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6 September 2010
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Rockport, Maine, USA
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Archive for February, 2010
Sunday, February 28th, 2010
 Juvenile herring gull. Woke up. Lay in bed. Listened to crows.
The nearest crow gave out a common call, in my experience: two caws, a pause, and two more caws—like five caws with the middle one missing. It called this continually, waiting between calls for the reply of another crow at some distance away. The other crow gave out the long, low, guttural caw that everyone’s heard. Usually in pairs. Then I heard a third, calling rapidfire:Cah-cah-cah! Cah-cah-cah-cah-cah!
 Herring gull. Perhaps most humans think of crows as noisy, scavenging, ominous birds. Maybe curious, or annoying, or just—there. I think of them with perpetual fascination. If you pay attention to crows you’ll notice very quickly how smart they are. Then you’ll start recognizing their many calls and squawks and growls. Crows have a complex language.
But I still can’t decipher it, so I got up, showered, had breakfast, went about my usual morning routine to the sweet strains of the love song of the resident tufted titmouse out back.
The morning turned sunny early, and the air turned warm. I happened to notice that the daffodils lining my stone wall have two- to four-inch shoots already. The day felt positively springlike, in some crazy, out-of-kilter way. If you were somehow plunked down here today with no memory of the past nor expectation of the future, you’d swear it was early spring.
But it’s still February. Late today I chose to walk the breakwater. It’d clouded up again by then and gotten chilly. In fact, when walked out to the truck, some light rain had begun to spatter down. Well, a little rain wouldn’t stop me.
It’s stopped drizzling by the time I reached the breakwater parking lot. The tide was near dead low. I saw pairs of red-breasted mergansers, a raft of eiders, a common loon, a great black-backed gull. Plenty of herring gulls, of course, and at least one ring-billed. The wind was whipping in from the northeast, but not too bad. The most notable part of the walk, to me, were the piles of seaweed and chunks of waterlogged driftwood littering the granite stones. I walked out there the day after the big recent storm and didn’t see anything like that. Perhaps the storm loosened things up, and a following high tide rolled the flotsam over the surface—flotsam that included at least two wayward lobster traps.
About half-way out, I saw a little flock of long-tailed ducks headed out to the islands, as they do at the end of the day. Then it began to rain. I felt the rain on my back at first, then felt the dampness on the backs of my calves. Returning, the rain increased—as did the headwind. I doubted I’d use my binocs or camera in such weather and so decided to count my paces instead. The rain and wind were cold and thrilling. Not comfortable exactly, but they made me feel alive.
From the lighthouse it took me 1,679 paces to reach the shore again.
Today’s List
American crow
Tufted titmouse
Herring gull
Ring-billed gull
Great black-backed gull
Mallard
Red-breasted merganser
Common eider
Common loon
Long-tailed duck
Tags: American crow, common eider, common loon, great black-backed gull, herring gull, long-tailed duck, mallard, red-breasted merganser, ring-billed gull, tufted titmouse
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Saturday, February 27th, 2010
Following an intensely satisfying walk along the Beech Hill trails today, I hopped into my pickup and noticed a couple small mud spatters on the front of my jeans. I flicked at them with my fingers, but they didn’t smudge or vanish or change in any way. So I plucked at them—and still they didn’t come off.
That’s when I realized they were ticks.
Ordinarily—during spring and summer and fall—I would’ve identified them at once. But all winter I’ve been traipsing willy-nilly up and down the hill, mindless of any chance that I might pick up ticks at this season. Well, I did. I hopped back out of the truck, in fact, inspected my pants legs closely, and found three or four more ticks there. Small dog ticks, perhaps, but just as likely deer ticks, the ones that carry Lyme Disease. (I didn’t inspect them closely, but there are plenty on Beech Hill—and a good half of them carry the disease.)
So I figured I should make mention of this. A sort of cautionary note to confirm that these unseasonably warm last few weeks have awakened a summer complaint.
