South Shore Journal

May 4-12: Cape Fear and Pensacola

Once in a while I get pulled away to do something outside of the realm of nature. I do, after all, have a degree in American history, as well as a side career as a writer and historian (go ahead, Google me - you have my permission). And so it was that on May 4 I headed south on historian duty, helping to arrange a future Coast Guard history conference in the Cape Fear region of North Carolina and thence to Pensacola, Florida, to speak at the joint North American Society for Oceanic History and Council of American Maritime Museums conference. But hey, wildlife is everywhere.

In North Carolina, thanks to the kindness of my hosts Gary and Judy, I visited Southport and Beaufort, Bald Head Island and Oak Island, staying for a few days in the old life-saving station at Caswell Beach. From Gary and Judy's deck I watched the brown pelicans retreating at sunset, and the red knots resting on the beach as the sun rose. Laughing gulls overwhelmed the area, hanging around store parking lots as much as they did the beach. Boat-tailed grackles made sure there was never a quiet moment.

I added a handful of life birds to my list over those few days. White ibises dominate the scene, and there's even a feeding area that goes from green to white during the day because of their presence in the thousands, a place known as "ibis island." A solitary wood stork surprised me as we crossed the bridge to Caswell Beach. A flight of six black-necked stilts loped along by Judy and Gary's deck as he and I prepared to take a walk to look for potential loggerhead turtle nesting sites (instead we found plenty of fiddler crab holes and tracks). A Carolina chickadee called from the woods as we awaited the ferry to Bald Head Island, where a red fox jaunted past us on our golf cart. And a summer tanager twisted my head briefly until a pileated woodpecker spun me the other way round. That bird was not a lifer.

In four short days I visited two North Carolina Maritime Museums, two lighthouses, two Coast Guard stations, old Fort Caswell, two Life-Saving Service stations, and more. In Pensacola, I gave my talk on the history of the Louisville floating life-saving station (only one other life-saving station built by the United States Life-Saving Service was a floater, and that was off City Point in Dorchester) and its uniqueness in search and rescue history. Other than that, I sat back, enjoyed the rest of the lectures, visited the Naval Air Museum, and enjoyed a few days in the sun. I only added one lifer down there, an Eurasian collared dove.

It all had to end, of course. I came back on the 12th, and on the 13th, was back at work finding our local wildlife.

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.

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.

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.

January 2008 - Red-Headed Stakeout and Slaty-Backed Frustration

It's a New Year, and that means it's a new list. Or at least it can be, if that's the way you like to do things. I haven't yet closed the books on 2007 - just a few cards to go to figure out the yearly total - but 2008 has arrived, and the birds are certainly around.  And there have been some interesting moment in the first three weeks in January, some that I'll forget, others that I probably never will.

On January 4, we had snow, and we had rain. We also had an Eurasian wigeon, most likely the same one we've seen on the same pond in Plymouth (Forge Pond) for several years now. This time, though, with rain coming down we decided to do what we could from inside the van, and only got a fleeting glimpse of it as it flushed with several other duck species. Just around the corner from the wigeon we found a fox sparrow under a feeder, only the second one I've ever seen.  The other was under a feeder in Plympton, sharing the spotlight with a boreal chickadee. We had six eastern meadowlarks in a field off Clifford Road, and made a stop on Marshfield to see our little friend from late last year, the rufous hummingbird.

On January 11, with more rain on the way, we headed for a new site for us, Russell Mill Pond in Plymouth, as there had been some encouraging reports from there earlier in the week. We did better than we expected. On top of the northern pintails we sought we found a female northern shoveler, never an easy find on the South Shore, a common merganser, a half dozen American coots, and more. On the way out we scored our first red-breasted nuthatch for the year but oddly, by the end of the day, we had missed finding a single house sparrow for the second week in a row. It wouldn't last. When we locked the vans for the last time, we said bon voyage to one of our gang who was off to band American redstarts in Jamaica for four months. I begged her to take me with her until I realized I was wasting my time, and that my wife probably wouldn't be too happy about the whole ordeal anyway.

