Another post in the occasional series "The Male of the Species"
A single male mallard swims placidly near a pier where it meets the seawall, disappearing from view as he approaches the bulkhead. Suddenly, there is an eruption of splashing with water spraying in all directions. A half-submerged male mallard (the same or another?) is beating the surface of the river with his wings, as if striving to free himself from an unknown something attempting to pull him into the depths. The male does go under and then resurfaces still batting the water. Unexpectedly, in the turbulent water the head of a second male mallard appears below the first. The topmost male is now trying to bite the other male while continuing to flail at it with its wings. Having heard stories of randy mallard males mating with various objects, both animate and inanimate, I thought perhaps this was a particularly bizarre example of male on male. As the struggle continues, both ducks are engulfed by the water, sinking out of sight. Once more they break the surface, first one male, then the second, and then, unbelievably, a female mallard at the bottom of the stack, together the three grappling ducks churning the water. Yet again, their tumultuous conflict immerses them in the river, until at last they all rise to the surface at which time the female successfully breaks free of the male on the back. She quickly shakes her disordered feathers and swims away as rapidly as possible. Her mate releases his hold on her assailant and immediately follows her, as the attacker slowly, calmly moves off.
Another post in the occasional series "The Male of the Species"
Alongside the walkway and separated from it by a combination brick wall and fence of black metal bars, there is a feature of the Hudson River best described as a cove. It is demarcated by the disordered rocks of the riprap foundation of a pier to the south where a fireboat is moored and the well-weathered wooden infrastructure that supports a pier to the north sometimes used for special events. At the landward end of the cove, about six feet below the walkway, low tide exposes algae-coated pilings, a small mudflat, an equally small sand-and-pebble beach, and a pyramid-shaped pile of riprap, algae-covered at the base, that slopes upward from the beach to the walkway.
The tide is neither low nor high and a pair of Canada geese are at the water’s edge feeding as I stop to look. The larger male extends his neck to its limit eying me through the fence, while his mate continues to nibble the algae. Wondering at the male’s behavior, I walk along the wall to another vantage point again to view the geese. There with their yellowish heads down among the glistening green algae-clad rocks I spot five fluffy goslings, about two weeks old, continuously eating, stopping only when moving from rock to rock or when swimming from piling to piling.
The parents feed along with their young, one or the other, mostly the male, constantly lifting it head to search the environment for potential threats. At one point, as several brants, smaller sea geese, swim closer to the family, the male raises his head and issues a series of low-volume honks. The female elevates her head, and while looking in the opposite direction, also emits some soft honks. Approximately fifty yards away, swimming ajacent to the old pier, a second pair of Canada geese come into view heading for the seawall supporting the walkway, but not directly toward the goose family. Nevertheless, the two adults remain vigilant, honking quietly, as the goslings swim or move away from between them spreading out to cover an area of about six feet. As the second set of geese continue swimming closer, the male suddenly launches himself into the air, flies over the goslings, lands in the water just beyond the farthest one, and immediately stretches his neck horizontally above the water, emitting sharper, urgent honks, partially opening his wings, shooing the goslings into deeper water. His mate behaves similarly from the opposite side herding the offspring together. In seconds the family has formed a tight cluster of goslings, escorted by two very attentive parents.
When the second pair of geese approachs to around ten feet and stops, the two male stretch out their necks, pull them back, and then trust them forward again, honking repeatedly, but remaining stationary or swimming in small circles, never closing the distance between the pairs. The females also join in the head thrusting and honking intermittently. After a few minutes of this behavior, all parties slowly back away from the confrontation, still thrusting and honking and, as they do so, they exhibit displacement behavior by taking sips of water, as if to say, “My head is forward and low to the water because I want a drink, not because I am upset with you coming too near my offspring.” or “I just want some water. I am not distressed because you mistook my peaceful intentions for a threat.” (In more placid times, I have rarely, or not all, seen geese sipping water.)
The parents shepherd their goslings back to the rocks and the second pair swim to the bulkhead, all to feed. But then, sometime later, there is one more flurry of activity initiated when the male parent’s head jerks up. He looks in the direction of the other geese. With out warning, he then propels himself through the air at the other pair, driving one of them into deeper water, before rejoining the family. And they all feed happily ever after.
