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Archive for January, 2010
Monday, January 25th, 2010
 My anemometer. As divined by the augurs, rain came today. Moderate at first, heavier later, finally accompanied by a gale. The temperature rose into the 40s (F), peaking at 47 after dark tonight; the wind speed rose into the 30s (mph)—to at least 34, judging by my frantic anemometer. It thunders out there now against the walls, waves around the limbs of the giant red oak that leans precariously over the roof just above where my bed is. Late this afternoon, the neighborhood lost power, and we time-traveled to the 19th century for a half-hour or so.
The snowfall had already dwindled noticeably by nightfall. Tomorrow streams of water will be rushing along their courses down the hill.
This morning before the rain and wind picked up I heard the conversations of the neighborhood crows. I also heard the single, unmistakable squee of an American robin—although, technically, those here at this time of year are Canadian. That is, if birds’ homes are where their nests are. (Aside: I think this debatable.) On a rainy trip to town, I saw a solitary herring gull.
Otherwise most birds were laying low, hunkering down, or floating in the lees of coves.
The night wind veers and snakes and roars. I think about it a lot, the wind. I think how, lacking life—the spruce up the hill—there’d hardly be a sound beyond the wind’s affair with the waves. Years ago, a gale much like this one (but a few months later) even squeezed a poem from me:
A Spring Night’s Gale
She shakes the glass
And ruins sleep.
Her voice is deep.
She combs the grass
In farmer’s yards.
She lifts night birds,
She utters words.
Sailors play cards
Or grunt or smoke.
In barns, lambs cry.
She gallops by
And twists the oak.
Her breath fogs panes.
She struts, she stops;
Her baggage drops
In lonely lanes.
Clouds fly, seas swell.
The moon is still.
Beyond the hill
She plays a bell.
Today’s List
1. American crow
2. American robin
3. Herring gull
Tags: American crow, American robin, herring gull
Posted in Lists, Observations, Poem | No Comments »
Sunday, January 24th, 2010
 Long-tailed duck pair. I slept a little late this morning. The sun had been up a little while when I first looked out to see a mostly overcast day with a few strips of morning blue. The temperature hung a few degrees (F) above freezing, and the still air seemed nearly warm. Crows flapped and cawed and otherwise social-networked, as usual. And my friend Kristen and I decided to walk the Rockland breakwater.
 Two seals. Only trouble was, the tide would be near low—which concerned me some. In my experience, you see more different birds when the bay is brimming and waves are crashing against the windward rocks. Purple sandpipers, for one, I’ve never seen at low tide. And the diving birds can get nearer the breakwater itself and so provide better picture-taking opportunities. OK, yeah, I suppose I’m a photo snob. But as we descended from the parking lot onto the beach, right away our beach-combing instincts kicked in: little snails, smooth black rocks, coarse and interesting textures. A solitary common goldeneye floated a ways offshore, and group of buffleheads bobbed in a pool nearby.
And as soon as we climbed onto the stones of the granite structure itself, I scanned the bay and spotted seals. Another sight you won’t see at high tide, the seals. They like to relax on the tops of the small rocks that low tide exposes. There were a pair of very light-colored seals on one stone—I don’t know my pinnipeds well, and so wondered if they might be grays or some other species but decided they were simply light-colored harbor seals.
 Long-tailed duck at takeoff. Still there were plenty of diving birds, too. Common loons, red-breasted mergansers, a black guillemot, and several little collections of long-tailed ducks. The long-tails, in fact, provided ample entertainment—preening, profiling, giving out their little distinctive three-note yodels. I even got their yodels stuck in my head, after deciding I’d like to devote to long-tails a movement of a symphony I’d like someday to write. If you’ve heard these yammering ducks, you know the sound I mean. (In the height of politically incorrectness, the species was for years called “oldsquaw” because of the gossipy nature of the sound.) But today I realized their calls amount to the rising components of a perfect major chord. And so I got ’em stuck in my head—and must remember to bring my digital recorder next time.
 Great cormorant. Also on the breakwater with us today were three great cormorants. They’d perch on the stones ahead of us, and when we’d get to close, they’d fly into the harbor or veer around to another part of the breakwater. A number of times we caused them to fly. I got a couple photos.