The next morning I led a 5:30 a.m. owl prowl at the North River Wildlife Sanctuary. We landed one great horned and half a dozen eastern screech owls, although we did much better at hearing them than seeing them. My eyes - trained through several of these programs - caught plenty of movement, but unfortunately we never had that spotlight moment we all seek. But no worries. This was "Owls and Omelets." Matt and Ellen Adams, our caretakers, had been up before dawn making breakfast for our attendees. We walked right out of the field and into the caretakers' cottage for souffles and omelets. I then left to run "Hawks and Harriers" at the Daniel Webster sanctuary. They both showed up.  We had hovering rough-legged hawks, feeding harriers and a jumpy long-eared owl. Our resident northern shrike called continuously near Fox Hill, after, of course, we got a wave of thirty common redpolls. On the way back we stepped out of the first observation blind to find a bluebird, then another, then...twelve of them. Sean McMahon, one of our gang for the morning, stuck around and photographed the young northern shrike shown at left. It was a beautiful day, but it was one of our last for quite some time.

  Friday, January 18 brought a new challenge. A Norwell resident had reported a red-headed woodpecker at her suet feeder on Thursday. We headed over after a stop at Fourth Cliff (from which I spied a flock of approximately 100 very cold dunlin) and staked it out for more than a half an hour. The bird noise in the area was terrific, including several singing Carolina wrens, but the cold weather, the increasing rain and the lack of a red-headed woodpecker sighting conspired to make us get back in the van and go elsewhere. Before we left the neighborhood we tuned into a calling red-shouldered hawk.

The next morning I walked Daniel Webster at sunrise, 7:07 a.m. The most exciting moment of the day, keeping in mind that rough-legged hawks were by then "been there, seen that," came when I realized that the American crows in the area were headed for a congressing session. A flock of about thirty-five headed along the eastern edge of the sanctuary and towards the nearby golf course. They landed and continued the cacophony they had carried with them, apparently to attract the rest of their murderous members from around the region. As I walked, crows flew in from all directions, one here, two there, one over there. By the time they had all gathered, my estimate was around seventy-five birds. They got louder and louder, and I got in my car and drove away. I just wanted to be safe in case it was me who was the problem.

Later that morning I led what we called "Friday Morning Rewind," retracing the steps of Friday Morning Birders for those who couldn't be there. In cases like this one, where we'd had an unsuccessful stakeout for a single species, I have to improvise, and I'm glad I did. We were driving along through North Scituate, headed for Minot Beach, and I was looking to the left and the long line of Canada geese out on the saltmarsh. I mentioned them aloud. "Canada, Canada, Canada, Canada, SNOW GOOSE!" I shouted as I slammed on the brakes and ran out of the van with the doors hanging open. First for the year, right there across from Three Ring Road.

Finally, the next day, David Ludlow, Matt and Ellen and I succumbed to the North Shore gull thing. We all wanted to add slaty-backed to the list for the year, and all of us wanted it for our life lists as well, so we drove north early. We reached the end of Route 128 and rotated between four spots: Niles Pond, Brace Cove, Eastern Point and the harbor. We had plenty of good sightings - glaucous gulls, Iceland gulls, a lesser black-backed gull (our second for the year, thanks to our trusty friend at Jenney Pond in Plymouth), three ruddy turnstones and a black-bellied plover in the wrack line at the cove, and a juvenile peregrine falcon - but never got the slaty-backed. I did a live radio spot on Ray Brown's Talking Birds on WATD 95.9 FM as we stepped out of the car at the point, pushed there too late by a reported sighting, the coldest non-report of my life. We moped into a diner and had a quick lunch, then headed home, only to find out the bird had settled onto Niles Pond for the afternoon while we were at lunch.

Bottom line? In the first three weeks of January I've picked up 85 species of birds, about a third of what I'll see all year in Massachusetts if all goes according to plan. Yes, red-headed woodpeckers and slaty-backed gulls would have been nice, but I can be patient. It's a new year list, but it's the same old life list. I'll get 'em eventually.

November 28 - A surprise guest

Three years ago at about this time I was sitting at my desk, scuffling to figure out how to do my new job. I wandered downstairs to lunch, knowing that things started precisiely at noon around here. In a flash of heavy weather gear, David Clapp, my boss at the time, flew past the door shouting "Are you coming?" Knowing who it was I was working with, I hesitated for just a moment before instinctively heading for my binoculars.

