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Q: Can you help identify this bird? It was in a field outside of Advance, Mo. 

This is an adult American golden plover (Pluvialis dominica) probably molting out of its breeding plumage. These early migrants are notable for the flecks of black, white, and shimmering gold on their upperparts and the white stripes that extend from their foreheads and eyebrows. Their smaller bills help differentiate them from black-bellied plovers. 

They are known to migrate south by mid-July — or earlier — but they don’t reach peak fall migration until October. They breed in the northernmost reaches of the North American continent and overwinter as far south as Argentina, which means they have long migration routes and can fly fast.

The American golden plover, like so many of its shorebird relatives, is in steep decline. Its numbers have fallen by half over the last half-century. 

In Missouri, look for them in the fall and spring on plowed fields, flooded row-crop stubble, prairies, grazed pastures, and muddy shorelines where they search for worms, insects, and other invertebrates. According to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s All About Birds website, they hunt much like an American robin, running along, stopping to scan for prey, then quickly picking it up from the ground.

Q: This gelatinous mass was on a submerged branch at the Lake of the Ozarks. What is it?

This is a bryozoan colony. Bryozoans are microscopic, aquatic, filter-feeding invertebrates that create colonies that can be mossy, branching, or round and jellylike. The colonies of different bryozoan species take different forms, building exoskeletons, or outer protective structures, like those of corals. Most colonies are attached to a structure such as a rock or submerged branch.

The species that creates the round, jellylike masses most often seen in Missouri is Pectinatella magnifica. Colonies are usually no more than 2 to 4 inches long or high, but some can be 12 inches or wider. Viewing individual zooids — a tiny bryozoan — requires a hand lens. Each zooid has mucous-coated tentacles that trap diatoms and other microscopic organisms that are swept to the mouth via cilia, or tiny hairs, that line the tentacles. Fish, insects, and snails graze on them. 

Like mussels and other filter feeders, bryozoans gradually cleanse the water as they feed. Also, their presence usually indicates good water quality.

Q: Where do eastern copperheads prefer to spend the winter months?

Most eastern copperheads (Agkistrodon contortrix) enter overwintering sites from mid- to late October in Missouri. Individuals overwinter singly or congregate at favorite overwintering sites, which are typically south-facing, rocky ledges. They also use abandoned rock quarries, rocky lake spillways, animal burrows, hollow logs, stumps, and caves. 

They eat a wide variety of prey, but mice and voles make up the bulk of their diet. They also will eat frogs, lizards, small birds, insects (especially cicadas), and occasionally other small snakes. 

Young eastern copperheads and some adults have yellow tail tips, and some young copperheads use these yellow tails as lures to attract small frogs or lizards.