Wild Turkeys in New England – the great waddle north

The wild turkey has been acorn-munching, shotgun-dodging its way to New England over the past two decades. Like many species that we today take for granted, the turkey is a southern species that's population has moved northward. These large, lumbering bundles of feathers have been surprising motorists on Memorial Drive in Cambridge and suburban backyards throughout Southern New England. On many a morning families have woken up to an army of large, unwieldy birds sauntering across their lawn, eating seed from feeders, then disappearing into the woods.

Wild Turkeys are native to North America though much of the U.S. population was hunted off by 1900. Since the 1940s reintroduction programs of wild birds (captive birds never took hold) have populated all 48 contiguous states and the population is on the rise. 

This time of year look for upturned snow under oak trees where large wintering flocks root around for acorns before flying up onto slender tree limbs where they roost precariously for the night.

Maps, maps, maps...

I started bird watching when I was eleven years old. Books, binoculars, and notebooks lined my shelves, and hawk posters my walls. I pleaded with my parents to pull the car over into the busy breakdown lane so I could stare at an osprey from the backseat of our Cutlass Cruiser. As an adult, birds have remained in my life as pastime and now as part of my career. With an eye for educational development I look back on early years and wonder why birds fascinated me so and I realize they were just part and parcel of a larger fascination with place. 

Place is a vague word and to narrow the concept I would define "place" as the connection between physical space and people. Place is created and every changing, malleable both in terms of physical landscape (think bulldozers) and meaning (think the Lorraine Motel). Unfolding these layers of meaning involves the making and reading of maps, the walking of boundaries, the mystery of birds and trees, and questioning of history and culture. Place is at once seemingly unyielding like granite peaks and skyscrapers yet wonderfully temporal, contingent on ethereal things like the smell of hay or humidity, a creole accent or the sound of moving water. Spaces can be pinned to the wall on a map and photographed a million times yet these same spaces are somehow unique to each person, each time - this is place. 

My new project, Moogle Gaps: the Spaces Between Maps and People is more of a collection of old ideas, like finally emptying the contents of a desk drawer and gluing it all into a scrap book. I'm collecting and sharing with you stories and drawing, histories, natural histories, adventures and of course maps. This project is made simple by the web, and the reason we all love it - the ability to easily share video clips, articles, photos, and sound bites.

What I'm calling "Moogle Gaps" is of course a play on the new standard for mapping, Google Maps. Unlike Google Maps, Moogle Gaps will animate the gray and green spaces turning them into places. I hope you enjoy and as always please contact me for questions, thoughts, or to share something about your places. 

Song Sparrow – little brown baseline

Bill Hubick

The song sparrow is one of the most abundant, gregarious members of the sparrow family. Central breast spot and overall streaky appearance are helpful field notes but more than visual clues it is habitat that will help you identify these little brown birds. Song sparrows are the sparrow-de-facto for most marshy, brambled, wet fields, and reed lined ponds and streams. With a bold, catch me if you can attitude they are at once illusive, flying low across the path, and rustling just out of sight and at the same time proud, perching on a high stalk to sing their clear, two noted introductory song. Song sparrows will come to feeders but are most often found near water, from salt marsh to city stream. As the more common sparrow you are likely to encounter while still presenting a confusing mix of streaky, splotchy, field marks the Song Sparrow is a perfect baseline sparrow to learn well so that you can move onto other sparrows. 

Fear Not the Sparrow – a guide to New England Sparrow Identification

For the beginner bird watcher sparrows pose an intimidating identification challenge and the idea of actively seeking them out may seem like an act of self punishment. However, sparrows are a wonderful and lively addition to the New England landscape during the early winter and learning to identify the more abundant species is not as hard as it may seem. Sparrows, like the  warblers, split their time between north and south. However, unlike the colorful "neo-topical" migrants that winter in Mexico, the Caribbean and Central America sparrows are boreal nesters that come down to our southern climes for the winter. Over the next few weeks the Daily Bird New England will be profiling several species of sparrows that the beginner bird watcher can find (and identify!) throughout the region.

Species will include:

• Song sparrow - the base line little brown bird
• Chipping sparrow - why not to look for them right now
• Tree sparrow - the winter chipper
• White-throated sparrow - boreal ambassador
• White-crowned sparrow - secretive but there
• Savannah sparrow - like Africa in winter
• Swamp sparrow - the aptly named sparrow
• Fox sparrow - fat and red
• Other confusing species – female finches, siskins, and English house sparrows