By Peter Alden
A number of sparkbirders joined my West Concord party on Saturday, December 29. Temps were a nice 45 degrees, but day-long dense fog meant no soaring raptors, and flocks of geese flying over could not be estimated/counted. The town of Concord had 12 sectors with good birders, along with several dozen homes with folk monitoring their yard birds (100 people!). Our 15-mile circle involved all or part of 14 towns northwest of Rte. 128.
My party had 30 species out of 60 noted by the 12 parties. Highlights in our town were 4 Northern Harriers, 4 Merlins (our party had a great view of one perched and flying by the recently closed prison), 2 Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers, 17 Pileated Woodpeckers (which Thoreau never saw in Massachusetts; he did see one in Maine), several Marsh Wrens and 6 Fox Sparrows.
New high counts of formerly southern birds such as Red-bellied Woodpeckers and Carolina Wrens in the Concord area were recorded. Robins and bluebirds formerly headed south for the winter. With all our fruiting plants we sometimes noted thousands of robins wintering but only 278 this winter. Bluebirds did number 125 which was down somewhat. We did find 94 Wild Turkeys (missing many others). For two decades we have not had a single pheasant or Ruffed Grouse. Both were common in town into the 1970s. This was our 65th year of the Concord CBC (started by me back in 1960). One new species for the entire count circle was a very late American Bittern in Wayland. Below is the summary post on the Concord CBC as recorded in Bird Observer.
The 65th Concord count, encircling parts or the whole of eighteen towns, started in the early hours of December 29 in the wake of a deep freeze with mild temperatures, sporadic showers, dense fog, and a supernatural quiet. Overflying birds were obscured and may have passed over in silence; owls were generally quiet. Ducks were confined to open leads in the three rivers and streams as the big lakes were capped in ice. There was none of the drama of last year's count that showed thousands of lingering blackbirds and robins and thirteen count high record busters. The upshot this year is a final tally of almost precisely half last year's astonishing 65,463 birds that left this observer with a feeling that this was truly a "normal" mid-winter bird count.
Eastern Massachussets Bird Counts
A dozen or so "Christmas" Bird Counts took place in eastern Massachusetts again on selected dates from December 15 to January 5. It was not a great winter for birds as virtually no "Winter Finches" such as grosbeaks, siskins nor redpolls had come south this year. Coastal counts recorded rather low numbers of our diving sea ducks such as scoters, eiders, and others.
Gulls were also way down as Avian/Bird Flu continues to spread especially amongst larger water birds. Recently local Canada Geese have been dying from it. On the plus side, about 12 species of warblers were found on the Greater Boston count (usually only 3-4 noted most winters. The rarest birds found was a dark-phase Ferruginous Hawk from Wyoming, a first for our state. In recent days some Snowy Owls have come south to open areas in Salisbury, Plum Island, Ipswich, Winthrop and outer Cape Cod. We may have to organize a sparkbirding Snowy Owl hunt when the weather improves.
Year-round resident songbirds and woodpeckers appear to be immune to the flu so far. Many of these species are subsidized by bird feeders and are doing just fine. Fruit-eating birds were scarce due to the long late summer into autumn drought that negatively affected the taste and quality of local native, horticultural and invasive fruiting plants. The mockingbirds that favor multiflora rose were finding dried up raisins. Cedar waxwings were almost unrecorded.
Comentarios