Author Archives: Richard

A Wild Goose Chase

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For the last several days, the MASSBIRDS listserve has had numerous reports of a White-fronted Goose spotted in a large group of Canada Geese on nearby Artichoke Reservoir.  Someone also reported a Pink-footed Goose at the same location.  So, I was thinking about skipping church yesterday but decided to attend and visit the reservoir afterward. Big mistake as it turned out.

I checked email after church and sure enough, two more reports reported the goose still in place so I was psyched.  After a coffee stop, I drove the several miles to the turn down Turkey Hill Lane, the road that runs along the reservoir.  I immediately encounted hundreds of plastic cups in the road and a few runners and thought, “Well, a local race must have just finished up.”  Don’t I wish.

Soon, there were more runners, and spectators, and before I knew it, I had come to an intersection where runners were streaming in from another section of the race — and a local policeman was holding up his hand to stop me, and I had six or eight cars behind me blocking any exit.  Here’s the scene, which doesn’t due justice to the number of people.

I talked to the cop who said we would just have to wait — and so I did, for about 20 minutes when finally I was able to turn around and backtrack.  I decided to approach the reservoir from the south so I drove down I-95 to the next exit and found Turkey Hill Lane and it was deserted.  I drove north for three or four miles and suddenly, a phalanx of runners came in from a side road and I was immersed in runners on the narrow road,  I could see the reservoir, and saw a gaggle of geese, but runners were in the middle of the road, on both sides, and I was also in a convoy of vehicles.  It felt like the Tour de France, albeit slower.  This was the back of the pack and runners were walking, taking photos of one another, and nearly all had headphones.  I crept ahead, with no other options, and pretty soon, an old tractor joined the procession.  I came to an intersection clogged with runners, and who should I see but my policeman friend, vainly trying to sort things out.  I snuck by, headed out and home, thinking that this was not my day.  I’d got tangled up with a big half-marathon with over 2000 runners.  I think I’ll try for the goose today when the roads should be calm and birder-friendly.

Southern Birds

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Mary and I drove three hours southeast to northern Massachusetts yesterday and it is like we became southerners.  Not only have we changed stick season’s chilly rain and fog for mid-seventies and pretty foliage, I’m hearing and seeing birds that I thought I had seen the last of until spring.  Seven Eastern Bluebirds this morning!

I have a walk from Jen’s house that I take nearly every morning I’m visiting — it’s a little over a mile down a busy road lined with oaks and often, very birdy.  I got out yesterday morning early before the homeowners got their leaf blowers going, and before the traffic picked up.  In spite of fog and a little drizzle, what a mix of bird noises greeted me.

We get a lot of Tufted Titmice here and I love their feistiness and constant chipping and singing.  They are sparse in our Vermont woods but dozens were out and about, and a couple were pretty brassy, watching me at about eye level.   I heard, and saw the whole woodpecker gang, missing only a Pileated.  The other real noisy bird was a crew of White-breasted Nuthatches joined by a couple of Red-breasted cousins.  Here’s the list from the hour-long walk:

Cooper’s Hawk  2
Red-bellied Woodpecker  2
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker  1
Downy Woodpecker  3
Hairy Woodpecker  1
Blue Jay  2
American Crow  1
Black-capped Chickadee  13
Tufted Titmouse  6
Red-breasted Nuthatch  3
White-breasted Nuthatch  6
Eastern Bluebird  6
American Robin  6
European Starling  12
Yellow-rumped Warbler  2
Dark-eyed Junco  6
Northern Cardinal  4

Later, Mary and I drove over to Cherry Hill Reservoir after doing some errands.  There were lots of ducks on the water but the light was horrible.  We did see a cooperative Northern Mockingbird who posed on a fence rail for quite some time, but flew off just as I got my digiscoping rig set up.  We also saw a duck species I hadn’t seen since 2010 in Texas — Ruddy Duck.  I took some photos through the scope but the light is not helpful other than for identification.

Ruddy Duck

Ruddy Ducks are one of the “stiff-tailed” ducks.

We are going to be here for several more days so I hope to get out to Plum Island and up the Cape Ann to see what migration may be bringing in. Check back here for results.

