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A Walk in Fern Bluff Park (17 March 2007) Photos and a narrative describing this walk are posted below, in a series of pages. Thanks to all who shared in this experience, especially to Mike and his dogs, Grover. and Elliot, at Fern Bluff Park, and to Keith, his son, and his son's friend, at Brightwater Park. It was a beautiful day for a walk, though the morning began with temperatures in the mid-40's (the low, which came just before sun-up, was 39 degrees F), pushed by a gusty wind. The first sound I heard in the park was from a male great-tailed grackle (Quiscalus mexicanus) fussing with his mate in a white oak near the pavilion. The great-tailed grackle is supposedly distinguished from its boat-tailed cousin (Quiscalus major) by its paler eyes (not evident in this photo, though I could see its golden eye from a considerable distance), and a few other features that various authorities list in confusingly different lists. The ranges of these two species are different, and so are their calls. Both are icterid blackbirds, in the giant order Passeriformes. More than half of all known bird species are passerines. With about 5,400 species this order is more diverse than the largest mammalian order, Rodentia.
Not too far away, a mockingbird (Mimus polyglottos) was noisily asserting its territorial rights. When it flew down to the ground in search of insects I took the photo shown below. I'd hoped it would flash its wings, to show the bright white spots on them (one large white spot on each wing) that it uses to startle insects into jumping and giving away their locations, but it didn't. The cool wind would have slowed the insects down to the point that such a device would have been fruitless anyway.
Archives of previous walks in the park: 12 May 2007, 05 May 2007; 28 April 2007, 21 April 2007, 14 April 2007, 1 April 2007 Easter Egg Hunt; 24 March 2007, 17 March 2007; Nov. 03, 2001; April 04, 2001; March 25, 15, 10-11, 04, 2001; February 24, 18, 10, 2001 * TERMITE ENCOUNTERS * SNAKE ENCOUNTERS * SNAKE BITE FIRST AID * SNAKE EXCLUSION * SPIDER ENCOUNTERS FOR 2008 * SPIDER ENCOUNTERS FOR 2007 * SPIDER BITE FIRST AID * SPIDER EXTERMINATION * PUSS CATERPILLAR ENCOUNTERS * PUSS CATERPILLAR FIRST AID * PUSS CATERPILLAR EXTERMINATION * Assembled & Edited by Jerry Cates. Questions? Corrections? Comments? BUG ME RIGHT NOW! ---- Ph: 512-331-1111 ---- E-Mail ---- Privacy ----BugsInTheNews * --0a0s-- |
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