Notes from My Nest: Life on Mere Point

 Mere Point Bay as seen from Mere Point 4-4-14

I am still settling in and getting to know my way around Mere Point. In my mind it is broken up into different birding segments. I count birds at my home, which is Mere Point Cottage. I count birds at Mere Point Boat launch, which is a Public Access site to the bay. I count birds along Mere Point Road, which is 5 miles from my driveway to where the road ends in Brunswick, and I count birds at Mere Point Point which is Private Access Only. You must live there or have permission from someone who does live there to access the site. Anyway you look at it, I am surrounded by water and birds. In just the week since I posted my latest Mere Point Cottage Yard List I have already added 6 more species of birds! I am now at 48 Yard Birds in a little over 2 months time and migration is just beginning! I have yet to add a warbler to my yard list. Sparrows are well represented with Savannah and Chipping Sparrows being the most recent additions! I heard a Carolina Wren on April 11th calling several times, but I have not heard it since.  I had a Northern Flicker show up on the 13th and a Golden-crowned Kinglet on the 14th! While I had heard Fish Crows in town already I was surprised to hear one outside in my yard on April 15th. At this point I have no idea what species is going to show up next! I had not seen the Fox Sparrows for a few days, but then they showed up again on the 14th. White-throated Sparrows have now become the most numerous sparrow species in the yard, displacing the Song Sparrows who held that title for a couple of weeks.

I continue to do battle with the squirrels and hoped that this cheap baffle I bought at Wal-Mart would do the trick. It only cost me $8 bucks and I  would have done better spending that money on additional seed. It didn’t take them long to figure it out and find a way around it. The black plastic bowl balances on the hook but it is easily tipped by the wind and the squirrels which scramble down the chain, tip the black bowl and twist and grab the feeder to climb up and eat at their leisure! Back to the drawing board for me. It looks like I will have to break down and buy a $40 baffle from the bird store instead!

 Long-tailed ducks in Maquoit Bay 4-7-14

One local resident gave me permission to walk down to the water’s edge near his house. I stood in awe on the shore and looked across Maquoit Bay. There were so many ducks in it, but only a few of them were close enough for me to identify with my binoculars. There was a large flock of Long-tailed Ducks raising a ruckus out in the water. They made so much noise! I don’t quite know how to describe the sound, but they would all get in a bunch or in a line and then dive simultaneously. I do not know if this was a hunting and feeding technique or if they were just diving whenever they realized I was looking at them through my binoculars!

 Great Black-backed Gull on the seaweed covered shore of Maquoit Bay.

I found it so amazing to be standing on the shore with tall trees and woodland birds behind me and sea birds in front. When the tide goes out the seaweed covered rocks are exposed and yes, they are this golden! While I see gulls on the rocks all the time, I have yet to see any peeps along these shores though, I do keep on looking for them. April 7th was such a nice day that I did not want to go inside, so I decided to cross the street and go count birds at the Boat Launch.

On the short road in I found this little Black-capped Chickadee in the leaf litter alongside the road. In the trees along the sides of the parking area I saw and heard several species of blackbirds as well as Mourning Doves, Blue Jays and more Song Sparrows. While I am not surprised that the blackbirds are over here, I am surprised that the Blue Jays like to hang out in this area more than my yard, which is a stone’s throw away. I cannot always count on seeing jays in my yard but they are a sure bet over here!

The effects of spring migration are being seen with the return of the Great Blue Herons. These are just two of the four that flew over my head while counting birds at the boat launch. But then I was surprised by another string of migrants…

Double-crested Cormorants! My FoTY* in Maine!

I would love to tell you that life is settling down here at My new Nest in Mere Point Cottage, and while it is starting to feel like Home, there is still so much to do. We are registering our cars in Maine and finding doctors, dentists and hairdressers. I still have boxes to unpack but I need some shelves built and I keep getting distracted by the birds! I wake up every morning and grab my bins before I even get dressed and start watching and counting them. I keep telling myself that I should take a shower and get dressed first, but I cannot resist looking, and once I take one look I have to start counting them! Everyday is something different and I find it all so new and exciting, even though I have seen most of these birds before. This is my first time living in Maine as an eBirder and eBirding has taught me how to pay attention to the timing of birds and their behavior. Birds are part of the rhythm of life wherever one lives and learning and feeling this rhythm is what makes me feel part of Life!

So many times I would “Bird My Way Home” from a trip, yet my home keeps on changing. Perhaps I have finally Birded My Way Home for good. Perhaps after all these years of wandering around the country and longing for Idaho (my first love), perhaps I have finally found my real home at last.

*First of The Year

My Mere Point Birds by the Numbers:

• Mere Point Patch—59 species (all my locations on Mere Point)
• Mere Point Yard List—48 species
• Mere Point Boat Launch—37 species
• Rossmore and Mere Point Roads—21 species
• Mere Point Point—15 species

Explore Rossmore and Mere Point Roads, an eBird Hotspot

Canada Geese Flying over Mere Point Boat Launch 4-7-14

Follow the Birdie!

