Curiouser and curiouser: Walking in Upstate NY: Bobolinks, Butterflies, Wildflowers and More

I spent a few days in upstate New York recently and just loved it. A beautiful countryside and wonderful company was everything I needed after a long pandemic-induced semi-isolation in Arizona.

One morning, we walked around Oom's conservation area, which has a lovely pond, open meadows, and woodlands all in one place.

The stars of the show were the bobolinks (Dolichonyx oryzivorus). Bobolinks migrate seasonally, spending our summers (breeding season) in the northern US or southern Canada and our winters in South America (especially Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia, Peru, and Brazil). They are also sometimes spotted in the southeastern US, Caribbean, and Central America during their migration. The journey is well over 10,000 miles roundtrip, and since they migrate yearly, over the course of their lives this adds up to several (4-5) times around the circumference of the earth!

The male's yellow cap is quite distinctive, especially combined with the white striping on their shoulders, and they stand out from quite a distance.

The males sometimes ruffle their yellow-cap feathers a bit and puff them out. The effect is subtle here, but sometimes it's much more obvious.

Bobolinks are the only species in their genus, members of the so-called "New World" blackbird family (Icteridae), and most closely related to eastern and western meadowlarks (Sturnella spp.) and yellow-headed blackbirds (Xanthocephalus xanthocephalus). The bobolink's species epithet—oryzivorus—means "rice eating", as they have a tendency to eat rice and other cultivated grains (especially in their southern range and during migration), hence their other common name, "rice bird". The name bobolink, however, is supposedly a shortening of "Bob o' Lincoln" a description of their calls (although I can't say I hear the similarity).

The bobolinks' disappearance from New England during the winter months is mentioned in not one, but two Emily Dickinson poems. Oddly, the bobolink also gets a shoutout in the musical Camelot. It's in the lead-in to the song "How to Handle a Woman":

And what of teaching me by turning me to animal and bird?

From beaver to the smallest bobolink

I should have had the whirl

To change into a girl

To learn the way the creatures think!

What the bobolink is doing in a song about Arthurian legend, I have no idea.

I didn't get any good photos of female bobolinks, in part because they weren't displaying and calling the way the males were. They tend to spend more time down in the grasses, where they nest. But I think this is one, flying through the grasses (granted, they look a bit like sparrows, but longer and yellower).

This common yellowthroat (Geothlypis trichas) was pretty adorable, huh?

Especially clutching this bright green caterpillar in its beak.

There were many red-winged blackbirds (Agelaius phoeniceus) out and about as well.

And because I always get a kick of photos where birds are looking straight at you...

As used to seeing male red-winged blackbirds as we are, females often go unnoticed.

Did you know that the song of male gray catbirds' (Dumetella carolinensis, also known as Pájaro-Gato Gris and Moqueur chat) can last up to 10 minutes? It is composed of short notes and phrases, some of which (like those of closely related mockingbirds) imitate other birds, frogs, and mechanical noises.

The invertebrates also put up a good showing, including this grasshopper (not to be confused with the cicadas, which I posted about recently); maybe a Ponderous Spur-throat Grasshopper (Melanoplus ponderosus)?