This image arrived last week from my friend in the jungles of Costa Rica. King Vultures are so spectacular they look photoshopped (I promise this picture isn’t). Kings weigh up to 8 pounds (3.7 kg), the largest vultures on the western continents, except for condors. That may account for a royal name, though they look to me like Walt Disney characters.
Uncommon in Central America, they have a range extending to Argentina. Since this group lives north of the equator they qualify for our gallery of North American birds.
I read that their sharp senses often find carrion before other scavengers, but their beaks aren’t strong enough to rip open the toughest hides. While they wait for butchers to arrive with sharper tools, they enjoy nibbling eyes for hors d’oeuvres, said to be highly nutritious!
Ducks are back to spend the winter on the coast and inland waters around here. Teal, Shoveler, Canvasback, Scaup, Eider, Bufflehead, etc., and Ring-necked Ducks like this pair.
A compact little diver that prefers ponds to open water. It is misnamed because it doesn’t have a prominent white ring around its neck like a pheasant (the chestnut band is only visible on a bird in the hand).
I never saw water so high in Powhatan Creek. Living in Norfolk, Virginia, I occasionally encountered flooding in my neighborhood after exceptionally high tides or a nor’easter. I’d drive through inches of water to my driveway which rose to a high and dry house, avoiding the need for flood insurance. Other homeowners weren’t so lucky, judging by whirring sump pumps in basements. The problem doesn’t disappear with the tide because tender garden plants are harmed by immersion in salty water.
Apart from the notoriety of New Orleans below sea level, Hampton Roads, the Eastern Shore, and the Middle Peninsula are most at risk from sea level rise (aggravated by sinking land on the Peninsula).
“The total area at risk in coastal Virginia is 424 square miles in 2040, 534 in 2060, and 649 in 2080. The total length of potentially affected roadway is 545 miles in 2040, 972 in 2060, and 1762 in 2080. The total number of buildings potentially affected is 30,795 in 2040, 57,740 in 2060, and 111,545 in 2080. Those alarming projections are from a recent Commonwealth inquiry, but records back to 1950 show a rise of over a foot already.
Besides periodic threats from storms and hurricanes, there are king tides from the alignment of gravitational forces of sun, moon, and earth. They are higher than spring tides, which recur monthly (not seasonally as the name implies).
In November 2017, we volunteered for a citizen science project in which 500 people monitored the king tide using GPS. Data were recording by pressing a button in a phone app every few steps along the water’s edge. The immense database improves projections of areas at greatest risks of inundation.
A king tide peaked at 1.00 pm on November 5th this year. It offered a rare chance to kayak a swamp at the head of Powhatan Creek. A modest adventure, winding between bald cypresses and avoiding submerged obstacles, we penetrated a full quarter mile beyond the usual limit, wondering if sea level rise will make it routine in a few decades. We had to keep an eye on the tide before it receded or we risked stranding in a bog that could even swallow waders.
