South Shore Journal

Finger Lake'n Good

On Thursday, April 24, for the third time in twelve months, I found myself pulling into the town of Skaneateles ("long lake" in Iroquois), New York, hoping that the public restrooms were open, and that the lake that shared the town's name would have a wide variety of ducks on it. You know, just like your average tourist does.

Well, one out of two ain't bad. The restrooms were open. Such was the inauspicious beginning of our third Finger Lakes birding adventure.

We - Carol Decker, director of the Ipswich River Wildlife Sanctuary, our thirteen program attendees joining us from Mendon to Sandwich, and me - headed west for Cayuga Lake, which we would circumnavigate over the next twenty-four hours in search of birds, mammals, amphibians, wildlflowers, and more. We started in the town of Cayuga, at the head of the lake, finding our first of many ospreys, a northern rough-winged swallow and several carpenter bees, one of which is pictured at left with his shadow.

Onward through rolling farmland we drove, pausing at promising, yet strangely disappointing spots along the way. We had calls and songs, but mostly distant. We couldn't even get the squirrels right. At Long Point State Park, we found a gray squirrel that was more red than gray. Still, nobody complained. By the end of the day, as we pulled into Ithaca and the parking lot of our hotel, we'd scored 47 species of birds, mourning cloak butterflies, woodchucks, a brown snake, and more.

We started fresh on day two, waking up for some 5 a.m. owling that went absolutely nowhere, except to the tree branch hangout of a singing purple finch. We regrouped and headed for one of our target destinations, Sapsucker Woods and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. (I thought I heard a fish crow in the parking lot of the hotel as we left, but then realized that, according to Sibley, that would be too far west for their range). Each trip I've taken to Sapsucker has produced sapsuckers. Finally, the birding gods were with us. Our first sapsucker (of about ten), desperately wanted to be heard; we found it drumming on a metal sign on the street. On the way around the Wilson Trail, we spotted a singing swamp sparrow, a nest-building house wren, and a pair of bluebirds performing the same task. Later, from the Woodleton Boardwalk, we heard a pair of northern waterthrushes singing their spring song.

We poked through the Lab, spending some money at the gift shop, and then headed for the western shore of Cayuga Lake. After a quick visit to Buttermilk Falls State Park, we walked the gorge into Taughannock Falls, where ravens and northern rough-winged swallows took the day. A single black-throated green warbler sang on the south slope and white and red trilliums dotted the landscape. Our day ended with a teaser run-through of the Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge.

Day three began in the town of Victor, with a short drive through Rochester on the way to Braddock Bay. We lingered at the hawkwatch there, amazed at the building kettles in the distance, and awed by the beauty of broad-winged hawks soaring closely overhead. Two American pipits flew overhead, a bald eagle perched in a tree in the distance, an orchard oriole flashed in and out of view, and four caspian terns dove into the bay. Yellow warblers sang heartily and a gray catbird made a very, very brief appearance.

Southward we pushed through a powerful thunderstorm, to the Iroquois National Wildlife Refuge, where the site's fiftieth anniversary celebration was taking place. There we met a man who brought up the name of Dutch Barney, the gentleman who provided Mass Audubon with one of its little known gems, the High Ledges Wildlife Sanctuary. He had brought Dutch and his wife in for their last visit to their beloved site before they passed, and wanted to know how it was being kept. And did I mention there was cake?

On a pretty good sugar rush, we headed toward the Cayuga Overlook, where we sighted pied-billed grebes, an ancient bald eagle's nest, white-crowned sparrows, northern pintails, and more. Nesting black terns were due any day, and there had even been a brief sighting that morning. A short walk down the Onondaga Trail brought out calling gray tree frogs, more yellow warblers, a brown creeper and a surprise blue-headed vireo. Two kestrels emerged from a box and put on a show for us on the way out. Day total? Seventy-two species, plus twenty-two woodchucks on the road from Iroquois to Victor, just over a one-a-minute pace.

Day three began back in Victor again, with a quick run west to Mendon Ponds Park to find our only cedar waxwings of the trip. At 9:45, I joined Ray Brown on his Talkin' Birds radio program. (Don't tell him, but it was at a rest stop and not Montezuma as I said on the air; we were less than four minutes away when the cry for a bathroom break arose, and I had to oblige our guests). At Montezuma, the purple martin colony had returned, northern shovelers, blue-winged teals, American coots, redheads and canvasbacks fed in the main pool. Carp tried crazily to force their way in from the nearby feeder canal, and from the overlook at the Tschache Pool we spied seven bald eagles, approximately twenty-five great blue herons (nesting on the ground), another pied-billed grebe, two tundra swans and more. As we watched, a fish crow called, circled the tower, and flew away. We posed for a group picture, and we drove through the Mucklands for home.

