Mystical birds

In my accounting of birds in Somerville, I've been a bit remiss in not giving any attention to the Mystic. Lately I've made a few trips down there to see what there is to be seen. The swans are so prominent you can see them from the highway, but there's actually a good variety of other aquatic birds. This morning there were several kinds of gulls, a flotilla of Canada geese, a couple of coots, a red-breasted merganser, some mallards, and a trio of buffleheads.

In the picture above, you can see a flock of ring-billed gulls surrounding a juvenile herring gull, which you'll notice is banded on the leg. If anyone was looking for Gull 8R5... why, there it is.

New camera!

After complaining for a year, I finally got a new camera -- better resolution, and above all, a better zoom. It's still a point-and-shoot model, but a vastly better one. I'm really hoping it'll help me better identify birds from a distance, which has always been a stumbling block. Of course, there's no mystery about the bird above -- though it was a little strange to see a flock of a hundred of these things come through on Thanksgiving morning.

Owl!

I went out this morning hoping to get a picture of some of the thrushes. There were a number in and around my apple tree, but as I was looking up into the branches, I spotted a small, obscure feathered mass. An owl! Specifically a northern saw-whet owl. I was excited, because I'd never seen a wild owl in my life. I had to show the kids, and they're like, "OMG, maybe it has a message tied to its leg!"

The picture could be better, of course, but my camera is now, on top of everything else, semi-broken: the zoom no longer works.

Okay, a few updates: here are a few more pictures from today. The first is a pair of Carolina wrens, taken by my photographic assistant Mimi:

Here's a hermit thrush:

And finally, another rare juxtaposition (remember the ovenbird and catbird one?), a downy woodpecker and the aforementioned owl:

Hermit Thrushes

The migration season has been nicely bracketed by the appearance of hermit thrushes. They showed up in early April to begin the season, and now, in late October, they're back again. When they're gone, that will probably be it for migrants for this year. In the spring, these birds are pretty much ground feeders, but now, in fall, they're up in the trees and hedges, eating wild grapes, if that's what those things are. I wonder if some of these birds I'm seeing are the same individuals who passed through in the spring. I guess there's only one way to tell, and it's probably illegal. In any event, they're pretty numerous.

Limping into fall

This blog ran out of steam a bit after the spring migration. It's true that bird-wise, summer is duller here in Somerville. We have our regulars, of course, but not so much in the way of birding excitement. Now it's fall already, and the birds have started to go the other way. But at least around here, the fall migration isn't nearly as notable as the spring. Probably that's because birds are following a different route back to the tropics.

That said, we still do get a few migrants here, such as the red-eyed vireo shown above, and a ruby-throated hummingbird. I admit haven't been that diligent about looking. I really should turn my attention to filling out the bird list.

Warbler wrapup

May is gone, and so are the warblers. When the cold and the rain went, so did they. Time, then, for a summary of what the season brought. The first warbler (a black-and-white) appeared on the 27th of April, and from then until the 23rd of May, I saw warblers nearly every day. I logged 12 or so species, as follows (and some are a bit doubtful, based on a quick sighting, or a murky photo):

Black-and-white: 8 individuals
Black-throated blue?: 1
Black-throated green: 2?
Common yellowthroat: 7
Magnolia: 12+
Mourning?: 1
Northern parula: 8-10
Northern waterthrush: 1
Ovenbird: 2
Wilson's: 1
Yellow: 2

The magnolias were the big winners, but northern parulas were also notable this year, as were black-and-whites. Last year I saw some species that I didn't see this year (American redstart, blackpoll), but overall this year, I saw a lot more species than last year -- which, to an extent, reflects increased attention on my part.

But the warblers were only a part of the migratory picture. We also had thrushes, native sparrows, vireos, catbirds, swifts, flycatchers, hummingbirds, woodpeckers and phoebes -- two dozen or so species that came, and for the most part, went. The catbirds are still here, as are the swifts -- and, of course, robins by the thousands.

