Northern Jacana, JACANA SPINOSA

from the October 30, 2011 Newsletter issued from Mayan Beach Garden Inn 20 kms north of Mahahual, Quintana Roo, México

BIG-TOED WATER-LILY WALKER
I was watching a leg-long crocodile drifting through water lilies pads when a rusty-backed, yellow-billed, long-legged bird came walking across the water's surface, atop water lily pads. It was a Northern Jacana, JACANA SPINOSA. He was too far away for a decent picture but I took one anyway, hoping it'd at least show those amazing toes. It did. You can see my blurry picture nonetheless showing those crazy toes at the right.

from the November 20, 2006 Newsletter issued from Diego Nuñez's office above Restaurante "Isla Contoy," Río Lagartos, Yucatán, MÉXICO
JACANA BIG-FOOT
Most days when I hike the highway across the mangroves south of town when I pass the semi-submerged grasslands usually I see a little flock of birds fly from one small, silvery pond to another. During the brief flight there's a pretty eruption of brightly yellow wings outlined in black, then upon landing the forms resolve into rich chestnut-red bodies edged in black, punctuated here and there with small outbreaks of bright yellow. What I'm seeing is Northern Jacanas, JACANA SPINOSA.

Jacanas are among my favorite birds, not only because of their pleasing colors but because I still remember my astonishment the first time I saw them from a bus window down in Tabasco south of here. It was one of those ancient, rickety buses they used to have, the riding atop of which was more civilized than riding inside, but that day I was inside because we'd just had a cloudburst and the land was gloriously, revolutionarily flooded.

This first jacana I ever saw was walking atop lily pads in a marsh. When the bird lifted his foot to pass from one pad to the next, I saw something that made me hit my forehead against the window glass trying to get a closer look: The bird's toes were simply outrageously long. They were long beyond all sense of proportion or apparent rationality. The bird seemed to possess feet constructed for another, much larger species.

When I finally got to watch jacanas living their lives in their normal habitat the sense of those outlandish feet began revealing itself.

For, walking atop lily pads can be problematical. The problem is that if you weigh much more than a sparrow -- and jacanas are much larger than sparrows, 8-9 inches long -- the lily pads sink beneath you. Even from the bus from which I saw my first jacana I could see that as the bird walked from atop one pad to the next he was always leaving a sinking pad.

Having very long toes distributes weight across a broader surface area, thus focusing less weight on the pad immediately below you, so maybe it'll sink slower, or not sink at all. Long toes make sense for waterlily-pad walkers.

Northern Jacanas occur from Mexico and the Caribbean to western Panama, eating mostly aquatic insects, small fish, and miscellaneous vegetable matter. They are non-migratory, and build flimsy platform nests of leaves and grass on floating vegetation.