After four days, we could claim 103 species of birds, snapping turtles, deer, muskrats, spring azure butterflies, trout lilies, Carolina spring beauties, garter snakes, marsh marigolds, and even a bullfrog. The skies darkened and the temperature dropped as we drove east, from 75 to 45. There were plenty of jokes about turning around and heading back, but that day will come. I know that next year at this time, I'll probably be making this report again.

Off and Running

Are you ready for all this? Here's a rundown of the past two weeks.

On Monday, April 7, a friend and I took a common day off to visit Cape Cod for some birding. We started with a pre-dawn walk at the Daniel Webster Wildlife Sanctuary in Marshfield to check unsuccessfully for owls, but instead scored timberdoodling American woodcocks. From there, it was straight - okay, with a Dunkin' Donuts stop on the way - to the Beech Forest in Provincetown, where she fed the chickadees and red-breasted nuthatches by hand while I snapped some pics. At Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary we met the little blue heron at left, and on we rolled until we ran out of Cape to see. After crossing the bridge for home we stopped at the Myles Standish State Forest to listen for singing pine warblers and watch for foraging ring-necked pheasants.

The next day I joined three other birders, Charlie, Joe and Allan, on an exploratory walk through Scituate's Glades for the Breeding Bird Atlas 2 project, finding a surprise osprey on a pole that was not used in 2007. That afternoon, the South Shore Sanctuaries staff brought a van full of volunteers to Mass Audubon's Visual Arts Center in Canton to see the current exhibit and even a little behind the scenes. That night, I led a woodcock walk at Daniel Webster, finding a sharp-shinned hawk and a northern shrike on the way to Fox Hill, and numerous woodcocks doing their thang in the failing light of the setting sun.

The next week was a blur - eye doctor, Friday Morning Birding, Celtics game (the win against the Bucks), two days in Maine (L.L. Bean, bowling, Scarborough Marsh, Cape Elizabeth, Portland Head Lighthouse, Lenny the 1700-pound chocolate moose, left). On Monday the 14th, I gave a talk on hawks and owls to the folks at the Duxbury Senior Center, then did our North Hill Marsh Waterfowl Survey (ring-necked ducks, wood ducks, green-winged teals). Tuesday night the 15th I gave a talk on Mass Audubon's Baltimore Oriole project, and on Wednesday I met a friend in Boston for burritos and a chance to see the fork-tailed flycatcher in Brighton, also a miss.

Thursday I "atlased" a block with a friend who needed some tips on places to go, and Friday, with my co-leader David Ludlow chasing Henslow's sparrows in North Carolina, I led Friday Morning Birders to Duxbury Beach and the Daniel Webster Wildlife Sanctuary, picking up several new birds for the year (eastern towhee, greater yellowlegs, black-bellied plover, etc.). Saturday morning I led a sunrise walk at the Daniel Webster Wildlife Sanctuary and then the Friday Morning Rewind, retracing our Friday morning steps for those who missed them. The sunrise walk in particular did not disappoint, with a palm warbler, a lingering rough-legged hawk and more.

Sunday morning, after brunch, I received a call from Tim O'Neil, who had led our full moon hayride on Saturday night at Daniel Webster. Snow goose! Luckily, as you can see, it  was still there when I got there this foggy morning, Tuesday, while working my breeding bird atlas block.

Got all that?  Good, because I have to pack. I'm off to the Finger Lakes for a few days of rest, relaxation and...birding.

There, there, there and back again

Spring keeps rolling on in! It's been another interesting and exciting week around the region. In fact, with all that's happened, I'm kind of dumb-founded to think that only seven days ago I was on Nantucket with the gang.

Tuesday, the day of the Red Sox re-opener in Oakland, I led a woodcock walk at the Daniel Webster Wildlife Sanctuary. Kathy Clayton, a fellow program leader, and I had seen them displaying back on March 9, and they were still at it hot and heavy earlier this week. Walking the trails at the sanctuary we had a sharp-shinned hawk, northern harriers, our northern shrike and more. All in all, a wonderful night that ended with a strange distant sound that may have been a fisher attack. But it was so drowned out by the sound of the hundreds of spring peepers around the sanctuary that we may never know.