By the time I reached the already running van, David, David Ludlow, and Ellen Jedrey from the Coastal Waterbird Program were seated and ready to go. Ellyn Einhorn joined us moments later to complete the party, and David C. took off down the driveway. "Where are we going?" asked Ellyn (not Ellen).

"There's a thick-billed murre in Scituate Harbor!" the driver said excitedly.

"Wow, how long's it been there?" asked Ellyn (still not Ellen).

"Oh, about two weeks," came the answer. "But it could fly at any minute!" We zipped up Route 3A.  I imagined a flashing light atop the van with the call of a crow sounding with each flash, "Caw, caw, caw, caw..."

On Tuesday, November 20, I didn't even hesitate when Sue MacCallum and David Ludlow asked, "Are you coming with us?"

We took off, again, right around lunch time, to investigate an unusual local sighting. A local family called and said they'd had a hummingbird coming to their feeder, and they realized that it shouldn't be there at this time of the year. We walked into the yard and focused on the feeder and sure enough, it appeared. We picked out details and dialed the number for Wayne Petersen on a cellphone, telling him our possible identification. Did I mention that it was raining? As such, we shielded our Sibley (what a weird thing to say) and zeroed in on a subadult rufous hummingbird, a western species that has made several appearances in Massachusetts in recent years.

The next morning, Sue and I joined Wayne, birder Kathleen Anderson, hummingbird bander Sue Finnegan, Trevor Lloyd-Evans from the Manomet Bird Observatory and the proud homeowners in a banding adventure. Sue Finnegan set up her trap and captured the bird within five minutes. Putting it on a scale, she and Trevor called out the weight of 3.9 grams. For comparison, Trevor placed a nickel on the scale, which came in at more than four grams.

Sue's nimble fingers delicately turned the bird this way and that as she and Trevor broke into banderspeak, calling out letters and names of feathers and taking all the requisite measurements, using words like rectix, rachis, subcutaneous and gorget.

Speaking of gorgets, I was lucky enough to take some close-up photographs of the jewels emerging from this young bird's gorget. Perhaps the drabness of the day contributed to it, but those jewels glowed like nothing else I've ever seen on a bird. All the while, the banding stories flowed from the gathered group, each one becoming more and more fantastic as the last one was finished.

The moment came to release the bird - a consensus hatch year male rufous hummingbird, later corroborated in the report completed by Sue F. and Trevor - and the homeowners were given the opportunity to do the honors. The bird remained in the hand for several moments, obviously comfortable in the warmth of the palm, and finally needed some coaxing, some some slight up and down hand movement, to take flight once again. Wayne warned the homeowners that there might be a chance that the bird might not return, shocked by the experience, but that that did not mean it was dead.

I took a chance on the day after Thanksgiving and brought the Friday Morning birders group to the hummingbird haven, with the permission of the owners. We spent fifteen minutes watching it buzz from feeder to branch and back again, often perching for up to a minute at a time. It was the first time in more than two decades that the Friday Morning Birders program had colelctively seen a rufous hummingbird. We followed that up by heading directly to Black's Creek in Quincy to find the American avocet reported earlier in the week by photographer Joe Poggi. Needless to say, it was a banner week for public programming at the South Shore Sanctuaries.

So that was our Thanksgiving gift. I can't wait for Christmas.

November 26 - Someday...

When I get the green light from above, I'll have some fun news and photos to share, but for the moment, I'll just have to keep you in suspense. In the meantime, here's a catch-up on the last week or so, minus one really cool moment.

As I seem to remember, the last time we spoke, I was headed out for the South Shore Duck Run. The Run is a program I came up with a few years ago to help get us through the winter. November, December, January, February, these can be tough months for birding in New England, strictly duie to the cold, as many of you know. The Run sticks close to the shore and can be done mostly from the confines of a car, unless something really exciting pops up and telescopes are called for. When I first started, I knew about four or five places that we could go to potentially catch up with some waterfowl. Now, it seems, I know far too many reliable oceanside sites to fit into the three-hour time slot.

We started out "down south," at Manomet Point in Plymouth, where we can always count on finding scoters and red-breasted mergansers. I was hoping for more, but there just seemed to me very little going on for the day. Unfortunately, it would be a theme.