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Saturday, February 27th, 2010
 Hooded merganser. Before bed last night, I looked out and saw a trace of snow on the deck. This morning, I saw no trace of snow. In fact, before I knew it the temperature had risen well into the 40s (F) and the sky was about half blue. Quite a little wind, though. Out back were crows, a singing titmouse, and a little gang of chickadees.
 Black duck. Truly, there’s no snow. We’re snowless. Oh, you can find a few dwindling, slushy piles of it where the plow drifts were, and in the woods are slushy scraps in the shady areas. Still, February’s been crazy. Each winter’s different at the 44th parallel, I’ve learned in my thirty years at this latitude.
In early afternoon I decided to check out the Weskeag Marsh, no doubt clear of ice already. Heck, cars and snowmobiles have been sinking to the bottoms of ponds all up and down the coast—luckily, with little or no loss of life—as residents just can’t get their brains around this kind of crazy thaw. And sure enough, the Weskeag had no ice that I could see. Just soggy, watery channels divided by lovely bronze marsh grass.
 Weskeag Marsh. Right away I heard the geese. Scanned the wide expanse for ducks and saw mostly black ducks—but also a solitary male hooded merganser. Mallards also. A handful of crows. I walked down into the marsh a hundred hards or so, about as far as I could go and stay dry. A large group of dabblers took wing against the blue billowing clouds that had by then gathered in the south.
From Weskeag, I drove to Beech Hill under what were now overcast skies. Still in the 40s, not much breeze. The wooded trails were snow-free for the most part—but hardly water-free. In fact, runoff from the big storm was following the lower trail and had already caused quite a bit of erosion. It felt like Mud Season already, and in fact I spooked a chipmunk. Heading up, I passed a casualty of the storm: a medium-sized spruce had toppled over, its shallow roots having lost their grip. Oddly, the crown of the tree had snapped clean off and folded over against the trunk.
 Eastern chipmunk. Unlike on recent trips, I heard birds on the hill today—chickadee, downy woodpecker, robin. I mostly kept to the soggy grass on either side of the muddy trail. And I lost myself. As I often do, I lost myself in the there and the now of the woods. My feet on the trail, the smell of last fall’s leaves, the sound of bird wings—a couple of robins in the sumac. At the summit I spooked a mourning dove, whose whistling wingbeats headed downhill. Descending, I heard the dove sing its poignant song. And I stood there, listening, soaking up the moment—the chill, the moistness, the fragrance of last fall, the dove—lost for I don’t know how long in a sense of life sublime.
Farther down the trail, I came upon a pair of chickadees. I pished them close, and they got within six feet of me, and I managed a single photo.
 Black-capped chickadee. I love it on Beech Hill.
Today’s List
American crow
Tufted timouse
Black-capped chickadee
Herring gull
Ring-billed gull
Rock pigeon
Canada goose
Black duck
Hooded merganser
Mallard
Downy woodpecker
American robin
Mourning dove
 Penobscot Bay from Beech Hill.
Tags: American crow, American robin, black duck, black-capped chickadee, Canada goose, downy woodpecker, herring gull, hooded merganser, mallard, mourning dove, ring-billed gull, rock pigeon, tufted titmouse
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Friday, February 26th, 2010
 Dichotomy. The wind roared last night. Roared. Steady, constant, loud. Dimly I remember awakening in darkness to a particularly strong roar—the wee hours, most likely. But when dawn broke and I looked at my bedside clock, the digital time display didn’t flash, so the power hadn’t gone out. And when I checked the sky, I saw blue. And when I stepped out on the deck for the first time today, the air felt positively warm—40-something degrees.
Crows flitted around during the day. I heard the song of titmouse and house finch. But then the clouds moved in again, and the wind picked up again, and the sky began to spit mist and spray.
In afternoon, I drove to town and saw no gulls or pigeons in the places they usually frequent, like the roof of the old stitching factory, now a local college. I did see some herring gulls floating in the empty gray sky. Off in the harbor, the line of the breakwater extended visibly from north to south, and I decided to walk the length of it.
