, court physician to King Philip II of Spain, set out on a scientific expedition to the Valley of Mexico with the objective of compiling a ‘Pliny of the New World’, and in the resulting monumental work more details about cacaloxochitl emerged. Hernández, too, recognized the wide range of different ‘raven flower’ plants that came in named varieties which only differed in the colors of their flowers, from crimson (tlapalticacaloxochitl, tlapaltic, ‘deep red’ (Sahagún 1950-1982:(7)) to white (iztaccacaloxochitl, iztac, ‘white’ (Molina 1571:f49r). In fact, there were so many that Hernández would not dare mention them all, so as not to bore the reader (Hernández 1615:45r-45v, Varey 2000:125-126). One particularly interesting plumeria variety received a separate entry: tlauhquecholtic was named for its similarity to the roseate spoonbill (Platalea ajaja L., 1758), an attractive wading bird with coloring from white through pink to magenta on its body).”
Merritt Island NWR, FL - January 2016
Nikon D4, 500mm f/4, 1/1000 sec at f/5, ISO 500
Merritt Island NWR, FL - January 2016
Nikon D4, 500mm f/4, 1/1000 sec at f/5, ISO 220
Merritt Island NWR, FL - January 2016
Nikon D4, 500mm f/4 + 1.4x tc, 1/2500 sec at f/5.6, ISO 1800
Merritt Island NWR, FL - January 2016
Nikon D4, 500mm f/4, 1/2500 sec at f/5, ISO 1000
Merritt Island NWR, FL - January 2016
Nikon D4, 500mm f/4, 1/2500 sec at f/5, ISO 500
Merritt Island NWR, FL - January 2016
Nikon D4, 500mm f/4, 1/2500 sec at f/5, ISO 500
Papers mentioned in the text
Allen, R.P. 1942. The Roseate Spoonbill. National Audubon Society, New York.
Birkhead, Tim. 2013. Bird senses: Vision. A Bird's Eye View. New Scientist. 3 August.
Massingham, Harold John. 1923. Untrodden Ways. Chapter V: The Spoonbill
Martin, Graham R. 2018. The Senses. Chapter 12 in Ornithology: Foundation, Analysis, and Application. edited by Michael L. Morrison, Amanda D. Rodewald, Gary Voelker, Melanie R. Colón, Jonathan F. Prather.
Martin,Graham R. 2017. The Sensory Ecology of Birds, Oxford University Press.
Martin, G. R., and Portugal, S. J. 2011. Differences in foraging ecology determine
variation in visual field in ibises and spoonbills (Threskiornithidae). Ibis 153, 662–671.
Martin G. R. 1994. Form and function in the optical structure of bird eyes. In: Davies MNO, Green PR (eds) Perception and motor control in birds: an ecological approach. Springer, Berlin Heidelberg New York, pp 5–34.
Person, Stephen. 2013. Roseate Spoonbill: Pretty In Pink. New York, NY: Bearport Publishing Company.
T. Piersma, R. van Aelst, K. Kurk, H. Berkhoudt, and L. R. M. Maas. 1998. A new pressure sensory mechanism for prey detection in birds: the use of principles of seabed dynamics? Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B 265, 1377-1383.
Swennen, C. and Yu, Yat-Tung. 2004. Notes on feeding structures of the Black-faced Spoonbill Platalea minor. Ornithological Science 3: 119-124.
Swennen, C. & Yu, Yat-Tung. 2005. Food and Feeding Behavior of the Black-faced Spoonbill. Waterbirds 28(1): 19-27.
Zumbroich, Thomas J. 2013. Plumerias the Color of Roseate Spoonbills’ - Continuity and transition in the symbolism of Plumeria L. in Mesoamerica. . Ethnobotany Research & Applications 11: 341-363.
Today it is Frogs - Forget Fur, Fin, Feathers, and Fuzzies
/American bullfrog (Lithobates catesbeianus)
Rouge River Bird Observatory, MI - May 2017
Nikon D500 + 500mm f/4, 1/1600 sec at f/6.3, ISO 800
American bullfrog (Lithobates catesbeianus)
Rouge River Bird Observatory, MI - May 2017
Nikon D500 + 500mm f/4 and 1.7x tc, 1/2000 sec at f/6.7, ISO 4000
Southern Leopard Frog (Lithobates sphenocephalus)
Ft. Pickens, Gulf Islands National Seashore - August 2012
Nikon D500 + 300mm f/2.8 and 1.7x tc, 1/320 sec at f/8, ISO 1600
Mine Eyes Have Also Seen - Sunrises
/The previous Mine Eyes Have Seen post was about sunsets and showed 7 of my favorites. Here are 7 of my favorite sunrise images.
Sunrise Eastpoint FL (2013) - Nikon D7100 + 300mm f/4, 1/2000 sec at f/8, ISO 1250
Sunrise at Maroon Bells, CO (2018)
Olympus E-MI Mark II + Olympus 12-100 f/4, 1/125 sec at f/11, ISO 200
Sunrise, rice terraces, Yunan Province, China (2007)
NiKon D80 + 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6, 1/20 sec at f/8, ISO 200
Sunrise at Bryce Canyon (2015) - Nikon D610 + 16-35mm f/4, 1/4 sec at f/16, ISO 160
Sunrise at Bayfront Drive, Pensacola, FL (2008)
Nikon D80 + 70-200mm f/2.8, 1/500 sec at f/18, ISO 100
Sunrise at Bolivar Flats Shorebird Sanctuary, Bolivar Peninsula, TX (2012)
Nikon 1 V2 + Nikkor VR 1-30mm f/3.5-5.6, 1/160 sec at f/4, ISO 200
Sunrise, St. Marks NWR, FL (2009)
Nikon D300 + 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6, 1/200 sec at f/11, ISO 200
Mine Eyes Have Seen
/In 2015 Betty and I sold our house in Pensacola and rented a condo on Pensacola Beach for six months. The plan was to spend 6+ months in FL and the remainder of each year in the CO condo we purchased in 2014. We followed the plan until 2017 when we became full-time residents of CO. Betty was not handling the back-and-forth very well because of her back problems. The balcony of our Portofino Island Resort condo faced west. Seven of my favorite photos taken from the balcony are shown below.
The photos were taken with a Nikon D610 camera and 24-70mm f/2.8 (middle 5 images), 16-35mm f/4 (first image), or 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6 (last image) lenses.
Throwback 50+ years
/
Throwback 50+ years. How programming was accomplished in my lab before lab computers were available.
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