Seward, Alaska
Sunrise 4:34 am, sunset 11:26
pm, for a total day length of 18 hours, 51 minutes. Tomorrow will be 1 minute
and 14 seconds shorter.
Squally today with periods of
heavy rain, a good soaker. Hopefully the welcome rain will help knock down the
forest fires on the Kenai Peninsula and help reduce the risk of new ones.
Driving down Nash Road this
afternoon, I happened to see a female COMMON MERGANSER circling above the road.
I found that odd and pulled over to watch. She flew around and around in wide
circles with an air of desperation. Finally, she tried to land at the top of a
dead cottonwood. Watching her webbed feet reach out to grab the skinny branches
made me really appreciate the ease and grace of eagles and songbirds. Instead
of deftly grasping the branches and landing, she awkwardly plowed through and
kept flying.
After several earnest
attempts, she managed to crash land against the tree and worked her way down to
a horizontal trunk to catch her breath for a few seconds. Then she dropped off,
circling, circling. After several minutes, she again approached the trees and
in a controlled collision, slithered down the trunk, wings flailing away. That’s
when I noticed the nest hole, a natural cavity formed where a large branch
broke off the dead tree.
Her ducklings were probably recently
hatched and hungry. As duck mommas do not deliver food like Robins, her day-old
babies needed to climb up the steep sides of the nest cavity and leap about 60
feet to the ground. As light as ping pong balls, and probably about the same
size, the drop would probably would be OK, except for all the branches in the
way. Then, the tiny peepers could scurry on their minuscule webbed feet to the nearby
stream, learn to swim, and look for food that they had never before seen or eaten.
No small feat!
Meanwhile, momma stuck her
worried head into the hole, flapping all the while for balance, her orange
webbed feet grasping futilely for a toehold on the smooth, debarked trunk.
Slipping, she then tried hovering like a kingfisher, a true helicopter mom, still peering into the
nest cavity. But that too, failed. Airborne again, and circling, circling.
I can’t imagine how much
energy she expended in this way, or how difficult it was for her to access her
nest during the previous four weeks of incubation. Obviously, landing hadn’t
gotten any easier with practice.
My amazement, admiration, and
appreciation have skyrocketed for her and other female ducks in trees like the Barrow’s Goldeneye, Common Goldeneye, and Bufflehead. It seems so alien and difficult.
The
importance of dead trees with suitable nesting cavities near streams was also highlighted by this hard-working, devoted momma merganser. Suitable nest boxes
along this stream and by the Mile 1 wetlands might help these cavity-nesting ducks.
It would have been extremely
exciting to see the ducklings come tumbling down, and watch the proud but
exhausted momma paddle down the stream followed by her brave darlings. But, I
didn’t want to add to her agitation at this critical time, so I left. I hope she and all her ducklings succeed!
A short ways away, I heard an
ALDER FLYCATCHER, but couldn’t find him in all the, guess what, alders. At the Mile
1 wetlands, the elegant TRUMPETER SWAN family with all SIX cygnets, paddled at the far
end. The cygnets are growing rapidly and are now gray.
The male RED-WINGED BLACKBIRD
sat on his snag, whistling and singing. Suddenly, he took off and mercilessly
chased a juvenile BALD EAGLE far from the wetlands. I saw him harassing the
swans last week. Jim Herbert reported spotting a female today, exciting news! I
believe they are nesting here as demonstrated by his territorial behavior. Last
week, I also saw him fly up and snatch a passing moth or small white feather,
and carry it into the marsh grasses. Was this for his nest, mate, or babies? Stay
tuned!
A PACIFIC WREN sang his long
song from the spruce forest at the edge of the wetlands on the east side of the
road. It is late for him to still be singing, but a pleasure, nonetheless, to hear. A
tiny GOLDEN-CROWNED KINGLET worked his way down a fallen tree trunk. A WILSON’S
SNIPE winnowed overhead; this courtship also seems late. Also heard a SAVANNAH
SPARROW singing. TREE SWALLOWS swooped over the wetlands, and two male ROBINS
took turns chasing each other off a favorite roost in the marsh. The drama
never ceases in the bird world!
Happy Birding!
Carol Griswold
Seward Sporadic Bird Report
Reporter
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