Walking along the lawn, where the edge meets groundcover, low bushes, and taller shrubs, I searched the grass for song sparrows, looked beneath the shrubbery for white-throated sparrows, scanned the shrubbery itself for kinglets, and surveyed the surrounding trees for flycatchers. I was continually distracted by the commonplace robins flying back and forth between the trees and the ground or racing across the lawn. Suddenly, about three feet ahead of me, darting out from under the bushes was what I at first took to be a flustered robin, as surprised and disconcerted as I was. The bird was about the size and shape of a robin, but the color of its back seemed browner. The erect feathers on its head, which was similar to that of a robin, gave it a somewhat befuddled look. But the beak appeared to be more finch-like than robin-like. We remained standing and staring at each other just long enough for me to note the coloring of the bird’s sides and belly. The side color resembled the red of a robin, all right, but the limited white found on the normal robin extended well up the belly to the breast of this bird. I began to wonder if my identification was incorrect, or was this some really strange robin. Finally, the bird flew down the length of the lawn landing below a shadbush. At that point, watching and listening to its activities in the dead leaves I knew that tweren’t no robin. The bird made small jumps backward, similar to the white-throated sparrow, removing the leaf cover to expose the food beneath, causing the leaves to rustle loud enough to be heard some distance away. That was not the behavior of any robin I ever observed! Checking my bird field guide, I confirmed my new identification of the bird as a female Rufous-sided Towhee.
A bird the size of a robin swooped low over the lawn approaching a still skeletal deciduous tree in a group of four similar ones. The bird entered the canopy of bare branches from below and alit on the trunk at the point where the lowest limbs separate. The basically black-and-white speckled bird blended with the colors of the trunk, distinguished only by its long white wing patch and distinctive red forehead and red throat, indicating a male. Bracing itself with its stiff tail feathers against downward slippage the bird moved rapidly up one of the stout branches before stopping abruptly. After turning its head to left and right, it began to chisel out a series of small holes forming a horizontal line across the limb from which tree sap began to flow. As the bird’s head reached the right end of the row of holes and moved back to the center, I almost expected to hear the “ding” of a carriage return on a typewriter (for those of you who remember typewriters). Yes, Virginia, their really is a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker. That name is a bit of a misnomer, because there is just a wash of very pale yellow on the sapsucker’s breast.
However, before the bird was able to lap up much sap with its brush-like tongue, a second male appeared on the very same tree. The first sapsucker immediately decamped, with the second close behind. The first dove, swooped low over the lawn, rapidly circled toward another tree in the group, but broke off its landing as the second sapsucker made a run at it. The first bird again quickly circled, then rose to loop over the tops of the trees toward yet another tree, with the second bird remaining in pursuit. The first sapsucker persisted in circling and looping the group of trees, round and through and over and under and round once more, attempting to land on one tree or another. The second continued its harassment of the first until finally the first fled from the group of trees. The returning successful sapsucker alit on a tree, fed for perhaps a minute or two, then espied (you can guess who) the first male sapsucker, who had sneaked back furtively. The chase was on! Again!
Meanwhile, in a single elm north of the males, two female sapsuckers fed on adjacent limbs, without commotion, without tumult, in short, without a feather ruffled.
As I was about to leave the park the clear call of a cardinal summoned me to return. Locating the bird in a flowering elm, I watched the male and its mate fly off southward. Enticed once again by its call I trailed the pair between the row of elms to my right and the row of mixed deciduous trees to my left. Approaching the grove of conifers situated on a low rise directly ahead, I noticed a flash of white where a smallish bird alit on a low branch of a pine. Through my binoculars, I observed a sparrow-sized bird with feathers fluffed in response to the chilly temperature. The bill was all black; the distinctive flycatcher head dark, without eye-rings; the body dark gray; the wings gray and lacking strong wingbars; and the throat, chest, and belly verging from white to off-white near the wings. When the bird flew off, I tracked it to an exposed shrub where it had landed, allowing an excellent view of its notched tail bobbing while it remained perched. After darting into nearby shrubbery several times to capture insects, the bird flew to a Juneberry bush and posed just long enough so that when I snapped its photo the resulting picture showed a empty branch with no Eastern Phoebe in sight.
