Bobwhite Quail's Shrinking World

Something unusual in her flowerbed caught Michelle Gaggiotti’s eye the other day.

“As I got closer, two birds stood up and started running and my initial thought was ‘grouse’,” she wrote.

She was able to snap the quick photo above before they flew off.

She later identified the pair as northern bobwhite quail. This one is the male

“A definite first for me,” she wrote. “They took off straight up in the air and flew off.”

Not many folks see bobwhite quail any more.

Their brushy habitat of fields and the edges of the woods has been taken over by farms and housing. Primarily ground dwellers, bobwhite fall prey to feral cats too.

Years ago before their decline, they also were a favorite game bird of hunters.

Gaggiotti’s Newcastle neighborhood backs up to Stumpy Lake wetlands which could be a good last habitat for the bobwhite.

They are insect and seed eaters and Gaggiotti’s flowerbeds probably aren’t such a bad foraging place either.

Very secretive, a bobwhite often gives away its presence by its “bobwhite” call, a call that the birds will use to bring one another together.

After nesting season, bobwhite often live in coveys of up to 20 birds.

They sleep in a circle, heads facing out and backs facing in as if they are daring the world to encroach any further!  

Life is Just a Bed of Clover

Ahhhhh!

Now that I’ve picked strawberries from a soft bed of clover at Cullipher Farm’s Berry Patch down on Princess Anne Road at the Beach, I’m really spoiled.

When you are picking strawberries, clover between the rows makes it easy on your knees and easy on your feet.

Clover also is easy on your shoes, because the thick, lush stand of green soaks up any water left by rain.

It's pretty too.  Instead of patches of ground and scrubby grass between the strawberry rows, there are just rows upon rows of spring green foliage.

A little boy ahead of me was playing around and fell. Plop! Right on the ground! The clover was so soft, he just bounced up.

Then he fell again, it was so much fun.

Farmer Mike Cullipher likes his clover too. For one, it “does a good job of smothering the weeds” that would grow up between the rows.

It also fertilizes his soil  because when the season is over, Cullipher will plow the clover under to provide nitrogen to the earth.

And last but not least, honeybees are attracted to the clover blooms.  Clover blooms  give the bees even more incentive to  fly in to do the all-important job of nectaring on  strawberry blooms. 

And if the bees don’t pollinate the strawberries, we wouldn’t have any.

Now when I eat Berry Patch  strawberries, I raise a toast to the  Berry Patch clover too.  

Don't Fence Me Out!

That could be the call of Canada geese on Long Creek these days.

If you walked along the Long Creek Trail at First Landing State Park this weekend, you might have noticed some new fencing on the beach and marsh.

First Landing State Park,  Lynnhaven River Now and students from Cape Henry Collegiate School and Boy Scout Troop 63 have just finished planting marsh grass and installing some fencing along a 243-ft. section of the trail along the water.

And the fencing is not aimed at human park visitors but at Canada goose visitors that frequent Long Creek.

It is hoped  the barrier will keep hungry geese from dining on the new,  tasty young shoots of grass.

As any one knows who lives on the water, grass of any kind, whether golf course,  lawn or marsh, is goose gourmet food.

The fencing should protect the little grasses until they are big enough to do all the good things that marshes do, such as filter sediments and nutrients from rainwater run-off and enhance the habitat for all sorts of wildlife—crabs, fish and all  birds, not just Canada geese.

The project was hard work, because volunteers, not only had to plant many little sprigs of grass and erect fencing along the shoreline, but first they also had to rake back a heavy layer of oyster shells from the beach.

In the top photo Cape Henry School students rake oysters shells off the beach.  At the bottom, Lynnhaven River Now volunteer, Kevin DuBois in blue works with boy scouts from troop 63 to put up fencing.

The shells were initially placed along parts of Long Creek as a living shoreline to create oyster reefs. But in the process shell also had been piled up on the beach to help control an erosion problem.

Now the oyster shells have done their job and the shoreline has been stabilized.

It was was time to return the shoreline to its natural marsh-grass habitati, said Erik Molleen, District Resource Specialist for the Virginia Dept. of Conservation and Recreation .

Now the only thing unnatural about the scene is the goose fencing.  

Macho Male Birds Go Crazy in Spring

Watching a male bird fling itself against your window, patio door, car mirror or even moon roof can be disconcerting.

