Where to bird watch this weekend - Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge

Ducks, raptors, songbirds, and shorebirds are all beginning to make their way south in the great autumn migration. Leaving at different times, stopping at different locations, and utilizing different habitats migration is a complex yet reassuringly static process. “Rafts“ of ducks like teal and widgeon use open ponds while swallows migrating by day congregate in large “flights”. Warblers, vireos and thrush migrate at night and spend the early morning and pre-dusk picking flies, berries, worms, and bugs off the trees. “Flings” of shorebirds like yellowlegs and Semipalmated sandpipers work the mud edge of ponds and raptors soar leisurely overhead on clear blue afternoons.

One location that finds all these various migratory journeys overlapping is located just 30 minutes northwest of Boston.  The Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge is located just down stream from the iconic, though seldom seen Egg Rock. The refuge lies on the banks of the Concord River and serves as impoundment for annual spring flood waters. Its confluence of river, forest, still water, and marsh make it a wonderful bird watching site. Parking can be reached from Monson Rd off Rt. 62 (have faith there are few signs). Crossing the long dyke between the two pools and then making a slow circle around the East pond, returning to the woods, and circling back the parking lot can produce some wonderful birds. Fall finds swallows and ducks, along with herons, hawks, and wrens.

Fairly common and widespread; possibly declining...

Nancy’ parting words on the state of the kestrel in Massachusetts is a hesitant, final whisper to an essay written with great joy. Sitting just below the graphics like an italicized, almost clairvoyant after thought is her note: “fairly common and widespread in grasslands and similar open situations; possibly declining”. 

The Breeding Bird Atlas 1 was conducted between 1974 and 1979. The state was broken into 1055 blocks and volunteer bird watchers canvassed each block noting ever observed specie and any incident of breeding behavior. As of 2011 the BBA2 is being completed, the same 1055 blocks have been re-canvassed for a minimum of 20 hours each by a growing volunteer corps of bird watchers. The collected data is being compiled by the USGS on a searchable, public website and the results are fascinating and often alarming.

Significant trends can be seen in both increase and decline of particular species and one species in particular has come forward as a signal of habitat loss. The American Kestrel and its reliance on open farm fields and pastures has been decimated by the decline of local agriculture and the invasive spread of suburban sprawl. Nancy was correct in predicting of this “possible decline” and the small, misnamed sparrow hawk stands may now be symbol of a changing landscape and quiet loss happening beneath our very nose. 

My original motivation for searching Nancy’s name on the internet was to see if any kind of foundation or land conservation had been made in Nancy’s honor. It turns out this search was not in vein.

Another of Nancy’s young tutees has become a major figure in the field of owl research and conversation. Denver Holt grew up near Belmont, “living in the woods with foxes” Nancy used to tell me with a wink. Denver also received Nancy’s kind and thoughtful tutelage and later moved out to Montana where he became an accomplished author, researcher and president of the Owl Research Institute. His work with Snowy Owls has been featured in National Geographic articles, children’s books, and numerous other publications and his research and public outreach continues to educate and protect the silent hunters of the world. The Owl Research Institute now has the Ninepipes Center for Wildlife Research and Education where the Nancy Claflin Cabin “a writer’s retreat, containing owl species accounts, reprints from science journals, and innumerable books about owls” is located. Fittingly, “the cabin sits next to a pond and commands a panoramic view of the Mission range”.

Where to bird watch this weekend - Hawk migration

http://hmana.blogspot.com/

These bright, blue fall days are created by high pressure systems moving out of the Northwest, high and dry. We associate this kind of blue weather with a clearing of the humid summer air, a sharpening of the mind, back to school sweaters, and McIntosh apples. On days in September and October that bring a northwest wind large flights of raptors can be seen over the mid New England Mountains and along coastal outcroppings - otherwise known as hawk migration. It seems strange to think of birds big and bold like hawks, eagles, falcons, and osprey  turning their beaks towards Florida and leaving the New England landscape on unseen highways. But, like the silver haired snowbirds who pack golf clubs and light cotton sweaters into Cadillacs and head for Boca, our steely-eyed raptors do the same. 

Once a phenomenon known only to hunters, hawk migration can best be observed from a mountain top on a clear blue day. The birds use their large wingspan to climb columns of rising warm air known as "thermals", descending southward only to climb another updraft and do it all over again. Along with thermals raptors use updrafts from north facing mountain slopes to gain altitude, then sliding down to the next peak to the south. When conditions are right hundreds of hawks can be seen in a single day, in particular the Broad-winged Hawk that moves in high concentrations. 