Coming up the Plymouth coastline, we headed for Plymouth Beach and our first loons, both common and red-throated, and horned grebes, before moving downtown into the Thanksgiving maelstrom. It's kind of fun living near a place that has such late season tourism. Tourist attractions either have a specific targeted date or they're simply best viewed in warm weather. The Plymouth economy, and as such the Plymouth County and Massachusetts economy, gains tremendously thanks to its Thanksgiving attractions, an added bonus to the regular heavy summer visitation. Some locals may hate it, having so much congestion in town at such a time of year, but it's certainly a trade-off one can live with.

As you can guess since I'm writing about the economic gains of local tourism, there were few birds to see in Plymouth. We visited Nelson Street Beach and found the flock of brants, but did not find the black-bellied brant that we usually do. At Gray's Beach in Kingston we saw an oddity, a mute swan on the ocean. It was only in about a foot of water, very near to shore, but certainly out of place. On the way through Duxbury we found hooded mergansers on the Bluefish River.

As time was beginning to press on us, I decided to skip a few destinations and head for the grand finale. We shot towards Minot Beach in Scituate and a date with harlequin ducks as the sun went down. But, wouldn't you know it, it started to snow! We got a quick squall as we passed the Minot Post Office, and I thought my plan of the setting sun's rays on the colors of the harlequins was done for. We hopped out of the van and I got the scope on the birds, calling the group over to take a look. Just as I did so, a full, vibrant rainbow flashed its way into the sky over the ocean. We lingered and watched it fade with the setting sun, which poked its way through the clouds, as the harlequin ducks played in the surf off the rocks.

The day after Thanksgiving I led the Friday Morning Birders group alone, a rare occurrence. When it does happen, though, we go north. David Ludlow grew up from Pembroke south, and I grew up in Hull, Hingham and Scituate, so when I get the chance, I bring the gang to my old haunts that David doesn't know as well. And we had another reason to go north, a little thing called an avocet.

North, in the case of the avocet, meant Quincy, and Black's Creek. That's usually well out of our range, so after we saw the bird (and a common goldeneye for the first time this fall), we had to find our way back home, meaning that I had to come up with a bunch of birding stops along the way. I tried out the Wessagussett area of Weymouth, but came up relatively empty of any waterfowl, breaking instead into my history routine, so we headed for Hingham. We pulled into the Cranberry Pond Conservation Area and got a great look at thirteen hooded mergansers and a great blue heron. From there we visited More-Brewer Park, where we found...nothing. On to Hull. Off Meade Avenue, our dovekie site from last year, we picked up horned grebes and several close-in white-winged scoters. At Straits Pond, we struck out, so we rushed off to the Minot's area once again, finding our first purple sandpipers of the season. In the end, we tallied 52 species, inlcuding one first-time ever bird for Friday Morning Birders that I've promised to tell you about in a futrue post. Believe me, it's frustrating me more than it's frustrating you! But then, isn't the lesson of Thanksgiving patience? Or something like that. Sit tight, and watch for future posts.

I spent most of the week looking ahead to 2008. We've lined up several interesting Citizen Scienece Initiatives (I call them CSI for short, but then, I think I'm trendy) that will call for help in monitoring ospreys and other birds. We've also got a fantastic travel schedule lined up for 2008. As of this moment, I'll be leading trips to Nantucket, Sapsucker Woods and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, the White Mountains (to search for breeding Bicknell's thrushes), downeast Maine to look for puffins, and Block Island. Sue MacCallum is headed for Trinidad, southeast Arizona and the Galapagos Islands. What a life! These are on top of our regular weekly trips, and whatever else might pop up in the meantime. I'll also have a few more books coming out in 2008, including one on the history of the North River, which I finished writing this weekend. 2008 is going to be quite a year.

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday. I'll be back next week.

November 18 - Fun on Fridays

So you're flying down Route 3 South headed for Plimoth Plantation, right? You're passing through Duxbury, when off to the right you see a swampy kind of area, dead trees sticking up through the water, and was that a little red building over there on the other side? Eh, gotta get to the Plantation for that new book on the cat that sailed on the Mayflower II.

