faulker015

Black scoters have been turning up in both of my primary eBird areas (Arapahoe County, Colorado, and Boone County, Missouri) in recent weeks.  These sea ducks breed along Arctic Coasts and on tundra lakes of Alaska and Northern Canada, wintering along both coasts of North America as well as the Gulf Coast. While they occasionally turn up on reservoirs and lakes of the interior, they are not as common away from the coasts as their white-winged cousins.  Black scoters are usually encountered in flocks, bobbing in the water of coastal bays and diving for mollusks, crustaceans and other aquatic invertebrates.  When observed on lakes of the interior, they tend to be alone or in small groups; most move on to coastal areas for the winter but some stay on inland lakes if adequate food is available and the waters remain open. Unfortunately, I have not had the opportunity to observe this year's visitors to Colorado and Missouri but I have often seen wintering black scoters off Long...

Watching a film set in Cape Town, South Africa, today, I wondered about the geology of Table Mountain, which looms above the city.  As is often the case, the natural history of that famous massif is complex. About 500 million years ago, during the Cambrian Period, a rift valley developed in the southern portion of a continental plate that included today's Continents of South America, Antarctica and Africa.  Initially flooded by a shallow sea, the rift accumulated sediments over the next 100 million years.  Throughout the late Paleozoic and early Mesozoic Eras, this region was folded, lifted and eroded by tectonic forces as Earth's Continents merged into Pangea and then rifted apart. Among the sedimentary rocks that formed within the ancient rift valley was a thick layer of hard quartzite sandstone; resistant to erosion, this Table Mountain Sandstone now outcrops as the steep cliffs of Table Mountain and the Cape Fold Ranges of western South Africa.  Of note, the west...

The entire Gulf Coast of Florida, from the Keys to Pensacola, is especially vulnerable to storm surge as hurricanes and tropical storms come ashore.  Counterclockwise winds push water toward the coast on the "right" side of storm's eye, forcing it across the low country and up the coastal rivers. This process is accentuated along the Florida Gulf Coast due to the topography of the Gulf itself.  A broad shallow area, representing the west portion of the Florida Platform , parallels the State's Gulf Coast; as ocean water is swept in by the storm, it cannot displace downward and builds to destructive depths across the barrier islands and coastal lowlands, leveling structures and flooding the landscape. Hurricane Michael, now a Category 4 storm, is poised to come ashore near Panama City this morning.  Storm surge is expected to reach 13 feet or more in some parts of the Great Bend before the hurricane and its remnants cut a swath of destruction across the eastern Panhandl...

Yesterday, following two earthquakes (the second a magnitude 7.5 quake) and a series of aftershocks off the west coast of Sulawesi Island, a tsunami struck Palu, at the end of a long, narrow bay.  Both the Island and the adjacent Makasser Strait lie squarely on a southern extension of the Eurasian Plate, which encompasses all of Indonesia. Destructive tsunami's are generally triggered by Subduction Earthquakes , where one tectonic plate dips beneath another; such a subduction zone stretches along the outer border of Indonesia, where the Australian and Philippine Plates are subducting beneath the Eurasian Plate.  Yesterday's series of quakes and aftershocks are thought to have developed along a transverse fault, where two microplates (of the Eurasian Plate) are scraping past one another; such faults do not generally produce vertical lift of the overlying sea, the tectonic process that usually generates tsunamis. Geologists suspect that some vertical movement of one of the micr...

As we witness the tragic flooding from Hurricane Florence along the Southeast Coast, we are reminded of the devastation in Houston caused by Hurricane Harvey and the repeated spring flooding along some American Rivers (the Red River of the Northern Plains comes immediately to mind). Having decided that flood insurance is a money losing proposition, private insurance companies have backed away from such coverage, donating that option to the Federal Government.  As is often the case, the U.S. Government accepted the challenge and is now billions of dollars in the red (even before the devastation caused by Hurricane Florence). One wonders whether Federal dollars would be better spent buying up properties on floodplains and barrier islands and assisting with local engineering efforts rather than encouraging insurance holders to rebuild in those flood-prone areas.  After all, global warming is threatening coastal communities as sea levels rise and will likely intensify the power of...

Florence, now downgraded to a Category 2 Hurricane, has grown into a broad storm with hurricane or tropical storm force winds stretching across 400 miles.  The outer bands have come ashore in eastern North Carolina this morning, igniting tornadic thunderstorms and producing heavy, wind-swept rain. Due to "blocking highs" to its north and northwest, Hurricane Florence is expected to stall near the Coast and then drift southwestward along the southeastern coast of North Carolina and the northeastern coast of South Carolina, perhaps as far south as Charleston.  North of the storm's eyewall, which currently has sustained winds of 105 mph, onshore winds will produce a storm surge of 10 feet or more, as well as inland flooding from up to 2 feet or more of rain. Due to its slow forward motion (toward the coast and then down the coast), the high winds, storm surge and heavy rain will persist for a long period of time (perhaps 48 hours), increasing the risk of flooding and damage ...

After a slow start to the Atlantic Hurricane Season, a chain of tropical storms, hurricanes and tropical waves has developed in the past few days.  Of course, September is generally the peak month of the annual Hurricane Season (which runs from June to early November) and current atmospheric and oceanic conditions are favoring storm development. Just yesterday, Tropical Storm Gordon made landfall along the Mississippi Coast and its flooding rains continue to fall near Pensacola and Mobile; in the coming days, that tropical system will inject copious moisture into the Midwest which will interact with a cold front to produce flooding from Arkansas to the Great Lakes.  Next in line is Hurricane Florence, currently a Category 3 storm in the Central Atlantic; its future course remains uncertain but it could potentially affect the entire East Coast of the U.S.  Behind Florence are three tropical waves, emerging from the West Coast of Africa every few days; since wind shear has ...