Wednesday I attended the Mass Audubon education staff meeting at the Broadmoor Wildlife Sanctuary in Natick. As is my custom, I got there early enough to walk for an hour around the property, catching some early moring tree swallows on their boxes, as shown above. During the lunch break I got the chance to visit the resident great horned owl nest on the property, at left. The owl's moved in on an old heron nest, and if I was the heron, I think I'd take it up in court rather than try to make the eviction myself.

That night, I headed for the Lloyd Center in Dartmouth to help with a Breeding Bird Atlas 2 meeting (I'm a regional coordinator for the project). While witnessing a red-shouldered hawk display put on by the staff, I heard the familiar hoot of a barred owl in the distance. I then gave it my best "Who cooks for you?" and called in a dueting pair, a probable breeding record for the area. Great horned and barred in one day, without any darkness! What are the chances?

Thursday brought a meeting at Plimoth Plantation forthe upcoming FlightPath exhibit of shorebird photography from Plymouth Beach, and Friday, of course, meant Friday Morning Birders. For the four billionth Friday in a row, it rained. No worries!  David Ludlow and I found 56 species of birds for our attendees, including American kestrels and Wilson's snipes at the Daniel Webster Widlife Sanctuary in Marshfield, and this mute swan at Store Pond in Plymouth, one of three we saw sitting on nests around that city. We also found a Canada goose on a nest in Marshfield, and a total of seven confirmed breeding records in the region. I told you spring was here...

This morning I led "All Around the Mouth of the North River," based on my new book The North River: Scenic Waterway of the South Shore, now out from the History Press. Got my first great egret of the season, out on Damon's Point in Marshfield, and first chipping sparrow, right outside my window at the North River Wildlife Sanctuary office. I guess no matter how far you roam, there's always a reason to come home.

Tonight is "Timberdoodles and Tapas!" Every good birding adventure starts with hors d'oeuvres, I always say.

Back from the Rock

It was a weekend full of Nantucket surprises, even despite heavy prep time. I did my due diligence, contacting Nantucket's birding guru, Ken Blackshaw, for hot sightings, and brought the list with me. Carol Decker, the Ipswich River Wildlife Sanctuary director, and I chased down some of our old favorites and mixed in some of the new.

We started in the fields of the Daniel Webster Wildlife Sanctuary in Marshfieldon Friday morning. Our walk around the grasslands was highlighted by a male osprey who was so adamant about not sharing his fish with his mate that he actually ripped it away from her and flew off with it; northern harriers hunting over the fields; a Cooper's hawk perched on a heavy vine about twenty feet away; a belted kingfisher on a wood duck box in the wet panne; a gorgeous male eastern bluebird; and a wild turkey that ran away upon our approach, but diligently stayed to the mowed trails, as any visitor should do.

The ferry ride from Hyannis to Great Harbor was, as usual, invigorating. Either that or it was so cold topside that I was happily delirious. Actually, I take that back. The ride over was tropical when compared to the ride back. The wildlife stole the show - red-throated loons, common loons, northern gannets, long-tailed ducks by the hundreds, all three species of scoters, a pair of Bonaparte's gulls, a razorbill and a belted kingfisher chasing a red-breasted merganser. American oystercatchers greeted us as we pulled into the harbor.

We shared breakfast at 5 a.m. before heading for Smith's Point - or what's left of it. Last year we walked for more than an hour on the sand to watch the lift-off of the long-tailed ducks, a Nantucket nature specialty. This year we barely had gone ten minutes before we were greeted by an impassable, 150 to 200 foot wide cut that had separated Smith's Point from the Madaket mainland. We stood there dumbfounded by the power of nature as common eiders and common loons flew over our heads, and four piping plovers peeped at our feet. We lingered, but knew that as the sun came up our options would begin to wane, and so headed for other points of interest: North Head Long Pond, Eel Point Road, Miacomet Pond, Polpis Harbor and Sconset.

Sconset did not disappoint, as we located numerous Iceland and lesser black-backed gulls. Buffleheads by the hundreds had formed tight flocks, ready to head north. An eastern phoebe flicked its tail in some seaside thickets, and a lone early barn swallow worked the beach for goodies. At Sankaty Head Lighthouse, two snow buntings lifted off in the face of a peregrine falcon that was sitting nearby. It turned out that when he flew, he had bells attached to his legs, a kept bird wearing his jesses. The owner appeared and called him back in with the promise of a frozen quail, which he readily devoured. We learned that what we were watching was a peregrine/gyrfalcon hybrid. He allowed us to take all the photos we wanted before getting into his master's truck and perching on the seat back for the ride home. As the sun set, we found a beach that offered a northern gannet feeding frenzy before heading to dinner at the Atlantic Cafe.

