Hunting Digital Plumes in the US and Beyond: A Motley Melange: A Merlin amidst Mergansers

Tuesday, March 10, 2015

A Motley Melange: A Merlin amidst Mergansers

[Belle Isle, Detroit River. MI. Feb 2015]

The Detroit River is more of a strait than a river -- measuring a total of only 28 miles in length. In this short stretch, the river connects two massive bodies of water -- Lake St. Clair in the North with Lake Erie to the South; and, in doing so, it separates Michigan from Ontario and thus also marks the international border between the US and Canada.

Besides its enormous importance as a critical conduit for commercial transportation, the Detroit River's other notable feature is that it includes several small islands in its 28-mile run -- the chief of these are Belle Isle and Grosse Ile. Both islands offer excellent vantage points for viewing waterfowl; especially in winter as this is one of the few spaces where water is not frozen over thanks to icebreaking operations conducted by the US Coast Guard.

An exceptionally cold and grey winter morning -- the kind that questions the climatic sanity of anyone residing North of Interstate 10 -- afforded the opportunity to observe expected -- yet nevertheless enchanting -- species around Belle Isle consisting mainly of waterfowl but also including a surprise showing from an iconic falcon:

Common Merganser
Hooded Merganser
Merlin
Common Goldeneye
Bufflehead
Canvasback
Redhead

We start with Ana.com.m (Common Merganser abbreviated using the trinomial shortform as shorthand for bird names in this post):

Common Merganser (female) seen in the Detroit River

The com.m is a typical merganser with a serrated bill, long, sleek body and shaggy head. The female can oft be confused with the somewhat similar looking Red-breasted Merganser (Ana.red.bm) in basic plumage.

Common Merganser (male) seen in the Detroit River

The com.m is found in both the Old and New Worlds unlike our next merganser -- Hooded Merganser (Ana.hoo.m) which is exclusive to North America:

Hooded Merganser seen in the Detroit River

Like the com.m, hoo.m is also a saw-billed diving duck; in the winter, they are widely distributed even as far South as in the canals of Naples, FL!

Belle Isle is not a big island, only 1 and a half square miles. There are several pull-offs on the short perimeter road that invite the visitor to stop and explore further. It was at one of these stops while scouting for waterfowl that a striking falcon with bold markings on the breast was spied perched on a stark, bare branch:

Merlin seen at Belle Isle

Fal.mer is a handsome raptor that is found across the US and Eurasia. It is a small falcon -- larger than a Kestrel but smaller than the Peregrine. This particular individual is an imposing female with a brown rather than grey back (as in most raptors, the female outsizes the male).

Merlin seen on Belle Isle

The Merlin is a formidable hunter and is known to favor preying on small birds such as sparrows, peeps, and waxwings.

The Seaducks (i.e., the sub-family Merginae) comprises more than just the mergansers -- and a nice assortment of these distinctive ducks were also observed; such as:

Common Goldeneye (Ana.com.ge):

Common Goldeneye drakes in the Detroit River

Common Goldeneye (females) in the Detroit River

And, Bufflehead (Ana.buf):

Finally, a couple of diving ducks; starting with our largest duck:

Canvasback (Ana.can.b):

and, Redhead (Ana.red.h):

It is an undeniable fact of birding that many, initially optimistic, chases for a desired target species conclude rather miserably in a spectacularly disappointing "no show". However, it must not be overlooked that, in a compensatory act of redemption, the converse is equally true -- for, is there any birder who has not had their routine and familiar birding excursion blissfully interrupted with the sighting of an unexpected yet welcome species wholly out of the blue?

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What is Plume Hunting?

Plume hunting was big business in the late 1800's. Unfortunately, the dark side to the beauty of plumes led to the slaughter of millions of birds so women could wear fancy hats (Read about Plume Hunting).

Thankfully, in this age of digitization, we can capture most anything we want -- books, music, video, etc. -- digitally. And, with the advent of digital photography at the turn of the millennium, we can once again hunt for plumes -- but digitally; with none of the accompanying destruction. This blog is dedicated to capturing the beauty of nature reflected through the incredible diversity of our avifauna.

Reproduced below is ecofeminist Celia Thaxter's, "Woman’s Heartlessness" (Boston 1886; reproduced from Google Books) which was published at the time when plumes were worth their weight in gold and many species of birds were fast headed toward extinction:

WOMAN’S HEARTLESSNESS
By Celia Laighton Thaxter

When the Audubon Society was first organized, it seemed a comparatively simple thing to awaken in the minds of all bird-wearing women a sense of what their “decoration” involved. We flattered ourselves that the tender and compassionate heart of woman would at once respond to the appeal for mercy, but after many months of effort we are obliged to acknowledge ourselves mistaken in our estimate of that universal compassion, that tender heart in which we believed. Not among the ignorant and uncultivated so much as the educated and enlightened do we find the indifference and hardness that baffles and perplexes us. Not always, heaven be praised! But too often,--I think I may say in two-thirds of the cases to which we appeal. One lady said to me, “I think there is a great deal of sentiment wasted on the birds. There are so many of them, they will never be missed any more than mosquitoes. I shall put birds on my new bonnet.” This was a fond and devoted mother, a cultivated and accomplished woman. It seemed a desperate case, indeed, but still I strove with it. “Why do you give yourself so much trouble?” she asked. “They will soon go out of fashion, and there will be an end of it.” That may be,” I replied, “but fashion next year may order them back again, and how many women will have human feeling enough to refuse to wear them? It was merely waste of breath, however, and she went her way, a charnel-house of beaks and claws and bones and feathers and glass eyes upon her fatuous head.