Who am I?

Follow me over to Birding is Fun to find out and learn about

Beaks, Butts, and Bird Behavior!

Update: Where Have I been? Well, I have been gone for almost a week to Colorado where my husband and I attended my daughter’s impromptu wedding. We pulled together the whole thing in less than 24 hours. She got married on the side of a mountain in the Front Range of Denver. After 3 years of being engaged she was just tired of waiting to have the money to get married, so they just did it! It all went beautifully and I have lots of photos to process and then post. The next morning we took a hike around the South Platte River Park in Littleton, CO where I finally got to do some birding.  We left around 1 PM, then drove all afternoon and into the night to get to Socorro, NM where we got up the next morning and spent four hours at Bosque del Apache NWR! Once again I was Birding my Way Home! As you can imagine, I have tons of photos to go through, but after being gone for almost a week I also have things to catch up on here in AZ. Yesterday I washed and refilled bird feeders here in the yard. I did laundry all day and in the evening I voted! Today I have to run out and do more errands but I hope to get some time to offload pictures and start to process them. This is my crazy life, but I am not complaining! I hope you will return to see what this “Bear” saw on the other side of the mountains!

From Andover to Tucson Day 1

 Mom, Kathie, Stephen, MG, and Brother C; 8-21-2012

All journeys start with “Good-byes.” When the movers were done loading our stuff on their truck Kathryn and I finished sweeping the floors. We ate our lunch on the back porch one last time, then loaded up the car with the cats and our luggage and hit the road. We drove to two hours south to Connecticut where we dropped the pets and our luggage off at a nearby hotel, then headed to Colchester to spend my last night in new England with my family. As usual, we gathered at Mom’s house for pizza. three of my four siblings were able to be there. It was a rather quiet night. I think everyone was holding their emotions in. No one wanted to make a big deal of the finality of the situation, so we just chit-chatted and ate. then Kathryn and I said good-bye and got in the car. I let her drive back to the hotel. I was spent. In the morning I counted birds in the hotel parking lot while I walked the dog. I saw 9 species in Glastonbury, CT before we got on the road.

We decided to take the Route 84 across Connecticut to the Tappan Zee Bridge. We found out later it was a good thing we did for the George Washington Bridge in NYC had a major back-up in the afternoon on that day.

It was a pretty drive and I could not believe all the houses built into the hillside on the other side of the Hudson River!

With blue skies and the open road before us we began our journey of Birding Our Way Home. With 115 miles behind us, we only had 2600 more to go! Come back tomorrow to see where we stopped next! (Yes, there will be birds!)

Birds seen in Glastonbury at the hotel 8-22-12:

1. Rock Pigeon
2. Mourning Dove
3. Blue Jay
4. Gray Catbird
5. Northern Mockingbird
6. European Starling
7. House Finch
8. American Goldfinch
9. House sparrow

Thoughts of Tucson

 Santa Rita Mountains as seen from Sycamore Canyon May 7, 2008

It is a funny thing that, just when I told my husband I was tired of him looking for new jobs and, that If we didn’t move soon I wanted to stay here for another year, that he should get a phone call and a job offer. The phone call came through while I was in Connecticut visiting my family and friends. Suddenly everything shifted, and I started thinking of what was before me, and what I would leave behind.

 Mt. Fagan in Corona de Tucson 8-7-2010

Two years ago when we left Sycamore Canyon in the Santa Rita Mountains of Corona de Tucson, we thought perhaps we would return in a year and move back into our house if it didn’t sell. Well, the house didn't sell, but we are not moving back in. We are just one of the millions whose house was so far underwater that we could not sell it and we could not refinance because we no longer lived in it. In the two years since we have been here so many things have happened. The first year was spent planning my Mother’s 75th Birthday party. The next year was spent trying to save her life as she battled breast cancer, which she discovered only two months after her party! She is through with her surgery and treatments now and all seems well, but you can imagine that it is just a little bit hard to leave her, not knowing if I will be needed again, and knowing it will be a bit harder to get back here if I am needed.

 My dining room calendar

As I was starting to look at my calendars to plan this move I suddenly noticed that two out of the four calendars I have in my house have photos related to Arizona. This one on my dining room wall not only has a saguaro cactus for July’s monthly picture, but the photo was actually taken at Saguaro National Park in Tucson!

 My kitchen calendar

Then I noticed that the kitchen calendar has a photo of a broad-billed hummingbird, a species easily seen in the Tucson area. Below it in the right hand corner is a Gila woodpecker, a species also see in the Sonoran Desert. Not omens actually, but certainly an interesting coincidence!

