Northern Mockingbird
When we catch a bird at the banding station, we look it over—and the bird eyeballs us right back.
The pale eyes mean this Bushtit is female.
Banding station highlights are watching you
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Tag Archives: snake
A predator caught in the act
We were searching for junco nests when I heard the unmistakable tic-tic-tic of junco alarm chipping. We followed the sound a ways and found a pair of juncos perched on a low branch, alarm chipping for all they were worth. Strange of the juncos to be alarm chipping at us when we were so far away, before, I thought. I wouldn’t have thought they’d see us as a threat from that far away. Odd birds. Directly below the branch with the agitated juncos was a small shrub. “The nest will be in there,” I predicted, showing off for my new field assistants.
I parted the prickly branches, and tiny pink beaks gaped hungrily at me. “There they are,” I said, pleased with myself. “Three chicks.”
And just as I said that, I saw the snake.
Seeing through scales and walking with six legs
There are a lot of scientific journals out there. There are the big shots (Science, Nature), the bird journals (The Auk, The Condor), the topic-specific (Behavioral Ecology), etc. And then there is The Journal of Experimental Biology, or JEB. I love JEB. It claims to be the journal for “comparative animal physiology” but that doesn’t cover the half of it. JEB is about crazy, wonderful strangeness—strange animals and strange scientific methods. Following are two characteristically odd JEB studies: snake eyes and how walking sticks walk.
Leucistic (lacking pigment) black rat snake is looking at YOU.
Herps of the field 2013
Considering how much time we spent in the field, and that one of my field assistants was by natural inclination a herpetologist, we found surprisingly few herps (reptiles and amphibians) this summer.
Pacific treefrog (subspecies: Sierran treefrog)
This guy comes in brown or green. The two morphs look very different from each other:
Brown morph
Photo by M. LaBarbera
Green morph
Non-birds of the field III: herps
We didn’t see very many herps (reptiles and amphibians) this summer, and I managed to get pictures of just three. At least they were all pretty charismatic.
Tree frog
Tiny tree frog
Tough Little Birds 