South Shore Journal

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.

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.