A Surprise Visitor at Our Door

Praying Mantis side view

Praying Mantis side view shows the gripping claws on its forelegs.

A couple of weeks ago, there was a surprise visitor at our door as I arrived to open up. Standing there on the shelf in front of our suite was a Praying Mantis in its famous pose! As you can see in this photo, mantis?s front legs are heavier than the others, with powerful claws for grabbing their victims as they go by. This posture makes mantises look like they are praying while they are preying, hence their name.

There are about 2400 species of mantis worldwide in 430 genera. Most mantises easily camouflage themselves as parts of plants so their prey won?t recognize them until it?s too late. Then they reach out with their lobster-like claws to nab their target. They will sometimes stalk nearby prey.

Praying Mantis head on

Front view. Gives a better look of its face.

Mantises have binocular vision. Their eyes are placed at the upper corners of their large triangular head enabling depth perception, and they have flexible necks that allow nearly 180° movement of the head. Their compound eyes have sharp vision in the center and the other lenses provide peripheral vision for detecting the motion of prey or predators. Placement of their eyes on their large triangular head Other species walk on the ground and may be browner in color than the green of the one in these photos. In either case, mantises will eat virtually anything. They are known to eat various insects, small reptiles, and even small birds. They are also preyed upon by larger versions of the same species.

Most mantises have a 1 year life cycle. They mate in the fall and lay their eggs, which hatch in the spring. Some species perform sexual cannibalism, with the females beheading the males and eating them after fertilization. The female then dies, leaving the sturdy eggs to hatch on their own.

Wild Goose Chase

Wild Goose Chase: Wood Sandpiper

Wood Sandpiper

Wood Sandpiper

The chance to get two life birds in SoCal in the same day led to a literal wild goose chase. On Sunday 3/12/2023, my wild goose chase took over 350 miles of driving and added several year birds as well. The first leg was a 75 minute drive to the San Jacinto Wildlife Area. We were able to get into a private duck club at which a Wood Sandpiper was resident. We were only the second guided group admitted. The Wood Sandpiper stayed partially hidden and quite a distance away for more than an hour. It then flew to another pond. When I reached the new location, it was much closer, in more open reeds and better light. These images taken with my 100-400 lens with a 2x crop factor required only slight centering crops and resizing.
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Desert Spiny Lizards

Desert Spiny Lizards frontal

Desert Spiny Lizard at Sonny Bono Salton Sea NWR Visitors Center elev. -220′

It seems like nearly every trip to the California deserts lately, I encounter Desert Spiny Lizards (Sceloporus magister). They are resident in desert habitats across the American Southwest and northern Mexico and can be anywhere in elevation from well below sea level to about 5000 feet.
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Short-tailed Albatross in SoCal Waters

Short-tailed Albatross 1

Arriving at the Short-tailed Albatross.

Even on the most banal of days, birding is always an adventure. You often miss expected birds and see surprises. Sometimes, a rarity shows up and the chase is on. On Saturday, June 5th a few miles out of San Pedro, California, a fishing boat captain found a bird he did not recognize, so he texted a photo to a friend he knew could help. The bird turned out to be a Short-tailed Albatross!

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A Common Ringed Plover in Orange County California

While birding at San Joaquin Wildlife Sanctuary in southern California on 31-AUG-19, we found a plover with an unusually heavy black breast band. This bird was feeding on the mud of the ponds beside a handful of Semipalmated Plovers, and other shorebirds. Compared to nearby Semipalmated Plovers, this plover seemed slightly larger – just a tiny bit huskier and longer-winged. Further observation of the bird suggested we had found a wildly out-of-place Common Ringed Plover, Charadrius hiaticula. We sent word out to the local birding websites and hotlines, and at that point, the circus began!

What Makes It A Common Ringed Plover?

The male Common Ringed Plover showing the heavy black breast band.

The male Common Ringed Plover showing the heavy black breast band. Photo © Jeff Bray, 2019

Many features that distinguish Common Ringed from Semipalmated Plovers (Charadrius semipalmatus) are minute and subtle. They can be very hard to observe, let alone document. There were seven Semipalmated Plovers clustered around the pond where the mystery plover was foraging. All of them were either females or juveniles; not a single adult male Semipalmated Plover was present. This was, in itself, a little odd. The unknown plover male really stood out with its very wide, black breast band. Continue reading →

Painted Lady Migrates Through So Cal

Painted lady ButterflyThe 2019 Painted Lady movements through Southern California were impressive. In a time when immense wildlife explosions of anything are almost unheard of, this colossal migration was distinctive. Thoughts of enormous arthropod (insect) invasions so often bring concerns of other hostile species to mind. The Painted Ladies were a magnificent blast of beautiful color.

In March 2019, the Painted Lady northward migration saw huge spikes in the number of butterflies over previous years. This was thought to have been their single largest migration since, possibly, the late 1960s. Remarkable waves of Painted Ladies flowed through the cities and deserts alike. Previous, yet smaller, movements of this butterfly happened in 1998 and again in 2005. The 2005 migration year was estimated at one billion butterflies. The spectacle of this movement was striking. The soft orange butterflies travel at fast speeds with direction, intent, and purpose. Continue reading →

A Most Unusual “Raccoon”

The coati coming over the fence to steal some sugar water

The Coati makes its entrance

On a recent birding trip to southeastern Arizona, I ran across a mammal I have long wanted to meet: the White-nosed Coatimundi, Nasua narica. Known as a coati for short, this attractive beast is a member of the raccoon family, Procyonidae, as suggested by its facial mask and faintly ringed tail. All of the world’s four coati species reside only in the Americas. Other species include the Eastern and Western Mountain Coatis, and the South American Coati. Only the White-nosed Coati occurs in the United States, where it is found from southern Arizona, across the southwest corner of New Mexico to south Texas from El Paso to the Gulf of Mexico. The White-nosed Coati?s range extends all the way through Central America into northwestern Columbia. Continue reading →

Andean Condor: Let’s Float Down to Peru!

Adult Male Andean Condor in Cochahuasi Animal Sanctuary

Adult Male in Cochahuasi Animal Sanctuary

While every corner of the globe brings its own plethora of bird species to the table, few countries attract such attention as Peru. Second only to Columbia in the sheer number of species, Peru’s vast array of climates house species from all areas of the birding spectrum. Perhaps the most intriguing species in the nation is the Andean Condor.

Heavier than all other flying birds and second only in wingspan to the Wandering Albatross, this giant scavenger has always struck awe in the entire birding community. I am certainly no exception, and I finally got to see some myself in August of 2018. Continue reading →

A Chaseable Red-flanked Bluetail in California

Red-flanked Bluetail on the grounds of the William Clark Library

Red-flanked Bluetail at the William Clark Library in Los Angeles, California

When word broke on a Monday of a Red-flanked Bluetail found at the William Andrews Clark Library, it caused a panic. We scrambled for our field guides to see what one even looked like, and then looked up the library hours of operation. The news wasn?t good: the facility only opened during the week when most of us are working instead of birding. This whole working-for-a-living thing really puts a damper on birding! We spent an anguished week watching the reports verifying the bird was still present. Fortunately, the bird hung around, so we drove to Los Angeles to chase it. A crowd of about 100 local birders milled around by the library gate, mixing with visitors from further afield. Promptly at 9:00 am, the gates opened and people started speed-walking towards the opposite end of the property. The grounds were beautiful: lush, with mature lawns, dense hedges, and concrete walkways shaded by huge ficus and magnolia trees. Continue reading →