Maine-iac

The coast is the edge of the world.  The Maine coast is the edge of a wild world.  There are many inhabitants of the coast, but in the winter there is a single coast master that keeps things wild.

Over the winter an exceptional number of snowy owls irrupted to the south of their Arctic breeding grounds.  Scientists are still learning lots about these raptors. There is now evidence indicating that these large owls hunt over the open ocean at night. They use ice packs up north and their wings down south to get out to rafts of sea ducks. 

Their feathers are thicker and heavier than most, which account for them being the heaviest owl in North America.  Plus, they have feathers up and down their zygodactal feet to help keep their warm blood separated from the energy stealing snow that they often stand on.

The above coast master was working the marsh adjacent to some ocean swells where there were plenty of scoters available for night plucking. 

Another nice site was a wisp of Wilson's snipe. 

Those fanned retraces are the source of the winnowing noise that is produced during courtships displays. 

Superspecies in Babylon

Common teal, eurasian teal, teal, singing teal...people love naming things and it takes plenty of effort to get everyone to agree on a name. Even when a name is agreed on, the scientific classification may remain disputed and murky, as in the case of the green-winged, common, and speckled teal clade. Above is a picture of two "species" within the super-species trio, green-winged teal and a surprise Eurasian teal. The story gets even more complicated as Speckled teal has been split into two separate species.

 Check out this link to the American Ornithological Union, which has a committee dedicated to examining and deciding upon avian taxonomy and phylogenetics.  The fact that it can be so difficult to define species  sheds light on the perpetual march of life and that our naming and classification systems are excellent tools to aid in biological understanding, but they are not perfect tools. 

And lastly, how are super-species different than subspecies?  Well it has to do with vicariance and a few votes from a taxonomic committee.

Divergence

A Freedom Bird Blows In

Thanksgiving is upon us and being a clique American I will be eating a turkey.  However I will not be eating a butterball or the like because I don't agree with their methods.  I refuse to give my money to support giant turkey factories.    The people running these "farms" are concerned with one thing...money....cash is their God.  These turkeys have no life force, they were not raised in a turkeyish fashion.  I barely consider them turkeys.  They are also laden with antibiotics.  Antibiotics in food is a complex issue, but one of the main drawbacks it that the overuse and transfer of the antibiotics assist in the establishment of bacteria that is resistant to the antibiotics.  This renders the antibiotics useless and promotes superbugs.

Wild turkeys are great creatures; Benjamin Franklin wanted the wild turkey to be the national symbol over the bald eagle on the account that the eagles are kleptoparasites and turkeys are strutters.  Perhaps Ben liked that the males are polygamous or that they are bold enough to defend their territory.

Now, a bird that lived a more natural life on a small family owned farm sounds like it would be much more tasty and bursting with beneficial life force.  Last year I roasted a fresh turkey from Raleigh's Poultry Farm in Kings Park, NY.  This was without any doubt the most flavorful and satisfying turkey I have ever had...and I have had some amazing fried turkey in the past.  The fresh hen from Raleigh's was never frozen and was allowed to live and breath in a much better environment than the cavernous turkey factory warehouses.  I will be getting another local bird this year.

Ambrosia and your Shnoz

Late summer and fall are prime time for allergies for many people. About 30% of Americans experience hay fever, aka allergic rhinitis. Allergic rhinitis is a medical term that describes nasal inflammation that is typically caused by pollen from the plants of the Ambrosia genus. This is the ragweed family, a taxa of monoecious shrubs or herbs that are particularly abundant in the Northeast portion of the USA. The plants are Wind pollinated, which scientist call anemophilous. A single plant contains billions of grain of pollen, which can travel several hundred miles in the Wind. When the pollen is ingested, via the nose or mouth, the immune system mounts an attack on the allergen as if it was a potent threat. The body reacts to the pollen's protein by creating antibodies and histamine. The histamine is synthesized in mast cells which are concentrated in the nasal cavity and other areas that are prone to infiltration by pathogens. Histomine functions to open selective permeability in membrane for white blood cells. The histomine is also the cause for the allergy symptoms..sneezing, coughing, red eyes, runny nose....all the good stuff.

The two main culprits for of the pollen are common ragweed and great ragweed.

common ragweed inflorescence

great ragweed inflorescence

Ebird, Citizen Science, and the Wind

The gadget at the right hand part of this blog webpage is called BirdTrax.  It is a great way to incorporate real-time citizen science data into my blog.  I set up the BirdTrax gadget with customized parameters, as instructed on their website, to display bird sightings from my immediate area (Long Island, NY, USA).

The bird sightings that are displayed are taken from ebird and BirdTrax lets me know when rare or otherwise interesting birds are seen in my area.  ebird is a progressive concept that allows anybody, mostly enthusiastic bird watchers, to submit observations of birds utilizing a standardized system of effort, gps location, and quality control.  ebird allows bird watchers to record all of their sightings, thus keeping a running list of all the species seen and the different areas visited.  The overall package is an enticing way to contribute to ongoing ornithology.  The data can be accessed, after a permission request, to perform academic studies or otherwise examine bird phenomenons.  Over 100,000 user have generated over a million lists or data sets creating ample opportunity to conduct research.

Oh, and of course birds rely on the wind...especially the migrating species.  There are several types of migration strategies in North America: neo-tropical, short distance, residents, and dispersers.  Do some research if you are curious...it can be complicated even within the same species of bird.

Wind then Waves

Wind always comes before waves.  Wind creates waves.  Surfline has a great explanation of how waves are created.  The actual physical movement that water molecules experience in an ocean wave may surprise you.  Check out this animation; water waves are a combination of longitudinal and transverse waves.  Each water molecule does not move very far...possibly a few inches at most.  Can anybody do some research to see if scientists have studied the actual distance a single water molecule moves in an average size ocean wave.

The Wind was roaring from the east this past week, October 10-13, and some nice swells formed due to the friction of wind and water.  Here is some footage I took of waves breaking at a great spot on the barrier islands of Long Island.  It is phone video footage...so not great resolution, but the waves are 5-7 ft high on the faces.  The buoy was reading over 9 ft at a 10 second period, which is a nice ripe swell for Long Island.  On the third and last wave, a surfer gets a nice barrel ride.

This wave is great for surfing, it starts as a surging wave off a point of land and tapers off into a spilling wave as it wraps along the shoreline.  I got a ride that was at least 200 yards long, easily the longest wave I've ridden on Long Island in the decade plus that I've been surfing.  Some scientists categorize breaking waves into three types: surging, dumping, and spilling.   What do you think these terms mean...?

Lastly...buoys are awesome.  They are the robotic sentinels of the ocean.  The NOAA buoy system provides a wealth of information which can me used for so many different functions.  Do you use the buoys for anything or can you imagine who would and why... Click on a yellow diamond, which represents a buoy location, and see what data it is collecting.