In the end, this small number of left-behinds reminds us of the basic poverty of bird habitat in Somerville. And with the migrants gone, we're left with the same dozen-odd species that are so familiar to us here year-round -- the Villens, you might say, of the avian world.

Halfway through May now, and warblers continue to appear. We've had a number of magnolia warblers this week. Here's one in flight.

Black-and-white warblers have been faithful customers over the past two weeks. And, because they're the most trusting of the warblers, you can actually get a decent picture of them. Here's one on my dogwood tree.

And finally, here's a picture that typifies the sub-par photography that's a feature, not to say bug, of this blog. But the combination of birds shown here is a little unusual: ovenbird (right) and catbird (left). Now, I ask you: what are the odds?

Today's tale of woe is how hard it is to get good photographs of birds. Here's example one:

This morning, I look out and see a flicker putting divots in my neighbor's yard. A good photo op, I say to myself, for a bird I've found difficult to photograph. The only problem -- and there's always some such problem -- is that there's a fence in the way. So I creep, creep, creep forward, hoping to get far enough up that I can get a photo over the fence. Unfortunately, I need to get pretty close, and just when I get close enough, the bird startles and flies off.

Here's example two, a black-throated green warbler (I think):

Birds in trees are always tough.

Solved

Thanks to the kind people at Mass Audubon, I'm now able to put a name to the mystery bird pictured in the previous post: a northern parula.

Warblers appear

After the hermit thrushes came and went -- in surprising numbers -- a bit of a migratory lull followed.  We had a few native sparrows, and some woodpeckers, but the wave of warblers had yet to hit.  Then, this past week, on the 27th of April, the first of them appeared, in the shape of a black-and-white warbler.  Catbirds are back, too -- a quartet at first, and now a lone settler.  A couple more days of nothing, then today, two more black-and-whites, along with an ovenbird (possibly), and a black-throated blue warbler (I think). Identification is often difficult with these skittish things up in the trees.  And sometimes, even when I get a halfway decent picture, I still can't identify the bird.  Case in point...

As the spring advances, more and more of the birds of summer make their appearance.  Most of these we'll only see once, as they pass through Somerville on their way to somewhere more propitious to nest.  Last week it was a battalion of hermit thrushes.  Most of those are gone now, except a few stragglers.  In their wake came the woodpeckers -- a yellow-bellied sapsucker making a quick transit high in the neighbor's trees, and the much more familiar downy woodpecker, a summer regular here.  We've also had a few of our native sparrows -- a song sparrow, I think, and maybe a fox sparrow.  Then this morning, a kinglet passed through, gleaning bugs among the branches.  Here is its portrait.

Spring is here

If winter is when the juncos come, spring is when they leave. And at this writing, on the 11th of April, the juncos, so numerous at the beginning of the month, have just about disappeared.  Moreover, they've begun to be replaced by the earliest of the spring migrants.  There's a wave of hermit thrushes passing through, and this morning I spotted an eastern phoebe, who seems a bit early to breakfast.  The red-tailed hawk who cruises our neighborhood is also back.

I love this time of year, when you might stick your head into the yard and see any of three dozen species that you won't see in Somerville at any other time of the year.  From now until the end of May, keep your eyes peeled for them.

Building the bird list

I've begun to put together the Somerville bird list.  Is this list definitive?  Well, it's a definitive list of birds I've seen in Somerville, at least.  It'll take me a few days to put up all the pictures I have, but in the meantime, have a look.

A blog about birds in Somerville may seem like a blog about Bigfoot in Central Park. But contrary to many people's expectations, there are birds in Somerville, and not just pigeons, starlings, and sparrows. Somerville is home to a year-round population of native birds, and provides a stopover for dozens of migrating species. This blog is an attempt to show the kinds of birds that may be found here, even if they're just passing through. I hope other residents of Somerville will join me in sharing accounts and pictures of birds they've seen.