Hawk Watching Time

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Just about when the leaf peepers begin flocking to the roadways to observe Vermont’s spectacular autumn foliage, an equally-enthusiastic set of nature lovers is trekking up the peaks to watch a different seasonal event: the fall migration of raptors. Also known as “birds of prey,” this majestic group includes the eagles, falcons, hawks, vultures, ospreys, and the less-familiar but no-less-impressive group called the harriers, of which North America has only one (the beautiful Northern Harrier). Perched on a mountain outcropping, one can predictably see large numbers of these birds as they make their way to southern climes.

Whether you’re a veteran bird-watcher or a novice, raptor-watching (usually referred to as “hawk-watching,” even though other types of raptors are included) is a great way to spend an autumn afternoon. One of its draws is that the birds are highly visible. Unlike the diminutive songbirds, which hop around incessantly and hide in dense shrubs, raptors are large, steady, and during migration, exposed. Also, because each group of raptors flies differently and has a distinctive shape, these birds are easy to tell apart. The peregrine falcon, for example, has long, pointed wings, which it flaps continuously for its fast, powered flight. In contrast, the bald eagle rarely flaps and its broad, sturdy wings make it look like a flying plank. At the popular hawk-watching sites, you’re likely to find fellow observers on the summit to help you with identification; learn the shapes and flight patterns of the major groups and you’ll be a hawk-watching maven in no time.

So when and where is a Vermonter to begin? The peak of fall raptor migration is from mid-September to early November; try going at different times of the season to see different species. The most popular hawk-watching sites in Vermont are Mount Philo, 15 miles south of Burlington, and Putney Mountain in the southeast corner of the state. Snake Mountain in Addison and Mount Ascutney in Windsor are also decent spots, as are Coon Mountain, just beyond the ferry terminal in Essex, New York, and Mount Tom in Massachusetts, straight down the Connecticut River from Brattleboro.

In addition to being a popular place for recreational hawk-watching, Putney Mountain is also an official migration monitoring site. Because raptor migration is predictable and easy to watch, people have been counting migrating raptors and recording their numbers since 1934, when the first official count site was established at Hawk Mountain Sanctuary in Pennsylvania. Since then, numerous similar counts have been established all over the globe, from the Panama Canal to the Strait of Gibraltar. The long-term migration data collected at these sites allow scientists to monitor raptor populations; numbers vary greatly from year to year, but over long periods of time, scientists can identify trends. The decline in juvenile Bald Eagles migrating past Hawk Mountain Sanctuary in the 1970s alerted Rachel Carson to the threat of DDT to these important predators, and she wrote about this trend in Silent Spring, the influential book which led to the ban of that harmful pesticide. Visit the Putney Mountain Hawk Watch just for fun, or participate in the count to play a role in history.
(read whole article from VTDigger.com)

This piece is by Emily Brodsky, a master’s candidate in the ecological planning program at the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources at The University of Vermont.

Bird Larders – storing up for winter

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I’ve been watching birds cache food this week. The days are shorter, and the birds are preparing for the next season. The nuthatches prefer the hulled sunflower, and they’re choosing the heavier seeds as those are the ones higher in fat content. Their activity begins very early in the day. The titmice are taking one seed at a time and seem to cache higher in the trees than the nuthatches. The chickadees are caching in the middle of the day, and their pantry of seeds is in a knothole in a maple.

This caching behavior has its advantages. They’ll retrieve the larder of seed on days when the weather isn’t suitable for them to for forage. Their warehouses are available when the long winter settles upon them and other sources are no longer abundant, and yes, their memories are sharp!

(written by Sue McGrath of Newburyport Birders)

Brown Creepers Make Me Smile

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Walking in the woods yesterday afternoon, I heard a loud “see” call. I thought it might be a White-throated Sparrow or even a Dark-eyed Junco but as I searched, I saw a little brown bird climbing up a White Pine. It flew over to the lower part of another tree and started climbing as I watched.

Brown Creepers blend in with the tree trunk and can be hard to spot.

Some of my friends have lost their upper range and can’t hear Brown Creepers but fortunately, in spite of being around jets and other planes, I can pick them out.  It helps because they can be really tough to see.  You sometimes can pick them up when they fly or if they expose their white belly.

Getting a look at the white belly helps spotting these elusive birds.

They seem to be oblivious to birders and once you pick them up, it’s fun to watch them spiral their way up a tree, picking bugs out of the bark with their curved beak.  They seem to balance like a woodpecker with their long tail as the work on a stubborn piece of bark.  Every so often, I’ve seen one going up as a White-breasted Nuthatch works its way down.  We have quite a few Brown Creepers in our woods – they are one of species that hangs around so I look forward to their antics this winter.  They are one my favorite birds.

