More Rails!

On the day following the session with the Sora, I did some wading to a dry section along the back dikes where a family of Virginia Rails have been active.  I saw one juvenile and an adult.  Some pictures.

Great Meadows Rail Show

When people talk about the "rail trail" at Great Meadows in Concord these days, they don't mean the old Reformatory Branch rail bed.  This is the rail trail:

Heavy rains in early June have the Sudbury, Assabet, and Concord rivers at flood stage, and over the weekend Great Meadows became a water world.  And with flooding, birds and all manner of wildlife come out of hiding.  For several days now people have been reporting spectacular Virginia Rail shows, with at least one Sora making frequent appearances near the parking area.  Today, two Sora put on a show, with many photographers in attendance.  With the birds virtually at our feet, I managed a few shots.

One bird had been carrying food to a location off the dike, and while foraging a second rail, presumably its mate, joined it for several minutes.

Showing some wing.  This is a handsome bird.

"Uncommon and Local"

Here in eastern Massachusetts we have a lot of trees, but we lack extensive, unbroken forest.  Concord is blessed with one of the biggest (over 1000 acres) tracts of unbroken forest: Estabrook Woods.  So, it is there we go looking for specialty interior forest species that breed locally, like Winter Wren and Northern Waterthrush.  One species, the Black-Throated Green Warbler, prefers hemlock stands, but these are now threatened by wooly adelgid infestation, and healthy hemlock stands are very uncommon and highly localized.  While this bird is quite common on migration, come late May and early June, it is tough to find them in eastern Massachusetts.  However, according to Breeding Bird Atlas 2 data, they are on the increase in the east.

I had heard reports of breeding B-T Greens in Estabrook in a remote hemlock stand, and Willy Hutcheson confirmed one bird while running.  Today I hiked in to this marvelous area, located on a rocky knoll upslope and east of the large and mysterious white cedar swamp in northern Estabrook, and immediately heard two singing males.  One was very cooperative and posed, sort of, for a few quick shots.

Breeding Season

Migration was very busy and I posted little because I was in the field as often as possible.  Overall, this year's migration was a bit strange, with very delayed birds due to some high-pressure blocking patterns which recurred.  These were followed by storms systems and a dump of migrants, especially on days like May 11th when several coastal and inland areas experienced "fall-out" conditions.  The following Saturday was Birdathon, with a significant arrival of Bay-Breasted and Wilson's Warblers, along with many Black-Billed Cuckoos.  Overall, though, migration sort of sputtered along and trees were fully leaved by the time the "good birds" arrived.

I was asked yesterday whether the Concord Birds project "missed anything."  Yes:  Louisiana Waterthrush and Olive-Sided Flycatcher, but those are stretches anyway.  It would have been nice to have had Kentucky Warbler and Red-Headed Woodpecker and Grasshopper Sparrow, but these are recorded infrequently (if at all) in Concord.  Birds that barely registered, however, were more frustrating:  King Rail and Common Gallinule (Moorhen) were observed only a few times at Great Meadows.  It is unknown if Pied-Billed Grebes stayed to breed, but perhaps two pairs of American Coots definitely have stuck it out at Great Meadows.  A potential Worm-Eating Warbler just over the Carlisle line hasn't been confirmed yet.

Our current focus is to confirm (or at least observe) Black-Throated Green Warblers and Hermit Thrush in Estabrook Woods, where they have historically bred in a stand of hemlock east of the Cedar Swamp near the Carlisle line.  This area might contain other scarcities—potentially Blue-Headed Vireo or even Blackburnian (although this species is even scarcer in eastern Mass since Breeding Bird Atlas 1).  Coming soon will be post-breeding wading birds.

Now to Ludlow G.'s list!  My five readers will recall that our year goal was 200 birds.  We are now at 191 (192 provisional pending confirmation of Worm-Eating), which means shorebirds, waders, fall sparrows, geese, and vagrants will push us well past 200 and into the territory of the historical checklist for the area established by Dick Walton in his Birds of the Sudbury Valley in 1984.

Now it gets interesting!

A Massachusetts Swainson's Hawk

Our Birdathon team and at least one expert have reached a consensus on the "mystery bird."  The bird was a light-morph adult Swainson's Hawk, rare in the east, and very rare in spring.

