What's all this, now?

Birders love the strange, and here's an example.  This morning, I was out looking at winter waterfowl on the Mystic when I was brought up short by the bird above.  A black-and-white warbler?  In this season? Ridiculous!  But so it was:  a warbler busily prospecting for bugs, as if it were a balmy day in April, and not a bitter December day with a howling wind and temperatures in the upper 20s. I don't know whose cognitive dissonance was greater, hers or mine.  I do note, though, that on eBird someone logged a black-and-white in the Mystic Reservation a couple weeks ago, and this is likely the same party.

I guess I don't really understand non-migrating warblers.  What on earth can they be finding to eat, especially with the extra demands on their metabolism?  I wonder whether this one will this one continue to stick around, since she's lasted here this long, or finally take the hint.  Keep an eye out for her, if you're down by the Mystic.

Barred Owl

Isn't this adorable?  This barred owl spent the day in a tree behind Somerville High, where it got a certain amount of attention.  This particular picture was taken by my daughter's friend Celia.

Everyone likes owls.

Thrush season

Hermit thrush season came and went.  They were numerous while they were here, but their time was short.  We share with the neighbors a grapevine they're particularly devoted to.

Now it's the sparrows' turn.  The last few days I've seen flocks of white-throated sparrows, song sparrows and juncos, all eating weed seeds from the ground.  It's a fat season for them.  Here's a song sparrow. 

Not a junco

Here's a riddle:  When is a junco not a junco?  Answer:  Why, when it's a yellow-rumped warbler, of course.   But damned if I wouldn't have sworn up and down that this was a junco when I was watching it.  It was feeding on the ground like a junco, and to the naked eye at about 30 feet, it looked exactly like a junco --dark above and light below.  And besides, there were other juncos around at the time.  But you know what they say about the camera -- it adds 30 pounds, and turns juncos into yellow-rumped warblers.

I later found out from the paper that this fall yellow-rumped warblers had been seen by watchers in enormous numbers -- flocks of over a thousand.  Strange, that.  I guess they can spare one for Somerville.

Sphyrapicus varius

If there was ever an animal that needed a publicist, it would be the yellow-bellied sapsucker, whose name is basically a string of insults.  That said, the name is apt in a descriptive sense -- though the females, of which this is one, aren't quite so yellow-bellied, and in Somerville at least, neither males nor females are doing much sap-sucking.  Here they're only coming or going, and as such, I've only ever seen them in March or October.

A similar thing can be said of the Eastern phoebe.  They do well around people generally, but I guess Somerville is just a bit too much for them.  We only catch the transients, and rarely at that.

More of the same

I think that's a pine warbler, looking a bit like Quasimodo here.  If it is a pine warbler, that's number 64 on my Somerville species list.

Here's one I'm a bit more certain about:  a black-throated blue warbler, sadly decapitated by my lens.  It was eating grapes.

I've started logging the birds I see on eBird, since Somerville is underrepresented there, not so surprisingly. Or at least I'm logging the kinds of birds I don't see every day -- these two, for example.

Overground Railroad

That's an ovenbird right there.  It was here today, and likely will be somewhat south of here by tomorrow.  I can never quite remember when the warblers migrate in the fall, because I never see many of them.  The ovenbird at least does us a favor by not changing into some drab and unrecognizable plumage.  Thanks, ovenbird.

Adios, chickadees

How, you'll be asking yourself, did I enter into possession of this perfectly square chickadee nest?  Well, it's like this.  I noticed Saturday evening that the parent chickadees were no longer visiting the nest.  Of course I feared the worst.  But then, as I thought about it, it seemed more likely that I had miscalculated when the birds were born, and that they had simply fledged and moved on -- as turned out to be the case when I opened up the birdhouse this afternoon.

The nest was clean and empty, except for one unhatched egg and a few droppings.  As you can see, it's mostly made of moss and vegetable fibers on the top.  Underneath was a soft pillow made up mostly, it looked to me, of dryer lint and cat hair. It's all about local sourcing.

And then there were the mites.  After I finished handling this stuff, I noticed my hands were covered with minute, almost microscopic mites.  I hope I washed them all off.

One short life

In a previous post, I had been wondering how the catbirds had made out with their nesting.  I hadn't seen any juveniles at all, which made me wonder.  Then today I came home and found one -- dead, in the middle of my patio.  It wasn't obvious why it had died, or how it had been killed.  Normally I'd blame the neighbor's cat, but the bird didn't look like it had been mauled in any way.  So it's a bit of a mystery.

It's sad, of course, but mortality is high among juvenile birds.  And if this one successfully fledged, there might well be others.  They're probably pretty retiring, though.

In happier news, the chickadees in the birdhouse seem to be doing well.  The parents are frantically busy, as the parents of all newborn birds must be. No caterpillar in my yard is safe for the next few weeks at least.

Nesting chickadees

We've had a birdhouse up for years now.  One of the kids made it at some point, and with a few modifications, it's been up ever since.  But this is the first year that it's actually been used by anything.  In the past, I've seen chickadees check it out, but it didn't seem like it was to their liking.  This year, though, we've finally got a pair nesting there.  The eggs must have just hatched, because yesterday I saw one of the parents carting off what could only have been a bit of eggshell.

All the other local birds seemed to have fledged their young by now.  The juvenile cardinals and robins have been more or less on their own for weeks now.  It seemed like a particularly successful year for the cardinals.  As to the catbirds, I can't be sure.  I saw the two of them collecting nesting material at one point, but never could pinpoint the nest.  I still see the adults around, but as to any offspring, I couldn't say.