 Sabino Canyon, March, 2008

I know that when I get back to Tucson I will be able to visit all my favorite birding places like Sabino Canyon and Saguaro National Park and I will love seeing all the exotic and normal desert species of birds once again, but make no mistake, I will miss my New England birds as well, especially some of the more common ones that greeted me every morning when I woke up. There will be no Black-capped Chickadees calling to me in Tucson, no Blue Jays flying through the trees with blue wings flashing. I will not have nuthatches hanging upside down on my backyard trees, and I will miss them all. Thankfully I plan on flying home at least once a year to visit my family where these familiar birds will hopefully greet me once again. Until then, I look forward to seeing my first Cactus Wren. It has been long enough.

Cactus Wren, the Arizona State Bird

New Poems on Kathie’s Poet Tree

• A Phoebe in Maine
• The Mulberry Tree

Birding My Way Home

 American Robin in the fountain 7-13-12

After our birding adventure at Colchester's Cohen Meadows Dawn and I went to Mom’s house for a visit and lunch. We barely pulled into the yard when we saw a robin in Mom’s backyard fountain.

 Red Squirrel by the barn in Mom’s yard 7-13-12

Then, to my utter surprise, we saw a red squirrel by the barn! While I have seen chipmunks, gray squirrels and groundhogs here before I have never seen a red squirrel in Mom’s yard. This little cutie kept jumping up and down off the old metal chair. It would grab a seed, eat it on the chair, then jump down for another seed!

 Dawn sitting by the fountain

After a visit with Mom in the backyard we ate lunch and then I packed up my dog and my car and brought Dawn back to her “Homey.” Then it was my turn to get on the road and head for home. Often when I travel I bird my way home on the return trip. I intended to stop at Owen Bell Park in Killingly, but was so absorbed in the book on CD I was listening to that I drove right past the exit! However, by the time I neared the Oxford, MA Exit off Route 395 both the dog and I needed a restroom break. As I drove towards the exit the highway crossed Lowes Pond. From the corner of my eye I saw two Mute Swans floating in the still water. I decided to take exit 4a (which is towards the pond) instead of 4b (which is where I normally get off to get gas and use the restrooms) so that I could drive behind the Home Depot and Market Basket grocery store to see if I could get a better look at the swans.

 Lowes Pond with Route 395 in the background 7-13-12

Whenever I Bird My Way Home I often find new places to count birds this way. Today I hit the jackpot for as I drove behind the store I saw a Green Heron on a chain link fence surrounding a smaller retention pond. As I parked the car to let the dog out I saw an eastern phoebe. Mourning doves were resting on top of the street lights and barn swallows swooped overhead. Song sparrows sang from the pond edges and, as I walked the dog along a cliff-like retention wall goldfinches twittered and robins hopped along the grassy edge.

Below in the pond a family of wood ducks paddled away from me.

These are the birds I saw in 15 minutes at Lowes Pond in Oxford, MA:

1. Mute Swan, 2
2. Wood Duck, 6
3. Green Heron, 1
4. Mourning Dove, 2
5. Eastern Phoebe, 1
6. Blue Jay, 1
7. American Crow, 1
8. Barn Swallow, 2
9. Black-capped Chickadee, 2
10. Tufted Titmouse, 2
11. American Robin, 1
12. Cedar Waxwing, 6
13. Red-winged Blackbird, 2
14. American Goldfinch, 2

What did you say?

With our upcoming move back to Tucson I suppose I will really be Birding My Way Home then for I will be driving across the country with my birding buddy and longtime friend, Kathryn Kelley of My Mountain Green from Utah. One of the best things about becoming a blogger and a birder are all the new people that I have met. When I moved here two years ago I did not get much chance to write about the birds I saw as we drove across the United States back then. Hopefully this time it will be a different story, but I think that no matters where I live, I will always be Birding My Way Home!

Birding My Way Home: Webster, MA

 Juvenile Ring-billed Gull 1-19-12 Webster, MA

Last Thursday I birded my way home from Connecticut after taking Mom to one of her appointments. Learning that a snow storm was coming, I did not linger in Connecticut or stop to count birds at some of my usual places. Instead I got on the road and kept on driving until I crossed over the Massachusetts state line. I decided to get off Route 395 at Exit 2 to see what I could see. As I traveled east on the road I passed a little cove with a few birds in in, so I turned around and went back.

I parked at the Webster Fish and Game Club and cross the busy street.

Because the road is narrow here, I stepped across the guardrail to be well out of the way of the traffic. I saw Canada Geese and a few Mallard in Sucker Brook Cove.

Then to my utter surprise, this little coot paddled out of the reeds!

It started splishin’ and a splashin’ as it tried to eat some greens!

That makes species number 58 on my Big January 2012 Bird List!