Wait! Double back. There's lots more to see at the Duxbury Bogs Conservation Area. We visited there on Friday, November 2, with our usual gang on the Friday Morning Birders walk, and even walked right up to that little red building (a pumphouse) to see what was happening birdwise. There were the regular suspects - wood ducks, double-crested cormorants and the mute swans that can even be seen from the highway - but some unexpected sightings as well. I picked out a northern pintail, and after having been to Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge just a few days earlier, had I not been able to identify a pintail, I might just as well give up on this whole Mass Audubon thing. Pintails are not expected at this spot, but they are excpected at the Burrage Wildlife Managament Area in Hanson. That site, though, is so dry that the usual marshy area they inhabit during fall migration has absolutely no water in it. We guessed that the same birds are passing through, but are finding different places to rest and eat.

We had almost turned to leave when one of our gang noticed a shorebird acting differently than the greater yellowlegs that for the past few months have been feeding on the mudflat to the north side of the pumphouse. Its feeding behavior was what struck us most. We watched as it submerged its entire head underwater as it stitched for food below, classic behavior of a stilt sandpiper. In November? Here? According to local records, stilts should have left by the end of September. Yet, there it was.

We left there for Kingston. The water off Gray's Beach, on Duxbury Bay, is a fantastic gathering spot for sea ducks in migration, and that day proved that point. In the field behind us we heard mockingbirds, on the shore, black-bellied plovers and sanderlings waited out the cold, and in the waters a few feet offshore, a raft of gulls floated quietly, including a Bonaparte's and two laughing gulls. Beyond that, we estimated seven hundred brant, and not much else for variety. When I returned two days later on the Friday Morning Rewind program, we had maybe twenty brant. The Saturday storm came and went, and so did the brant.

We finished the day at Mounce Meadow in Marshfield, a reliable sparrow spot in late fall. We walked along the edge of the field aside a rosebush hedgerow, picking out a swamp sparrow amongst dozens of song sparrows. Red tailed hawks soared and called overhead, but gave us only a fleeting glimpse.

The following Friday we headed north, with a target bird in mind, the harlequin duck. We started at the south end of Scituate, trying to cross the Edward Foster Road Bridge to get to Peggotty Beach and Myron's Puddle, but road construction had the way blocked. So we turned our attention instead to the harbor. We visited Scituate Light and watched rafts of offshore scoters, and the occasional passing long-tailed duck. Tim, one of best best by-ear birders, pointed skyward and shouted "Redpolls!" but we never got a glance of them.

Farther up the coast we scored our reliable old harlies, on the rocks off North Scituate. We watched also as red-necked and horned grebes ducked under the water for food, common and red-throated loons wrestled with small fish, and northern gannets swooped and swayed in the distance.

On our way home, we decided to make a stop at the Scituate public water reservoir on Route 3A. Greater yellowlegs here, too! They shared a muddy spot in the reservoir with a belted kingfisher and, from time to time a flock of snow buntings that swirled high in the sky, teasing a landing every once in a while.

This Friday, with rain and wind assaulting us from all sides, we did our best to find some from-the-car-only birding destinations. We stopped at the Bluefish River in Duxbury, on our way to the beach, and picked up our first hooded mergansers of the season (for Friday Morning Birders; I'd seen two on Sunday at Daniel Webster Wildlife Sanctuary, where I also spied a couple of eastern meadowlarks, my first of the season). And, of course, More yellowlegs, the birds that just won't go away.

Out on the beach, I had the joy of being in the passenger (re: rain-driven) side of the van. Whenever a potentially good bird was spotted, down came my window, and in came the wetness. We were on the edge of our birding seats. A snowy owl had been spotted for the first time at Logan Airport on November 5, and another had been seen on Boston Common and at Fanueil Hall earlier in the week. Every white plastic bag or Clorox bottle was momentarily a snowy, until reality slapped us around to the fact that it was just trash. Another flock of snow buntings joined the fall fun before we headed to Daniel Webster Wildlife Sanctuary for some harrier spotting, and to the Rexhame area of Marshfield for some more offshore viewing.

The first half of November has been an enjoyable entree into the winter season. During this time I've had a few other adventures, co-leading the New England Military History Symposium in Fall River the day of the big storm (returning home to find a Norway maple down on my house); speaking for the Friends of the Hull Public Library and at a career forum for UMASS Amherst history majors; hanging out with the 50th anniversary crew of the Mayflower II at their first full reunion since the July sail; running a sunrise walk at Daniel Webster (flcikers!  See the photo to the left), a trip to Duxbury Beach (from which we reported live to Ray Brown's Talkin' Birds radio show on WTD 95.9 FM), and tagging along for Sally Avery's monthly walk at Daniel Webster, all on Sunday the 11th; and attending a digital photography workshop for Mass Audubon educators at our Visual Arts Center in Canton. Today I'll be heading up our annual South Shore Duck Run, a growing tradition, and this Friday, I'm on my own for Friday Morning Birders, as the David Ludlow Friday-after-Thanksgiving-day-off tradition rolls into it's twentieth year. There have already been some good reports of birds we haven't had this fall, so I have a plan in mind. That is, if anyone cares to join me.