At the least, you think the bird is crazy. At the most, you are sure he will break his neck.

Neither is usually true.

What you are seeing is a male bird that thinks he is protecting his territory from other males, but in reality he is just attacking his own image in the glass.

Over and over again the macho male crashes against the window and nothing you do seems to stop him.

He’s a swaggering toughie spoiling for a fight and to get him to calm down, you literally have to cover the window, door, whatever with a towel or blanket.

But hanging a cover on the inside doesn’t change the reflection a whit. It has to be hung outside. 

O.B. Corning cq in Windsor Oaks West sent some photos of this big pileated woodpecker battling its image in a car mirror. Bonnie Probster cq in Larkspur is the photographer.

Smaller birds like cardinals, robins and towhees are among the most notorious guys to go crazy in spring.

But obviously it’s not only the small birds that have a big male ego. Earlier this year one of you sent a photo of a Coopers hawk attacking a moon roof and now, this one of the woodpecker.

Finding a mate seems to be the only thing that brings a little saneness to their lives.

Most guys behave when there is a lady around!  

When's a Cottonmouth Not a Cottonmouth?

When it's a common watersnake, like the  the brown watersnake or the northern watersnake.

David Baldwin and Pete Harris were canoeing on Indian Creek near Northwest River Park in Chesapeake when they saw two snakes poking their heads out of a tree hole.

Harris photographed the duo and sent the photo on to me.

Maurice Cullen, who teaches at Virginia Beach Middle School, is my snake-go-to man. 

Brown watersnakes, said Cullen. The smaller snake was probably the male and the hole may have been their little love nest. 

Any dark patterned snakes near the water make folks think of poisonous cottonmouth moccasins and these harmless brown water snakes are the snake most confused with the moccasin, Cullen noted.

In addition brown water snake females give birth to live young so as the summer wears on, the snakes are apt to thicken up in the middle and be even more reminiscent of chunky cottonmouths.

Brown watersnakes also are the snakes most apt to drop out of a tree into a boat, which could give quite a start to a canoeist placidly paddling down the river. 

“These snakes like to climb,” Cullen wrote.

Also this week Chris Todd sent this  photo of two more snakes that often get confused with cottonmouth moccasins:   northern watersnakes. The two were tussling over an eel at Munden Point Park. 

Northern watersnakes, unless their skin is dull because they are getting ready to shed, are really quite pretty with their russet-red markings against their tannish brown bodies.

Cullen did say that when two snakes go after the same prey, often one of the snakes also gets eaten!

“There is not much of an easier meal for a snake to eat than another snake, (no arms or legs poking out),” Cullen wrote. “Whichever one opens up wider gets the bigger meal.”  

Why Does a Turtle Cross the Road?

Because it is looking for a place to lay its eggs.

Most of the time when you see a water turtle crossing the road this time of the year, it's a female and she's come up on land to find a good place to excavate a hole and lay her eggs.

Often they come up out of roadside ditches, cross over the road and head for a nice plowed field or soft mulched flower bed where it is easy to dig a hole.

Pretty red and yellow- bellied sliders, painted turtles, snapping turtles, all water turtles, leave their water homes to make a nest on land.

They dig the holes with their back feet, lay their eggs, cover them with dirt and head back to the water.  The young hatch to fend for themselves.

Jane Brumley found this yellow-bellied slider, bigger than a dinner plate, she said, in her Knotts Island yard and Audrey Hodges found this ugly ol' snapping turtle crossing the road in Pungo.

Our old familiar box turtle with the colorful domed shell is a land turtle.  It also will cross the road most anytime as it roams about because roads intersect their habitat.

But this time of year is mating season, so especially be on the lookout for turtles in the road and try to avoid them.

Even better if it is safe, be a good Samaritan. Stop and carry the turtle to the other side.

Sliders and box turtles are safe to pick up.

If you pick up a snapper do it only from the rear with your hands under the shell and your thumbs on top between the two back legs, because as the name implies, a snapper can inflict a nasty bite. Stay far away from its head and long neck.

I have heard that if you get a snapper to snap a stick, you can then drag him across the road, because it won't let go.

They say snappers won't let go until it thunders!

When is a red-headed woodpecker really a red-headed woodpecker?

That's not a trick question.

The woodpeckers with red heads that we see often don't have the common name of red-headed woodpecker, though they are often mis-identified.

