Fieldnotes from St. Louis

American Kestrel

 In March I had the opportunity to travel to St. Louis and the surrounding areas in Missouri and Illinois. Even though this area has many familiar birds, the relative abundance is quite different. As our Massachusetts farmland reverts to forest or is developed, grassland birds have been in decline. But the mid-west has lots of farm land, so these species are much more common. I had a blast seeing how common American Kestrels were in the area. As a kid, this was one of my most desired birds to see, so the chance to see and photograph them perching on wires right outside the hotel was fantastic.

American White Pelican

 One of the other great features of this area is the Mississippi River. Or more precisely the Mississippi flyway. Nearly forty percent of our waterfowl migrates along the Mississippi and Creve Coeur Lake had tons of ducks, including Canvasbacks and Lesser Scaups

Back at the river though, kettles of hundreds of American White Pelicans could be seen slowly wheeling their way north as they followed the river. I was lucky to have a couple of birds fishing on the river and afforded close views. Check out the horn on top of the bill that they grow during breading season.

Bald Eagle

Another major user of the river is of course the Bald Eagle. Its been a long time since I saw such a high concentration of Bald Eagles. I love watching them soar and those long straight wings are very distinctive.

One of my favorites experiences with Bald Eagles occurred on a canoeing trip. There were lots of eagles on the river, but at one point two eagles flew at each other, locked talons, and started plummeting towards the river. Just as they were about to reach the water, they broke apart and when their wings opened, the force of air on wing was so great it made a loud audible snap! And then they flew off. Later I learned that was part of their courtship ritual.

Okay I take it back, that wasn't one of my favorite experiences with Bald Eagles, it is one of my favorite experiences with the natural world.

Eurasian Tree Sparrow

I have to apologize for this bad picture of an introduced bird, but no talk of birding and the St. Louis area could be complete without the Eurasian Tree Sparrow. While I'm more partial to the American Tree Sparrow, the Eurasian Tree Sparrow is a close relative of the House Sparrow. But unlike its wide-spread relative, the Eurasian Tree sparrow is less aggressive and hasn't spread far from its site of introduction in St. Louis.

To me they also have a much friendlier appearance, or maybe I was just glad to add this bird to my life list.

Meadowlark

This next bird was a mystery for me. I just couldn't place it as an Eastern Meadowlark or a Western Meadowlark. There was a flock of 5-7 birds and heard a Western song from at least one member of the group, but what about the individual pictured? If you would like to guess don't read on as I discuss the results below.

My first line of thought was location. This area has a greater frequency of Eastern than Western Meadowlarks. Secondly, the song was Western, though the songster was likely a different individual. Then I looked at the malar (area behind the bill) and notice the limited yellow, Eastern birds have less yellow in this area. My forth clue was that the markings on the head have less contrast, more like a Western.

Meadowlark

Finally I looked to google and found this great page from Cornell Lab or Ornithology that compares field marks. This lead me to look at the barring on the tail feathers. Which looks Western.

To make sense of all of this I contacted some local birders who informed me that the thin barring on the tail is the best distinguishing visual feature and the song is really diagnostic. Additionally fresh plumages hide the yellow on the malar, so this feature doesn't appear until the feathers have worn off the buffy tips to reveal the yellow. That was a lot of work to learn that my ears didn't deceive me, this was indeed a less common Western Meadowlark!

I certainly learned a lot about Meadowlark identification, which I'll have to see if I can practice again soon.