 

Brown Creeper (top image) by Wildreturn    Lower image by David-Mitchell

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A Birder’s Band for Vermont?

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Young Duck HunterThe onset of waterfowl hunting has spawned a lively discussion on VTBirds about ways for birders to get more credit for supporting conservation efforts.  As I blogged last month, we get little respect from our contributions for Federal duck stamps and even Ducks Unlimited memberships.  My friend Scott put it like this on the list:

The thing is that the current system doesn’t provide a clear way for state and federal managers to know whether the purchaser of a duck stamp is extractive** or non-extractive oriented (or both) in his / her interests.

Consequently, when conservation issues come before legislative or administrative bodies, the voice of all those who might have non-extractive ideas / wishes are very difficult to measure, whereas the licenses and stamps are widely quoted as the constituency interested in extractive issues.

This is not to say that extractive and non-extractive conservationists don’t have many opinions in common.  Nor to suggest that there are not many of us who support both extractive and non-extractive organizations and activities.  There are.

It is just that there is a huge body of non-extractive recreationalists, citizen scientists, hikers, birders, feeder-watchers, lepidopterists, dragonfly lovers, park visitors, etc. who really don’t currently have a place at the table.

A non-extractive conservation support button, stamp, tag, etc. would give that audience a way to have its presence quantified and votes counted.  To me, that has great value.

**  Scott explains: To me, these seem like a nice terms to delineate between environmental management practices that are purposed to provide harvestable populations vs. those that are designed to maximize diversity / conserve ecosystems.  The words Hunters and Birders tend to polarize and divide.  People may be both, and have both objectives in mind in certain circumstances.

One of the interesting references in the discussion is the program in Maine to sell bands for binoculars to support bird conservation.  They describe like this:

Maine’s hunters and anglers through license fees and equipment taxes have paid for the bulk of these efforts. With declining funds available for non-game and endangered species work, our bird conservation efforts now also depend on Maine’s birding community to help conserve what you care about.  For years bird bands have helped biologists understand migratory bird population trends and habitat needs. Now the Maine Birder Band is available as a tool for wildlife watchers of all stripes to support the non-game and endangered species conservation efforts of your Wildlife Department.

The Maine Birder Band can be proudly worn on your binocular strap to show your support for bird conservation. The number on each band will be registered to the buyer, and bands include a phone number where lost and recovered optics can be reported allowing us to notify the registered owner.

So, there has been some constructive posts on this subject on the list serve and it is obvious that many Vermont (and elsewhere) birders are willing to put their money where their mouth is.  We’ll see where this goes but it’s good to get a positive discussion going.

hunter photo by thefixer       birder band photo  Maine Inland Fisheries and Wildlife

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Winter Birding — Bring It On

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As I noted last week, we are being bankrupted by the influx of Pine Siskins that mob our feeders, leaving their small poops all over everything, and making the Black-capped Chickadees wonder what hit them.  Yesterday, I saw about 25 Dark-eyed Juncoes feeding on the edges of the gravel driveway and thought, “It’s only mid-October but winter birds are here.”

Today, walking in cold foggy woods with rain dripping from the few remaining leaves, I thought more about it.  Still too dark to see much, it made me rely on my ears and I started to tick off the birds out and about.  First, a Hairy Woodpecker called and then I heard it drumming.  Then, one of the many Chickadees called Chicka-dee-dee-dee-dee and others gave their a high pitched “see” call.  A far off American Crow cawed and I heard a Red-breasted Nuthatch.  After a quarter-mile of silence, we flushed a Ruffed Grouse.

As I mentally ticked off the winter bird list, I came up with these that I expect to see in our backyard and woods:

  • Black-eyed Juncos
  • Pine Siskins
  • Blue Jays
  • Hairy, Downy and occasionally Pileated woodpeckers
  • Red-breasted and White-breasted Nuthatches
  • Brown Creepers
  • American Crows
  • Black-capped Chickadees
  • Purple Finches
  • Evening, Pine, and Rose-breasted Grosbeaks
  • Tufted Titmice
  • American Robins
  • Common Redpolls
  • Ruffed Grouse
  • Wild Turkeys
  • Winter Wrens
Northern Shrike

Northern Shrike is one of my target birds for this winter. There was one hanging out locally last year but I missed it.