Sunday morning, we slept in - til 5:30. At 6, we stood in the state forest off Lover's Lane listening to the strange hoots of a northern saw-whet owl and the sweet little song of a singing brown creeper. As we left there, a migration wave of several dozen, perhaps as many as a hundred yellow-rumped warblers swept past. We tried Miacomet Pond again, and added a pied-billed grebe; visited the marshes by the Nantucket Life Saving Museum and encountered the man himself, Ken Blackshaw, calling in a Virginia rail; and found the island's famed glaucous gull working the remains of the scallop pile at Jetties Beach. While standing there I reported live to Ray Brown's Talkin' Birds on WATD 95.9 FM about all the fun we'd had during the weekend. Seventy-six species of birds, in all light, in all habitats. We rode the ferry home in the cold (yes, we could have gone below decks, but where's the fun in that?) and parted company.

Tonight I'm off to find ritualizing American woodcocks at the Daniel Webster Wildlife Sanctuary, and am preparing for "Timberdoodles and Tapas" this Saturday. In three weeks, I'm off again, to Sapsucker Woods and the Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge in the Finger Lakes region of New York. Six days after that, it's North Carolina and Florida!  What a spring this is going to be.

It's Official

Remember how I said recently that there are two definitive signs of spring in Marshfield, returning fish crows and the grand re-opening of Dairy Queen on Webster Street? Well, I got the call. I was sitting at my desk listening to my phone messages when David Ludlow, our property manager at the South Shore Sanctuaries, piped in with, "Tuesday morning, CVS parking lot. There are fish crows all over the place!" The next morning, on an errand to Center Marshfield, I confirmed David's sighting. Or rather, his hearing. It's easier to tell fish crows by their vocalizations than their field marks.

But we'd already had a good start to the week, with signs of spring everywhere we looked. At dawn on Monday, David and I stood in the Boxford State Forest listening, hopefully, for barred owl calls. Instead, we were treated to singing brown creepers and winter wrens. At the Parker River National Wildlife Refuge, on Plum Island in Newburyport, we watched for snowy owls, but instead came up with  our first piping plovers of the year. At Cherry Hill Reservoir in West Newbury, we were surprised by our first tree swallow of the spring. And that's a killdeer at left.

Back at the North River Wildlife Sanctuary, I took a walk on the Woodland Loop Trail and turned over a coverboard to find our first red-backed salamander of the season. We'll be counting them in May and August/September, to determine their population on our property. If anybody would like to help with this citizen science project, contact me at 781-837-9400. This project will be a blast for scout troops, if you ask me.

WIth the spring comes the quickening of the pace for naturalists. Calls have been coming in all week. Ospreys in Hull! More at the Daniel Webster Wildlife Sanctuary! A great egret on Duxbury Beach! American kestrels and eastern meadowlarks at Daniel Webster! On Tuesday evening I gave a talk for the Hanover Historical Society on my new book, North River: Scenic Waterway of the South Shore, just out this week. On Wednesday, I chatted with the staff at the Museum of Science about their upcoming firefly project - there'll be more about that in an upcoming post - and finalized an article for South Shore Living magazine on the osprey recovery project in the region. Today, after picking out my first double-crested cormorant of the year at Studley Pond in Rockland and being startled by a pair of low-flying, migrating northern goshawks, I worked on finalizing details for this weekend's trip to Nantucket Island. Binoculars, scope, camera, eighteen layers of clothing. I'm all set for the ferry ride.

But how could I forget? When I went on my fish crow mission earlier in the week, I was warmed by one further sight, the one you see to the left. Spring has finally, officially arrived in Marshfield.

March 20 - Spring is here, believe it

There are two well-known signs that spring has officially arrived in Marshfield. Dairy Queen on Webster Street opens and fish crows return to Center Marshfield from their southern sojourn. To date, neither has occurred. In fact, it's been snowing in these last few days of winter, making it feel like spring will never arrive.

But spring is here, and I have proof.

About a week ago I was in Hull for a meeting, and had a little time to kill. I also had a telescope, so I thought I'd check out the osprey platform on the Weir River estuary, underneath the Hull Wind II turbine. Ospreys are actually due back from the south later this month, but one had already been reported in the Westport area, so I thought I'd take a chance. No luck. But, as I turned to leave, I looked beside me and saw pussy willows starting to open up their buds, as seen in the pic to the left.

