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| March 2021 Bird Of Month |
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| Ring-necked Pheasant |
Ring-necked
Pheasants stride across open fields and weedy roadsides in the U.S. and
southern Canada. Males sport iridescent copper-and-gold plumage, a red face,
and a crisp white collar; their rooster-like crowing can be heard from up to a
mile away. The brown females blend in with their field habitat. Introduced to
the U.S. from Asia in the 1880s, pheasants quickly became one of North
America’s most popular upland game birds. Watch for them along roads or
bursting into flight from brushy cover. Pheasants, along with most members of
the grouse family, have specialized, powerful breast muscles—the “white meat”
that you find on a chicken. These muscles deliver bursts of power that allow
the birds to escape trouble in a hurry, flushing nearly vertically into the air
and reaching speeds of nearly 40 miles per hour. They usually walk or run and
only occasionally resort to flying, usually when disturbed at close range. Nonmigratory
and found locally year round.
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Loess Hills Audubon Society meets at the Dorothy Pecaut
Nature Center, 4500 Sioux River Road the first Thursday of the month during the months of October thru May at 7:30
P.M. The first meeting of the year is the annual potluck at Stone Lodge in Stone State Park at 6:00 P.M.
Each of these meetings includes a quality program of
various subjects. The public is invited and welcome to attend these meetings. Check the Meetings Page for information on upcoming
programs.
Birding outings occur monthly. The public is invited
and welcome to attend these outings. Check the Outings Page for information on upcoming outings.
Loess Hills Audubon Society
PO Box
5133
Sioux City, IA 51102
https://lhas.tripod.com/
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Mission Statement
The
Loess Hills Audubon Society exists to educate individuals and the general public, to
enjoy and promote birding, to support ornithology, and to be an advocate for wild areas and environmental issues. |
"Loess Hills Audubon Society is a Chapter of National Audubon Society, Inc."
Last Month's Bird Of The Month
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| Lapland Longspur |
Despite
being one of the most abundant breeding songbirds in North America, the Lapland Longspur is remarkably
easy to overlook. It breeds in the remote High Arctic and winters in vast agricultural fields that
are often devoid of other birdlife in that season. The vast majority of North American birders encounter
Lapland Longspurs in the winter months, when the birds filter down into southern Canada
and the northern United States. Their name refers to the Lapland region of Scandinavia,
which is partly in Sweden and partly in Finland. The name “longspur” refers to the
unusually long hind claw on this species and others in its genus. Breeding males have a bold black
face bordered by a swooping yellow-white line and a rich rufous patch on the back of the neck. Females
are similar but lack the extensive black. In winter, males and females retain an
echo of face pattern but lack the blocks of color, becoming overall pale brown and streaked
like the one in the above picture found locally in season.
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