I’d like to see Snow Buntings but will look elsewhere, same for Northern Shrikes and Rough-legged Hawks.

So I figure that I can see 10 or 15 species on most of my dog/birding walks or skiing outings this winter.  That’s a nice prospect, as is the possibility of some of the recent rare visitors to this area such as Northern Hawk Owl, Snowy Owl, and Varied Thrush.  Since we’ve traveled south for the last three years, I look forward to my first serious winter of birding in Vermont.  I hope I don’t have to eat those words in March.

Shrike photo by dfaulder

Won’t Get Fooled Again

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I’m heading to Massachusetts next week and plan to do some birding and the Who song, “Won’t Get Fooled Again” comes to mind.  Here’s the way I described it a couple of years ago:
“Camera ready, I walked through the sand dunes at Salisbury Beach State Reservation to the Ipswich River, hoping not to spook any waterfowl.  My dog, Penny, was just ahead, nosing through the beach grass.  At once, I spotted a flock of water birds up in a cove — they looked like scoters through the binoculars.  I took a couple of quick shots and veered away, not wanting the dog to hassle them.  Little did I know that they were tethered decoys!
 
No wonder those birds didn’t spook, they are decoys

I walked down the beach and the Vizsla got involved with a Common Eider, and as I was getting her out of the water and starting back to the truck, this tall guy with binoculars strode up and asked, “Have you caught any scoters yet?”  Huh?  I guess my blank look gave him the answer so he continued, “Oh, I guess you’re not part of the team.”

Now my curiosity was piqued and I peppered him with questions.  I’d seen a number of boat with guys wearing camo and I thought they were hunters — but didn’t see any shotguns.  They were nosing into the group of scoters, and I had really wondered what was going on.

Black scoters, White-winged scoters, Surf Scoters, and a Common Eider rest on the Merrimac River

My visitor had just arrived from British Columbia — he was a wildlife biologist brought in to help.  He explained that it was a project by the Gorham, Maine BioDiversity Research Institute and the team was trying to capture a dozen female white-winged scoters.  They had mist nets set up and were also trying to snag scoters from the boats.  His job was to determine the age of the scoter.  They had a vet on the team to implant a satellite transmitter in the bird’s cavity.

We talked a bit about the importance of tracking individual birds to see better how migration patterns work – I noted a recent report I’d seen on perigrine falcons and how interesting it was.

It was cold and windy and he had work to do so I let him go but watched for a while — from the warmth of the truck.  Those scientists were earning their money — it was nasty weather – fit for ducks.

“Have you got a transmitter on board?”

It was a wonderful chance encounter with an interesting research operation.  And while it is tough for me to sort out the three kinds of scoters we see in this area, I’ll probably never see another one in the air without thinking, “have you got a transmitter on board?”

Airstream Has An Appointment

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After months of waiting, I got an email yesterday saying that I could bring the Airstream over to Plattsburgh, NY next Tuesday for the “facial” it needs to repair the dents I put in it last winter.  I just winterized it — which is good since it below freezing this morning, and it should be all set to move.  

I’ll wind my way through Montpelier and head up I-89 to the Champlain Islands and take the ferry across to New York state.  I have no expectations that this work will be a quick deal — not sure when Colin Hyde and his gang will get to it — but it is good to finally get it on the way.  I think I’ll keep this blog active to cover the results of the repairs but still invite you to visit my other blog, Vermont Birder, at http://www.vermontbirder.com and sign up through the rss feed or email signup.

Kenn & Kim Kaufman’s new book

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Kenn Kaufman, originator of the Kaufman Field Guide series, is well-known by birders and naturalists across the country. Many of us remember his first book, Kingbird Highway, a wonderful tale of his long hitch-hiking search for birds as a teenager. He and his wife Kimberly, executive director of Ohio’s Black Swamp Bird Observatory, have just released a new book, Kaufman Field Guide to Nature of New England which has an official publication date next week.  In researching the book, they learned that New England offers astonishing surprises around every corner when they set out to research their new guide to New England natural history.

They will be doing a book tour of New England starting the 16th and visiting Bear Bond Books in Montpelier on October 30th.  The event starts at 7:00 PM and will likely be crowded so get there early.  You can pre-order the book now.

They will be leading a bird walk earlier that day at the North Branch Nature Center, a co-sponsor of their visit.  Space will be limited so stayed tuned for details.

This will be a great chance for Vermont birders to welcome Ken and Kim to Vermont.