An eel-stealing

Here is a drama in three quick acts, witnessed on the Mystic today.  The dramatis personae are a great cormorant, a great black-backed gull, and an eel.

In Act I, the cormorant has fished up a good-sized eel.  The gull skulks at right, waiting for its chance.

In Act II, the gull seizes its moment:  as the cormorant flips the eel up, the gull pounces.

And in Act III, we have our denouement. The cormorant has lost out.

In fact, this scenario played itself out two or three times in the few minutes I was there, with a couple different gulls.  I couldn't help calling to mind the cormorant fisheries of the East, where the cormorant fishes only to serve its master.

On another front, a few signs of spring are evident.  While the winter ducks are still present in large numbers, the grackles and blackbirds have come back, in the first seasonal movement of note.  Birds are singing, too -- mockingbirds, cardinals, song sparrows. They're ready, we're ready, and only the weather is missing its cue.

In the bleak midwinter

Here's what you get in the winter:  shrunken horizons.  When the Mystic freezes over, all the waterbirds, of whatever species, are forced into the narrowing patches of open water.  That's how you get ten hooded mergansers in a hole the size of a tea table.  The rains of the past few days may have opened up more water, but last week when it was still cold, there was an incredible profusion of birds in a bit of open water near the Route 28 bridge  -- swans and gulls and geese and coots and a half dozen species of ducks.  Worth a look (though it can be a bit murderous on that bridge when the wind is up).

Happy Halloween!

Yeah, late, but whatever. This is as good a topical Halloween picture as I have, so up it goes -- a kinglet looking both crazed and menacing. The other week there was a little migrating flock of these maniacs on the banks of the Mystic. They're a sign that winter is nigh. Practically all the summer birds are gone (still a few cormorants around as of last week), while the winter birds (juncos et al.) are beginning to move in.

The main interest in this in-between season is provided by waterfowl. On the Mystic last week I saw a number of ducks -- mallards, of course, but also a gadwall and an American black duck, plus a trio whose identity continues to elude me. Also on view, some coots and a few pied-billed grebes, though no mergansers yet.

Reflections on the century

Friends, there it is, the 100th species on my Somerville list:  the swamp sparrow. When I last wrote about the state of the species list, in February of this year, I had 71 species on the list.  At that time, I reckoned it would take me another six years to reach my goal of 100.  Instead, it took me not much longer than six months.  (And in fact, since I got to 100 with my dear friend the swamp sparrow, I've actually gotten three species more -- belted kingfisher, pied-billed grebe, and Cooper's hawk, plus eastern wood-peewee, misclassified earlier.)

So what to think about this?  Does it turn out that Somerville is actually a birder's paradise?  Even though, according to the Charles River Watershed Association, fully 77% of Somerville is paved over?

Well, the satellite doesn't lie.  There is precious little green in Somerville (and ironically enough, the largest green patch on this map has since been paved).  Here's a data point to consider:  at Mt. Auburn Cemetery (visible a bit below Fresh Pond on the lower left), there have been 218 species recorded, according to eBird.  It's nice and green there.  But it also has to be said that people -- and competent people at that -- have been looking much harder and longer in Mt. Auburn than they have in Somerville.  So forgive me if I think that 100 (or 104, really) isn't too disgraceful, given the material I have to work with.

In other words, while Somerville might look entirely hopeless from a birding perspective, it actually isn't. Its saving graces number no more than two, but they're important.

The first is the Mystic.  Degraded as this river is, and though mostly man-made in its current form, it still offers aquatic life, animal and vegetable, on which a certain number of birds depend.  And, because in Somerville the Mystic has both a freshwater and a saltwater piece, it serves two different bird populations, both of which have a large migratory component.  So as birds move south, or range up and down the coast in winter, the Mystic offers a sheltered stopover where they can rest and feed.  Further, the fringe of vegetation on the river bank, though rarely more than ten yards wide, gives shelter to a surprisingly large range of birds -- particularly various species of native sparrows.

The second saving grace is the migrant-trap effect.  Because Somerville, and the adjoining towns, are so paved, the few spots of green tend to concentrate migrants as they pass over.  This phenomenon is the secret to why Mt. Auburn sees so many species; but it's true for us as well, though to a much smaller extent. Prospect Hill, both the park and people's yards adjoining it, is the salient example of this phenomenon in Somerville.  The bike path, to a limited extent, has the same function, as does Alewife Brook.

Now, don't think I'm talking up Somerville as a birding destination.  It just isn't, particularly since within five miles of Somerville there are a number of vastly more plausible and rewarding birding destinations.  But for those of us who live here, there's something to be said for appreciating what we've got.

And what we've got, at the current hour, is 104 species.

The rowan stripped bare by her thrushes even

Around here, we see winter in and out the same way -- with thrushes.  Swainson's thrush, seen here, is not one of our usual clients.  Discounting the robins, the thrushes we see in bulk are hermit thrushes, and they tend to arrive earlier, and leave later, than other migrants.  By the time they get here -- October, mostly --  there will be no berries left on the mountain ash; the robins will have eaten them all.  This Swainson's was sharp enough to arrive before the buffet closed.  The hermit thrushes will have to eat something else.

I've seen a few other odd migrants pass through -- a redstart, a phoebe.  Keep your glasses nigh... there'll be more.

Somerville beach

It is a fact not widely appreciated, but Somerville has a bit of seacoast.  From the Amelia Earhart Dam to the T maintenance yard, a hundred-odd yards, the water is more sea than river.  How do we know?  Because the water tastes of salt, and the creatures in it are brinier than they are upstream.  Here, for example, is a Somerville hermit crab (sporting a Somerville barnacle), captured just under the railway bridge:

And so, as a coastal town, however nominally, we have a right to a certain number of shorebirds, such as the least sandpiper shown above.  But as it happens, the shorebirds are much more attracted to the mats of water chestnuts in the fresh water upstream -- a feature the authorities abhor to such an extent that they have employed mechanized harvesters to uproot it.

Recent weeks have seen significant numbers of waders there, not just the least sandpipers, but spotted sandpipers...

and lesser yellowlegs:

Waxwings and water chestnuts

The water chestnut is an invasive species hereabouts, choking ponds and waterways like the Mystic.  It's expensive and laborious to remove, and always comes back.  But the cedar waxwings, bless their hearts, love the stuff.  It makes huge rafts, rigid enough to land on, and contains something that they go crazy for.  I have no idea what it is, whether animal or vegetable.  This last week (and maybe longer, for all I know), waxwings have been present in big numbers on the Mystic -- more than I've ever seen in one place. A hundred at least.

And speaking of the Mystic, the path that runs from the dam up to the boathouse continues to get a makeover. They've somewhat unwisely planted much of it in grass.  I guess they just love the Canada geese that much. Anyway, the other day they had the sprinklers going, and one sprinkler head drew an unusual assemblage of birds:

That's a starling at top, a robin at left, and in the middle, red-winged blackbird and a yellow warbler.  There was in fact a pair of these warblers there, which is interesting, because it says to me they're probably nesting in the vicinity -- and if so, that's the first pair of warblers I've ever known to nest in Somerville.