State of the list, 2014

Redhead is the latest addition to the Somerville list, though it properly belongs to 2015.  When I last gave an accounting of the list, in October of 2013, I had 104 species, having added species at a furious clip over the previous year.  In 2014, I tapered off a bit, not unnaturally, but still added 11 species:  blue-headed vireo, brown thrasher, chestnut-sided warbler, eastern towhee, golden-crowned kinglet, great cormorant, northern rough-winged swallow, osprey, tree swallow, winter wren, and wood thrush.  I now have 120 total, including the redhead. I'd be a bit stunned if I added more than half a dozen new species this year, but we'll see.

I've also substantially updated the species list, with a new introductory tab, and revised entries for each bird to give some idea of its numbers here in Somerville, and whether it nests here.  This data is provisional, based on my best knowledge, but I think gives a truer picture of each bird's place here.

Two down, one to go

Earlier this year, I mentioned in a post that in visiting the Sapsucker Woods Sanctuary at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, I saw a good number of birds, but only three I had never seen in Somerville: tree swallow, golden-crowned kinglet, and red-bellied woodpecker.   I also mentioned that I thought that at some point, all three would show up here.  Well, here it is six months later, and I've just bagged the second of the three:  golden-crowned kinglet (I saw tree swallows on a number of occasions over the summer).

I see ruby-crowned kinglets every year, both in my yard and by the Mystic, usually in the months of April and October.  They're usually in little flocks.  This golden-crowned, however, was by itself, in some trees and bushes in a little fenced area next to I-93.  There's no birdwatching in Somerville unaccompanied by the sound of traffic, or, these days on the Mystic, the smell of hamburgers.

Chicken on the Mystic

Out for my usual Sunday walk by the Mystic this morning, I ran across something I had never seen before:  a feral chicken, hanging out with a small group of mallards.  In the absence of other chickens, I guess ducks are the next best thing.  As more and more people keep chickens in Somerville, it's inevitable that we see a few escapees.

Fishing without a license

This morning by the Earhart Dam, I saw the Environmental Police bust a couple of guys for fishing without a license.  I find myself wondering if I'd need a license to fish with a trained cormorant.   Certainly the cormorants are the only fishers I see who ever actually catch anything.  In the picture above, it looks like the eel is winning, but no dice; seconds later it was in the cormorant's stomach -- whole and undoubtedly quite alive.

I was thinking I might see some sandpipers this morning, but no luck -- or maybe I was just a bit early.  I did see quite a good a number of common terns, though, which was a bit unusual.  Otherwise just the usual suspects.  Except, surprisingly, for Canada geese.  I didn't see a one.  Maybe they were busted for crapping on the grass.

Moving day

There always seems to be a day, early in May, when everything shows up at once. Last year it was the tenth; this year it was the eighth. I went out into the yard in the morning, and the trees were filled with warblers -- six different kinds of them. Chestnut-sided warbler, shown above, was one I had never seen before, but it was unusually obliging about having its picture taken. I also saw magnolia, black-throated green, yellow-rumped, northern parula, and ovenbird.

The usual pattern is for the warblers to thin out after the first initial surge, and indeed I didn't see a one today. But I ought to see one or two a day for much of the rest of May. I certainly expect to see black-and-white, yellow, blackpoll, black-throated blue, and maybe a few others.  I do like to get at least one new one every year, though I know within a few years, I'll be bumping up against the limit of what is plausible.

Chimney swifts are also back, as is the catbird, which showed up a few days earlier.  I'm always happy to have them around.

Towhee, rufous-sided

Last weekend, finding myself in Ithaca, I took the opportunity to visit the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's bird sanctuary at Sapsucker Woods.  It was a treat.  It happened to be a good time of year to see woodpeckers in particular.  Now, it stands to a reason that a bird sanctuary run by one of the world's great ornithology research centers should offer the chance to see birds in greater numbers and varieties than you'd ever see at any one time here in Somerville -- and it did in fact.  But here's the thing:  of the two dozen-odd birds that I saw, only three were species I had never seen in Somerville.  And I have every expectation that those three -- red-bellied woodpecker, tree swallow, and golden-crowned kinglet -- will be spotted here sometime, on the theory that more or less everything shows up in Somerville at some point.

Which bring us to the towhee pictured above.  For years I had been thinking that one day, I was certain to see a towhee here in Somerville.  After all, they're common enough not ten miles north, in the Middlesex Fells.  So today I go out in my backyard, and there it is -- a towhee at last.

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.