Morning Notes

 Flowers hanging from my Andover porch 7-16-2011

A soft gray mist rolls over the yard as I sit on my granite steps watching the dog. High in the tall spruce by the driveway three cedar waxwings are preening. I am watching a pair of hummingbirds alternately feeding from the feeder and the wildflowers growing along the edge of the yard. It is a peaceful morning, save for the sounds of construction coming from my neighbor’s house. I find as I sit here on this hard granite step that I am missing my porch from the apartment we rented in Andover over 3 years ago now.

Though it was small, it was MY perch, MY cozy nest, MY lookout on the world. I liked to sit and drink my tea and watch the birds. Having the roof over my head meant I could be out there even in the rain. Having a wall at my back helped keep me warm and out of the wind. It also provided me some measure of privacy and even a sense of safety. Living in Andover was a bit stressful at first, due to an obnoxious neighbor in the front upstairs apartment, but that little porch became me refuge as he did not go into the back yard. I positioned all my bird feeders where I could see them while sitting out there and I would spend hours in my plastic chair with my notebooks, binoculars and camera. While I love this little cottage we are renting, I think it could use a porch!

Piping Plover Chicks

 Piping Plover chick on Plum Island 6-26-14

On a recent visit to Plum Island in Massachusetts I was able to see Piping Plover chicks for the first time in my life! I have often admired other people’s photos of them, but you have to see them for yourself to realize just how small they are! They are a threatened species and great care is taken to protect them and their nesting sites. These tiny birds were seen down at the tip of Plum island at the Sandy Point State Reservation. The photos are a bit fuzzy because I did not want to get too close. The parents were already upset by a patrolling Great Black-backed Gull, which would gobble them up in a heartbeat! Thankfully, that did not happen while we were there!

 Can you see the baby on the beach?

 Momma Plover and chick (chick is on the left)

 Papa Plover flying and piping his alarm call!

 

 Baby Plover uses those big feet to run to safety!

 Such small birds in such a BIG WORLD!

While I did not get the amazing shot of the chicks hiding beneath the mother’s wings that Chris Rohrer did, I still got some cute shots and was so pleased to see these birds and show this place to my friends! Click the links below to see more posts related to this subject:

• Our Big New England Birding Adventure
• Plum Island (Chris’ Post and photos.)
• Letting Go (a new poem on Kathie’s Poet Tree)

Notes from My Nest

My world this morning is one of green and gray. A damp and muggy fog has settled over the point, blurring lines and coating everything with dew drops. The flowers in my yard glisten as if with sweat, yet it does not keep the hungry bees from seeking their nectar. They cling to the flowerheads as if drunk, afraid to fly with moist wings and chill air. A lone hummingbird flies to the feeder to sip her own ready supply of nectar. Last night we saw one flitting about under the eaves, looking for tiny spiders under the safety of the gutters and in the corners of the windows. These spiders are her protein source, for herself, or perhaps nestlings she has hidden somewhere nearby.

My yard has become an eastern jungle with vines growing wildly everywhere. Dogberry bushes ring the yard with glistening red fruit. I am curious to see if any birds will eat these, there is so much abundance now. I hear and see the Cedar Waxwings flying through my yard. As an insect and fruit eating bird, they have no lack of food at the moment. It will be a much different story come winter, though there are a number of fruit laden trees and bushes around here to feed them  long after the snow has piled up.

I have had a Broad-winged Hawk hunting my feeder for the past few days. Yesterday morning it flew out of the trees directly across from my backdoor when I first went out in the morning. Its broad wings pumped frantically as it flew across the front yard, and even without binoculars I could see the wide white band in its black and white banded tail. This morning I experienced the same thing again. After exiting through the backdoor I walked around the front of the house to check the feeders on the other side. Suddenly the hawk flew through the trees on that side of the yard and disappeared into the woods. I noted that its silhouette is much chunkier than the slim and nimble Cooper’s Hawks are that hunt my feeders in winter here and when I lived in Arizona. My family of crows is still around filling the air with their cries. They are not here all day long now, but make regular stops to see if any seed has dropped and they surprise me with their willingness to eat even the tiniest millet that has fallen from the tube feeders, knocked loose by sparrows and finches.

