The Daily Bucket is a nature refuge. We amicably discuss animals, weather, climate, soil, plants, waters and note life’s patterns.
We invite you to note what you are seeing around you in your own part of the world, and to share your observations in the comments below.
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August 14, 2019
Salish Sea, PacificNorthwest
It’s migration season for peeps, the tiniest shorebirds, on the way from their breeding grounds in the farthest corner of the North American Arctic down to their winter homes, mostly in Central America.
Those black legs told me these were Western Sandpipers.
Western Sandpiper:
Adults leave breeding grounds before juveniles do; thus 2 pulses of migration appear in summer/fall. Breeding females slightly precede breeding males (Butler et al. 1987), which also occurs within juveniles (Ydenberg et al. 2005). Southward migration, more protracted and leisurely than spring migration, begins the 3rd week of June, concludes mid-October.
In British Columbia, all individuals arriving between 21 Jun and 21 Jul are adults; 90% adults between 22 and 31 Jul; mostly juveniles after 31 Jul (Butler et al. 1987). Peak numbers of adults by mid Aug and peak numbers of juveniles occur in late August to mid-September.
birdsna.org/...
Interestingly, the females fly further south than the males. The genders don’t mix over the winter season. Slacker males, lol.
Peeps have several feeding modes, and using one or another depends on the habitat, tide and food available. They consume mostly small arthropods and worms on wet sandy beaches by either probing (under sand) or pecking (snatching off surface). On silty sites, grazing is most productive (slurping up biofilm, “a surface matrix of microphytobenthos, principally diatoms, microbes, organic detritus”). These sandpipers were pecking, most likely going for amphipods, aka sand fleas, which are abundant on this beach.
These little guys were so quick I couldn’t get a good look at them at the time but viewing my pics later I could see that they were mostly juveniles, less colorful than breeding adults. Nonbreeding adults are also less colorful but juvs have a light edging to their feathers giving them a scalloped look, and a whitish eyeline.
There were five peeps darting along the beach but I couldn’t get them all in one picture without the birds disappearing as minuscule dots.
But I did try to get all of them photo’d, easy enough to do these days with unlimited “film”. And looking at my pics later — hmmm, who’s that? One was not like the others!
Yellow legs! This one is a Least Sandpiper, also a juv, evidently traveling with the small group of Westerns. Leasts are also long distance migrators, like the Westerns juveniles departing their northern breeding grounds after the adults. There are stragglers of course but the peak occurrence in Washington is mid July for adults, mid August for juvs.
Collectively, the five tiniest species of sandpipers, including Westerns and Leasts, are known as peeps, it being often difficult to tell them apart from a distance. A nice comparative piece about peeps: www.naturebob.com/…. . These two species are by far the most common peeps on the West Coast.
I’ve read that the adaptive advantage for shorebirds spreading out their fall migration is to lessen competition for scarce food resources en route. Even so, it’s one of the marvels of nature that birds just recently hatched are able to find their own way thousands of miles to their wintering ground, stopping at suitable feeding sites like this along the way, knowing when to feed or roost, avoiding predators, all without any assistance from their elders.
On my way back, passing this beach 10 minutes later, all five were gone. Off to the next feeding site while the tide was still out.
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High overcast this morning in the PNW islands, but it looks like sun may burn through soon. Daytime temps have been running about 70° these days, nighttime still in the 50s.
What’s the nature news in your neighborhood?
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