November 6 - Sapsucker and Montezuma

Rain. And lots of it. We did well to get in the vans at the North River Widlife Sanctuary and again at Drumlin Farm in Lincoln, where we picked up the second half of our crowd before it really hit, but then, it began. Rain. And lots of it. We weren't off on the most auspicious of beginnings for our trip to Sapsucker Woods, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge.

We skipped our first stop, it was raining so hard, bypassing the Pleasant Valley Wildlife Sanctuary in Lenox and heading straight through to the New York State Thruway. We saw several pathetic sights along the way, including red-tailed hawks standing on telephone poles, and one on a hay bale, with their wings spread out to dry. But, as predicted by the meteorology gurus at weather.com, the rain passed us by (more like trampled us) on its way east, and we ended up coming out of the back end of the storm, with clearing skies as we stopped first at the head of Skaneateles (pronounced "skinny atlas") Lake.

Our first stop at the lake of our choice, Cayuga, produced...barely anything at all.  We found a lesser black-backed gull and a pied-billed grebe, but that was about it, except for the sounds of exploding shotguns in the distance. So we headed south along the eastern shore of the lake. We crawled through Union Springs until we found the community's famous factory pond. There we found the only wood ducks of the trip, and they were tucked along the back edge of the pond, out of the water, nearly out of sight. Local hunters claim that "wood ducks don't like to get their feet cold," and as such, should be hard to find at this time of year. That proved to be true. At Long Point State Park, where the gray squirrels are brown, we got an excellent look at an eared grebe, something we certainly were not expecting. At this time we also started spotting loonies (common loons), to take a page from Monty Python. Further south, at Myers Point Park, we caught sight of several red-breasted mergansers, and watched overhead as dozens of turkey vultures headed for their roost in nearby Salmon Creek as the sun set beyond the trees on the far shore of the lake. From there, we headed straight to Ithaca and our lodging for the night.

When we awoke the next morning, I was surprised to see that every member of our group had opted for the early morning owling program. Our group, from all around the state and even from New Hampshire, was as enthusiastic as any I've ever traveled with. And we had a surprise for them. A staffmember from Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Chris Tessaglia-Hymes, volunteered to lead the owling portion of the morning for us, complete with his amazingly accurate array of saw-whet, screech, long-eared and barred owl calls. In the end, one out of four wasn't bad, as a screech came right in on top of us. The barred owl call did bring a surprise, if not a barred owl. Two American woodcocks lifted from the roadside edge and bolted down the street, calling as they went.

And so began the day.  We headed for Sapsucker Woods, where our first bird sighted was - of course - a yellow-bellied sapsucker. We walked the Severinghaus Trail and the Wilson Trail around Sapsucker Pond, finding, amongst the gorgeous foliage, golden-crowned kinglets and tangible evidence of pileated woodpeckers and more yellow-bellied sapsuckers. Atop a dead snag, four rusty blackbirds squeaked out their eardrum-piercing chorus, and at the feeder station, dark-eyed juncos scratched around for a mid-morning meal.

Inside the Lab, our gang enjoyed the introductory multi-media presentation offered as an orientation to the work of the staff, shopped the heck out of the Wildbirds Unlimited franchise, and marveled in the view of the pond from the second floor observation area. A pine siskin showed up at the feeders just before we moved across the street to the bioacoustics research lab, where Chris works as "Mr. Pop-up" (for the pop-up ARUs usedin whale sounds research), and where we had the chance to pick up and manually study the acoustic receivers used in the search for the Ivory-billed woodpecker in the swamps of southeast Arkansas.

