South Shore Journal

Osprey Banding Spree

Each year around the end of June, I look for my boots. Not my hikers, not my snow boots, but something in between. I need something tall, something rubber, something unafraid of mud. It's all for a good cause, an osprey research project that helps us to determine facts about ospreys we never knew before.

This year, we started on Tuesday, June 30. I take that back - we started this winter. At that time, I call out to volunteers who want to help monitor the osprey families on the South Shore, from Quincy to Onset. We go over the simple monitoring process and they get to work, sending me reports of first arrivals, second arrivals (paired ospreys, who mate for life, take separate vacations hundreds of miles apart, and usually return to the same nesting platform within a day of each other), any odd behavior, and finally, the appearance of little heads in the nests. We do one last information gathering go-round before banding time, search for our boots, and hit the road.

Joe Grady, the Duxbury Conservation Agent, and Norman Smith, the Director of the Trailside Museum in Milton, have been doing this run for decades. I've only jumped in the last few years. It's a moment of annual reunion, of ladder-carrying by Duxbury conservation office employees, of boat rides and yes, of mud.

We started this year in Weymouth, at Great Esker Park, where we found one chick. Odd. At Bare Cove Park, we found an unhatched egg. At Marina Bay, one more chick, three weeks old. At Hough's Neck, things looked up: two chicks and an unhatched egg, which proved to be infertile. At the Hull landfill, nothing. Oddly, the ospreys had started building  another nest on a powerline crossbeam, hinting that perhaps something was wrong with the one they had. Too close to the windmill? Who knows. At the Daniel Webster Wildlife Sanctuary in Marshfield, we found one more chick.

Six nests, five chicks, a terrible ratio. Has the heavy rain of the past month affected the lives of the ospreys? Has their hunting been limited? Have they been unable to provide for all but the strongest of their chicks? We hoped day two would show better results.

We boarded a boat in Duxbury and headed out onto the bay. At Saquish, there were no chicks. At Great Wood Island, the pallet had fallen off the pole. But then, a wave struck. At Gurnet Road, Norman found three chicks and chunks of sod in the nest. At the Town Line Pole, he found four, six-week old birds, almost ready to fly. At Scat Island, there were three more chicks, and dozens of cracked open and emptied mussel shells in the nest. Ten chicks in just those three poles. The fertile waters of Duxbury Bay had obviously been providing sufficient sustenance to keep these families healthy.

The crew rolled on by auto convoy back on dry land. Three more at Ivy Island in Marshfield. Two more at Hicks Point in Duxbury. And one at Plymouth's Long Beach.

In all, we found 21 osprey chicks in two days, twice as many as were banded last year. They ranged from one-week to six-weeks old, from single chicks to a group of four, the smallest to the largest clutches ospreys will have.

It's now time to look at data, put together nest history reports, and see what can be determined from all the information the monitors have turned in. Most of them got the opportunity to witness the banding, so this year's young birds were photographed over and over again.

Feel free to contact me at Mass Audubon if you'd like to help out as a monitor next year. We can always use an extra set of eyes.

The Tale of Henry the Hawk

We're in the midst of the Breeding Bird Atlas 2 Project here at Mass Audubon, a study in which every bird is examined more closely than usual. We're watching for birds carrying things - nesting material, food, fecal sacs - or for any other detail that says that a bird may be somehow involved in the breeding process. The ultimate evidence is, of course, a newborn bird.

Through the atlasers' grapevine, news got to me today in Marshfield of a young Cooper's hawk recently hatched in Plymouth. According to the homeowner that found him, Kate, he had fallen from his nest to the base of a white pine tree. "I left him in the area of the tree, hoping the mother would feed him. We kept our eye on it Saturday, Sunday and Monday and never saw the mother come near it."

Henry - that's what Kate named him (remember the old Foghorn Leghorn cartoons with diminutive but bullying Henry the Chicken Hawk? "Chicken hawk" is an old-fashioned name for Cooper's hawk) - walked around the yard, and she did her best to herd him away from the street and any other dangers. She fed him and generally took care of him until a wildlife care organization agreed to take him.

If Henry survives (and there's no reason to think that he won't) he could live to be as old as twenty years, and will certainly become a menace to small birds somewhere on the South Shore if reintroduced to the wild. Cooper's hawks are frequently sighted in backyards at feeders, hunting the songbirds that feed there. Their specialties, though, are pigeons, mourning doves and starlings.

Thanks, Kate, for your diligence in your unexpected motherly duties for a few days. Maybe Henry will find his way home and bring you a starling some day. Let us know if he does.

