| More Birds of La Ropa |
by Larry Abrams
So, I left you last month looking up in the sky at Pelicans, Frigate birds, and Boobies and now it’s time to get back down to earth…..especially right at the waters edge. Our main attraction here is the Willet (Catoptrophorus semipalmatus), that long legged, non-descript brown bird that is running in and out of the surf line looking for food. Their main identifying mark is the large white striped wing that you see when one of the beach dogs chases them away and they fly low over the water with a clear loud alarm call, kllk kllk. They usually circle back to the beach about 50 yards away and start feeding again, which they do by probing in the sand with their long bills.
They belong to the sandpiper family, one of many that come down to Mexico, like us, for the winter. The Willet is looking for small invertebrates that live in the sand. When they find one, they maneuver it so they can swallow it headfirst. As you walk the beach, look for the curved shells of these creatures because the Willet does not chew its’ food, it just digests the insides and poops out the shell on the sand in one piece. Sometimes on the weekend, you’ll see some of the local Mexicans sitting in the water, waist deep, digging with their hands under the sand looking for these same tasty morsels. I’ve been told that they make a soup from them that have a shrimp like flavor. We’ll have to see if we can get Paty to put this on her menu…
Even though we see them on our beach, the western Willet breeds inland from Northern Nevada to Central Alberta, east to Minnesota. The eastern Willet family is strictly coastal all year.
There are a couple of other sandpipers that winter in Zihuataenjo but we don’t get to see them on our beach at La Ropa very often. One is the Spotted Sandpiper (Actitis macularia). It’s half the size of the Willet but is easy to spot because it has an exaggerated bobbing motion. You have to know of this bobbing motion because the Spotted Sandpiper has no spots on its breast in its wintercoat, it’s just plain white. If you really want to see them, I would try looking for them in the canal. Another is the Sanderling (Calidris alba) This little guy has the fastest feet on the beach. It looks like they train in a gerbil cage, those feet move so fast. They breed on the stony barrens of the High Arctic and have to travel a long way to visit us. One more bird, also from the Arctic area, is the Whimbrel (Numenius phacopus). This one is a few inches larger than the Willet, just as non-descript color-wise, but has a much longer bill that curves downward. When I see them on the beach, they are always solitary, I have never seen them with a friend…so sad…
OK, now for one last beach bird, but not quite on the beach. This is the Neotropical Cormorant (Phalacrocorax brasilianus), the smallest of all the cormorants. You’ll find them feeding on small minnows about 5 feet from shore just where the incoming wave breaks. They are not winter visitors; they are lucky enough to live in Zihuatanejo all year long. They are all black and when they are in the water, their body is submerged so much you only see a long black neck swimming through the water, sort of a small Loch Ness monster….
“Happy Birding”
February 2004 |
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