October 31, 2013
Dark-eyed junco
These small, arctic-breeding sparrows have arrived in New England for the winter. Juncos are like a slate grey Easter egg half dipped in white and sprigged with a longish tail that's grey in the center and framed by white. Watch for these winter charmers picking seeds from under the evergreens and beneath the bird feeder. Juncos forage in loose, mixed flocks with other sparrows. As ground feeders, they scurry from the fields on short, quick flights into the cover of tall weeds or brush, giving a short, trill series of metallic sounding "chips". When the juncos arrive, winter is near.
October 11, 2013
Sponsorship for Nancy Claflin
From 2008 – 2011 I volunteered with the Massachusetts Breeding Bird Atlas II. This four year project surveyed Massachusetts for evidence of breeding bird
species on 1055 individual blocks of land. The entire state was “atlassed” and
the outcome has created several very important documents including the Breeding Bird Atlas 2 eBook
and the State of the Birds 2013.
Mass Audubon is currently raising funds to support the creation of a public Breeding Bird Atlas 2 website. As
part of this effort I am working to raise $200 to dedicate a page to my bird watching mentor Nancy Claflin. Being bird watchers Mass Audubon has allowed participants to select a specie to dedicate. I selected the American kestrel for Nancy. If you would like
to support this wonderful effort with a small donation it would mean not only
seeing this important environmental resource made public but also memorializing
a very special lover of birds in the process.
To support this project please
Mail checks made out to: Mass Audubon
With the memo line: BBA2 sponsorship for Nancy Claflin
To:
Karen ONeill
I'd also love to hear from anyone who remembers Nancy, makes a donation in her memory, or has other questions. AlexanderJosephDunn@gmail.com
My History with Nancy
At a very precarious voice cracking, adolescence moment I
was blessed to have been connected to Nancy Claflin by my fifth grade teacher Jen Tobin who knew we both shared a love of birds. Nancy was fifty years my senior and a gentle
yet wind hardened Yankee. She was also an avid fisherman and bird watcher. Despite our obvious differences Nancy began to teach me the ways of bird watching. She
would pick me up at 6:30 AM and walk me quietly through the woods of Lincoln or around the rock shores of Cape
Ann . She pointed out Northern flickers and Harlequin ducks, we
counted Red-tailed hawks on Rt. 128 as we drove north to Plum
Island and in the spring she showed me
how to connect the tiny foot paths of Mt. Auburn Cemetery . Nancy ’s fearless commitment to see birds
included breaking suddenly on a highway off ramp, a daring and highly illegal
move. She’d hop out of her Jeep and scan the grassy terrain from among the
hubcaps of the breakdown lane. She would utter a slow, calm inviting “Ohh..?”
and I’d instantly know she had seen something good.
Highway cloverleaves create islands of nature in a sea of concrete and racing cars, and more often than not a tiny Kestrel 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" (BBA 1). 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 learners permit carefully folded into my nylon wallet we’d continue on towardsPlum Island
or some other far off adventure. This is how bird watching got under my skin
and despite a childhood fear that one day I would give it up the hunger is,
thanks to Nancy ,
still very much alive.
Highway cloverleaves create islands of nature in a sea of concrete and racing cars, and more often than not a tiny Kestrel 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" (BBA 1). 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 learners permit carefully folded into my nylon wallet we’d continue on towards
Why the Kestrel?
I recently came across Nancy’s entry on the American kestrel in the Massachusetts Breeding Bird Atlas 1, completed in
1979. The original Atlas was published and volunteers wrote “species accounts”
for each included bird. Nancy
wrote the essay on the American kestrel. 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 leaf litter leaped into flight. 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.”
Part of the work being done by Mass Audubon is comparing the
first Atlas with the more recent atlas that I worked on. Significant trends both
positive and negative can be seen. One species in particular has come forward
as a signal of habitat loss, the American kestrel. The kestrel, the same
kestrel that Nancy
wrote about for the first Atlas relies heavily on farm fields and open pastures.
This type of habitat has been decimated by the decline of local agriculture and
the invasive spread of suburban sprawl. Nancy
was correct in predicting this “possible decline” and the small, misnamed
sparrow hawk stands now as symbol of a changing Massachusetts landscape and quiet loss
happening beneath our very nose.
I have great faith that through the continued work of
organizations like Mass Audubon, citizen scientists, and bird watchers around
the state we will be able to stem the tied of habitat and species loss.
October 9, 2013
White-throated sparrow – boreal ambassador
Julieta Leon |
The male White-throated
sparrow has a surprisingly striped head, with lines of white and brown running
from its beak to the back of its neck, tinged with yellow in the front. The
bird gets its name from a small flash of white feathers just under its beak.
This sparrow is best known as a winter arrival to New
England , moving in loose flocks from underneath bird feeders to forest
edge. These ground feeding birds can be found in meadow shrubs or turning over
leaves on the forest floor. The White-throat is also known for its haunting
song, a melancholy series of clearly articulated notes, slow and proud, with a
hint of waiver. New England folklore translates this song as, “Poor Sam Peabody,
Peabody , Peabody ” while Canadian bird
watchers hear, “Oh sweet, Canada ,
Canada , Canada .” The Canadians may have
bragging rights to this bird as an estimated 83% of the North American population nests in the boreal region of Canada .
In New
England the White throat’s population is on the decline. According
to the 2011 publication, State of the Birds data from breeding bird atlas shows less breeding incidents than in
1974 (the last atlas). A smaller west coast population are showing an
increase. This east coast / west coast dichotomy in part reflects the fact that
the once agrarian east coast is now largely forest, growing older every year. Funny
to think that the birds decline may reflect an end to the man made process of
land clearing for agriculture.
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