Baby Ducks Are Showing up in Virgin Islands Ponds

 

                                                A young white-cheeked pintail duck sets out on its own.

White-cheeked pintail ducks are year-round residents in the Virgin Islands. Given the climate, they can mate pretty much any time, as long as there is enough food and water. Other ducks, like blue-winged teals, are migratory – they come down for the winter season, then move north again to breed. 

 

Some of the pintails must have been busy partying around the holidays because groups of baby ducks have appeared recently in local salt ponds. 

                         

                    A white-cheeked pintail led her ducklings across the pond near Francis Bay on St. John. 

 

These handsome ducks are native to the Caribbean and South America. Both males and females have white feathers on their faces below their eyes and bright red patches on their bills. Their eyes are red as well. When they raise their wings, you can see patches of green on the edges.

 

                          

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From what I have seen, mating activity can be rough. The female must have had to hold her breath as this male climbed on her back, grabbed her neck and pushed her head underwater. 

 

                           

                  When ducks mate in the water, the female underneath seems in danger of drowning. 

 

It takes almost a month for the eggs to incubate. The nests are on the ground hidden in dense vegetation in brackish wetlands and mangrove swamps. The nests don’t seem very safe, though, as they are vulnerable to attack by rats, dogs, and other birds in the wetlands – including yellow-crowned night herons and smooth-billed anis. In the Virgin Islands, a mongoose might also eat the eggs or snatch a baby duck. 

  

When the babies are old enough, the mothers will lead them to a nearby pond and teach them to feed themselves. They are pretty vulnerable to predators there too. It can take up to two months before they are able to fly. Large groups of baby ducks seem to dwindle over time even though the mothers try to protect them, and males also sometimes help guard the family.  

 

                  

                  A mother white-cheeked pintail brings her ducklings out to learn how to forage.  

 

 

The white-cheeked pintails are pretty particular about the depth of the water in a pond because they are dabblers, not diving ducks. In shallow water they walk around pulling up weeds and eating little fish, crabs and snails. 

 

                         

                         White-cheeked pintails prefer shallow water when they forage for food. 

If the water is deeper, they dip their heads under the water with their butts up in the air while they search for aquatic plants and animals along the bottom. (They get their name from the pointy feathers on their butts.)    

 

                             

                                        Dabbling ducks put their heads down to forage underwater. 

 

They can dive down if necessary, though they will generally move to a different spot if a pond gets too deep after weeks of rain. They will also move on when there is only mud left during the dry season.   

 

When a white-cheeked pintail is flying or stretching, you can get a better view of the colored patch on its wing, which is called the speculum. Many ducks have bright iridescent feathers on this section of their wings, close to their bodies. The varying colors help us to distinguish different types of ducks, and may also help the birds recognize members of their flock when they are flying. 

 

                          

          When white-cheeked pintails are swimming you can’t usually see the green patches on their wings. 

 

Sometimes when one of the ducks rears up and flaps its wings, it looks like it is delivering a benediction. At least I have chosen to interpret the gesture that way. Probably it is just stretching its wings.      

 

                        

                         A blessing from a friendly duck? 

A Lone Bufflehead on St. John - December 2021

There’s a very unusual duck on St. John. It’s over in the small pond behind Frank Bay that is designated as a bird sanctuary. During the day, it has been hanging out in the middle of the pond diving down to get food – they mostly eat underwater plants, small crustaceans and insects.    

 

I have seen a number of migratory ducks that regularly visit the Virgin Islands in the winter, including blue-winged teals, green-winged teals, ruddy ducks, scaups, and last year a northern shoveler. But no buffleheads, so I was eager to check it out.  

 

The bufflehead was first spotted by Victoria Beasley, a wildlife biologist for the Virgin Islands Department of Planning and Natural Resources, Division of Fish and Wildlife (DFW). She has been conducting waterbird surveys on St. John over the past year as part of a DFW Wildlife Restoration program supported by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. “I was out on a regular survey at Frank Bay when I noticed a duck I did not immediately recognize. I had an ID book on hand that I quickly referenced and there was no mistaking that this was a bufflehead duck. Based on its known home range, I knew this was a very rare and notable sighting. I have since gone back to Frank Bay several times, and a month later this adventurous duck was still enjoying its time at Frank Bay. I highly recommend stopping by and seeing it for yourself.”