Migrant wrapup

This yellow-bellied flycatcher showed up today, shagging flies outside the window through which this picture was taken.  It might well be the last of the migrants; but I was surprised to see it, since I hadn't seen any migrants for weeks.  The last of the warblers appeared on Saturday, May 19th, and after that, nada.

Overall, the migratory season was abrupt, and not that fruitful.  The catbirds and swifts came back and set up shop as usual, but the transitory migrants seemed fewer to me than usual.  I didn't see any woodpeckers, nor any hummingbirds, nor many of the songbirds I've seen in recent years.  Warbler numbers were down, both as to individuals and species.  Here's what I counted:

Palm warbler: 1
Northern parula: 4-5?
Wilson's warbler: 2
Magnolia warbler: 5
Blackpoll warbler: 1
Black-and-white warbler: 5
Redstart: 1
Common yellowthroat: 2
Black-throated blue warbler: 1

I guess after the strange weather this spring, my hopes were sort of low, so in that sense, I should be content.

More warblers

Today first thing I went out and immediately saw a couple of birds, making me think it was going to be a red-letter day.  It wasn't, of course, but even so, I did see a couple of warblers I could identify, and a couple I couldn't.  This first one there was no mistaking -- a black-and-white warbler that managed to snag a nice caterpillar, for the avian equivalent of the lumberjack's breakfast.

This next one I saw hunting among the flowers of the black cherry.  I puzzled for a long while over what it could be, before deciding it must be a female blackpoll.  And until someone tells me differently, a blackpoll is what it is.

And just to clear off one I had on my camera from the other day, here's a black-throated blue.

Meanwhile, the chimney swifts, which I thought were lost and gone forever, have shown up in some numbers, so I'm happy about that.  But if there's a harder bird to get a picture of, I don't know what it is.

Mr. Wilson's Warbler

Warblers haven't been especially numerous yet, but today, walking through Somerville, I heard and saw several.  There was a black-and-white on the bike path near Davis Square, then another warbler singing from a tree in a yard on Prospect Hill. Then later from my own yard I saw the Wilson's warbler above, and the magnolia warbler below.

I'd also been surprised in the last week to see a couple hermit thrushes, who by my reckoning were weeks late.  But maybe they were something else.  The one below is Swainson's:

It was being relentlessly bullied by the local robins, in a disheartening display of thrush-on-thrush violence.

Then there was this one:

Is this a veery?  Looks like it, though the photo is poor -- but it could also be the same thrush shown above, seen at a different time and in a different light.

Redstart

I was excited to see this natty redstart early this evening.  Unfortunately, the light was poor, and so is the picture.  I also caught a glimpse of a magnolia warbler, so maybe the warblers are starting to come through in heavier numbers.

Also, good news for the catbird:  it found a friend.

And while I was standing there looking for warblers, a skein of cormorants went over.  I thought they were Canada geese, until I looked at the photo.

Catbird

Catbird's back, but is it sitting in the catbird seat?  Hard to say.  The surroundings seem pretty good for them, but they've had some bad luck here.  A couple years ago, the neighbors told me a cat got the local nesting pair, and then last year, the catbird we had sang and sang, but never seemed to find a mate.  So here's wishing it luck this year.

I've seen a few black-and-white warblers, but not much else.  However, it's early yet.  I wouldn't expect any great variety of warblers for a week or so.  White-throated sparrows have been pretty numerous.  There was a little flock on my yard the other day.  The chimney swifts, meanwhile, seem to have deserted our neighborhood.  I know they're back, because I saw a few in Cambridge this evening.  I'll miss them in summer if they're truly gone.

First warblers

On a very hot Patriots Day, the first warbler showed up -- the palm warbler (?) above, and then this kinglet:

And, in addition to the hermit thrushes, who are pretty numerous, we've also had a number of white-throated sparrows about:

First migrants

Here's the first real migrant of spring I've seen in my yard:  a somewhat skinny hermit thrush.  Normally by this time, I'd have seen a few migrant woodpeckers, but then again, I haven't been out in the yard much.  Who knows what this aberrant spring will end up producing.  If it proved a hardship for migrants, I wouldn't be surprised.  It's awfully dry out, and the plants are farther along in their cycle than is usual.  Then too, it's looking a little bare on my Prospect Hill hillside, with half a dozen large trees fewer than last year, courtesy of some hireling with a chainsaw.

Late winter

Late winter, and nothing much doing.  The neighbors have a feeder up, hence the flock of sparrows above. Chickadees, juncos, and the occasional nuthatch have also been partaking.  Meanwhile, there's a robin stationed almost permanently in my privet, slowly stripping it of berries.  Those berries must not be very palatable until they've had a winter's worth of freezing and thawing.  No one ever gives them a look in the fall.

But it is March, and we should begin to see the first migrants within a couple weeks.  Judging by history, it'll be hermit thrushes and woodpeckers first, warblers later.  I'm a bit worried this year, and why?  Have a look:

As clearcuts go, this one is not much to write home about -- maybe six to eight mature trees, and a number of smaller ones. That said, if there's one thing Somerville doesn't have a large supply of, it's stands of big trees.   And I know for a fact that that particular stand of trees was well used by the different migrants. What possessed someone to go to the trouble and expense of clearing it is beyond me.  All I know is that they've made our poor little habitat still poorer.