Happy Monday!
(click the image below for a bigger non-blurry version of this week’s schedule)
Albatrossity
We’ll take another hiatus from chronicling my 2015 road trip to the Palouse, because migration is warming up here in Flyover Country, and I had an experience I wanted to share with all of you. I took a road trip to one of my favorite national wildlife refuges, Quivira NWR in south-central KS, and most of these pics are from that trip, with a couple of local birds tossed in to fill up this post.
Shorebird migration is slow to start, and we are a few weeks away from peak numbers. But one of the earliest shorebird migrants here is the Baird’s Sandpiper (Calidris bairdii), which may look like a small undistinguished (or undistinguishable) peep, but it has a cool story or two, especially if you are interested in energetics. This species nests in the high Arctic of Canada, Alaska, and even Siberia. It winters in South America, from the Ecuadorian Andes to the tip of Tierra del Fuego. So twice a year it expends a LOT of calories on a migration that can be as long as 15,000 kilometers (that’s 9,300 miles in American).
More amazingly, the females arrive in the Arctic with essentially zero body fat. Nevertheless, a few days later, they lay one egg a day for four consecutive days. The eggs total up to 120% of her body biomass. As one author understated “The energetics of this accomplishment remain unstudied.” Looking for a doctoral thesis project? You are welcome! Click here for larger image.
On The Road – Albatrossity – Spring migration beginsPost + Comments (16)