 

If you do go look for it, you might not see it right away because it spends a lot of time under the water. It will make a short dive, surface, and then quickly dive down again. You might only catch its long, stiff tail as it takes its next dive. Buffleheads rarely come on land.

                          

 

Herbert Raffaele, author of a well-known guidebook Birds of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands (1989), noted that the bufflehead was ‘accidental’ in the West Indies, “known only from a single specimen collected in the late 1800s in Puerto Rico”. A more recent online app – All Birds, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands and northern Lesser Antilles – records two sighting on Puerto Rico in December 2013, and one in St. Martin in 2004.

 

I am familiar with buffleheads because some of them winter around New York City. In fact I got up close to one in Jamaica Bay on Thanksgiving Day. The males are most noticeable because of their stylish black and white look. 

                                 

 

 

Then up close you can see that there is green and purple iridescence on the feathers around their heads and necks. 

 

                                  

The name is short for ‘buffalo head’, because sometimes they puff up their forehead feathers, which makes their heads look even more prominent and bulbous. 

                               

 

 

They are also sometimes called ‘spirit ducks’, maybe because they disappear and reappear so quickly, and sometimes suddenly pop up on the other side of the pond. Like a watery ghost.

 

If I hadn’t been told about it, I might not have recognized the Frank Bay bird as a bufflehead because females look so different from the males. They have dark brown heads and backs, gray/brown bodies, and just a small patch of white on their cheeks. Later I realized that I had seen them before in New York too, but hadn’t paid much attention because they were so much less flashy than the males.    

 

Buffleheads generally spend the summer in Canada and Alaska, where they breed and raise their young. Interestingly, though they are diving ducks, they nest in trees, and in holes made by other birds, particularly the woodpeckers known as flickers. I guess it is safer for their eggs and babies to be up high and hidden, and their duck bills are no good for making their own holes in trees. They are quite small, weighing only about a pound, so they can fit into unused flicker holes. They also need to find trees near the water because the hatchlings will have to jump out of the nest hole and follow their mom to the water. 

 

After breeding season the buffleheads move south like many other birds, spreading out across the lower states and down into Mexico. They usually travel in small groups, rather than alone or in large flocks. Reportedly, one duck will keep watch on the surface while the others are going up and down foraging under the water. 

 

So how did this one on St. John end up coming so far east, and all alone? I read that bufflehead pairs are monogamous and tend to stay together for years. Did she lose him? Or decide to ditch him – just ducking under the water one day and popping up really far away, feeling that it was time to move on? 

 

                              

It is often young male birds that wander, exploring new territories where there might be good habitat. Maybe this one is an especially spirited female duck. Plucky. 

 

I do hope she will stay for a while.  

 

A Bounty of Tropical Fruit - November 2021

There’s hardly anything better than picking fruit off the trees in your own yard. 

After the hurricanes, one of our sugar apple trees was broken off and leafless. However, unlike the mango tree and several other fruit trees, it was not permanently lost. A couple of years later it produced a remarkable amount of fruit on the remaining lower branches. Now the still-short tree is full of sugar apples again, and we are definitely thankful that it has recovered. 

 

The ripe sugar apple fruits are wonderfully sweet and custardy. However they don’t all get ripe at the same time, so you have to check them frequently to see if they are soft enough to harvest. Pick them too soon and they don’t ripen properly. Wait too long and the birds get to them first. 

 

                              

 

I have been saving the sugar apple seeds and raising them in pots to plant in our yard – and to give away to other people who lost trees. Sometimes birds will also spread the sugar apple seeds around, and may actually have better sense than I do about where to leave the seeds so that they thrive.

 

We also have some papayas. These plants are giant herbs, not woody trees, and don’t usually last more than a few years even without storms. The fruits are delicious and also very good for your health – reputedly reducing your blood pressure and preventing heart disease, diabetes and cancer. How great to just go out and get one from the yard for breakfast or dinner.

                               

The pearly-eyed thrashers compete with me for the ripening papayas. I suppose it is useful that they help spread the seeds around, but really, I would prefer to do that myself. Still, I’m not always quick enough to get to the papayas before the thrashers, and sometimes I pick them while they are still green, otherwise I won’t get any at all. You can eat them green, but they don’t taste as good to me. I prefer to put them in a paper bag on the counter until they ripen. 

                                

I was surprised that my passion fruit vines survived over the summer while I was gone. Apparently, there was enough rain for them to flourish, and the deer left them alone. Their flowers are amazingly beautiful, and the ripening passion fruits look like shiny green Christmas tree balls.   

