loarie's Journal

This week we're featuring a group of waterbirds known as Suliformes. This order of birds is distantly related to other waterbirds such as herons, loons, and penguins. They are made up of four distinct families:

Cormorants

Cormorants are the most widely encountered of the group. They are large, black, somewhat awkward looking birds often found swimming in lakes, ponds, and along coasts around the world. Cormorants catch fish by swimming after them underwater. Their feathers lack oil which allows them to sink, but prevents them from flying while wet. As a result, they are often seen perched with wings spread to dry.

Anhingas

Anhingas, sometimes called swamp-turkeys, resemble cormorants but have thiner, snakelike necks. They are confined to freshwater in tropical and near tropical climates such as the swamps of South East North America. When not swimming, they are usually found perched in trees.

Gannets and Boobies

Gannets and boobies are ocean birds. Gannets prefer colder waters while their warm water counterparts the Boobies are confined to the tropics. Both are usually seen flying over seas in search of food unless you visit the small rocky islands where they nest. They resemble sleeker, shorter necked cormorants. From the air, they dive-bomb into water like living spears after fish and squid.

Frigatebirds

Frigatebirds are also found flying over tropical oceans. Their extremely long pointed wings allow them to spend nearly all of their time in the air. While they also eat fish and squid, frigatebirds steal food caught by other birds like boobies by harassing them in the air until they relinquish their catches. Like Boobies, you're much more likely to see Frigatebirds in the air unless you visit their nesting colonies.

This week as part of the Critter Calendar we are featuring a group of birds known as Piciformes.

Woodpeckers with their near global distribution are the best known, but the group also includes eight other lesser known families confined to the tropics. All Piciformes share X-shaped 'zygodactyl' feet with two toes pointing forward and two pointing backwards - most birds have just one toe pointing back.

Toucans

Toucans are well known for their colorful plumage and large beautiful bills. These birds primarily eat fruit and are confined to the neotropics. In the paleotropics, an unrelated group of birds called Hornbills occur that have similar habits and physical characteristics.

Jacamars and Puffbirds

Two other families confined to the neotropics are the closely related jacamars and puffbirds. Both are sit-and-wait hunters that perch motionless on branches and ambush insects that fly by. Jacamars look like oversized hummingbirds with long bills and metalic plumage. Puffbirds have a puffy, large-headed appearance.

Honeyguides

Honeyguides have a paleotropical distribution. Their unusual diet of beeswax has resulted in a habit of leading honey badgers, humans, and other honey-eating mammals to beehives. After the mammal has done the hard work of breaking up the hive, the honeyguide has access to all the beeswax it can eat.

Barbets

Barbets were once thought to be a single widely distributed family of birds, but were recently found to represent four distinct families. Two families live in the neotropics, one lives in Africa, and one lives in Asia. However, all have the similar appearance of stocky little short-billed toucans like the Red-headed Barbet pictured here. Like toucans, barbets are colorful and primarily eat fruit.

This week on the Critter Calendar we moved from soaring raptors to the aquatic birds of the order Anseriformes - ducks, geese, swans and screamers.

Counting some of the most familiar and iconic birds in the world as members, the Anseriformes are well adapted to living life at the water’s surface. They all have webbed feet for powerful swimming, most have special oils which protect their feathers from water, and their bills have special filters, called lamellae, which help them feed on the plants that make up most of their adult diets

Ducks, Geese, and Swans

Nearly all Anseriformes belong to the family Anatidae, which includes the ducks, geese and swans. Dabbling ducks, like the ubiquitous Mallard, tend to feed in shallower waters where they can upend themselves to feed on shallow aquatic vegetation, their hindquarters sticking above the water’s surface. Diving ducks such as Ring-necked duck tend to submerge their entire bodies when searching for food, and have larger feet than dabblers. Many ducks are sexually dimorphous - males often have bold colors and patterns, while females are usually drab in plumage. The Paradise Shelduck is a notable exception to this pattern.

Geese and swans of the subfamily Anserinae are bigger than ducks and have longer necks. Large Mute Swans are known to have wingspans reaching 3 m (9.8 ft) and may weigh 15 kg (33 lbs). Geese and ducks can often be found feeding on terrestrial vegetation.

Screamers

The family Anhimidae, or “screamers,” consists of three species who live in South America. More terrestrial than the Anatidae, their feet are only partially webbed and their bills are more pointed than flattened. Bizarrely, they have air bubbles in their skin which supposedly make crackling noises when pressed!

Magpie Goose

Papua New Guinea and Northern Australia are home to the lone species of this family, the Magpie Goose. Their bill shows they belong in the Anseriformes but are considered an early offshoot within the order. Magpie geese have black and white plumage, yellow legs, and can congregate in large groups during breeding season.

The Critter Calendar stays in the wetlands and watery areas of the world as we focus on the order Pelicaniformes - a diverse group of birds that includes pelicans, herons, ibises, spoonbills and more!

Comprising medium-sized and large water birds, the taxonomy of the Pelicaniformes has gone through many changes, and for this week we are going with the International Ornithological Committee’s definition, which includes the following families:

Herons and Bitterns

The Ardeidae are the Herons, Egrets and Bitterns, who use their long legs and necks to to stalk their prey, often along the water’s edge. Herons like the Grey Heron have grey, blue and other dark feathers, while egrets are herons who have white or buff feathers. Egrets in the United States were nearly hunted to extinction in the early 1900s, due to their plumed feathers being sought after for women’s hats. Bitterns are smaller than herons and have shorter necks and brown/tan plumage. The Ardeidae fly with their long necks retracted and their legs held straight back.

Pelicans

The large gular pouches under their long bills make the pelicans (Pelecanidae) instantly recognizable. They prowl coastal and inland waters around the world and often skim just over the water’s surface as they fly, using ground effect to keep them in the air. The four “white” pelican species, like the Great White Pelican, nest on the ground, whereas four darker colored species, like the Brown Pelican, nest in trees or rocks. They will catch multiple fish in their pouches then drain out the water before swallowing.

Ibises and Spoonbills

Found mostly in standing or slow-moving brackish water, the ibises and spoonbills (Threskiornikidae) have long necks and legs like the Ardeidae, but hold their necks out straight while in flight. Spoonbills like the Royal Spoonbill have flat and wide spoon-shaped tips to their bills, which they use to find aquatic creatures as they sweep through the water. The bills of the ibises point downward and they use a probing motion to feed for invertebrates in the mud. Ibises are gregarious birds and are usually found in groups.

Shoebill

The Shoebill (Balaenicipitidae), which ranges throughout swamps of central Africa, lives up to its name - it sports a large, wide bill with sharp edges, which it can use to decapitate the lungfish which make up most of its diet. It is the only member of its family and is highly sought after by birders.

Hamerkop

Like the Shoebill, the Hamerkop (Scopidae) is also a single species family from Africa. Their name means hammer-head in Afrikaans. Hamerkops have brown plumage and and shorter legs and necks than other wading birds in this order. Bizarrely they also have partially-webbed feet and will join together in “ceremonies,” where they call loudly, raise their crests, flap their wings and and run in circles around each other. Hamerkops build giant nests that resemble huge piles of sticks high up in trees very similar in appearance to the pack-rat nests seen in North America.