A Holiday Greeting, 2013

Wednesday, December 25, 2013

During this special holiday week,

take time to celebrate all that is truly meaningful in life.

This photo of a Northern Shoveler was taken on the Mission Reach of the San Antonio River on Wednesday, December 19, 2013.

Birds at Elmendorf Lake, Autumn 2013, Part 3, Settling In For Winter

The second most numerous birds at Elmendorf Lake ten days ago were the Northern Shovelers. These ducks spend their summers from northern New Mexico all the way north to Alaska. It was good to see them back for the winter in large numbers:

One of the more interesting behaviors of the Northern Shoveler is described very well on Whatbird.com: "Socially, they occasionally work together in groups while feeding, rotating like a pin-wheel, stirring up the surface water and skimming it for food particles." That is what they were doing in the first three photos.

Another thing I found interesting was the males clearly outnumbered the females by a very large percentage. The last two photos are of a female Northern Shoveler.

This set of photographs was taken at Elmendorf Lake Park on Thursday, November 21, 2013.

Part 1
Part 2

Birds of Elmendorf Lake, The March Edition

Thursday, April 18, 2013

This set of photos was taken on my walk at Elmendorf Lake Park on Friday, March 22, 2013. As I mentioned in that post, this walk was a few days after the San Antonio River Authority and the City of San Antonio presented a conceptual design workshop regarding future improvements for the park.

Elmendorf Lake is an excellent location for birding. In the post dated Tuesday, April 16, 2013, I presented a series of photos of a Ruddy Duck that I had photographed on this walk. Today's post is the second of three posts of the birds I photographed on March 22:

• The first three photos are American Coots.
• The fourth photo is a Great Blue Heron "hiding" high up in one of the numerous Bald Cypress  in the park.
• The fifth through eighth photos are a Little Blue Heron with the typical non-breeding plumage.
• The ninth and tenth photos are a Little Blue Heron with breeding plumage. The birds swimming in the Lake in these two photos are a pair of Northern Shovelers.
• The eleventh through thirteenth photos are Great Egrets.
• The fourteenth and fifteenth photos are a Snowy Egret.

Northern Shoveler

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

The Northern Shoveler is one of the most common ducks in Bexar County right now. Any place there is a large enough body of water, there will likely be at least a few of these birds. I photographed this family of Shovelers on my walk along the Mission Reach of the San Antonio River last Friday (March 15, 2013).

Northern Shovelers are dabbling ducks. They are sometimes called Spoonbills. They strain plant material out of the water by skimming their large, spatulate shaped bill through the water:

Quality of Life, A Sunday Special Edition

Sunday, March 3, 2013

Quality of Life

"Joy is to fun what the deep sea is to a puddle. It's a feeling inside that can hardly be contained."  -  Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky (Discworld, #32)

A healthy urban wildlife habitat is also a healthy human habitat. This should be self-evident but it has actually been a lesson we humans seem to have been slow to learn. Study after study is verifying that a healthy urban wildlife habitat reduces the heat island effect common to most metropolitan areas, thus reducing energy costs. They also reduce both air and water pollution reducing the harmful effects the pollution causes in the health of urban populations. They increase infiltration of rain water into the water table reducing the amount of runoff that leads to flooding and increasing the valuable ground water supply. The list goes on, but this makes my point.

A healthy urban wildlife habitat also leads to a higher quality of life, reducing the stress of urban life. It is a joy to live in such a habitat. Much work remains to be done to bring San Antonio and Bexar County to its full potential in terms of having a healthy urban wildlife habitat, but compared to many, if not most, metropolitan areas of similar size, we have made much progress here. In fact, the 1997 City of San Antonio Master Plan Policies include the goal to "integrate environmental quality protection into all phases of local planning and policy implementation."* Many benefits of this goal are now being realized.

Of course, there are always going to be individuals, corporate entities and government agencies that are going to do things on the cheap to "save money." Almost always, the savings are short term and contain hidden long term mitigation costs. And, perhaps even more destructive, are those with no long term vested interest in the community that want to make a quick profit at the expense of the long term quality of life in the community. It is imperative that we remain vigilant regarding this sort of activity and work to keep it from occurring.

The point is we have already proven that in working together as a community with cooperation between the private and public sectors, and between government agencies at all levels, we can preserve and, where necessary, restore a high quality habitat for both people and wildlife. We can have a sustainable high quality of life that abounds in opportunities for experiencing a deep and abiding joy.

The photos in this post were taken on my walk along the San Antonio River this past Friday:

• The first photo is the Anacacho Orchid Tree in full bloom.
• The second and third photos are a Fiery Skipper butterfly enjoying the nectar of the Anacacho Orchid Tree's flowers.
• The fourth photo is the adult American Coot with one of its offspring.
• The fifth and sixth photo are a Spotted Sandpiper still retaining its spotless winter plumage. Some of these birds have begun to return to their summer spotted plumage, but most appear to be retaining the winter plumage for now.
• The seventh photo is a Northern Shoveler.

* Management Practices for Natural Waterways (pdf file)  (The quote is on pdf page 12 of this document.)

Wind Blown

Monday, February 25, 2013

San Antonio River, Mission Reach, Concepcíon Park Trailhead
the downstream loop trail

Today's photos:

The weather story today here in Bexar County was the high wind. This afternoon while I was walking, the wind was blowing at about 28 mph sustained with gusts between 40 and 45 mph. There were a few grass fires around the area (one with fatalities), but falling trees and blowing debris were the bigger problems.

It seemed to me the River greenway trail was probably the safest place for a walk. The primary disadvantage was there are few windbreaks along the open river channel. Holding the camera steady enough to take the photos was quite a challenge at times. But then, just standing up in the higher wind gusts was also a challenge.

In spite of the wind, I still took at least as many photos on this walk as I usually do on any walk along the River. This is just a sample. There are enough photos for two more posts in the near future.

• The first two photos are Purple Threeawn. The wind was furiously lashing the grass around almost flattening it to the ground at times.
• In the third and fourth photos, the tall dense stand of Cattail provided a windbreak on the river bank. A couple of Northern Shovelers, a few Gadwalls and a Little Blue Heron took advantage of a respite from the wind in its shelter.
• The fifth and sixth photos are of a Pink Evening Primrose. Like all the other plants, this flower was taking a fairly severe beating as the wind whipped it around.
• The seventh and eighth photos are a Snowy Egret.
• The ninth through thirteenth photos are two Lesser Yellowlegs. There were several lesser yellowlegs feeding in the wind whipped water flowing down one of the riffles.
• The fourteenth and fifteenth photos are a male Gadwall swimming in the rough, wind blown water at the center of the River channel.
• The sixteenth and seventeenth photos are of three Killdeer. Along with the lesser yellowlegs, there were numerous killdeer. In the sixteenth photo, the killdeer that was flying higher above the water was having some difficulty navigating a wind gust, but it landed on a rock without any apparent difficulty. (They showed some planes landing at SA International Airport on the evening news. The large jumbo jets seemed to be having similar problems as they approached the runway.)
• The eighteenth photo is a Loggerhead Shrike. It had a tight grip on the tree branch. If shrikes are concerned about such things, this one was definitely having a "bad feather day."