{"id":1448,"date":"2017-03-08T03:30:22","date_gmt":"2017-03-08T03:30:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/039adfd.netsolhost.com\/WordPress\/?p=1448"},"modified":"2017-03-08T13:03:22","modified_gmt":"2017-03-08T13:03:22","slug":"jersey-boys-in-cape-may","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/039adfd.netsolhost.com\/WordPress\/2017\/03\/08\/jersey-boys-in-cape-may\/","title":{"rendered":"Jersey Boys in Cape May"},"content":{"rendered":"

France and I were just\u00a0in Cape May, NJ, looking for a particularly colorful strain of Jersey Boys. My first ecoregion birding blog<\/a>\u00a0was from this same area of\u00a0the Northeastern Coastal Forests Ecoregion<\/a> (NA0411), which extends the entire length of the New Jersey coast. That was in the spring; this time was a frigid winter day.<\/p>\n

We were looking for male Purple Sandpipers, Jersey Boys in the sense they regularly winter up and down this coast. Purple Sandpipers (Calidris maritima<\/em>) breed in rocky areas of the far northern tundra and winter uncommonly along rocky coasts of the eastern US and Canada (as well as in Europe). Most shorebirds sensibly winter in the balmy tropics; Purple Sandpipers are notable for being the shorebird species that in eastern North America winters the farthest to the north. They are pretty hardy and if you want to see them, you have to brave the elements!<\/p>\n

We found some nice Brant and an elegant male Gadwall. Red-throated Loons and Common Loons seemed to be equally common. Rock after rock was devoid of Purple Sandpipers.<\/p>\n

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Brant (Branta bernicla). North Wildwood, NJ, March 4, 2017.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Gadwall pair (Anas strepera), Cape May, NJ, March 4, 2017.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Finally, success! We found one\u00a0small group on a rocky jetty at North Wildwood, NJ, a lifer for me. Try as we might, we could not see the slight purple gloss on their winter dress, that gives them\u00a0their name. They do have striking\u00a0orange legs.<\/p>\n

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Purple Sandpipers (Calidris maritima). North Wildwood, NJ, March 4, 2017.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

As it turns out, its pretty well impossible to tell the difference between males and females, so I\u2019ll just have to assume it was\u00a0the guys we found hanging out. Why my interest in the boys? Purple Sandpiper males are really fascinating in the bird world. In almost all bird species (and mammals for that matter), females disproportionately invest time and energy in producing an egg, or a baby, and so it makes sense for them to be the better parents \u2013 they have a lot more to lose than the father, who typically has not invested much energy in his procreative duties. Purples are the opposite \u2013 the males take on the heaviest workload incubating and then once the eggs hatch, it is pretty well 100% Dad-only on duty to raise the chicks. The female invariably deserts the territory immediately after the eggs\u00a0hatch.<\/p>\n

A male gender bias in parental care is unusual in the bird world, but when so, it is often because the species is polyandrous \u2013 where the females have multiple male partners. In jacanas for example, the female will mate with numerous males and lay eggs in multiple nests. Obviously she cannot look after all of them, so the males are the primary caregivers. In yet other species, males will invest in parental care but only if they also have behaviors that help guarantee\u00a0their paternity \u2013 such as aggressive guarding of females to prevent extra-pair copulations.<\/p>\n

None of these explanations work in this case. Purple Sandpipers are remarkable in that they are highly monogamous \u2013 males and females are faithful to each other, with pair bonds often lasting\u00a0for many seasons. Extra-marital flings are almost unknown. Females after deserting do not go on to find a new mate and start a second clutch. Females furthermore are not inherently bad mothers; if the male dies at the time of hatching, she steps in and raises the young and does so just as competently\u00a0as the male. Studies in Norway have uncovered a lot of this startling evidence and of course it would have to be in Norway \u2013 always way ahead of the rest of us in gender equality…<\/p>\n

So in the complex gender politics world of birds, why has this arrangement evolved? There must be an advantage for males to provide uniparental care, for females to desert their families so consistently, and yet for this unusual arrangement to not get in the way of meaningful long-term relationships.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s quite a few theories out there but none seem very convincing. Ornithologists are not Purple Sandpipers, and they don\u2019t understand everything that is going on in their world. We basically just don\u2019t know, and this is not an easy species to study in their remote breeding areas. The next time you are on a rocky headland up in the High Arctic Tundra Ecoregion<\/a> of Baffin Island, sit and watch for a few seasons, and you may figure it out.<\/p>\n

By the way, on this weekend we also spotted one of the original and most colorful Jersey Boys<\/a>. Great\u00a0fun to take in a Frankie Valli concert at Atlantic City\u2019s Borgata Casino — 82, still singing and going strong! And finally, since today is March 8, happy “A Day without a Woman Day”!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

France and I were just\u00a0in Cape May, NJ, looking for a particularly colorful strain of Jersey Boys. My first ecoregion birding blog\u00a0was from this same area of\u00a0the Northeastern Coastal Forests Ecoregion (NA0411), which extends the entire length of the New Jersey coast. That was in the spring; this time was a frigid winter day. We… Continue reading Jersey Boys in Cape May<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/039adfd.netsolhost.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1448"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/039adfd.netsolhost.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/039adfd.netsolhost.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/039adfd.netsolhost.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/039adfd.netsolhost.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1448"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/039adfd.netsolhost.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1448\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1456,"href":"http:\/\/039adfd.netsolhost.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1448\/revisions\/1456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/039adfd.netsolhost.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/039adfd.netsolhost.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/039adfd.netsolhost.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}