For perspective, the Massachusetts Avian Records Committee has seven attested sightings going back to 1978, but only one in summer, the rest in fall (when people are actually looking for these).  Veit and Peterson's Birds of Massachusetts lists ten attested sight records between 1955 and the early 90s, with a few in spring.  Before that we turn to Griscom and Snyder's Birds of Massachusetts, who list quite a few records of varying authenticity stretching back to the shotgun era in the 19th century.  Never common in the east, the Swainson's Hawk was neverthless not a rare bird in the era when much of Massachusetts was farmland.

Lacking a picture of our own, here is one by Brian K. Wheeler (1998) of an adult light-morph:

Image from Brian K. Wheeler (1998).  Hawks in Flight Gallery.  http://www.virtualbirder.com/vbirder/onLoc/onLocDirs/HAWK/gallery/bkwheeler/index.html

Birdathon! With Mystery Bird Quiz!

May 17th at 6pm through the 18th at 6pm I birded with Pam Sowizral, volunteer coordinator at Drumlin Farm MAS and team captain, and friends Joanne Normandin, and Mary Brogan and Bruce Black.  As the "Free Agents," we chase some rarities like Manx Shearwater and other rarity reports, but mostly we are free to bird wherever it is good.  This year we decided to spend the 18th birding locally around Concord (influenced by Ludlow G., of course; I had nothing to do with it) and Wayland.  The tyranny of Birdathon is the 24 hour window, which meant a Saltmarsh Sparrow missed the cut by ten minutes on Friday, and a Ruby hummer missed it by 5 minutes on Saturday.

After seeing some of the usual suspects at Revere Beach and Belle Isle Marsh on Friday night, we hit Great Meadows in Concord very early for Least Bittern and rails, but it was pretty quiet overall.  We then headed to the Punkatasset/Mill Brook area of Estabrook woods for warblers and forest birds.  We had some good luck, with Swainson's Thrush, Lincoln's Sparrow, two Black-Billed Cuckoos, many Magnolias, Parulas, Redstarts, a Nashville, two Wilson's, and the star of the morning, a Baybreasted that gave pretty good views.  We then headed into the forest for Scarlet Tanager, Peewee, Pileated, many Ovenbirds, and singing Brown Creepers and a Winter Wren.

Our next stop was the no-longer-obscure Gate 13C Massport Trail on Rt. 62, where we had two more Baybreasteds, many Blue-Winged warblers, a Chestnut-Sided, Prairies, many Towhees and Wood Thrushes, and Field Sparrows.

After all my forced marching, the team was tired and broke for lunch.  Invigorated, we headed to an overlook at Hanscom field to try our luck at Upland Sandpiper.  No dice, but we had numerous Bobolinks and several Meadowlarks, with the local Redtails and Kestrels providing some entertainment. In all, a good Birdathon, with 117 species but notable misses.

Then, Pam noticed a very curious raptor rise off the field, briefly tangle with a Red Tail, then circle rapidly on thermals and move to the north.  Four of us got on it with scopes for about four minutes before we lost it in the clouds.  None of us risked fumbling for iPhones to attempt a shot--it was moving too fast and it was simply too far by the time we realized it was "interesting."  We have proposed an ID and it is currently under review.  But I present our one bit of physical evidence, the sketch and field marks I hurriedly put together after losing it in my scope, without reference to any guides.

In short, uniform gray back, long, straight, unbanded tail, pointed wings with dark flight feathers and white underwing and slight bend at "elbow," smudge across neck, soaring with slight dihedral and flat wing-tips, gliding with slight inverted dihedral.  Buteo flight style, accipiter tail, falcon-like wings.  Size smaller than Red-tail, larger than a Peregrine.  Bird 118.

What do you think?

P.S.  Not to shirk Wayland, where we had another Wilson's, Orchard Oriole, killer looks at a Black-Billed, our nemesis Cedar Waxwings, and two Solitary Sandpipers.

May 9th Update: Migrants

As Bob Dylan wrote, "a change in the weather is known to be extreme," and with the arrival of a large southern low pressure system have come warblers and other delayed birds.

Today Ludlow G. had his first confirmed Black-Throated Greens at the Massport trails at Hanscom, with rising numbers of Northern Parula and Common Yellowthroat (which seemed very delayed), a Black-throated Blue, and perhaps even more Blue-Winged, which are thick on the ground in several early successional areas in north Concord.  Additionally, first Red-Eyed Vireo, but still awaiting Veery, Blackburnians, Magnolias, and Redstarts.  This pattern looks like it will hold through the weekend, so we might get some good birds.

Today also brought the first positive reports from Mt. Auburn, with first double-digit warbler counts, and Middlesex Fells, with a very good report of arrivals.

Of course, most trees are fully leaved out, so we won't see much.