After stopping for lunch at the Ithaca Bakery (that's "yum" with a capital "Y"), and with the wind whipping off the lake, we took off for Ithaca Falls and then Stewart Park. American coots quickly became the bird of the day, at the extreme southern end of the lake. We scanned a flock of Canada geese for any abnormalities, but found none. Driving up the western shore of the lake, we stopped at Taughannock (like organic, with a "ta" sinstead of an "or") Falls State Park to spy the beautiful two hundred foot drop. While we were there, a large chunk of rock broke loose from the canyon wall and cascaded downward with a thunderous crash. How large that rock actually was, I cannot tell you. All I know is that I'm sure it was bigger than I thought it was.

From there, we scouted Sheldrake Point (named for the many mergansers that were shot there over the years) and Cayuga Lake State Park. The last stop - aside from revealing a mink feeding in the water along the lake's edge - brought the saddest moment of the trip, a mallard with a deformed mouth begging for food. The poor bird's tongue was dangling at a 90 degree angle from its bill, constantly exposed. We couldn't tell if it had been shot, or born that way. Either way, it looked like an uncomfortable little life.

As we headed for Seneca Falls and our lodging for the night, I made a wrong turn, on purpose. Where we were supposed to go left, I went right, and led the vans into the Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge for some sunset birding. The sun was setting on the wrong side of the vans, but it didn't matter. The enormous flocks of Canada geese (it's amazing how much we dislike them on the ground and how much we truly admire their grace when flying in formation) simply astounded us all, especially when we counted how many were in the impoundments as well. This was a tease, the best one I could have come up with to end the day.

That night, the Red Sox won the World Series.

I woke up the next morning with less than four hours of sleep to find everybody else outside scraping frost off the windows of the vans. Luckily, the plan for the day was almost entirely indoors. We headed to the Tschache (pronounced "shocky") Pool and climbed the observation tower. American tree sparrows flitted around beneath our feet, as a juvenile bald eagle hunted in the distance. Leaving there we met with Andrea Stewart, the director of visitor services for the Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge, for an introductory talk about the property. We learned of the day they drained the main pool, leaving the invasive carp high and dry, and how sixty-four bald eagles appeared to partake of the feast. Prior to that day, the most eagles seen on site was seven.

We rolled out onto the viewing road, picking up green-winged teals, blue-winged teals, northern shoveleres, American coots, greater scaups, lesser scaups, several hundred snow geese (one blue goose), ring-necked ducks, a cackling goose, northern pintails, gadwalls, American wigeons, ruddy ducks, and more and more and more.  A female ring-necked pheasant wandered past the vans within reaching distance. After several hours of nonstop, unbroken, amazing birding, we finally realized we had to leave. We passed through an old potato farm known as the Mucklands and headed east on Route 90 for Drumlin Farm.

We tallied seventy-two species of birds, some in single appearances, some in staggering numbers. We sampled the local culture, visited the Mecca of ornithological research in America, and got home in time to dress up in bird costumes and hand out candy for Halloween. Well, not me, of course. But I'm sure somebody did.

October 23 - All this and a newborn, too...

Goodness, gracious me, how time flies. Last time you heard from me, I was stepping ashore at Point Judith coming back from Block Island. Well, to say the least, my time has been occupied.

Let's see. On Tuesday, September 18, I joined three volunteers from Harvard Pilgrim Health Care at the Daniel Webster Wildlfie Sanctuary as we cleared the brushy edge of what would be the parking area for the upcoming Farm Day celebration in a week and a half's time. The next morning, I gave a talk in Norwell on backyard birds, how to attract them and how to feed them, for a church group. On the 20th, I spoke on the topic of lighthouses around the United States for the Memorial Library in Andover. On Friday, we birded, of course, hitting Duxbury Beach and the Duxbury Bogs Conservation Area with all we had. A pump was running at the bogs, watering the drought-starved cranberries with all its might, making for the loudest birding experience we'd ever had. Firty-one species, including an American golden plover.

Saturday, the 22nd, I took my wife out for her birthday. We picked apples in North Andover and fed chickadees at the Ipswich River Wildlife Sanctuary. The next morning I headed for Sandwich and a birding program led by Wayne Petersen, head of the Important Bird Areas Program for Mass Audubon, at the Sandy Neck IBA (marsh wrens and saltmarsh sparrows).  That afternoon, I retreated to the North River Wildlife sanctuary to lead what is usually a well-timed mushroom walk. This year's dry August and September, though, left me 'shroomless.  We found only one mushroom altogether (excluding turkey tails), a russula.

