Saturday, January 22, 2011 - Bosque Birdwatchers RV Park, San Antonio NM
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Foraging, Sandhill Cranes, Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, San Antonio NM, January 17, 2011
What do cranes eat anyway?
From what I can see, here they seem to be eating corn, which is grown for them, and the tubers of marsh grasses. You can't see it but this grassy meadow is flooded with a couple of inches of water. This area extends "upstream" from the shallow pond where the cranes roost. Pumps are running, pumping water into the upper end of this long meadow whence it flows slowly down through the grasses to the pond. Makes for good foraging and photographing.
Sandhill Cranes forage by picking and probing with their long bills both at and below the water’s surface, as well as on land. They prefer grain when available, but eat a wide variety of foods. In their northern breeding areas, they consume berries, mammals, and insects. Where resident year-round, Sandhill Cranes eat insects, reptiles, amphibians, small birds and mammals, seeds, and berries. Source: Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology.
Night camp
Site 10 - Bosque Bird Watcher's RV Park, San Antonio NM
- This is a basic, small Mom & Pop RV Park with full hookups.
- Verizon cell phone and Broadband service are available here with a strong signal.
- Locate Bosque Bird Watcher's RV Park on my Night Camps map
- Click for Google street view
- Check the weather in San Antonio NM
Five Trillion Spiders
Spiders begin their hunting with a few handicaps. They're often smaller and weaker than their prey, and they have no wings to give chase in the air. Some species extend their legs by hydraulic pressure, using the same liquid that carries oxygen from their lungs, so they have a hard time running and breathing at the same time. Even their poison may be no match for their victim's: a crab spider's bite is to a honeybee's sting as "an air-gun compared with an elephant rifle," John Crompton wrote. Yet spiders kill at an astonishing pace. One Dutch researcher estimates that there are some five trillion spiders in the Netherlands alone, each of which consumes about a tenth of a gram of meat a day. Were their victims people instead of insects, they would need only three days to eat all sixteen and a half million Dutchmen.
From Spider Woman by Burkhard Bilger, The New Yorker magazine, March 5, 2007, page 69