That was actually sign number two. A few days earlier, while on our Friday Morning Bird Walk, we stopped at the Duxbury Bogs Conservation Area and espied a long lost sight, painted turtles climbing out of the mud and up onto a log. They've begun emerging from their winter rest and are returning to the surface to start soaking in the sun (aren't we all). That's a true sign that the seasons are a-changing.

Finally, a few days ago, I visited North Hill Marsh Wildlife Sanctuary in Duxbury to conduct another installment of our ongoing waterfowl survey on the pond. The expected suspects were there, 81 Canada geese, 2 mute swans, a handful of ring-necked ducks and a few common mergansers. The highlight, though, was a line of four wood ducks swimming along among the dead cedar trees in the distance. Wood ducks are known to not like having "cold feet," and as such are only around when they feel the temps are right, or are going to be very soon.

Other wildlife continues to show up on our doorstep, winter residents changing their behavior for spring. One of our resident wild turkeys from the past few years (they've been hanging around the North River Wildlife Sanctuary parking lot off and on since November 1, 2005) gave me a great photo op this week, going into full "I'm a bad dude" mode as I walked outside the front door. It's almost that time of year when the male flocks and female flocks break up and the sexes begin to intermingle. As such, Darryl, here, needs to practice the things that attract female turkeys, puffing himself out and acting belligerently. It's quite a sight from a few feet away.

Yesterday I had the chance to speak at the Mass Audubon staff natural history conference at the Broadmoor Wildlife Sanctuary in Natick, on the topic of "21 Years of Friday Morning Birding," a statistical study of more than 47,000 check marks made on field cards on the South Shore since 1987. As I walked out the door at the end of the day, I ran into this red-tailed hawk sitting on a tree swallow box. Red-tails, as they're known colloquially, are already nesting, well in advance of many other bird species around the state.

So, yes, spring is on its way to the South Shore, despite what the snow says. Monday I'm off to the North Shore for a day's birding and then it's Nantucket for three days soon thereafter. When I'm back, it'll be time to start working on the second season of the Massachusetts Breeding Bird Atlas 2 project, a major citizen science undertaking of Mass Audubon.

And maybe, somewhere along the way, I'll find life bird number 303.

March 10 - Wild Weekend

Finding a good bird with a group of birders is a lot like being in an elevator. Everyone is really silent and faces the same way. That's why there are no really good pictures of people birding. They all look the same.

That happened to our program groups a few times this weekend. On Friday morning, we followed the tips of a couple of birders who had visited Marshfield earlier in the week and tracked down a yellow-bellied sapsucker. He almost eluded us - almost. As soon as we walked into the Cherry Hill Reservation, on Daniel Webster's old land, an accipiter, or small hawk, flew out of the trees in front of us. While the sighting of a Cooper's or a sharp-shinned hawk is always a good one, it usually means there won't be much else around for a few minutes. Coops and sharpies are bird-eaters, and the smaller birds know it. Therefore, they go into intense hiding until the all-clear is sounded. But, the yellow-bellied sapsucker could not out wait us.

We found him working on a sugar maple. We then did what we always do. We all stood and stared, admiring him for the fact that he's different form all of our usual suspects, and we moved onto the next bird. We all thought about the last yellow-belly we'd seen, and most of us remembered the first yellow-belly we'd ever seen. They're quite rare in this part of the state, but this guy seems to have found a home here, as we've located him in the same general plot of trees for two winters in a row now.

Saturday, of course, was a monumental washout. I did have a program to run in the evening, but out of necessity we moved it to Sunday afternoon. Problem was, I already had a program on Sunday afternoon.

At 1:30, Tim O'Neil, our volunteer co-leader, and I picked up fifteen teachers and drove them the length of Duxbury Beach, talking about snowy owls, ospreys, scoter ducks - all the things we were hoping to see, but didn't. The birders' worst enemy, the wind, was in full force. Our best bird sighting, three horned larks, was lost on most of the teachers I fear, but at least Tim had the enjoyment of seeing them, his first for the year. Not quite as rare as a yellow-belly, they're still a nice find.

