Distraction Displays: Mass Breeding Bird Atlas 2

Da Winna, and New Champeen...

The dust has settled, the polls have closed and the results are in. We have a winner in the ages-old debate of who owned the better land, based on twenty-first century bird observations, Myles Standish or John Alden.

If we were to take straight species sighting totals after 20 hours of these neighboring coastal blocks, the winner is the Standishes. They harbored 67 documentable species during the atlas period, whereas the Aldens, in Duxbury 5, had 57.

If we were to go simply by confirmations (a tenuous jump as best, as this may just prove the lack of skills of the primary atlaser - me - although I did handle both blocks!), the winner, again, is Standish, 32-26.

If we were to compare the new atlas to the old one, we would find that the Aldens came close to a 100% match up: 58 species in the 1970s, 57 today. The Standishes, on the other hand, went over the top, 67 to 58. Once again, they take the category.

In reality, the comparison shows some obvious, blatant, disturbing trends. In Duxbury 5, there was an even swap of 19 species; 19 seen in the first atlas and not in the second, and vice versa. That means that only 39 species carried over from the 1970s until today. In Duxbury 6, the numbers were 18, 27 and 39. The species diversity has changed by about 33% in each block.

What's down in both blocks? Black duck, bobwhite, woodcock and wood thrush. What's new in both areas? Canada goose, swan, turkey, double-crested cormorant, great blue heron, osprey, Cooper's hawk, red-bellied woodpecker, fish crow, Carolina wren and pine warbler. There's so much to read into the data.

And so, it can now be definitively stated that the better Pilgrim, when it came to future real estate projections 400 years ago, was the winner, and new champion, Myles Standish! It's not surprising, really, as his statue looks like he's waiting for his falcon to come back. (Note: no falcons were sighted in either block during the compilation of this data.)

Down to the Wire

Thanks to the blockbusting efforts of Matt Kamm, Charlie Nims and Joe Scott, Duxbury 5 is done, and that means that the Aldens and Winslows now have their final tally. Altogether, 57 species made the final cut, just one species shy of the 58 found in the first atlas. That's a 98.3% match from thirty years ago, although, of course, the lists are remarkably different. More on that later.

There are just four hours to go in Duxbury 6, and it's time for the Standishes and Brewsters to put up or shut up. They have already won one award, though: Breeding Bird Atlas Official Bird Bath, photographed just this morning. Can they win the whole thing?

The Hard Way

Four recent realizations have affected the Standish vs. Alden debate.

#1: After 8 hours in each block, exactly 53 species had been recorded. This starling in Duxbury 6 most likely had taken this gull feather while a gull was still using it.

#2: Neither family is alone. Right down the street from the Standishes I found this marker, showing that the Brewsters had joined the fight. A thorough walkthrough of Duxbury 5 revealed the presence of the Winslow House. What started out as a nice sparring session has turned into a tag team match. I suspect if I keep looking this could become a full-blown Pilgrim Battle Royale.

#3: The Standishes are cheating. Birder Rick B. found this blackpoll warbler at Duxbury Beach carrying food within the safe dates. It is so far out of its habitat that we can't, in our right mind, confirm it without a nest, but it at least is an observed species.

#4: The Standishes are keeping secrets it took an osprey banding trip to decipher. While out on Saquish yesterday, at the extreme end of the Duxbury Beach peninsula, we found an osprey platform being used as a nest by a herring gull; or, should I say a herring gull nest that definitely had been used as such. The bird's head and wings had been pulled from the torso, which had been picked clean in what appeared to be a great horned owl attack, and her eggs were still tucked beneath the remains ofher body.

So who wins? You can help us determine that by joining our blockbusting effort on July 8!

Another Pilgrim Heard From

Or, in this case, all of them. We were tipped off to a nest in Plymouth 1 this week, so we went to investigate. Sure enough, there it was - the beginnings of an osprey nest on the top of the head of Faith, the Forefathers Monument in downtown Plymouth. The monument is well hidden, atop a hill that can be seen clearly from sea, but is otherwise obscured by trees from anywhere on land nearby.

Close inspection shows that the nest is being held together by the lightning arresting spikes system that forms the crown of the recently refurbished statue. And it was just wonderful, too, we thought, that the sculptor opted to build in a perch for the male osprey just to the left of the nest, disguised as a finger-pointing hand.

As for Alden vs. Standish, well, both were Pilgrims and Forefathers, so they each get credit for one osprey (although at this time of the year it's most likely a young couple just housekeeping), but as they both already have them, there is no advance in scores. More to come!

Eggs on the Sunny Side of Duxbury Beach

There's suddenly a new leader in the clubhouse! The Alden family chose land farther from the coast than the Standishes, but they obviously knew that someday their topo block would include a section of Duxbury Beach, specifically that stretch north of what's known as High Pines. Good old Johnny Alden was thinking ahead.

Thanks to birder (not yet atlaser, we're working on him) Rick, we now have confirming evidence that willets are nesting on that stretch of sand. Not surprising, really, as they've been more and more prevalent on Duxbury Beach over the past few years, but certainly of interest to those of us following the ages old Alden vs. Standish homesite debate.

More to come...

Early Results

We're four hours in, and there is certainly a clear leader in the Alden-Standish debate. The Standishes have jumped out to an early lead. Both families can boast ospreys nesting nearby, and each has at least one pigeon nest in their block, probably descendants of birds that clung to the Mayflower as it sailed the ocean blue.

The Aldens have a mute swan pair, and while they also have one each starling and house sparrow nests, these, of course, don't count for this competition. The Standishes have a robin pair building a nest just outside of their homestead site to balance out the Alden's swans.

The Standishes hold the slimmest of margins after 4 hours because of the bird pictured above, a mourning dove on Harrison Street, building a nest in a cedar tree on the edge of the Duxbury Yacht Club Golf Course. It tried to go incognito by wearing a false mustache, but I wasn't fooled. And I'll bet that good old Myles wouldn't have been either. With sixteen hours to go, there's a lot more to come.

A Duxbury Dilemma

The debate has raged through the centuries: who picked the better homesite after leaving the plantation at Plimoth? Myles Standish or John Alden?

We at the Breeding Bird Atlas 2 project intend to settle the debate once and for all. Both sites have their charms. Standish's lot (the house is long gone) overlooks Duxbury Bay, a clear view onto the tip of Plymouth Beach. He was, after all, a military man, and wanted to keep his eye on the protection of the harbor.

Alden on the other hand, lived farther north (his home is still standing), closer to Powder Point. His place proved to be the perfect spot for romancing his beloved Priscilla and forging their way in the New World until poetry could be written about them.

So who made the better choice? Well, the answer can only lie in one completely subjective result: which site has better breeding birds 400 years later. We'll be atlasing Duxbury 5 (Alden) and Duxbury 6 (Standish) throughout the coming months, and will finally and definitively bring an end to this ages old rivalry.