Naturalist on the Run, Part II

Driving along an urban street to meet friends for our weekly long run, my husband and I were startled by a sight I had always wanted to see. Ten yards in front of our car, a hawk flapped heavily, seemingly unable to fly up into the crook of a tree, weighed down by the Rock Pigeon in its talons. Whether because of us or for some other reason, the hawk let go, and the pigeon flew away. Larger than the males, as hawks are, females prey on medium-sized birds such as pigeons and doves as well as smaller birds. What amazes me, though, is that the prey can weigh almost as much as the predator, with the largest pigeon weighing up to 13.4 ounces and the largest hawk weighing only an ounce more. Maybe the hawks predate only on smaller pigeons. Cooper’s Hawks also maraud birdfeeders in search of more petite birds. I don’t admit it to other bird lovers, but I’ve always secretly hoped that a Cooper’s or a Sharp-shinned Hawk would appear at my birdfeeder for a dramatic chase full of skill and agility.

Not as astonishing but still fun: the week before on a chilly evening run, an animal swam toward the bank in the river alongside us. We assumed it was a beaver, but a closer look revealed a raccoon. If this one was representative, they are fast, strong, and confident swimmers.

Close to Home

I’ve been reading in Women in the Field: America’s Pioneering Women Naturalists about nineteenth- and twentieth-century female ornithologists. Although many of them traveled afield, what caught my eye was that many of them stayed close to home and made their most important contributions to science by observing “ordinary” birds such as the Northern Flicker and the Black-capped Chickadee. Cordelia Stanwood (1865-1958) conducted her studies on the forty acres of habitat surrounding her home. Rich and varied, the land included appealing microcosms ranging from fields and wetlands to forest, used by a wide variety of birds that provided Stanwood with a lifetime of nature study. Margaret Morse Nice (1883-1974) studied the Song Sparrow. Althea Rosina Sherman (1854-1943) spent years focusing on the Northern Flickers she watched from her Iowa dooryard before she took a trip around the world. Studies on local flora and fauna may arguably have been more characteristic of female naturalists with their circumscribed range of travel, but male naturalists also studied the pedestrian and the local. The most famous naturalist of all, Charles Darwin, ran most of his study about earthworms (the book apparently sold better than On the Origin of Species during his lifetime) from his country estate. It’s comforting to know that someday even if I cannot go afield, I can always study the Black-capped Chickadees from my window.

Key West

I was sitting on a beach in Key West, mesmerized by a gull I had never seen before. A striking black head had captured my attention, and I forgot to notice other telling details such as size and beak color. A single aspect distracted me so that I didn’t absorb the entire picture. I’m pretty sure I was watching a Bonaparte’s Gull, though. Pelicans dove into the ocean in numbers so great, it’s hard to believe they were almost extinct in the 1960s and 70s. They stun fish with their bodies before scooping them up into their pouches. They also turn their heads to the left to protect their trachea and esophagus, located on the right side of their bodies. Kingfishers perched on wires along the highway between Miami and Key West. Osprey cruised over our car and platform nests appeared along the length of the road. I was disappointed I didn’t see any shorebirds or tropical birds, but it wasn’t that kind of vacation.