I drove around to the West side of Webster Lake and parked near the shore. Webster Lake is also known by the Native American Nipmuc name, Lake Chaubunagungamaug, but who has time to say that? The lake was coated with a thin sheet of ice.

While some gulls were out on the ice, most relaxed in the parking lot.

Other than a couple of crows, I really didn’t see a lot of birds here. But then I saw something that made my heart go cold with fear…

This guy came walking into view on the thin ice!

Every few feet he would stop and pound the ice with his pole!

Then he walked on!

I couldn’t take the fear, I left! It was time to get back on the road anyway…

The sun was setting!

As I drove north the clouds continued to gather. By the time I got home it was already snowing in Connecticut. It was not a big storm for us, just a dusting. We got more snow over the weekend and Connecticut got nearly a foot! Good thing I left when I did. As for the man on the lake, he must of survived, because I never heard anything about it on the news. However, over the weekend a different person went through the ice on a nearby lake in Dudley, MA and, though they pulled him from the water within 15 minutes, he died today. So, my fears were not unfounded. Read the full story here. We have not had a solid cold spell here all winter and it’s warming up again tonight. It’s raining now and by tomorrow it will be back into the 50’s! Time for me to go find some more birds!

That’s Our World Tuesday in Winter!

Please stay off the ice!

Birding My Way Home

 White-throated Sparrow 1-5-12 Norwich Avenue, Colchester, CT

Since I had to travel to Connecticut again this week I figured I may as well count birds while I am there. I hoped to count birds in Massachusetts on the way south on Wednesday, but it was so cold and I left so late that I just decided to travel straight through. Warmer weather was predicted for Thursday, so I scoped out a new lake to investigate near Worcester on my way back. However, I failed to realize that Wednesday’s cold would bring Thursday's ice!

I spent the night at a friend’s house and awoke to a gray dawn. As I stepped out her back door early in the morning the clouded sky was spitting snow as twenty to thirty Blue Jays mobbed her neighbor’s backyard feeders.

In the dim light I was only able to get a shot of one Blue jay silhouetted against the gray sky. I could not wait for better light because I needed to get to Mom’s house to take her to another doctor’s appointment. As we drove towards Willimantic I spotted a red-tailed hawk perched in a tree alongside the road in Amston. The clouds were beginning to dissipate and a clear icy blue sky shone through. After Mom’s appointment we drove over to Windham Hospital for her to get her blood drawn. I find it ironic that every time I am here I see turkey vultures soaring overhead! Though I had my camera with me, I felt a bit uncomfortable with pulling it out and taking pictures from the parking lot, so I didn’t. Maybe next time I will though if I can get to a spot where I would not be so conspicuous!

After bringing Mom home I headed home and started to bird my way there. My first stop was Lion’s Pond, but all I found was ice and no birds.

Farther up the road I stopped at Savin’s Lake which was now covered in a thin sheet of ice with no birds on the water. But then I heard a sound from the hedgerow across the street…

…where I found this sweet little White-throated Sparrow chirping and eating berries from a tangle of vines. Then I see a flash of red fly by as a Northern Cardinal flees farther into the bushes.

I jump in my car and drive farther east towards Norwich and turn my car onto the road that takes me to exit 23 off Route 2. As I pass over the Yantic river I see hundreds of geese floating in this unfrozen water. I quickly park in the commuter parking lot and hurry across the street to count. A quick glance at the sky reveals the daytime moon about to be swallowed by the rising clouds.

In the frozen cove the gulls gather on the ice.

But in the open water Canada Geese and a few Mallards float lazily.

As I draw near they start to stream away to the far bend in the river.

Though the ice is creeping in from the edges, there is still open water for now. How long will it last? Who knows? This has been a strangely warm winter and I am glad for the birds I have seen, but none of these Connecticut birds count towards my Big January in Massachusetts. I head north hoping there is enough daylight to still see “something” when I cross the border, but alas, all the birds have gone to bed for the night and I am out of luck. Perhaps tomorrow I can find at least one new species for my Massachusetts list. However, with 20 species seen, I do have a great start on my Connecticut list for this year!

Birds Seen in Connecticut on 1-5-12:

1. Mourning Dove-Westchester
2. Red-bellied woodpecker
3. Downy Woodpecker
4. Hairy woodpecker
5. Blue jay
6. American Crow
7. Tufted Titmouse
8. European Starling
9. Northern Cardinal
10. House sparrow
11. Back-capped Chickadee-Colchester Center
12. Song Sparrow
13. White-throated Sparrow
14. Dark-eyed Junco (slate-colored)
15. Red-tailed Hawk-Millstream Road Amston
16. Ring-billed Gull-Willimatic
17. Turkey Vulture-Windham Hospital
18. Canada Goose-Fitchville Exit 23
19. Mallard
20. Rock Pigeon-Killingly Commons, Dayville

Read about more Big January Birding Fun on the Birding is Fun blog!