 Black guillemot. The bay side had waves and whitecaps and wind-whipped mist; the harbor side had calm swells and a few red-breasted mergansers. The wind and spray quickly soaked the left side of my jeans on the way out, and I nearly turned back—but I didn’t, in part because of the crazy divergence of the height of the tide on either side of the breakwater. The tide was rising, I knew, and had reached about middle height. And the bay side seemed maybe five or six feet higher than the harbor side. Was this an illusion, perhaps the result of the chop on the bay side? Or was this in fact the case—did the incoming tide perhaps take some time to move around this long granite boundary?
As I wondered this, small groups of long-tailed ducks began flying on rapid wing-beats over the breakwater out toward the islands. Over the course of several weeks of walking out here—at usually late afternoon —I’ve notice the long-tails take up and head out late in the day. They must have special places out in the bay where they lay up overnight, then head back to feed at the rich, calm harbors and coves near mainland during the day.
Then I spotted a solitary black guillemot. A nice surprise. It’s plumage seemed closer to its summer attire than its winter wardrobe. In the minutes I watched it, it never dove.
As I approached the lighthouse, its fog whistle began to blow. The ferries to and from the island passed, as they do, I’ve learned, this time of day. The gray, the wind, the waves, the foghorn—I felt enveloped, surrounded, even protected by a wet, chilly marine world.
On the way back, I saw more long-tails flying eastward, as well as a big flock of gulls also heading that way. A male and two female eiders floated on the harbor side, preening.
Walking back up to my truck, I listened for a minute to the wind—and saw a pair of mallards at the shore.
Today’s List
American crow
Herring gull
Tufted titmouse
House finch
Red-breasted merganser
Long-tailed duck
Black guillemot
Common eider
Mallard
 Surf off the Rockland Breakwater, Rockland, Maine, 26 February 2010.
Tags: American crow, black guillemot, common eider, house finch, long-tailed duck, mallard, red-breasted merganser, tufted titmouse
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Thursday, February 25th, 2010
 Surf spray, Rockland Breakwater, Rockland, Maine, 25 February 2010. Not so many birds today. A lot of weather, though.
First, I heard the blow. Then I saw the day was gray, when first I peeked out the blinds. Wet, too—blustery, dark, wet. Rivulets ran rapidly down the open, green February grass in the neighbor’s lawn. Three crows lit in the grass and began stalking about, pulling and tossing last fall’s matted leaves and sipping water from the rivulets.
The weather didn’t deter the jogger. I counted nine crows and a herring gull waiting for whatever he scattered on the parking lot across the road.
Toward the end of the day I took a quick trip to town. The wind lifted spray from puddles and rocked my pickup on its chassis. I saw not a single bird. On the way back, I decided to see what kind of surf was kicking up at the breakwater.
 Two crows, Glen Cove, Rockport, Maine, 25 February 2010. Big surf, as it happened. I had to lean into the wind even to get down there. On the island side, great waves broke and white spray exploded high into the gray sky before quickly blowing away into nothing. I began snapping photos down the length of the breakwater—but had trouble keeping steady. In fact, I had trouble standing up at all. I’d guess the wind speed at a steady 45 or 50 miles an hour.
I did see a raft of common eiders rocking in the whitecaps on the harbor side.
By the time I returned to my truck, my backside was soaked from being turned toward the weather. On the short trip home, a small passerine flew across the road in front of me, but I couldn’t get a good ID. (Looked like a robin.)
All night it blew. The power stayed on, but my bandwidth conked out. Crazy that yet again great snows shut things down to the south of us, whereas we’re getting nothing but rain.
Today’s List
American crow
Herring gull
Common eider
 Penobscot Bay surf.
Tags: American crow, common eider, herring gull
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| Bird Report is an intermittent record of what's outside my window in Rockport, Maine, USA (44°08'N latitude, 69°06'W longitude), and vicinity. —Brian Willson |
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