The Virtual South Shore Bird Club Social Distancing "walk," October 3, 2020
The Virtual South Shore Bird Club
“walk” began Saturday, October 3, under an azure sky with hardly a breath of
wind in most places. Duck hunters hate
that weather because ducks tend to relax rather than fly about,
volunteering to be shot at. In fact,
they actually call it, derisively, “bluebird weather.” It was bluebird weather, in that
Glenn D’entremont found Eastern bluebirds on the Cape on a Brookline Bird Club
trip. Glenn finds so many birds that I
suspect it is the birds who watch him, because he also reported Pine siskins, a
Purple finch, a Northern parula, a Redstart,
Indigo bunting, Eastern pewee,
four different woodpeckers, etc., etc. Sheesh.
Brian Vigorito was up early (unless
he was listening from his bed) and reported an Eastern screech owl at Ferry
Hill Thicket in Marshfield. He also
found four Black-crowned and six Yellow-crowned night herons at Damon’s Point,
jutting into the North River. His real
crown was the adult Bald eagle, plus photo, in a nearby tree. He also provided a neat photo of a Carolina
wren.
We tend to think birds should be found at special places, and often they
are, yet Christine and Steven Whitebread, and Mary Jo Foti and Karen Fiske,
remind us that often birds present themselves when we’re doing other
things. The Whitebreads report Fish
crows, Double-crested cormorants, and Canada geese at the Hazardous Waste
Dropoff in Quincy, while Mary Jo and Karen report (including photo) a
Blue-headed vireo at the Falmouth Composting Facility. The fortunate Whitebreads also saw (seconded
by Pat) Black skimmers and a Black-headed gull at Wollaston Beach, Quincy.
As usual, there were non-avian
sightings, including asters and a
remarkable photo by Kathy Rawdon of a sadly deceased Mola mola in Fire Road
Lagoon in Provincetown. Kathy also
visited the Eastham stump dump. There
were flowers, too. David and Julianne
Mehegan provided photos of Field bindweed, Beech drops, and Stiff aster. Pete Jacobson and Christine photographed and
discussed other asters. Several birders must have “attended” Wayne
Petersen’s remarkable illustrated Goldenrod lecture last week, because Christine,
Carol, and Nate Marchessault all uploaded dazzling Goldenrod photos. Nate, who visited Pochet Island in East Orleans,
also shared a lovely shot of a RB nuthatch probably wondering, “Why is the world
upside down?”
North of Boston, Moe and Carol
Molander reported an American avocet at Plum Island (if this were chess, you’d
include a !! for a great move), a Sora, and provided an excellent photo of
three plastic penguins of uncertain parentage on a log in the Merrimack
River. (This reminded me of an exotic
duck I saw idling passively last spring near the far bank of a pond at the
Burrage Wildlife Management Area. In a state of great excitement, I hastened around the pond, but when I
drew close and fixed the object in my binoculars, it turned out to be a species not found in nature, only in the duck-hunting department at Bass
Pro Shops.)
Almost as odd -- but very much
alive -- was Beth’s photograph of a snow-white Wild turkey, fraternizing with
brown cousins in a Barnstable yard. She reported they are one in 100,000. Was
one of these fellows the ancestor of the hapless billions of white ones headed
for the Thanksgiving platters? Beth also
reported Great blue herons, among others, and a Red-headed (or Red-bellied?)
woodpecker at Crows Pasture.
Down Bristol County way (does
anyone use that name any more?), Pamela Coravos and Kim Wylie found a Marsh
wren, Sora, Common gallinule, Hudsonian Godwit, Northern shovelers, and American
coot at Richmond Pond, Acoaxet (part of Westport). Kim also snapped a picture of a Marbled godwit (right, Kim? or was that the
Hudsonian?). Kim judged Acoaxet to be “hard
to beat today,” and who could disagree?
Thoreau wrote in Walden, “I
have traveled a good deal in Concord,” and David and Julianne did the same in
Hingham, checking out Turkey Hill, Triphammer Pond, and McKenna Marsh, where
they saw usual suspects: RB wood, CA wren, Eastern phoebe, Belted kingfisher,
Common yellowthroat, Catbirds and Eastern towhees. Their most abundant sighting at Turkey Hill
(where they did see turkeys) was Canis familiaris, mostly unleashed. Around the old runways of the former South
Weymouth Naval Air station, they saw a Flicker, Red-shouldered hawk, Field and
Song sparrows, and several Killdeer.
For salt air and seabirds, they also went to Humarock Beach, Scituate,
and saw large flocks of White-winged scoters and a few Surf scoters. In the nearby tidal South River, there were
Greater yellowlegs and Great Egrets in the marsh or mud, one Tree swallow, and
six or eight Cedar waxwings flew over. After
dark, from their back deck adjacent to wetland woods in Norwell, they heard the
hooting of a Great horned owl. So the
day began and ended, fittingly enough, with Strigidae.
Nonbirders sometimes say, when they
encounter birders, “Seen any good birds?”
Today the answer was, as always,
“They’re all good.” Even the
plastic ones.
-- David Mehegan
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