Again we have the last batch of wildlife photos on hand. Send yours in, please!
Today’s group of photos come from reader Ephraim Heller; it’s the second part of a two-part series (part 1 is here). Ephraim’s text is indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them.
Little St. Simons Island is an 11,000-acre barrier island on the coast of Georgia. Much of it is salt marsh, with a few islands in freshwater ponds for wading bird rookeries. I was lucky to spend a week there in April during the nesting season. My last post focused on the wading birds; this one focuses on other species.
A well camouflaged American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis) lurking in the rookery pond:
American oystercatchers (Haematopus palliatus) are obligate specialists on intertidal invertebrates that feed in two ways: finding a mussel or oyster with its shell slightly ajar, the bird inserts the bill and severs the adductor muscle before the shell can close; alternatively, it hammers the shell directly to fracture it.
I took these photos on the shore where the oystercatchers were nesting. The sustained 40 mph winds whipped the beach into an abrasive sandstorm, which bothered me much more than it bothered the birds:
Royal terns (Thalasseus maximus) are among the larger terns on the Atlantic coast:
Boat-tailed grackles (Quiscalus major) have a mating system I have not previously encountered: females aggregate in colonial nesting groups while dominant males compete for access to the entire group. Although the dominant male at a colony performs the majority of observed copulations, genetic analysis shows he sires fewer than 40% of nestlings. Females regularly copulate with other males outside the colony and return to lay eggs that are not the dominant male’s offspring.
The long toes of the common gallinule (Gallinula galeata) allow it to walk atop floating vegetation.
Red-bellied woodpeckers (Melanerpes carolinus) drum on resonant surfaces to broadcast their territories and for mate attraction. The tree cavities they excavate and abandon become nests for other species, such as owls, bluebirds, and flying squirrels. They often cache food in bark crevices.
The common garter snake (Thamnophis sirtalis). Garter snakes are viviparous, giving birth to live young rather than laying eggs, with typical litters of 15–40 babies.
