Eastern Screech-Owl in Daylight

Yesterday afternoon, I noticed this Eastern Screech-Owl along the Delaware and Raritan Canal. Since the owl was small and its cryptic plumage blended well with the trunk, the bird was actually hard to recognize, despite the large opening. When I photographed it, I initially was not sure if my hunch was right, but the photo showed that it was.

While screech-owls are primarily nocturnal predators, they sometimes emerge from their roosting places during the day, especially the late afternoon. In the winter, sitting in an opening gives them the opportunity to bask in the afternoon sun and warm themselves after a cold day of sleeping. So if you happen to be out on a winter afternoon, it is worth checking openings in tree trunks for the characteristic shape of an owl.

If you do happen to find a roosting owl, be careful about how you share the sighting and do not post an exact roost or nest location publicly. Owls can be sensitive to disturbance, so frequent visits may push an owl to change roosts, possibly to a less favorable location.

Loose Feathers #280

Turkey Vulture in flight / Photo by Garry Tucker (USFWS)

Birds and birding news

• The American Bird Conservancy and Fundación ProAves secured 13 new conservation easements to protect the Cerulean Warbler and several other neotropical migrants on the wintering areas in Colombia.
• Three Yellow-billed Cotingas were captured for the first time in Costa Rica; they were fitted with radio transmitters and released to learn more about the activities of this rare bird. The species is endemic to the Pacific slope of Costa Rica and Panama.
• The flock of Whooping Cranes that winters at Aransas NWR in Texas was at its largest size ever this winter, with 279 cranes.
• A Ruddy Turnstone migrated 27,000 km (round trip) last year, traveling from Australia to Siberia via Taiwan and then returning to Australia via the central Pacific (with a stop at the Gilbert Islands). The bird was tracked with a geolocator for two years in a row.
• National Geographic has a gallery of the best rare bird photos from a photography competition.
• A cull of 4,400 Ruddy Ducks in the U.K. has reduced their population to 120 ducks. The North American species is being culled to protect Spain's population of White-headed Ducks, which has been in decline.
• Environmental groups in Malaysia are upset by the killing of a protected Great Pied Hornbill, a photo of which turned up on Facebook.
• A case of mass bird deaths in Pennsylvania was a result of European Starlings being poisoned with Starlicide.
• About 80% of fledgling Gray Catbirds in suburban habitats are killed by predators before they reach adulthood. About half of those deaths are caused by domestic cats left outdoors and most of the deaths occurred within the first week of a catbird leaving the nest.

Birds in the blogosphere

• Sibley Guides: Identifying Downy and Hairy Woodpeckers by drumming sounds
• Coffee and Conservation: Know your coffee birds: Wilson’s Warbler
• The Drinking Bird: The Rarity Radius
• Great Auk or Greatest Auk: Oh No, Thoreau!
• Audubon Guides: Winter Owls
• Tetrapod Zoology: Walter Rothschild and the rise and fall of Sclater's cassowary
• BirdWatching Field of View: An interview with Richard Crossley, author of the new ID guide
• The Freiday Bird Blog: I.D. Tip: Winter Shorebirds 

Environment and biodiversity

• The US Fish and Wildlife Service declared the eastern cougar subspecies extinct, after a study of scientific literature and reported sightings from the past century. The subspecies has probably been extinct since the 1930s due to hunting. 
• The Desert Protective Council suggests 10 desert plants in California that ought to have endangered species protections. 
• Since the start of 2011, 80 dead baby dolphins have washed up along the Gulf coast of the U.S. Scientists are investigating whether the deaths were caused by residual toxins from BP's oil spill or some other cause.
• An analysis of recent mammal extinctions concluded that the Earth is currently undergoing its sixth mass extinction event.
• A new study reports that warmer temperatures have stunted the growth of white spruce trees in Alaska's boreal forest. The spruces may end up shifting northward as the Earth continues to warm. Lodgepole pines in western forests may likewise disappear thanks to climate change and invasive beetles.
• The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences is starting a long-term study of how the oil spill affects the health of Gulf coast residents. They are contacting 100,000 people and hope at least 55,000 participate in the study.
• Meanwhile, the Interior Department has resumed issuing permits for deepwater drilling.
• What remains of Washington state's first wolf pack is unclear after several wolves were found dead under suspicious circumstances.

Blog carnivals

• Festival of the Trees #57
• House of Herps #15

Signs of Spring

It is still winter according to the calendar, but the signs of spring are becoming unmistakable. As I mentioned in some prior posts, the bird life around here is shifting. I have been seeing more flocks of blackbirds, though I have not seen the massive flocks I often see in February. Ring-billed Gulls are outnumbering Herring Gulls along the river. House Finches are looking brighter and have started singing more insistently. The House Finch male above must be the most purple House Finch I have seen, so much so that I looked it over carefully to make sure I was not looking at a Purple Finch. Size and structure, though, marked its real identity.

The red maple I mentioned previously has now started flowering. Red maples are usually one of the first trees to start blooming. I recently read Bernd Heinrich's Winter World, which discussed the early blooming of red maples and other trees in the context of bee survival. Early flowers like these provide an advantage to those bee colonies that can afford to sacrifice some scouts to cold snaps in order to find those flowers as soon as they bloom. I did not notice any bees on these flowers, but they were well above my head, so I may have missed some.

Here is a closer look at flowers on a different red maple.

Crocus sprouts are starting to appear as well. Yesterday was the first day I noticed them, but some probably started before then.

Leucistic Mallard

I found this unusual duck yesterday in my local patch, Donaldson Park. It is almost entirely white, except for random speckling on the head and back, the dark flight feathers, and the tail and tail coverts. I think this is a leucistic female Mallard. Leucism is a condition in which an animal loses some or all of its pigmentation so that it appears pale, all white, or with white blotches around patches of normal color. Unlike albinos, which lose all of their melanin, leucistic animals typically retain their normal eye color.

With Mallards, there is always a question of whether an unusual individual is a wild Mallard, a hybrid of a Mallard and some other duck, or a domestic Mallard breed. I think this is a wild Mallard for a few reasons. First, the bird seems slightly smaller and more compact than the normal wild female and male Mallards close to it, but not so small that it would have required selective breeding to produce it. Second, its bill is similar in size, proportions, and color pattern to the nearby female's.

Third, although the wing feathers on the two birds appear to be folded slightly differently, the overall color patterns of the plumage appear similar on the white duck and the normal female Mallard. The head of the white duck has fine, dark streaking; the breast, back, and tail coverts have teardrop-shaped dark streaking; the tail and tertials are dark; and the speculum (barely visible in these photos) is blue with black and white borders. The blue on the speculum is only visible in the photo with the wild male Mallard, and even then it is only a small part of it. I do not see strong evidence of another species's plumage pattern in this bird.

Regardless of its true identity, this is an interesting and beautiful bird. If you happen to see reasons why this is not a leucistic wild female Mallard, please leave a comment!

First Moth of the Year: Spring Cankerworm

Last Thursday, I found my first moth of the year. It was sitting on the car, parked under a streetlight in an otherwise empty parking lot. I captured and brought it home, refrigerated it, took some photos in daylight, and released it outside. It did not take much searching to find the ID, as it is one of the moths presented in Eaton and Kaufman's insect guide. This is a very common Spring Cankerworm Moth (Paleacrita vernata), a member of the Geometridae. Larvae pupate underground and spend the winter in the soil. Adults emerge as early as February and fly from February through May. Even before seeing this moth, I had been thinking it might be worth putting out the moth light soon. Maybe I will once the rest of the snow is gone from my mothing area.