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.

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.