At 3, we hustled back to the North River Wildlife Sanctuary to drop the teachers off, and I then turned and kept going down to the Daniel Webster Wildlife Sanctuary. I met Kathy Clayton, my second co-leader of the day, and someone whom I had not seen since September 15, 2007, the day we returned form Block Island together. We had barely met before that trip started, but not only had fun with our dozen attendees, but had become fast friends by the end of it. We'll be leading a trip up into the White Mountains this summer together. But I digress.

Our goal today was a four hour walk around Daniel Webster to look for birds of prey, and, despite the wind, they did not disappoint in the slightest. We had northern harriers, both male and female, hunting for voles in the grasslands. We had red-tailed hawks coming from many directions, and a solitary rough-legged hawk soaring above the treetops to the northeast (on the way between sanctuaries I'd also seen a red-shouldered hawk). Just before dusk we heard, and then saw a northern shrike atop a shrub, a little monster known as the "butcher bird" for the way it massacres its prey. It kills cardinal-sized birds, impales them on spikes (barbed wire, or a snapped off branch of a tree) and eats until its full. It then leaves the remains impaled and comes back later for other meals until it's done with that particular food source. Finally, after the sun went down, we had a short-eared owl flying at high speeds over those grasstops evaucated moments earlier by the harriers.

The surprise of the night , though, was the first full "peent" of an American woodcock, the notice that the breeding display was about to begin. Woodcocks put on an amazing show, with whistling wings, a climb to dizzying heights, and then a tumble to the earth. We'd seen them performing their act before, but weren't expecting it for about another two or three weeks. Yet there they were, a dozen male woodcocks, some going right into their full act. Trust me, folks, that is a true sign that spring is on the way.

I left Daniel Webster at 7:45 and headed for home. Over the weekend, I'd added four more birds to the year list (115 - killdeer, 116 - yellow-bellied sapsucker, 117 - American woodcock, 118 - short-eared owl), but nothing new for the life list (sigh). Still waiting for 303.

March 3 - A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to 302

Every birder keeps a list. At least one. There are some who keep several. There are state lists, there are town lists, there are lists of birds you've seen while driving mroe than 50 miles per hour, there are commuting lists, international lists, year lists, month lists, checklists for every variable of which one can think. Some people prefer to keep a mental list, others have leapt into the computer age with Excel spreadsheets, while some are surrounded by huge, shambling piles of cardstock in four-by-six dimensions.

I started birding, in earnest, about three years ago. I kept all my field cards, but didn't really start to think about the big number - the life list - until late in 2007. The life list is just what it sounds like: every species of bird you've seen in your entire life, irrespective of nation, state, town, whether or not you were driving to work when you saw it, etc. (Of course, I also have a life mammal list, a life herp list, a life wildflower list...but I digress).

So I began the process of going through the field cards back through the late fall of 2005, when I started work as an educator for Mass Audubon's South Shore Sanctuaries. There was the thick-billed murre on Scituate Harbor that winter. Glad I got that one, as I haven't seen one since. Then there was the boreal chickadee at a feeder in Plympton early in 2006, and the fox sparrow that joined it on the ground below. I've since heard boreal chickadees in Maine, and only saw my second fox sparrow this winter at a feeder in Plymouth.

There have been the chase birds, the snowy owls on Duxbury Beach, the rufous hummingbird at a feeder in Marshfield, the Swainson's hawk in the Cumberland Farm Fields in Middleboro, the pileated woodpecker in Wompatuck State Park in Hingham. And then there was the big surprise bird, the miniscule yellow rail that appeared less than a mile from our offices in Marshfield, in a marsh just off the North River. There were birders with us that day that had been at it for sixty years and never seen one.

There are the birds of Maine - puffins, common murres, razorbills, a spruce grouse and her young - and those of Nevada, like the California quail that run the streets, and the western scrub jay that invaded my wife's grandfather's backyard. There were the various birds of Arizona on last year's Red Sox/Grand Canyon trip, the white-winged doves, cactus wrens, the gila woodpeckers, and the pyrrhuloxia. There have been countless early morning owl prowls, offshore trips for pelagic species, forays to the Finger Lakes, downeast Maine, Nantucket, Block Island, up and down Cape Cod, and into and out of backyards, wildllife sanctuaries and state and national parks.

So I totaled them all up and began to count. Ducks, geese and swans? 34 species. Grebes? 3, and all of them in Massachusetts. Hawks, kites, eagles and allies? 13 (ooh, I'll have to change that). Gulls and terns? 16. Owls? 7. Hummingbirds? 5. Woodpeckers? 8. Wood-warblers? 31.

Overall? 300.

Are you kidding me?