On Tuesday, September 25, I left for a Coast Guard history conference in Erie, Pennsylvania, driving westward for about ten hours in total, stopping a few places on the way. It was my first chance to drive through the middle of the Montezuma National wildlife Sanctuary, on the New York State Thruway. David Ludlow and I had visited the refuge in April, and I'll be going back there this weekend, but I had never seen it from the thruway. Erie, the final destination, was depressing. The city's in a bad way, economically, and it shows. I arrived a day early for the conference, so took the opportunity to visit the Erie Maritime Museum, the Erie Land Lighthouse, and Presque Isle State Park, finding the mushrooms at left along the way. In total, I spent four days on the trip, driving back through Buffalo and two horrendous thunderstorms on the way back east on Friday. I arrived just in time for Saturday's Farm Day, and stood in the parking lot for ten hours waving little orange flags (no, not just for the fun of it).

On the 30th, I returned to Cuttyhunk Island with Ian Ives, director of the Long Pasture Wildlife Sanctuary on the Cape. The last time I had visited was during Labor Day weekend, and the island was overwhelmed with boats and people. Today, it was empty.  We had the place to ourselves. On October 3, I hit another island, Nantucket, on assignment from Northeast Boating magazine to witness the move of Sankaty Head Lighthouse. On Friday we headed for Cumberland Farm's fields in Middleboro and Halifax to see if we could get a glimpse of the Swainson's Hawk that had been reported there (unsuccessfully), and on Sunday I returned there with another group for the Friday Morning Rewind program (this time successfully). That afternoon I birded Duxbury Beach with a group, picking out a black-throated blue warbler at High Pines, and watching a pergrine falcon zip past at full speed.

Tuesday, October 9, I boarded a plane at Logan Airport bound for San Diego and the 8th Maritime Heritage Conference.  I was headed there to give a talk on a West Coast shipwreck, and to hobnob with the country's top maritime historians. One of the most interesting sights to me was the HMS Surprise, a sailing ship that looked very familiar to my eyes. Close inspection made me realize that it was in fact the HMS Rose, the sail training ship that operated so successfully out here on the East Coast for so many years. It's now doing duty as a pirate ship, a casualty of the Pirates of the Carribean mania of the past few years.

Touching down in Boston on Saturday at 5:48 a.m., I slept for four hours and headed to a cousin's wedding. The next day I joined the staff at the South Shore Sanctuaries in celebrating the 25th anniversary of education programming at the North River Wildlife Sanctuary, preparing a PowerPoint program that ran on a loop throughout the day, co-leading a nature walk, and just otherwise playing co-host to the more than 200 visitors that showed up to party with us.

And on it goes: on the 17th, I gave a talk on my book When Hull Freezes Over for a Masonic lodge in Weymouth; on the 18th, I led the discussion at the Natural History Book Club on Mark and Delia Owens' Eye of the Elephant (great read). On Friday, we redeemed our weak birding performances of recent weeks with a 66 species total, including 17 purple finches and our first ring-necked ducks of the fall.  It felt good to be back in that saddle again, I can tell you. On Saturday, I attended another cousin's wedding, and on Sunday I led a teachers' professional development program through Hull Village in the morning, and walked out to the exploding flowers of the Witch Hazel grove here at North River in the afternoon.

Yesterday I attended our statewide education coordinating committee meeting in Lincoln (counting red-tailed hawks as I sat in traffic on Route 128) and interviewed an ex-professional wrestler for the Hull Times. Today I met David Ludlow at the sanctuary early so we could chainsaw up a fallen oak tree on the Woodland Loop Trail here at North River, which had come down in the heavy windstorm of Tuesday. In an hour or so, I'll be on my way to Hull to help the Straits Pond Watershed Association clean out their tree swallow boxes, and tomorrow will be back to birding again, before heading for Sapsucker Woods and the Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge for three days of what else?  Birding!

Amidst all this madness, my family was blessed with the arrival of my first niece, Ava, born to my younger brother Nick and his wife Kerri on their first wedding anniversary, this past Monday, my mother and father's first grandchild. The holiday season will be even happier than usual this year, with another tiny mouth to feed in the greater family.

There you are, up to the minute. I'll have pics from Montezuma when I return, and I'm sure plenty more stories to tell.