Another, mockingly, says, “Why don’t you try to save the little fishes in the sea?” and continues to walk the world with dozens of warblers’ wings making her headgear hideous. Not one in fifty is found willing to remove at once the birds from her head, even if, languidly, she does acquiesce in the assertion that it is a cruel sin against nature to destroy them. “When these are worn out I am willing to promise not to buy any more,” is what we hear, and we are thankful, indeed, for even so much grace; but alas! birds never “wear out.” And as their wearer does not carry a placard stating their history, that they were bought last year, or perhaps given to her, and she does not intend to buy any more, her economy goes on setting the bad example, or it may be her indolence is to blame, one is as fatal as the other. Occasionally, but too rarely, we meet with a fine spirit, the fire of whose generous impulse consumes at once all selfish considerations, who recognizes the importance of her own responsibility, and whose action is swift as her thought to pluck our the murderous sign, and go forth free of its dishonor. And how refreshing is the sight of the birdless bonnet! The face beneath, no matter how plain it may be, seems to possess a gentle charm. She might have had birds, this woman, for they are cheap and plentiful enough, heaven knows! But she has them not, therefore she must wear within things infinitely precious,--namely, good sense, good taste, good feeling. Heaven bless every woman who dares turn her back on Fashion and go about thus beautifully adorned!

In one of the most widely circulated newspapers the fashionable news from Paris begins: “Birds are worn more than ever.” Birds “are worn!” Pitiful phrase! Sentence of deadly significance! “Birds are worn,”—as if that were final, as if all women must follow one another like a flock of sheep over a wall, and forget reason, forget the human heart within, forget everything but the empty pride of being “in the fashion.” Ah me, my fire-flecked oriole, watching your airy cradle from the friendly swinging elm bough, go get yourself an inky coat. Your beauty makes you but a target for the accursed gun that shatters your lovely life, quenches your delicious voice, destroys your love, your bliss, your dutiful cares, your whole beautiful being, that your dead body may disfigure some woman’s head and call all eyes to gaze at her! But no,--that will not save you. Blackbirds are not safe, they “are worn.” Carrion crows “are worn,” unsavory scavengers though they be. No matter on what they may have fed,--they “are worn.” Soar, swift sea-swallow,--I would it could be millions of miles away from the haunts of men; to the uttermost parts of the earth and the ocean carry your grace, your slender loveliness of shape, your matchless delicacy of tint and tone of color, soft, wondrous like gray cloud and silvery snow,--fly! dear and beautiful creature; seek the centre of the storm, the heart of the Arctic cold, the winter blast, they are not so unkind as—woman’s vanity. Do I not see you every day, your mocking semblance writhing as if in agony round female heads,--still and stark, sharp wings and tail pointing in stiff distress to heaven, your dried and ghastly head and beak dragged down to point to the face below, as if saying, “She did it.” The albatross of the Ancient Mariner is not more dreadful. Yesterday I saw three of you on one hat! Three terns at once, a horrible confusion of death and dismay.

Does any woman imagine these withered corpses (cured with arsenic) which she loves to carry about, are beautiful? Not so; the birds lost their beauty with their lives. Today I saw a mat woven of warblers' heads, spiked all over its surface with sharp beaks, set up on a bonnet and borne aloft by its possessor in pride! Twenty murders on one! and the face beneath bland and satisfied, for are not "Birds to be worn more than ever?" Flit, sandpiper, from the sea's margin to some loneliness remote and safe from the noble race of man! No longer in the soft May twilight call from cove to cove along the shore in notes that seem to breathe the very spirit of tender joy, of happy love, of sweet content; tones that mingle so divinely with the warm waves' murmur, with the south wind's balm, and sound in music through the dusk, long after the last crimson flash of sunset has faded from the sky year after year you come back to make your nest in the place you know and love, but you shall not live your humble, blissful, dutiful life, you shall not guard your treasured home, nor rejoice when your little ones break the silence with their first cry to you for food. You shall not shelter and protect and care for them with the same divine instinct you share with human mothers. No, some woman wants your corpse to carry on her head. You shall die that vanity, that "Fashion" may live.

I fear we no longer deserve these golden gifts of God. I would the birds could all emigrate to some friendlier planet peopled by a nobler race than ours, where they might live their sweet lives unmolested, and be treated with the respect, the consideration, and the grateful love which are their due. For we have almost forfeited our right to the blessing of their presence.

But still we venture to hope for a better future, still the Audubon and other societies work with heart and soul, to protect and save them, and we trust yet to see the day when women, one and all, will look upon the wearing of birds in its proper light,--namely, as a sign of heartlessness and a mark of ignominy and reproach.

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Tuesday, March 10, 2015

A Motley Melange: A Merlin amidst Mergansers

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