Winding Down the Warblers

Warbler migration comes and goes very quickly. We suffer through March, are enticed by April and are overwhelmed by May, but when June comes, we wait for the dust to settle and then realize how many birds we actually missed in migration. By June 1, migration winds down, and a week later, it pretty much stops cold.

But we find that while the warblers thin out, the evidence that the next generation of birds to be born on the South Shore is well underway, right underneath our noses. We start finding birds carrying nesting material, carrying food and sometimes already sitting on nests. In some cases, the young have already arrived.

On Friday, in the last of three consecutive damp days, we walked Wompatuck State Park to find a few target species - worm-eating warblers, a male cerulean warbler and an Acadian flycatcher - but found several nests along the way, a total of seven. We wandered until the rain started to really come down, then retreated for the vans and our checklists.

On Saturday, we started at Turkey Hill and Weir River Farm, and before we even climbed the steep path from Route 3A, the last of the rain had fallen and the sun began to warm us into layer removal. After all the rain we've had, the birds were ready to sing, and the butterflies were ready to fly. Eastern kingbirds buzzed overhead and Baltimore orioles fought in the trees. Two orchard orioles, one male and one female, took advantage of the nice weather to begin the mating process atop a small tree, while a male common yellowthroat gathered some food in its bill to bring to its mate, presumably already on a nest.

So June is here, which means we have one month until fall migration begins! Enjoy our breeding birds while you can.

In the Thick of It

The South Shore is currently an epiphany in green. Everywhere grass, weeds, flowers, trees, in fact, pretty much anything that comes out of the ground naturally is in some stage of bloom.

Because of all that, our birds have returned and our bugs are on the wing and the crawl. It's impossible to turn your head in any direction without seeing something alive, eating or being eaten. And nests! Just this past week we've seen American robins, eastern phoebes, American crows, marsh wrens, red-tailed hawks - I could go on and on - sitting on nests. If they're not sitting on eggs, the birds are courting or nest building.

Our travels this week took us to some fun places. The town of Marshfield has a new piece of conservation land, the Swift property on Union Street. We walked there on Tuesday after hearing that there was a proliferation of Baltimore checkerspot caterpillars on the plantains there. They weren't kidding, they're everywhere.

Back at our own sanctuary, we found that our orchids, the whorled pogonias, are in bloom. It feels early. We usually don't look for them until June, but hey, we'll take it.

And migration is still in high gear. We're finding the rarities - Tennessee warblers, least flycatchers, gray-cheeked thrushes - in our usual haunts. They'll pass through in the next week or two, leaving us to our breeders for about a month - and then, in July, fall migration begins out on the beaches. I know. Say it ain't so.

Not Quite Summer Yet

In 22 years of trying - dating well back past my official start date with Mass Audubon - the South Shore Sanctuaries' Friday Morning Birders group had never seen a summer tanager. That's every Friday for 22 years, save for the occasional major holiday. It's nearly 4000 hours of searching.

Well, one arrived in Lakeville early last week, which is always frustrating for our Friday group, because the bird has to decide to stick around until the end of the week for us to see it. More often than not, the scenario does not work out. But we have to try anyway.

It's about a 45-minute ride from our home base in Marshfield to Lakeville. We rolled on down with hopes high, but alas, did not turn up the bird. So we moved on. There's a good reason we haven't seen a summer tanager in 22 years; theyre just plain rare where we live. We toured through the Lakeville area, finding a bald eagle where we expected to, and a pair of ospreys actively catching fish and bringing them back to their nest. Tree swallows soared overhead and red-bellied woodpeckers called from the woods.

On a whim, as it was on our way back home, we swung by the "summer tanager spot" again, as it will now forever be known to local birders. No, we had no luck. But as we turned and walked back to the vans, we heard a squawk, and watched a big, black bird fly over our heads. A raven! A raven! In 22 years of trying, almost 4000 hours of effort, we had never seen a raven on our Friday Morning Birders program.

Until now.

Back and Forth

As we wander into April, we're reminded of why we're Yankees in sentiment. We've struggled through a long, cold winter and are willing to wait out a stop-and-start spring until our most beautiful seasons arrive. Sure, we grouse, and some people even make the move away from the region, but those of us who stay, those of us who love New England to its core, allow nature to move at its own pace, knowing the inevitability of their arrival. But we reserve that right to grouse. Oh, do we ever.

Spring came in a rush this week. No, we did not suddenly escape the cold clutches of Old Man WInter for good, as this morning's chilly rain proves. But the signs of spring continued to percolate out of the woods and the grasslands and the swamps.