The air today stayed as still as night air, and it never dipped below freezing. Our walk was my warmest out there since last summer. Turns out low-tide ain’t all that bad.
* * *
Tonight, with temperatures in the mid-thirties (F), it has begun to rain. It’s drizzly now, but heavier rain—and wild winds—are forecast for tomorrow. Rain in mid-winter always discombobulates me. Just seems weird.
I wonder what the long-tailed ducks are up to.
Today’s List
American crow
Herring gull
Mallard
Ring-billed gull
Bufflehead
Common goldeneye
Black duck
Common loon
Common eider
Black guillemot
Long-tailed duck
Great cormorant
 Low tide still life.
Tags: American crow, black duck, black guillemot, bufflehead, common eider, common goldeneye, common loon, great cormorant, herring gull, long-tailed duck, mallard, ring-billed gull
Posted in Lists, Observations | No Comments »
Saturday, January 23rd, 2010
 Pair of Barrow's goldeneyes. Today seemed the prototype of a sunny winter’s day in northern New England. Temperatures in the 20s (F), a cloudless blue sky, snow all about, not much wind to speak of. Before I even got out of bed, I heard a blue jay hollering from up the hill.
 Many gulls. Crows, always crows. Chickadees somewhere. Herring gulls and ring-bills and rock pigeons—the usual suspects—during a quick errand in town. But I had another day-trip scheduled with my birding friend, Kristen, and Barrow’s goldeneyes were our particular quarry. And as do most birders, I know enough to expect the unexpected. You pick a goal, head in that direction, and open yourself to whatever morsels the universe might fling your way.
I’ve seen hundreds of common goldeneyes, but Barrow’ses are uncommon. Before today, in fact, I’d seen a total of one—a solitary male napping in my quarry pond at ice out in early April many years ago. As it turned out, a bald eagle had also been admiring the bird, and my eyes must surely have widened comically as I watched the eagle lift its talons in an eagle’s diving posture. Then it saw me in the window and aborted its dive. The duck didn’t even wake up.
 Black duck. Kristen assured me we’d see the duck in Belfast, from the footbridge across the Passagassawakeag River (locally referred to as the “Passy”). After a stop for muffins at Chase’s Daily—a wonderful vegetarian restaurant on Main Street—we walked a few blocks to the footbridge. Within about thirty seconds’ scanning with her fieldglasses, Kristen had spotted some goldeneyes. A couple pairs or so, maybe a hundred yards away. Sure enough, all of them were Barrow’s. The males with their white crescent-shaped cheekpatch, the females with their lovely brown heads and orange bills. The lot of them diving and flapping and acting as if today was the best day to be alive. Which, of course, it was.
 Barrow's goldeneyes. I got a couple photos, though from quite a distance. Then something spooked the hundreds of gulls from the roof of a neighboring commercial plant, and they all took to the sky at once, creating a cloud of gulls. I got photos of them, too—and in one, you can clearly see a stream of gull droppings descending amid an image otherwise straight out of Hitchcock’s The Birds. Kristen found an iceland gull among a thousand herrings. We also saw loons, buffleheads, black ducks.
Taking a leisurely route home, we happened upon a flock of waxwings of undetermined species. We took a brief stroll on a snowmobile trail, saw some chickadees and the tiny tracks of something like a vole. We saw red-tailed hawk with a distended crop that looked to have recently dined.
Afterward, as the sun descended at Kristen’s and Paul’s house in Camden, Mount Battie itself glowed eerily orange—in what you might call alpenglow.
Today’s List
Blue jay
American crow
Herring gull
Rock pigeon
Ring-billed gull
Barrow’s goldeneye
Black duck
Common loon
Bufflehead
Red-tailed hawk
Black-capped chickadee
Waxwing (spec.?)
 Rodent tracks.
Tags: American crow, Barrow's goldeneye, black duck, black-capped chickadee, blue jay, bufflehead, common loon, herring gull, red-tailed hawk, ring-billed gull, rock pigeon
Posted in Lists, Observations | No Comments »
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| Bird Report is a (sometimes intermittent) record of the birds I encounter while hiking, see while driving, or spy outside my window. —Brian Willson |
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