 

                                

 

We usually eat the passion fruit pulp right out of the skin, seeds and all. But sometimes we use it to flavor drinks.  

 

                                 

 

Meanwhile the two tamarind trees are full of juicy pods. They were on the land before we came, and have gotten really tall so it’s hard to reach the fruit. It’s worth it to try to grab some though. They are tangy if not fully ripe, but can be wonderfully sweet if you catch them just right. 

                                 

 

Only one of the coconut trees we planted is still alive. The others succumbed to hurricanes and droughts. We worried about this one, but now it has rallied. 

 

                                  

 

Besides providing tasty coconut water and sweet creamy meat, this tree also provides opportunities for our sons to show off their island climbing skills and machete work.

                                   

 

We are very grateful for the fruits of this season, and for another year of safety from storms. 

Tarantula vs Wasp - October 2021

 

 

Spooky Halloween decorations might get you thinking about all the different spiders you have met up with. I certainly won’t forget the first time I saw a tarantula in St. John. 

 

It was when my older son was two years old. Someone visiting us pointed out a big hairy spider crawling towards his crib. I didn’t know anything about tarantulas, but I bravely grabbed a broom and swept it briskly out the door. Later I learned that tarantulas sometimes stand up on their hind legs and fling needle-like hairs when they feel threatened. Fortunately I have not experienced that. 

 

In the Virgin Islands the tarantulas are not particularly feared and are somewhat affectionately called ‘ground spiders’. They make quarter-sized holes in the yard and mostly stay inside their burrows below ground waiting for large insects like crickets and grasshoppers to stop by for dinner. 

 

                           

 

The tarantulas do look scary, but I have never seen one be aggressive, even when the cat maybe got too close. Still I don’t like finding them in the house. Or hiding in the shoes outside the door.

 

                          

 

A few years ago I discovered that the kids had learned at camp how to pull a tarantula out of its burrow. You stick a specially chosen grass stalk down the hole in the ground and wave it around until the tarantula gets annoyed and grabs on. Then you carefully tug on the piece of grass until the hairy spider comes into view. A fun trick to show island visitors. 

 

However, I recently found out that tarantulas have to contend with much more terrible threats than bothersome children. 

 

One morning after the weekly bird walk, I was walking with National Park Ranger Laurel Brannick over by the Annaberg ruins. On our way up the hill there seemed to be a bunch of very fast-moving butterflies on the path, like a group had just hatched. When I got a closer look, they turned out not to be butterflies. “Tarantula Hawks”, said Laurel. Wasps, fierce ones.

 

They looked nice enough to me – blue-black with beautiful red wings – and they were peacefully flitting around in the flowers, drinking nectar and hanging out with the ladybugs.

 

                            

 

But the story Laurel told me was not a pretty one. 

 

It seems that when the female wasp is ready to start a family, she has a gruesome way of providing food for the emerging larvae. She finds a tarantula hole and pokes around the opening, where the spider sets silk traps for its prey. When the tarantula comes up to investigate, she grapples with it, stings it and paralyzes it. Then she drags it back into the burrow, lays one egg on top of the immobilized tarantula, crawls out, and covers up the burrow hole to seal it. When the wasp larva emerges from the egg, it has a captive, paralyzed tarantula to feed on. Just before it leaves the burrow as an adult, the young wasp eats the tarantula’s heart and ends it misery.  

 

Wow. Besides being gruesome, that seems like a lot of work – and food – for just one egg. One dead tarantula for every new Tarantula Hawk. Given the number of wasps flying around that afternoon, I was shocked to think about how many poor tarantulas must have been entombed on that small hillside. Could there really be so many victims under there? And then how many more live ones?

 

I read that the Tarantula Hawks have very short lives, only a few weeks or months, even though predators leave them alone because they don’t want to get stung. 

 

                           

 

Meanwhile a female tarantula can live for up to 20 years – if she doesn’t get attacked by one of those wasps. How can the tarantulas sustain big losses in their numbers and still maintain their own continuity? 

 

I began thinking that there must be some complex evolutionary balance between these enemies to allow both species to thrive. But maybe it’s just that female tarantulas can produce hundreds of eggs at a time. Then I started imagining how many tarantula burrows there would have to be to house them all. All of a sudden, the ground started feeling a lot less solid!   

 

Spooky indeed.