The Florida Panhandle is known for its sparkling white beaches, a trait that results from their composition.  The "sugar sand" of this region is composed of fine, ovoid quartz crystals, eroded from the Blue Ridge Mountains and deposited in the Gulf of Mexico by the Apalachicola River. Spread by currents within the Gulf, the quartz crystals are a primary component of beaches all along the Florida Gulf Coast but are least "contaminated" with shell fragments along the Panhandle.  In beaches along the Florida Peninsula and Keys, variable amounts and color of shell fragments alter the appearance of the sand; in some areas, the shell fragments predominate and the beach is gray, tan or nearly black. Here on Pensacola Beach, the white sand is dazzling in the bright afternoon sun, squeaking beneath your feet and producing a sharp contrast with the clear, turquoise water of the Gulf.  As one might expect from the above discussion, shells are small, mostly white and far less a...

Since the red tide was worsening on Longboat Key, we decided to head to the Northern Gulf Coast and settled on Pensacola Beach, an area that neither of us had visited.  The seven hour drive was uneventful, rather devoid of interesting wildlife; an exception was a huge number of cattle egrets on ranchlands to either side of Interstate 10, just west of Interstate 75.  Also of note was the change in character of the rivers, from the clear, tea-colored water of the peninsula (flowing through limestone and sandy soil) to the muddy water of the Panhandle rivers, draining the clay soils of the interior. Nearing Pensacola, we cut south on Route 281, crossing the broad east arm of Pensacola Bay to Gulf Breeze before continuing out to the narrow barrier island of Pensacola Beach.  As is typical of the Northern Gulf Coast, Pensacola Beach boasts a scenic strip of white sand, backed by modest dunes and hotels.  While it is surely a delightful location for sun worshipers, surfers...

Wanting to get closer to the red tide destruction, my wife and I visited Whitney Beach this morning.  Stretching along the northwest edge of Longboat Key, it is both the most scenic stretch of sand and (in my opinion) the best birding location on this barrier island.  As expected, the beach was littered with dead fish, eels, rays and horseshoe crabs and the variety of birds was far below normal. Wandering among the dead, we endured the nauseating stench of rotting sea life.  While a couple of yellow-crowned night herons and a dozen shorebirds (black-bellied plovers and ruddy turnstones) scoured the beach, they stayed clear of the victims; brown pelicans and large flocks of laughing gulls passed overhead or lounged far offshore.  Except for a lone hunter with his metal detector, we were the only humans on that popular beach. Though the algal counts have waxed and waned along Florida's Southwest Coast, the red tide is expected to persist until a tropical storm or cool ...

This past week, the Governor of Florida declared a State of Emergency along the Southwest Coast, responding to the natural and economic damage wrought by the toxic algal bloom.  Many marine species have been killed and both the fishing and tourist industries are taking a hit. But could there be a natural benefit from these algal blooms?  Could they be important in marine ecosystems, thinning out populations, releasing nutrients and "re-setting" the regional web of life?  After all, many other natural phenomena are deemed to be harmful or cruel from the human perspective. On a selfish note, the red tide has cleared out much of the human population on Longboat Key and we almost have our condo complex to ourselves.  Then again, one cannot help but wonder if this bloom, like those that occur on inland lakes and coastal bays, is aggravated by human activity.  We pump a huge amount of nutritious effluent into our rivers and human-induced global warming will surely enh...

Since we had a wedding to attend in South Carolina in mid August, we decided to spend the second half of this month at our condo on Longboat Key, Florida.  Unfortunately, in the weeks leading up to the wedding, we learned that a severe and persistent red tide had developed along the coast of Southwest Florida.  Nevertheless, we decided to investigate for ourselves. A toxic algal bloom of Karenia brevis , a red tide results in extensive fish kills, littering the beaches with rotting fish; a neurotoxin released by the algae may also kill dolphins and manatees and, this year, the corpse of a whale shark washed ashore.  In addition, particulate debris from the abundant algae wafts in on the sea breeze, causing eye, throat and lung irritation for those humans who do not abandon the region altogether. We arrived to find that the dead fish odor was indeed strong along the beaches but that the wind-blown irritants were rather mild.  Though we will likely depart earlier than ...

Wandering outside this morning, it was easy to see the toll that our hot, dry summer has taken on the foliage of our Littleton farm.  While heat and water are essential to life, the balance of these factors is crucial and this season has not been kind to the plants. Life first evolved in warm, shallow seas and near hot smokers along mid oceanic ridges.  Even today, the vast majority of species are found in the Tropics, where moisture is abundant, placing a check on the air temperature.  In desert regions and semiarid landscapes, the low humidity results in dense air which can reach much higher (and often deadly) temperatures; of course, animals and plants that inhabit deserts have adapted to their environment in a variety of anatomic, physiologic and behavioral ways.  While birds and mammals can generate their own internal heat, the low temperatures in polar regions have also required physical and physiologic adaptations for wild residents (fat insulation, thick fur ...

As hordes of humans head for the beach this summer, rip currents will take a deadly toll.  Unfortunately, they often develop when conditions at the shore appear to be ideal, catching many swimmers off guard. Rip currents evolve due to a steady onshore flow of seawater; this may result from counterclockwise winds around an offshore storm or from clockwise winds around a dome of high pressure.  In either case, water builds up along the beach and that pressure leads to breaks within the offshore sandbar; as the retreating flow funnels through those breaks, strong rip currents (not always evident on the surface) develop, sweeping bathers away from shore.  Those caught in a rip current are advised to swim parallel to the shore until they are safely out of the channelized stream; unfortunately, panic often sets in and such advice is fatally ignored. Today, as Tropical Storm Chris churns 200 miles off Wilmington, North Carolina, rip current warnings have been posted for most of ...