I recounted. After just about three years of birding, I had a round, even number. The three-century mark. 300. What were the chances?

So I went home from work that day and told my wife Michelle. I said that I had included everything, even the bananaquits, frigatebirds and pelicans we had seen on our honeymoon on Tortola in th British Virgin Islands. "Right, everything," she said. "Like that black and white bird we saw on that electrical box on the way to Lake Tahoe."

What? Wait a minute! Did I check off black-billed magpie?! No. My 301st bird came three years ago on vacation.

That all became moot a few days later. On a recent Friday morning, David Ludlow, our property manager, and someone who shares many of my lifebird sightings around New England, and I led our regular Friday Morning Birdwalk. We headed for Scituate, staked out yet another feeder - on a tip from the owner, one of our regular birding program attendees - and watched as a flock of about 100 common redpolls flew in to feed on a thistle sock. There, amongst them, were two bigger, whiter birds. Hoary redpolls. 302, baby.

I had a temporary dream of retiring with 300. I thought what better way to call it quits than with a nice, round easily remembered number. But now, I'm resigned to the fact that the listing must continue to at least 500. And now I have to think about what the celebration at that point will be. One birder I know brought a can of Mountain Dew all the way to Africa to celebrate his 3000th species.

And I also have to wonder what number 303 will be. The beauty of spending so much time outdoors exploring the nature of Massachusetts is that surprises are around every corner, under every stone, hidden in the leaves of every tree. I have no idea what number 303 will be. It may come on my upcoming trip to Nantucket, to the Finger Lakes, the White Mountains, downeast, or it may just show up at the feeder outside my window at work. But I know there will be a number 303.

February 20, 2008 - Looks like snow again...

Yup, that's what the forecast is telling us for next Friday and Saturday, and in this case, I don't mind one bit. February has been kind to us, with some rather temperate breaks here and there, getting up into the fifties at times. More than we could ask for, if you ask me. And the birding has been fun. So was the origami class our caretaker, Ellen Adams held, at left.

On February 8, David Ludlow and I took the Friday Morning Birders up to my neck of the woods, up onto a neck of land known as Hull. Yes, Nantasket Beach. Yes, where I grew up. We didn't mean, at first, to go there, but after an unsuccessful search for a Townsend's solitaire in Hingham, we suddenly had one of those "Well, we're this far north" moments that hit us from time to time, and as such decided to check out the Hull Redevelopment Authority land, a parcel now comically four decades in the "redevelopment" stage. In the meantime, some pretty interesting bird sightings have taken place here. That day we found a flock of forty or so horned larks, a winter specialty.

When we go to the HRA land, we also go to the Meade Avenue overlook, and would be remiss if we bypassed Straits Pond without a glance. We were glad we stopped. After finding another small flock of horned larks, we came across a nice discovery, a Barrow's goldeneye. Limiting ourselves to spots outside of Plymouth for a few weeks, we had become resigned to the fact that we had missed the Barrow's on Great Herring Pond, and would probably not see one this year at all. This guy made up for that one. The Iceland gull off Crescent Beach wasn't bad either. Neither was the flock of purple sandpipers off Minot Beach, below.

A windy morning on Duxbury Beach the following Sunday brought out nothing special, and the freezing temperatures on the following day made me thankful to be indoors. That morning I gave a talk on local history to the fourth graders in Hull, an excitable group that taught me a thing or two I had never known before about our common home town. On Valentine's Day I walked the trails of both the North River and Daniel Webster Wildlife Sanctuaries with the South Shore quest booklet folks, allowing them to test out my new masterpieces, "The Owl's Quest" and "Hannah Eames' Quest," in preparation for their launch in April. Heavy rains the night before had made the trails beyond soggy, but the trips were fun nonetheless.

On Friday the 15th, we birded again, with mixed results. We had been pre-alerted to a feeder flock of common redpolls, one that actually showed up on cue. On the way to see them, I spied a sharp-shinned hawk in a puddle, and when we reversed direction, we watched it fly off with what we believed was a northern flicker in its talons. After an hour, we had barely reached double digits in species. The woods around Scituate and Hingham were silent. We moved to the coast, and ended the day with a flurry, 46 species strong.