In the top of the old spruce by the driveway various birds perch at various times. It is naked at the top for some reason and the birds love it as a gathering and lookout spot. I have seen everything from the flickers and flycatchers up there, to the smallest sparrow and finch. This morning a family of House Finches collected on the different small twigs with the fledgling doing their begging thing fluttering their wings, mouths agape and crying piteously. The two parents seemed weary by it all and soon flew them down to one of my feeders as if to say, “Feed yourselves!” I had a nice surprise one day last week when I looked out the window early in the morning to see a different silhouette up there. After a look through my binoculars I was delighted to find an Eastern Kingbird perched on the highest point. As I was inside the house, I don’t know how it saw me, but it was as if it knew I was looking at it and it took off flying across the yard. The white tipped tail was easily seen and I added bird number 96 to my Yard List! Will I get four more species before the year is out and finally have a 100 species yard?

With migration over and all the other early summer activities, including the Adams Road Race and visits from friends, I finally feel like I can settle into this place and start to live here. I have been so distracted by birds and adventures. Now I get to think about what my new life is like and where I want to go from here. There are days when I love this land and this place, and days when I long for the desert and the birds of Arizona. As always, I find the humidity very hard to take and Gus doesn’t like the flying insects, like mosquitoes and black flies. In the winter we will all complain about the snow and cold, because that is what we do in Maine! Yet, I know that winter holds its own beauty, as do all the seasons.

For now I am enjoying this new life I am living. Things are always changing. Miss Blossom is getting old and I spent all day last Thursday at a veterinary specialist having diagnostic testing done. The end result is that she has an enlarged heart and we are waiting for an appointment with our new vet to find out what the treatment plan is.

I am still counting birds in my yard and at the boat launch. Last night the gray fox trotted across my path as I walked down to the bay to count birds. I have regular spots I count birds at, including Brunswick Landing and Wharton Point. I am trying to count birds at The Androscoggin River Bike and Pedestrian Trail here in Brunswick as only a handful of checklists have been submitted from that location. I am intrigued by this mighty river as it flows into Merrymeeting Bay. I am even more intrigued by Merrymeeting Bay and the unique geographical feature that it is. Expect to hear more from me about Merrymeeting Bay! As I sit here writing the rain has started to fall, and I must be off to the bird store for more thistle seed and a nut cylinder for my woodpeckers. They have totally consumed the last one I had out and I have not seen them in a few days. I love my woodpeckers and I want them to come back! For, what is a nest without birds?

The Pleasures of Plum Island

 Parker River National Wildlife Refuge on Plum Island 6-26-14

June 26, 2014: It just so happened that Chris planned his visit during the same time when my family gets together for the Annual Adams Family Road Race. It is a family thing we do every year and now that I had moved back east, of course I had to show up! But, since Connecticut is a four hour drive from where I currently live in Brunswick, Maine, who says we had to drive it all at once! We got up early, packed the car and headed south to Bird our way there! I knew before he ever arrived that I really wanted to take Chris Rohrer to Plum Island. I had hoped that we could meet up with Dawn Fine there, but my plans became up predictable and, in the end, it just didn’t work out. Still, I could not wait for these Arizona Guys to see Plum Island! In a little over two hours we pulled through the gate and parked in the first parking lot.

Our first surprise was finding Purple Martins in a martin house right by the restroom building! And yes, there were Purple Martins in it! The guys walked up the boardwalk to scan the beach, but all they saw were gulls and humans, so they came back. We keep our eyes and ears open for seaside sparrows but did not find any. However, at the edge of the parking lot, we did find a few birds.

What is that beyond Chris’ big head with his new hat?

 

Female Purple Finch!

 

Cedar Waxwing in a Cedar tree!

Imagine THAT!

Farther down the road…

…a Common Yellowthroat!

And then a big surprise,

Mute Swans!

In all the time I lived in Andover, Massachusetts, I never birded Plum Island in the summertime. I knew they shut much of it off for the nesting birds, including most of the beach, so I never tried. It was quite a revelation to bird here in summer. Of course, we did have to use bug spray! But it was worth it to see…

…a Common Tern!

 

Willets were everywhere!

We hiked out to the dike and the marsh in hopes of finding an American Bittern.

Chris and Micheal scan the grasses for birds.

While we did not see any bitterns, we did see these birds:

Black-bellied Plovers and Short-billed dowitchers across the cove.

 

Black-bellied plovers after they landed.

 

Eastern Kingbird

 

Canada Goose parent

 

Juvenile Canada goose (gosling)

It is a long six mile drive to the end of the road, which starts out paved but turns to dirt. there are numerous pull-offs and parking lots with hiking trails, but any that led to the beaches on the east side of the island were blocked off to protect nesting birds. At the end of Plum Island one reaches Sandy Point State Reservation. Here there is another mile of dirt road to drive to the parking lot at the end. sandy Point is where I saw a snowy owl years ago, as well as several shorebirds and terns during migration when I went birding with the Birders who Blog, Tweet and Chirp one fall. While I knew we would not see the hoards of shorebirds we saw then, I still hoped we would see something. We did.