To find a hawk watch site near you visit: Hawk Migration Association of North America or the NorthEast Hawk Watch

To learn more about identifying these often distance, "mosquito-sized" raptors visit: Hawk Mountain or the NorthEast Hawk Watch

Nancy's legacy

The internet is no doubt the most impressive technology since the combustible engine. It flies us through space and time, leaping continents, archiving life’s tremendous and minute moments and compressing conversations into 60 character burps. I recently typed the name of my bird watching mentor into Google. Nancy passed away prior to the internet’s full blossoming but I remember sitting down at her new computer trying to explain to her the difference between a cursor and the mouse (a surprisingly complex concept for the PC un-inducted). The purpose of my search was to see if a scholarship or tract of land had been named in her honor. I waded through the typical Google detritus of Facebook links and white pages and after some digging stumbled upon a strange and sweet reconnection with a friend no longer here, Nancy’s entry on the American Kestrel for the Breeding Bird Atlas 1 (BBA 1). After a four year survey of the entire state the data from the BBA 1 was published and bound by Mass Audubon. Although containing some methodological oversights the work served as an early example of citizen science and it’s data is being compared to the current data from the BBA 2 (State of the Birds is due for publication in 2011).

Finding Nancy’s entry on this little falcon the “most colorful of North American hawks” was like finding an unopened letter in a locked drawer. Her voice buried under the Internet’s leaf litter now leaping up into flight. I remember Nancy’s fearless commitment to see birds. She would pull off the onramp to Route 93 in Medford, a daring and highly illegal move. She’d hop down from the seat in her Jeep and scan the grassy terrain from the salty, hubcap graveyard of the breakdown lane. The onramp created an island of nature in the sea of concrete and cars and more often than not a tiny sparrow hawk would be frozen in mid air making “forays into the open, heading into the wind with the body tilted diagonally upward and hovering with the tail fanned out.”

She would utter a slow, calm inviting, questioned “Ohh..?” and I’d instantly know she had seen something good. Inevitably, the state police would pull up behind us and she’d quietly hand me the car keys, “Tell them your grandmother was about to be sick”. We’d tuck our binoculars into our jackets, apologize to the trooper’s unflinching face, and with my paper driver’s permit carefully folded into my nylon and Velcro wallet start the Jeep up the onramp, onto 93 North towards Plum Island or some other far off adventure.

To be continued…

           

American Kestrel and a legacy

From the Massachusetts Breeding Bird Atlas 1
Atlas 1 data collected from 1975-1979

American Kestrel
Falco sparverius
Egg Dates: April 19 to July 5
Number of broods: one; may re-lay if first attempt fails.

The American Kestrel belongs to a group of small falcons with a worldwide distribution. Our British forefathers mistakenly named it “Sparrow Hawk” after Europe’s small accipiter of the same name. In North America, the species nests from the Arctic tree line south across much of Canada and the United States, where it is the commonest falcon. During the Atlas period, kestrels were “confirmed” breeding in all sections of the state. Populations were densest in eastern Massachusetts, including Cape Cod and the Islands, and were sparsest in portions of the hill country in central regions.
The adult male, which has blue wings, two sharp, vertical, black stripes contrasting against a light face, and a bright rufous tail, is certainly the most colorful of North American hawks. The somewhat larger female is not as brilliant as the male and has its upperparts entirely rufous, and barred with black. Kestrels tend to perch high and conspicuously in the open, making them easily visible. They can be tamed readily and will reproduce in confinement. Many falconers have noted that the small males are more docile and tractable than the females.

Spring migration occurs mainly during March and April, and by the latter month local breeders are on their territories at woodland borders, fields, pastures, and the edges of highways. As the breeding season approaches, kestrels abandon their solitary winter habits. Members of a pair often perch side by side, and courtship consists of aerial displays by the male above a perched or flying female. The male ascends on rapidly fluttering wings and then plunges steeply, giving the familiar, repetitive killy-killy or kee-kee call, which is used not only in courtship but also at other times of excitement. Copulation during this period is frequent and precedes egg laying by several weeks.

Preferring a covered nest site, kestrels choose a hole in a tree, post, or roof. Cavities excavated by flickers may be used, and the birds will readily occupy nest boxes. Because the latter are the most accessible to observe, most Atlas information on nesting comes from pairs using these artificial sites. In one sample of Massachusetts nests, 23 were in boxes and 1 was in a cavity in a maple (CNR). Clutches of three to five (rarely six or seven) eggs are laid. Incubation, mostly by the female, lasts 29 to 30 days. If the first clutch is lost, she often lays a new set of eggs. In Massachusetts, 17 records of nestlings range from May 19 to August 4 (CNR), and brood sizes in 125 nests were as follows: one (6 nests), two (15 nests), three (32 nests), four (30 nests), five (41 nests), and six (1 nest) (Olmstead). The juveniles are ready to fly about 30 days after hatching. The family stays together for some time after fledging, even when the young are feeding on their own.

Kestrels vary their hunting and feeding habits depending on the prey available. Ordinarily, they perch high, dropping down after spotting an insect or small mammal and then returning to the same spot, pumping or bobbing the tail upon alighting. At other times, they make forays into the open, heading into the wind with the body tilted diagonally upward and hovering with the tail fanned out. They also pursue small birds, plucking an unsuspecting individual from a perch or capturing it in midair.

By late August and early September, kestrels begin to depart for the southern states and beyond, with northern migrants passing in September and October. Some of these northern birds winter here, and a few of the breeders may be permanent residents. Kestrels are encountered in winter throughout the state but are more common in coastal sections.

Note: fairly common and widespread in grasslands and smiliar open situations; possibly declining

Nancy A. Claflin