Chipping sparrows arrived, just in time for us to confuse their trilling songs with those belonging to pine warblers, a group of songbirds that also started singing. Great and snowy egrets suddenly appeared on the marshes of Cohasset, Scituate, Marshfield and Duxbury, lending splashes of shocking white to the brown and tan backgrounds. House wrens began scoping for new homes. Purple martins landed at the Daniel Webster Wildlife Sanctuary and took up residence in the gourds the staff and volunteers hung out for them.

In the amphibian world, American toads made their move, crossing our roads on rainy nights. On Friday, a morning cloak butterfly moved boldly through the trees at the North Hill Marsh Wildlife Sanctuary in Duxbury. Painted turtles, a few of whom had made a brief appearance on a sunny day a month ago, burst out of the ponds to catch the sun's warming rays, piling upon each other in the process.

Bulbs we planted last fall are in bloom. Brown creepers are singing. Muskrats are building lodges. While the weather may say, "Not yet," the wildlife of the region are responding with, "You wanns bet?"

Revving Up

March can be a quiet time for nature lovers on the South Shore of Boston. It's the reverse of the old saying. In the natural world of Massachusetts, March comes in like a lamb, and goes out like a lion.

Think about it. The buds are not ready to open on March 1. The birds are not yet in migration, and only a few are nesting or even thinking about it. Bugs haven't started to fly yet, meaning a primary food source for many of our songbirds is not yet available. Turtles and frogs are still tucked away in their mucky winter homes. Early March bird walks always have the potential to devolve into one thing: tree identification programs.

But then, at the end of the month, the world begins to wake up. The first migratory birds start to arrive. The melting ponds begin to host a wide variety of ducks that winter south of us and breed north of us. Piping plovers show up on our sandy beaches before the month is out. Turkey vultures soar, tree swallows seek their nesting grounds and white-breasted nuthatches and European starlings are among the birds gathering nesting material to perpetuate the life of their species.

In the grasslands, American woodcocks begin their annual mating displays. In the vernal pools, spotted salamanders congress and wood frogs cluck. Nearby, spring peepers call from the wetlands, often at cacophonous levels.

By the end of March, the show is on. April rains begin and bulbs we planted last fall begin to transform into the beautiful flowers we hope they will be. Pussy willows fuzz out and skunk cabbages poke through the wetlands, turning into the stinkiest joke Mother Nature ever played, aside from the one about our furry nocturnal friend for which they were named.

Before we know it, butterflies will fly, green frogs will begin to whirr and dozens of bird species will make their brief stop in Massachusetts before reaching their nesting grounds to the north.

Yes, spring is about anticipation, but that doesn't mean we can't enjoy the show along the way.

Can we change the name?

I guess we made our bed and have to lie in it, but it sure would have been nice if things were reversed yesterday. We went on our usual Friday morning birding adventure, but no sooner had we returned to the office at the North RIver Wildlife Sanctuary than the world started to change, The sky lightened, and so did the mood. The wind stopped howling, and the air moved from chilly to warm. Friday Afternoon Birders would have been a much better idea.

But alas, we were stuck. When it's raw and cold like it was yesterday, we make plans to stay inside the vans as much as possible, to do some "windshield birding." We head for places like Duxbury Beach, where the wide, flat landscape can be taken in from long distances. We watched as both red-throated and common loons preened on the bay, and several hundred dunlin fed in the mud. We didn't find a piping plover at all, one of our targets for the day, but did get close looks at long-tailed ducks and white-winged scoters. I even found an eastern phoebe, our first of the year.

And we got one more thing: a phone call. For the entire calendar year, David Ludlow, my co-leader, had been chasing a blue morph snow goose in Duxbury, never finding it. It was nearby! We turned the van around and blasted - at 10 m.p.h. - down Gurnet Road back to the Powder Point Bridge. We drove to the school complex, and there it was, playing deep second base on one of the baseball fields. A killdeer called from the other side of the field, heckling the team of Canada geese that otherwise took up the positions on the diamond.

With the snow goose tallied, we headed for Marshfield and the Daniel Webster Wildlife Sanctuary. Ospreys had been seen here the day before, just as they've been popping up all over the South Shore. We headed for Fox Hill with great anticipation, but were not rewarded for our efforts. Unless you consider a northern shrike a consolation prize. Even our friendly eastern screech owl was absent. Someone or thing has started filling its roosting spot with sticks. Another nester pushing the little family out? I guess we'll have to wait and find out.

Winded

The travel season has begun! Throughout the year, Mass Audubon's South Shore Sanctuaries leads nearly a dozen overnight trips throughout New England, the U.S. and the world. Last week, my boss got back from Costa Rica. Today, I've returned from a long, windy weekend on Nantucket with Carol Decker, the director of the Ipswich River Wildlife Sanctuary in Topsfield, and a party of new and old friends.

