Robert A. Culbert
What a weekend! A sandhill crane, western kingbird and Say’s phoebe are the three western species that were present this past weekend. It must be the fall migration for all these western strays to be here at the same time.
Ruby-throated hummingbirds are tiny little bundles (3.5 grams or 0.12 ounces) of activity that must eat constantly, especially at this time of the year, when they are migrating southward to their wintering grounds in Central America. Here I report that their aggressive behavior of chasing other hummingbirds away from a food source — as reported in last week’s column — takes place even during tropical storms!
Saturday, May 14 dawned a little differently. It was the morning of Felix Neck’s Birdathon and there was not a strong wind roaring out of the northeast. The woodlands were pretty quiet as the day started out overcast, but the sun shone through about 9 a.m. and seemingly brought the woodlands to life. The complete list of birds observed on that Saturday appears at the end of this column; here are a few highlights.
Have you ever wondered where our nesting birds spend their winter? I have. Well, thanks to a study conducted by Dr. Cheri Gratto-Trevor, a research scientist for Environment Canada, we now know that at least one of “our” piping plovers spends its winter on Andros Island in the Bahamas. I put our in quotes because it probably spends more of its year in the Bahamas than the five months it is here.
March 14 was the magical day when several signs of spring flew in, even though they were accompanied by a tad of snow in the afternoon. Fortunately, the snow did not stick around, but the signs of spring will.
The science of bacteria provides one instance of how quickly our knowledge can change. Our understanding about the importance of bacteria has changed dramatically since 1975. A standard college-level biology textbook written in 1975 says that there are about 3,000 species of bacteria, and presents material about bacteria on 25 of its 1,000 pages.