Eastern Bluebird - winter's blue

The Eastern Bluebird is more an icon than a native New England bird. Immortalized on sweatshirts and as porcelain figurines as well popularized by a widely followed conservation movement the Eastern Bluebird remains a fan favorite. Known as a partial migrant the bluebird sometimes stay on their breeding grounds in unseasonably warm winters or during bumper fruit crop years and can be found in New England all year long. As omnivores, bluebirds subsidize their summer diet of insects and grubs with winter berries and fruits. A picture of tranquility however, bluebirds are not. Territorial wars with other cavity nesters like  English house sparrows and European Starlings can turn deadly.  A bird of open ground such as meadow or pasture, the decline of the bluebird was in part due to these invasive birds competing for limited cavity nest sites in a sprawling suburban world. The extensive loss of farmlands in the Northeast since the 1970s was also to blame. But, the outlook for the bluebird is good. Christmas Bird Counts show a near 14% increase in bluebird sightings between 1964 and 2008 while the 2011 Massachusetts Breeding Bird Atlas give bluebirds a “likely increase” status. It seems that substantive nest box building projects cut down on competition and have allowed these midsized song birds to flourish. In the winter watch for bluebirds flying from ground to fence post in barren farm fields or orchard edge. For all their marvelous color bluebirds can be inconspicuous, appearing grayish in the long winter light. Watch for a characteristic flight style, with long wings that seem to lap the air like a dog’s tongue, pushing downward and barely rising above the back.

Winter Migrants – the unseen migration

Boreal Songbird Initiative

With an earlier dusk and longer nights winter lends itself to sky gazing, even if from the car on the commute home. The moon and Orion seems to be always visible though come spring we may forget to look for Cygnus the swan. In the reverse late fall brings a dying of the light, withering plants, and departure of the summer songbirds. Most school children can tell you that “birds fly south in the winter” but there is more to the story. New England lies roughly between latitudes 44° degrees north (Bangor, ME) to 41° north (Providence, RI) literally slap dap in the middle of the Northern Hemisphere. This unique location makes New England a migratory stop over for both tropical birds heading north to breed in the summer and boreal birds heading south to lay over in the winter. Like the summer constellations these winter migrants often go unnoticed and most certainly unappreciated. 

The birds that make up New England’s winter migrants consist mainly of three groups: “winter ducks” that include ducks, grebes, and loons; “winter finches” including finches, sparrows, buntings, and larks; and “winter raptors” including some eagles, hawks, and owls. 

Winter migrants are also hiding in plain sight and include species that we see year round including such favorites as Black-capped chickadees, Blue jays, and American robins. Yet, these birds may in fact be northern birds wintering in our parks and back yards waiting to be seamlessly replaced by different individuals of the same species come spring. In simpler terms the Robin eating dried crab apples from your crab apple tree in February will fly north to northern Saskatchewan come March only to be replaced by a Robin currently in Virginia who will build it’s nest under your eave come summer. 

Whether bobbing quietly in the bays and ocean waters, picking seeds from frozen farm fields or hiding in plain sight the story of these winter migrants is no less incredible than those of their spring counterparts the warblers, bobolinks, and thrush. The winter migrants make a journey of thousands of miles from the boreal forests of northern Canada.

This deepening understanding of both spring and winter migrants is a reminder that “our” New England birds are in fact multi-national travelers involved in complex and ancient migrations. Their story confirms that conservation efforts must be made globally, that our understanding of even “common” birds is limited by our sedentary ways, and that watching a Chickadee take  a sunflower seed from your feeder is in fact bearing witness to a tiny snapshot in a worldly swept life.

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