We start the same way every year, with a walk at the Daniel Webster Wildlife Sanctuary, and every year, the results are a little bit different. This year featured our three lingerers at the Marshfield site: the immature northern shrike that's been hunting from the tops of shrubs, the pair of northern shovelers that has been feeding in the wet panne, and the eastern screech owl that's been holing up in a barred owl box. Yup, he or she is still there.

Then, it was down Route 3 South, across the Bourne Bridge (over which a peregrine falcon made an appearance) and down Route 6 to Hyannis and the ferry to Nantucket. The crossing revealed thousands each long-tailed ducks, surf scoters, white-winged scoters and black scoters, and thousands more long-tailed ducks. We checked into the Roberts House Inn and made plans for the morning.

At 5:45 a.m., we were on the road to Madaket, past Mr. Rogers' Crooked House, for a walk out to Smith's Point for the sunrise. The Point isn't what it was, thanks to a cut through the peninsula of sand at what would be the space between the first and second knuckles on a human finger. But we had some sights: another peregrine falcon, northern gannets skimming the wavetops, and a merlin that scared the life nearly out of an American goldfinch. At Jackson Point, we found a dozen American oystercatchers. At Eel Point, we found an early migrating black-bellied plover and a deer skeleton. At the Hen House, we found a late breakfast.

That afternoon, we headed for the eastern half of the island. At Low Beach we tallied glaucous and Iceland gulls and a calling horned lark. From Sankaty Head, we spied five harlequin ducks. Miacomet Pond, usually a reliable spot for ducks, turned up a single common loon. Sesachacha Pond, while more heavily in use by ducks, offered only one new species, greater scaup. There we had a chance encounter with a lcoal birder, Edie Ray, who led us to Altar Rock in the Moors, a place we had never gone before. At a hundred feet, it's nearly the highest point on the island.

Sunday morning came, and we headed for the Nantucket State Forest, where a northern saw-whet owl met us in the parking area. A yellow-bellied sapsucker waited until the sun came up, but gave us a show anyway. Back at Low Beach, we found a lesser black-backed gull, giving us seven species of gulls for the trip. Across from the Shipwreck and Lifesaving Museum, four Virginia rails called, occasionally popping out into the open for our viewing pleasure. At least that's how we saw it. At Jetties Beach, the first piping plover of the year poked at the wrack line for food.

So that was it. Or was it?

The ferry that was supposed to take us back to the mainland broke down, leaving us stranded on Nantucket (I know, tough life!). A quick lunch at Easy Street Cantina, and it was off to Clark Cove and Hummock Pond for our first osprey, Miacomet Pond, Bartlett Farm and Sanford Farm and Ram Pasture for our first eastern bluebirds of the trip. We got word that the next ferry, six hours later, could take us home. Most of us slept on the boat.

So it begins! Next month it's the Finger Lakes, in May, Michigan, June, the Connecticut Lakes, July, downeast Maine, August, the Isles of Shoals, and so on and so on. So much to explore, so little time!

Tweener Time

March is typically a quiet time for the wildlife viewer in Massachusetts. Turtles and frogs are just starting to emerge from the mud. Migratory birds are just starting to arrive. Anybody seen a snake lately?

But, seriously, things are starting to shake up a bit. Ospreys have been sighted on Cape Cod, and eastern phoebes and tree swallows won't be far behind. Wood ducks and turkey vultures are being seen and even the fish crows have returned to Marshfield Center. Who says spring isn't here yet?

We spent Friday running around Marshfield and Pembroke in search of more signs of spring. Skunk cabbages have started to pop up from the marshes. The pond ice is melting - although it's not completely gone yet - and some of the winter birds we've made friends with for the past few months have started to move on. Eastern bluebirds have replaced rough-legged hawks at the Daniel Webster Wildlife Sanctuary. We found 55 species around the region this week, a good mixture of winter and spring birds.

On Saturday, before I left to give a lecture in Kingston, I stopped at the feeders at the North RIver Wildlife Sanctuary in Marshfield, confused by the sight of a pine siskin sitting among the broken black oil sunflower seed shells. It didn't move as I approached, allowing me to get a few ground level photographs. There have been reports of breeding activity among pine siskins in Massachusetts, all part of the big influx we've had this winter from the north. My hope is that this little one was simply momentarily stunned. It flew into a nearby bush, and thence into a tree.

So while the cold weather is doing its best to hold on, spring is fighting its way through. Punxatawney Phil may have been right, but that six-week window is almost closed. It won't be long now!