gull, grackles, horseshoe crabs and dune vegetation

June 1, 2018
Coffee of the Day: Clipper City Roast
Weird Wrack Item of the Week: lobster trap with lots of fishing line attached
Invisi-bird Status: Official: Refuge Beach: 43 pairs, 29 nests. Don't know about Sandy Point or the town beach. Number actually seen by me: 2.

Looking South

Horseshoe crabs are becoming a theme. Not only have there been a ton of molted shells around, but today I spotted a great black back and and herring gull tussling over a horseshoe crab at the water line.

Gull and Crab

Watching the two gulls pecking at the underside of the crab, I kept wondering how much "meat" there could possibly be for them to eat. I know the eggs and larvae are important food sources for shorebirds, but I never thought about what besides humans (for fertilizer and bait) preys on the adults.  I did some searching for info when I got home. According to The Horseshoe Crab site  adult horseshoe crabs provide food for sharks, gulls, and boat-tailed grackles. Still trying to figure out how much food the gulls actually get out of a single horseshoe crab. And boat-tailed grackles? I can't even picture that.

Herring Gull and Crab

Speaking of grackles, the common grackle not the boat-tailed, a flock of 6 or 7 common grackles landed on the beach near the piping plover nest that I can see from the boundary. Both adult plovers immediately started doing the broken wing distraction display -- going in different directions like they knew they had to split up the grackle flock. It was pretty impressive and seemed to sufficiently distract the grackles. No plovers or eggs were harmed. Guess I need to research more about what common grackles eat. I've only ever seen them eat fish, but what do I know?

Weird Wrack Item of the Week

The dunes are in bloom with tons of beach pea and beach heath. It's great to see so much vegetation after all the winter storms. The swaths of color are a delight for the eye.

Beach Pea

I've heard Hudsonia tomentosa referred to as beach heath and beach heather.  If you google beach heath, the first results for someplace called Heath Beach, so I guess beach heather is the more common common name.

Beach Heath

I noticed what looked like some Japanese honeysuckle in bloom next to Lot 1.  That's one of those invasive species that people both love and hate.

Japanese Honeysuckle?