Chris hiking the sand at Sandy Point

Piping Plovers and their babies!

There’s the momma on the right, can you find the teeny baby on the left?

I did not want to get too close as it really upset the parents.

Then, in the sand dunes behind us I found Least Terns!

Notice the thin yellow bill and the white “headlight” on the forehead?

This is our smallest tern and it is very graceful when it flies!

I believe they are nesting at this site, but once again, I did not want to get too close and disturb the nests!

We got over 45 species on Plum Island this day. We entered two counts into eBird. One for Plum Island, and one for Sandy Point State Reservation. Afterwards we drove into town to eat, then got back on the road and arrived at my Mom’s house well after dark.

Here is a list of all the birds we saw on Plum Island on June 26, 2014. Many of them were Life Birds for Chris and Micheal.

1. Canada Goose
2. Mute Swan
3. Gadwall
4. American Black duck
5. Mallard
6. Wild Turkey
7. Double-crested Cormorant
8. Great Blue Heron
9. Great Egret
10. Snowy Egret
11. Glossy Ibis*
12. Osprey
13. Black-bellied Plover
14. Semi-palmated Plover
15. Killdeer
16. Willet
17. Shot-billed Dowitchers
18. Herring Gull
19. Great Black-backed Gull
20. Least tern
21. Common Tern
22. Rock Pigeon
23. Mourning Dove
24. Ruby-throated Hummingbird
25. Eastern Kingbird
26. Blue Jay
27. American crow
28. Purple martin
29. Tree Swallow
30. Barn Swallow
31. American Robin
32. Gray Catbird
33. Northern Mockingbird
34. European Starling
35. Cedar Waxwing
36. Common Yellowthroat
37. American Redstart
38. Yellow Warbler
39. Eastern Towhee
40. Song Sparrow
41. Northern Cardinal
42. Bobolink*
43. Red-winged Blackbird
44. Common Grackle
45. House Finch
46. Purple Finch
47. American Goldfinch

*These species are new to my Massachusetts Life List

Then, at Sandy Point we saw these 16 species:

1. Double-crested cormorant
2. Great Egret
3. Osprey
4. Piping Plover
5. Willet
6. Herring Gull
7. Great black-backed Gull
8. Least Tern
9. Gray catbird
10. Cedar Waxwing
11. Common Yellowthroat
12. Yellow warbler
13. Song Sparrow
14. Red-winged Blackbird
15. Common Grackle
16. American Goldfinch

Links:

• Our Big New England Birding Adventure (all posts related to this subject)
• Las Aventuras (Chris’ blog)

Capricious Capisic Pond

 

June 26, 2014: The morning after the Great Puffin Expedition we slept in. Then I had a few errands to do and a dentist appointment. Finally, by afternoon we were ready to bird again, and we headed south towards Portland. We made our first stop at the Freeport Wildbird Supply, where I bought bird seed and Micheal invested in his own pair of binoculars! He had been using my compact Nikon’s for the first few days and decided he liked having his own pair of bins! Then we were on our way to visually capture the elusive Orchard Oriole, which would be a Life Bird for both Chris and Micheal!

A song sparrow serenaded us as we pulled into the parking lot!

Milky clouds filled the sky overhead.

We wandered down the gravel path and within five minutes had our eyes on the prize!

Though I was here earlier in the spring and saw the bird then, I had hoped for a better photo, but it was not to be. The air was heavy with humidity. I felt like I was melting. The hazy light make photographing difficult and the bird just would not turn around to face me! We counted at least 4 Orchard Orioles this day, along with a pair of Baltimore Orioles. We saw a some crows sitting quietly high in a pine, as if trying to hide as they watched the birds of the pond and meadow. Stealthily they hide in the shadows, hugging the trunk of the huge tree. I had never seen crows sit so quietly. What were they up to?