One is the huge black and white pileated woodpecker with the big red crest on its head.

The other is a red-bellied woodpecker with a red helmet on its head, but it gets its name from a little brush of red on its belly.

They are both called red-headed woodpeckers, but the real red-headed woodpecker, also black and white,  is an elusive  critter whose head and face and neck are a rich beautiful red all over.

Tom Houser, a senior gardener at Norfolk Botanical Garden, was lucky enough to get this good phooto of  a  handsome red-headed woodpecker at the garden recently.

From the looks of it, this woodpecker may be thinking about nesting in that great hole.

If so, there may be several little red-headed woodpeckers around the garden this summer--all the real thing.

Killdeer Puts on Broken-Wing Act to Protect Eggs

If you see a smallish bird with long legs flip-flopping around with what looks like a broken wing and the bird also is calling loudly as if in pain, not to worry.

It’s probably a killdeer.

And it’s all a big act on the part of the brave killdeer parent, putting on a show, as it strives mightily to get you away from its nest.

A killdeer is an upland bird that you would immediately think was a shorebird out of its element.

The long-legged critter with two black rings around the neck seem to nest in all the wrong places--in the middle of a farmer’s field, in the gravel median of a parking lot, in the center of the lawn.

I took this photo of a killdeer on eggs in a parking lot median at the Virginia Beach Convention Center.

But to killdeers, these places are ideal, because the birds don’t build nests. They simply lay their eggs in maybe a little scrape in the ground where the brown-speckled eggs will be camouflaged against, say, rocks, mulch, brown grass or turned ground.

And just in case you worry that you might not see them, the parents are very vigilant and very funny to watch as they try to distract you from the nest location.

Though it’s no laughing matter to them, the killdeers will keep at it until you are far away and then will fly off, wing all healed!

This works with predators or for humans with hoes, lawn mowers and other outdoor equipment.

Despite the parents’ bravado, it’s a wonder killdeer eggs survive to hatch.

Yet one year I saw a parent and baby killdeers that leave the nest right away with their parents, running across the lawn searching for food at the Association for Research and Enlightenment on Atlantic Avenue.

And all I could think was the babies had hatched on the busy Feeder Road median!  

A Rainbow of Migrants is Invading the Area

 Keep your eyes on your bird feeders!

A rainbow of beautful, colorful hungry spring migrants are flying though the area this week.

This black and white warbler was among several colorful species of warblers photographed in First Landing State Park by Rob Bielawski.

And the lovely yellow prothontary warbler was snapped by Karen Beatty at Red Wing Lake Golf Course in Virginia Beach.

In my Beacon column on Sunday (May 6), read about more beauties that are traveling through including the invasion of the rose-breasted grosbeaks.

These are big black and white birds with a rose-red breast. The females are stripey brown.

Folks also have been seeing blue grosbeaks—bright blue with cinnamon wing bars--and indigo buntings, so blue, they look almost black in some light.

Some will move on farther north to nest and some may stay around here.

But there’s no question, because the birds are hungry travelers, your bird feeder is the best place to see them this time of year.  

Black Snake Or Cottonmouth Moccasin?

When Kathy Ryan’s Labrador retriever alerted her to this big snake in her Broad Bay Point Greens yard on the water in Virginia Beach, Ryan was somewhat alarmed too.

She thought at first it was a poisonous cottonmouth moccasin because of the snake’s very visible pattern and the thickness of its body.

On the other hand, Ryan also thought it could be a harmless black rat snake.

Maurice Cullen, a snake aficionado and Virginia Beach school teacher, said  that Ryan’s second thought was right.

It was a black rat snake that had just consumed a big meal or several smaller meals.

Most people don’t realize that baby black snakes have a white and black pattern that looks very unlike their parents and occasionally remnants of this pattern remain as the snake grows older.

In the case of Ryan’s snake, the pattern was showing up where its body was engorged from dinner.

“The typical juvenile pattern is showing up well,” Cullen said.

My uneducated guess had been that it was a black snake because it wasn’t opening its jaws wide to show a “cotton mouth” the way a moccasin would do in a defensive posture.

Also black snakes kink up when surprised and you can see the kinking in the back part of the snake’s body where it’s not so full of food.

Fortunately this black snake lived to scare the lab another day.

"No, we don't kill snakes," Ryan said.  "They help keep other critters at bay."