That afternoon, I joined our regional scientist, Robert Buchsbaum, in placing 40 coverboards on the North River Wildlife Sanctuary. When the spring rains arrive, it'll be time for red-backed salamanders to come out and be counted. Through briars and downed trees we marched, trying to move as adroitly as possible in straight lines. Hah! Fat chance. But we tried our best. The next morning, I led a walk at Daniel Webster at sunrise (6:38 a.m.), the Friday Morning Rewind trip (9-12), finding bobcat tracks at Wampatuck State Park, and then gave a talk at Kennedy's Garden Center on Route 3A in Scituate on attracting birds to your yard by landscaping with native plants. I gave the same talk last night in Pembroke for the Mattakeessett Garden Club.

As for this weekend, if the snow can hold off until Friday night, that would be nice. If it could give us a nice blanketing on the Hull peninsula, preferably one that lasts into Sunday morning, that would be cool, too. I'll be leading trips both day based on one of my books, When Hull Freezes Over. I could use the ambience.

February 2 - Think warm thoughts, think warm thoughts...

We've had a pretty good winter, especially if you like things cold. I've always believed in the mantra "if it's going to be this cold, it might as well snow." Cold without snow is just frustratingly bleak. Cold with snow is, in my opinion, the epitome of a New England winter. And there's no secret in the fact that I like to be outdoors enjoying the variability of the New England seasons. That definitely includes these colder days.

But there's a part of me that has been cold for long enough. I could go for a warm day here or there, one that thaws all the snow and gives at least a hint of late spring, or early summer. At least, though, I have a lot to look forward to this year, whether that warmth comes sooner or later.

In March, it'll be cold when we visit Nantucket, but it'll be worth it to see the mass flights of long-tailed ducks. Last year our Nantucket visit scored the first belted kingfisher and great egret seen on the island during the calendar year. We also tracked and found an Eurasian wigeon, part of the fun of three days on "the rock." It'll be much warmer in late April when we had for Sapsucker Woods and the birds of the Cayuga Lake area, and even warmer in May when I head down to Wilmington, North Carolina and Pensacola, Florida on maritime historian business. In June, things will be just about perfect when we head for the White Mountains to search for breeding Bicknell's thrushes. I know that downeast Maine will be ideal in July when we go for puffins on Machias Seal Island, my third trip in three years. And if last year's weather pattern holds for this year's trip to Block Island in September, well, that should be meteorologically delightful as well.

So there are warm thoughts ahead. In the meantime, we continue to seek wildlife in the cold of New England. Last Friday, January 25, we located a bald eagle on Great Herring Pond in Plymouth, and then headed for Scusset Beach Reservation to find a morphing northern harrier, a young male that was both splotchy gray and brown. Speaking of kingfishers, we found one there as well, the first one on our 2008 list. The beach also held horned larks, tree and savannah sparrows, including one of the "Ipswich" family.

While friends headed north for a second consecutive Sunday to miss the slaty-backed ghull, I did a half an hour in studio with Ray Brown on WATD 95.9 FM's Talkin' Birds to hype our Focus on Feeders event, which is taking place right now in the high winds that have followed last night's rain storm into the region. Looking out the window at our feeders here at the North River Wildlife Sanctuary, we've got a big fat zero going on.

Yesterday, we decided to stay local in our weekly search for avian species. The Daniel Webster Wildlife Sanctuary was alive with birds of prey, with as many as five rough-legged hawks, in both light and dark morphs, visible from Fox Hill at any moment. American tree sparrows have become regular winter residents in the treeline out near the hill, and our young northern shrike continues to be very visible atop the shrubs of the Piggery Loop. Two golden-crowned kinglets surprised us while we were looking for long-eared owls, which again have proven quite elusive for our Friday morning gang.

Twice in twenty-four hours we've visited Duxbury Beach. Yesterday's trip turned up an Ipswich savannah sparrow and a black guillemot. Today's brought a red-throated loon, a close Cooper's hawk and a flock of snow buntings. Neither trip brought what we had hoped for: snowy and short-eared owls. Like I said off the top, it can be frustrating: if it's going to be this cold, there might as well be snowies. No such luck.

Punxatawney Phil will have his say today, as will Mrs. G of our Drumlin Farm Wildlife Sanctuary in Lincoln. I get the feeling that we're in for more cold, but I know it can't last forever. That's only happened once in Massachusetts history, in a year known as eighteen-hundred-and-frozen-to-death, during which ships were ice-locked in Boston Harbor in May and June. Either way, I can think warm thoughts, and know that this year is going to be one filled with new sights, new sightings and plenty of days where I'm paid to be doing what I love - wandering trails under the sunshine and experiencing the wonder of the nature of Massachusetts and the northeast states.