Mystery moth (and migrating thrushes!)

Not much time tonight, but here's a nice moth, photographed in Bodega Bay on 20 September 2014.

 

P.S.  While I was taking pictures of this moth, I heard migrating thrushes calling overhead.  It's worth listening for them on calm nights!

ADDENDUM (23 September): I'm guessing this moth is in the genus Apamea, but I'm not sure which species it is.

0.12

 

0.12 inches — of rain, that is!  I'm guessing this Pacific Treefrog (Pseudacris regilla) was happy about the rainfall last night and this morning.

Here's a close-up of its wonderful toe pads:

 

CORRIGENDUM (21 September 2014): Originally this post was called "0.4" and I said that 0.4 inches of rain had fallen.  Jim pointed out that much less rain fell in Bodega Bay.  I'm not sure what happened, as I thought I had checked the measurement data, but somehow something got mixed up.  I want the record to be right, so I edited the post to read the correct amount of 0.12 inches of rain.

Dolphins in the surf

For a few years now, I kept missing out on sightings of Bottlenose Dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) in the Bodega Bay area — until tonight!  Thanks to Lewis, we watched a small group of them off Salmon Creek Beach in the early evening.

 

There were at least 6, possibly 7 or more, individuals.  It was hard to count as different animals dove and surfaced.

Note the relatively large size, slate gray coloration, tall and falcate (sickle-shaped) dorsal fin, and in a few photos, a glimpse of the beak.

 

We were excited to see at least one calf.  In the next image, compare the larger fin of the adult with the smaller fin of the calf.

 

These dolphins were fairly distant, so I was taking pictures and just hoping that some of them would come out.  Although I didn't know it at the time, I caught the calf with its head out of the water:

 

(Calves nurse for 18-20 months, but then stay with their mothers for another 3-6 years.)

Much of the time, the dolphins were swimming parallel to the waves.  Sometimes they would stop and mill around, perhaps to search for food.  A few times they turned and either surfed with the waves or swam (and leaped!) through them.  Here's a selection of my favorite images of the dolphins interacting with the waves.  As this is my first time seeing Bottlenose Dolphins off Bodega Head, I can't help sharing a few!

 

 

 

 

Bottlenose Dolphins aren't common in this area.  This is at the northern end of their range.  I remember hearing about Darris Nelson's report of them at Doran Beach in 2012, and there have been a few other observations, but if you see them, consider yourself lucky!

One more picture to wrap up.  What do you know, we saw a dolphin in the sky on our walk back!

 

Change in the weather

Did anyone else see those wonderful clouds in the early evening of September 16th?  I'm sure many of you did.  Here are a few of my favorite views.  Everywhere you looked there seemed to be something different and magical going on.

 

 

 

Subsidy

About a week ago, while driving into work, I noticed a few Turkey Vultures (Cathartes aura) feeding in a grassland.  By itself that sighting wasn't unusual, but the exact location was a little odd — I hardly ever see vultures feeding there.  It was close to the road, so I decided to walk out to take a look at what they were feeding on.

 

I expected it to be some sort of mammal or bird...but my eyes opened wide to see this:

 

An Ocean Sunfish (Mola mola)!  The vultures were eating this Ocean Sunfish in a grassland at least 120 feet from the bluff edge!

So one of the first questions is, how did the sunfish get there?  It's seems unlikely that a vulture could lift such a large prey item.  It's more likely that the sunfish washed up on the beach, and then a mammal (e.g., Coyote?) carried it into the grassland.

As I was photographing the sunfish, I noticed some movement along one edge.  Looking more closely, I realized an insect with strong black and yellow markings was landing on a torn area of the sunfish:

 

I don't have a lot of experience identifying insects in this group, but I think this might be a Western Yellowjacket (Vespula pensylvanica).  Please correct me if I'm wrong.

The yellowjacket was actively carving out a piece of the sunfish!  Here's a sequence of images documenting the event, until just before the yellowjacket flew off with its prize:

 

 

 

This is a very nice example of a spatial subsidy — "movements of nutrients, detritus, prey, and consumers among habitats" — as defined by Gary Polis and colleagues in 1997. (See Polis, G.A., W.B. Anderson, and R.D. Holt.  1997.  Towards an integration of landscape and food web ecology: The dynamics of spatially subsidized food webs.  Annu. Rev. Ecol. Syst.  28: 289-316.)

Inspired by the work of Gary Polis, ecologists have been increasingly interested in the movement of resources and energy between distinct ecosystems — such as from the sea to the land.  In this case, the Ocean Sunfish, normally found in the open ocean, was washed up onto a sandy beach, and then probably carried by a terrestrial mammal to a coastal grassland where it then served as food for land birds (vultures) and terrestrial insects (yellowjackets).  I couldn't help wonder — how often do yellowjackets eat Ocean Sunfish in grasslands?

Prairie in the dunes

 

Spotting a Prairie Warbler (Setophaga discolor) foraging along the dune ridge near the entrance gate to the Bodega Marine Laboratory was a very pleasant surprise while I was working in the late afternoon today (14 September 2014).

I only managed a few distant shots, but here they are, as this is my first observation of a Prairie Warbler on Bodega Head.  

This species is a rare migrant in this area — they're primarily residents of the eastern U.S. and mostly winter in the West Indies.

In the photo above and those below, note the black streaks along the sides, faint wing bars, white eye crescents, and white in the outer tail feathers (barely visible).  This bird was very colorful, but the bright yellow only shows in some of the photos.

 

This next shot was unintended, but it's fun to see the bird in flight: 

 

And here's one more, a head-on view of the Prairie Warbler peering through an opening in a lupine: 

 

Black-and-white and not red-all-over

I haven't had much time to catch up with fall migrants this year, but here are a few quick shots for the record.  These are the first pictures I've taken of these species on Bodega Head: 

 

Black-and-white Warbler (Mniotilta varia), Owl Canyon, 24 August 2014

 

And here's one from the Bodega Marine Lab parking lot yesterday, 12 September 2014: 

 

This is an immature American Redstart (Setophaga ruticilla).  It was very active and didn't come out in the open, but below are two more pictures: one of the fanned tail with bright yellow patches and another showing the yellow patches in the tail, wing, and along the sides of the breast. 

 

 

Both of these warblers are considered rare migrants on Bodega Head.

P.S.  Rather than gray with yellow patches (as in females and young males), adult male American Redstarts are black with orange patches.  The name "redstart" is a little misleading.  Although "start" comes from an old word for "tail," and therefore the name could refer to the adult male's red tail patches, the patches are more orange than red.