We turned away from the crows, distracted by the other birds flitting around us. Micheal and I spotted a female Scarlet Tanager, but Chris did not get on it in time before it flew off, so he did not count that bird. As we were trying to identify a flycatcher we suddenly heard a ruckus behind us! One of the crows had flown out of its hiding place and swooped down on an orioles nest! All the birds of meadows, woodland and pond rushed fluttering and crying towards the tree with the crow. Everyone was upset as they tried to drive the crow away, but the large black bird of death paid them no more attention that he would a mosquito. Hungrily he raided the nest while the little birds screamed! I could not look. Chris moved closer and tried to see and photograph what was going on, but I don’t know if he succeeded. Nothing he or the birds did scared the crow way until it had its fill. By then we had had our fill as well. We walked disconsolately back to the car, the humidity by now overwhelming. It felt good to get inside and turn on the air-conditioning and drown out the memory of what we had witnessed.

I drove us over to Evergreen Cemetery next, hoping that maybe we could find a Wood Thrush for Chris. When we first pulled up, all we saw were ducks! Someone was feeding them bread and they all came out of the pond for the feast!

Most of them were domestic mallards, but we did find two black ducks in the bunch, along with an opportunistic gull! Off in the tall pines of the surrounding woods we heard a couple of wood pewees calling, and in the trees near the pond we did find a Black-throated Green Warbler, but though we tried hiking into the woods, we did not see or hear a single thrush! The humidity was high, the mosquitoes were thick, and thunder rumbled on the horizon!

We made it back to the car just as the rains started to fall. We had hoped to bird a few more stops but it was not to be. We stopped at a local bistro for a late lunch/earlier supper and while we were there the skies opened up and poured down rain. It was very apparent that our birding for today was over, which was fine with me, because I still felt a bit weak and woozy from yesterday’s expedition, and I knew we had more plans for tomorrow! We just never stop birding!

 

Birds seen on June 25, 2014

Capisic Pond Birds

1. American Black Duck
2. Herring gull
3. great Black-backed Gull
4. Mourning Dove
5. Chimney Swift
6. Hairy woodpecker
7. Northern Flicker
8. Willow Flycatcher
9. Warbling Vireo
10. Blue Jay
11. American Crow
12. Tree swallow
13. American Robin
14. Gray Catbird
15. European Starling
16. Cedar Waxwing
17. Common Yellowthroat
18. Yellow Warbler
19. Song Sparrow
20. Scarlett Tanager
21. Northern Cardinal
22. Red-winged Blackbird
23. Common Grackle
24. Orchard Oriole
25. Baltimore Oriole
26. House Finch
27. American Goldfinch
28. House Sparrow

Evergreen Cemetery Birds

1. Canada Goose
2. American Black duck
3. Mallard
4. Double-crested Cormorant
5. Herring Gull
6. Mourning Dove
7. Downy Woodpecker
8. Eastern Wood Pewee
9. Red-eyed Vireo
10. Blue Jay
11. American Crow
12. Black-capped Chickadee
13. American Robin
14. Gray catbird
15. Ovenbird
16. Black-throated green Warbler
17. Chipping Sparrow
18. Northern Cardinal

Links:

• Birding With KaHolly (my first visit to these locations)
• Las Aventuras (Chris’s Blog)
• Orchard Oriole (Chris’ Photo of this bird from this day)

The Little Dog and the Gray Fox

Miss Blossom 7-18-14

There once was a little black and white dog who moved to the country where she went in and out of her little gray cottage to sniff in the yard and smell all the smells. Every morning and every night her owner would let her out for some exercise and her bathroom breaks. The world was full of birds and squirrels and chipmunks. Sometimes neighborhood dogs would stop by to say hello. But mostly all was peaceful and quiet.

Then one day a gray fox showed up beneath the bird feeders. Though there wasn’t much there, the fox would come every morning and every night to nibble on the scraps beneath the feeders. The bird lady who fed the birds, and the little dog’s owners liked to see the fox. It made they feel happy in their “peaceable kingdom.” But one day when the master let the little dog outside in the morning the fox was still there.

The little dog growled at the fox and looked back towards the house. The fox just stood there and stared at the dog. The master looked out the door and saw the fox just standing there. He saw the little dog just standing there. He did not like the fact that the fox did not run away when the little dog growled at it. So, the master came up with a plan.

The next night when it was dark, the master went outside and peed all around the feeder pole. He had heard this was a way that you could keep wild animals from coming into your yard. I know it seems strange, but this is the way that animals communicate with each other, and it worked! 

While the gray fox has been seen darting across the edge of the yard, it never stops to eat beneath the feeder anymore and the little dog can now go out without fear. This makes the master very happy! Meanwhile, the grass beneath the feeder has turned a lovely dark green. The nitrogen in the urine has fertilized the soil!

This is a True Story!

By Kathie Adams Brown