northeast-flora-and-fauna

This picture was a little obscured by vegetation, but it's my 1st verified Greater Yellowlegs of the season. They are sandpipers , a large family of shorebirds [1]. Their closest relatives in my area are the smaller Lesser Yellowlegs and the Solitary Sandpiper , with all 3 being in the Tringa genus . Though they are the largest of these 3 species, pictures like this 1 probably don't give a strong sense of size. You'll mostly tell them from the Lesser Yellowlegs because the Greater Yellowlegs has a noticeably longer beak relative to the head [2]. In the picture below, the bill certainly appears to be longer than the rest of the head. Similar to their Lesser Yellowlegs and Solitary Sandpiper cousins, I've only seen these birds during migration. They generally spend our winters south of here (some going as far as South America), though some maps suggest they might winter as far north as southern New Jersey and Long Island [3]. These birds should have started migrating b...

When you're a woodpecker looking for bugs on branches, you may need to get in positions that look rather perilous. Of course, if you're a woodpecker: Your feet have developed so as to be good as grasping wood. Your ability to fly pretty much guarantees you're not going to slip and fall to your death. The relatively short bill indicates this is a Downy Woodpecker [1], and the red patch on the head indicates it's a male (with a look at a female here ). He's perfectly comfortable hanging upside down or climbing on the underside of a branch. And he's foraging in a way that our larger woodpeckers generally don't, searching for bugs on relatively small branches (in contrast with their Hairy Woodpecker cousins). February 27, 2023 at the Raritan Water Power Canal Photo 264702796, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) February 27, 2023 at the Raritan Water Power Canal Photo 264702773, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) [1] Though their beaks ...

For Throwback Thursday, here's a Hairy Woodpecker I met a little over 5 years ago. This woodpecker is easy to confuse with its smaller but more common cousin, the Downy Woodpecker . A little like crows/ravens, you'd easily tell them apart if you saw them together; by weight the Hairys are over twice as big as the Downys. Fortunately while Hairys have approximately the size of beak you'd expect in a woodpecker, the Downys have a much shorter beak in proportion to the rest of their body. Most of the time I'm pretty confident in IDing these 2 birds if I get a good look . Although they're both relatively small by our standards, their bigger size and longer beak made the Hairy more suitable for pecking at tough tree trunks while Downys smaller size is better for foraging on smaller branches. They've both adapted to slightly different ecological roles. The Hairy Woodpecker also interacts with other woodpeckers in different ways: They'll sometimes follow Pileated ...

This looks like a female Downy Woodpecker intently looking for invertebrates, possibly under that bark. Though this might be standard woodpecker habitat, Downys are also the area woodpecker most likely to eat out of goldenrod galls , pecking a hole in them and gobbling up the larva inside. The main way to tell the males from the females is that the males will have a smallish red patch on the back of their heads, though from some angles it can be hard to see (like here and here ). (In the picture below, I'm confident there's a good enough look at the back of the head to say this is a female.) January 26, 2023 at Duke Farms Photo 263364843, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

Sticking with yesterday's woodpecker theme , here's a Downy Woodpecker I met last autumn. It's hard to see, but I'm pretty sure it's a male since there seems to be a hint of redness on the back of his head which shouldn't be there on a female. Since it's usually hard to judge subtle size differences at a distance I usually differentiate the Downy Woodpeckers from the Hairy Woodpeckers by the Downy's proportionately short beak (at least by woodpecker standards). And here's a theory on why Downy and Hairy Woodpeckers look similar. If you want to see them "in action", here's a video . October 14, 2022 at Duke Farms Photo 250353122, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

Last month I heard someone rapping on a tree, assumed I was seeing a Downy Woodpecker , and snapped a couple pictures before it flew off. Although Downies are photogenic enough, I was pleasantly surprised when I developed the pictures (days) later and discovered this was the Downy's larger, less common cousin, the Yellow-bellied Sapsucker . Like the Downy and Hairy Woodpeckers , the Yellow-bellied Sapsucker is a small, mostly black-and-white woodpecker where the males can have some red on the head. But there are differences. The Yellow-bellied Sapsucker has red on the front of the head (both males and females) and red on the throat (only males) while the Downy and Hairy Woodpeckers males have red on the back of the head.  One thing you probably shouldn't count on is to find the yellow belly on the Yellow-bellied Sapsucker. While they can have a pale yellow belly, it's sometimes pretty darned pale. And from a distance I'd be more inclined to describe them as off-white-be...

Though this picture was from last autumn, you can see Downy Woodpeckers pretty much any time of the year around here. They're probably a little easier to find in the winter since the trees they forage in don't have a lot of foliage cover. Though they don't migrate seasonally, woodpeckers will sometimes immigrate to a new location if their current location isn't favorable. Individuals won't return to that location if conditions improve, though future generations might recolonize it. This is our smallest woodpecker and is frequently distinguished from the also-fairly-small Hairy Woodpecker by the Downy's proportionately short bill. While we usually focus on woodpecker's long/hard/durable beaks, their tongues are also specialized for their unique lifestyles. I think this is a picture of a male Downy Woodpecker; I think I see a hint of red on the top of the head, though the positioning isn't ideal for judging gender. September 24, 2021 in Bridgewater, NJ ...

Here's a Downy Woodpecker I met a couple months ago. The small red patch at the back of its head indicates this is a male Downy. They are the smallest woodpeckers living in my area. Though they're not especially closely related, the Downy Woodpecker looks very similar to the larger (though not large) Hairy Woodpecker . I read of a theory that says the Downy evolved to resemble the Hairy so it would get more respect from other birds who mistake it for the Hairy. (Hairy Woodpeckers themselves aren't fooled, but the sparrows and finches tell each other: "Don't mess with him - those Hairy Woodpeckers are tough!".) From a distance when it's difficult to judge size, the easiest way to distinguish these woodpeckers by looking at the proportion of the beak to the length of the rest of the head. If they look like they're the same length, it's a Hairy Woodpecker. If the beak is clearly shorter, it's a Downy Woodpecker. March 3, 2021 at the Raritan River...