📜 EwA Week Highlights: Geese Aren't Barnacles, Believe It Or Not

[Mike McGlathery]

EwA Highlights February 8, 2025 Hello everyone,  Thanks for reading the February 8th EwA highlights. Let’s take a look at some more of the bird species that visit us this time of year. 📸 The red-breasted merganser (Mergus serrator) nests in the northern latitudes and migrates to more southern waters for the winter. This bird tends to spend its winters in the saltwater environment of the coasts, instead of the inland waterways on which you’ll find its other merganser relatives this time of year. Simon, who I believe is making his EwA highlights debut with this observation, saw this male Mergus serrator in Boston Harbor on Tuesday. EwA iNaturalist Record (© Simon Gurvets · Boston, MA · Feb.4, 2025)  Another bird that migrates down to this area from its northern breeding grounds is the brant (Branta bernicla). Brants breed in very high latitudes (think northern Greenland and Svalbard), far away from their winter range. This separation of life stages resulted in one of the more entertaining bits of naturalist misinformation I’ve heard of: they were long believed to come from barnacles (the crustacean). A mix of fabrications, logical leaps, and lack of knowledge about bird migrations caused naturalists in the Middle Ages to come to this conclusion about the brant (as well as the barnacle goose, Branta leucopsis), and the myth lasted for hundreds of years.  EwA iNaturalist Record (© Bill MacIndewar · Boston, MA · Feb. 2, 2025)  EwA’s most-observed species this week was once again the common eider (Somateria mollissima). In the summer, the eider makes its nest by lining a small depression in the ground with soft down feathers that it has plucked from its own body. This results in an interesting harvesting technique for eider down: it can be simply collected from defunct nests on the ground after the breeding season is  done. EwA iNaturalist Record (© Joe MacIndewar · Boston, MA · Feb. 2, 2024)  📊 Thanks to everyone for your great biodiversity records this week, totaling 193 observations of 102 distinct species. If you’re curious about the records from this week that have been validated by the iNat community so far, you can find them » here. 🏆 Running tally: To date, we have recorded 223,973 observations of 12,219 distinct species! Check out our EwA umbrella project, see the details per site/observer, and more » here. 📅 EwA Upcoming Public Events Ewa Field Events » Check the EwA Winter [ Event details and registration » ] Don’t miss some great opportunities to follow the rhythm of the season in our local habitats and in the local wildlife! Space is limited for all our field events. Wildlife ethics is important to us and we seek to avoid putting the pressure on natural habitats which large gatherings unavoidably do. We are asking our audience to register-and-commit (or cancel when you know you can’t come) to avoid no-shows. EwA Fieldwork (and Resources) It’s a great time to join our monitoring programs. Check EwA’s Volunteer Program Calendar 📅  to know when things happen. And if a session is of interest to you, don’t hesitate to reach out to get the rendezvous location. 📅 EwA Sites Map | 🌱 Site Protocols and Guides · Field Rosters · Field Notes » All here! | ℹ️ More about EwA’s Citizen Science Program » Here ❓ Do you have any questions? Don’t be shy. Just email me or reply to this thread.  That’s all for this week—hope you have a good one! -Mike