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Posts Tagged ‘common eider’
Thursday, March 11th, 2010
 Sundog. Weatherwise, today was much like yesterday: chilly, sunny, spring-like. A crow awakened me, but there was a titmouse and a cardinal out there singing, too. I heard chickadees, watched a gray squirrel root around for old acorns, saw eight crows meet the benevolent jogger.
 Purple sandpiper. Busy, busy day. Didn’t get out of the office until 5 p.m.—just in time for a quick trip out the breakwater and back. The breeze came out of the south for a change, roughening the harbor side. On the island side a small flock of common goldeneyes settled down, a male and about a half-dozen females. Then a smaller group of red-breasted mergansers flew over, east to west. Ducks still nervous-seeming, antsy, ready to move.
I heard the wail of a loon and saw another with nearly breeding plumage. The pair that rounds the end of the breakwater were doing so again as I reached it. Herring gulls. Common eiders.
I neither saw nor heard long-tailed ducks, however—I think they’d already headed out by then.
 Rockland Breakwater. But I was pleasantly surprised to come upon a pair of purple sandpipers scouting around weedy boulders at mid-tide. Hadn’t seen any in a month, I bet, at least. These little guys range farther north than any other shorebird, nesting in the tundra of northern Canada. I expect this pair is headed that way soon.
Heading out, I noticed a minor sundog appearing below our planet’s actual star as it dipped behind a cloud. By the time I got about half-way back, the sun had set, and the high clouds showed lovely dark rippling patterns. No woodcocks yet within earshot of me—but low in the night sky hung the twinkling dog star.
Closing note: the Biodiversity Research Institute‘s “Eagle Cam Two” has confirmed the laying of an egg yesterday. More of these miracles will certainly follow. And the shape, the arc, of our slide through the equinox and over the solstice has begun.
Today’s List
American crow
Tufted titmouse
Northern cardinal
Black-capped chickadee
Herring gull
Common goldeneye
Red-breasted merganser
Common loon
Common eider
Puple sandpiper
 Evening sky.
Tags: American crow, black-capped chickadee, common eider, common goldeneye, common loon, herring gull, northern cardinal, purple sandpiper, red-breasted merganser, tufted titmouse
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Saturday, March 6th, 2010
 Leaf, Beech Hill. You could just feel it. Something about the angle of the sunlight, something in the ambient sound outside. Soon after rising I was antsy to get out of doors—even before I checked the thermometer, which showed 40s (F) early. But I had a couple obligations, which I handled responsibly despite the fishhook in my gills.
 Northern cardinal. In the wild blue sky on a quick trip to town, I saw herring gulls circle, rock pigeons wheel, and a couple ring-bills sitting on a roof near the fast food places. Then I turned off toward the breakwater.
By then, the temperature had reached the mid-50s. I heard then saw a male cardinal sitting in tangles at the edge of the parking lot. The breakwater was packed with walkers. It was mid-tide, so what water birds there were stayed at a little distance. More loons (heard one call), a raft of common eiders on the island side, loose flocks of long-tails in the harbor emitting their conversational calls. At the lighthouse end, I counted three humans sunning themselves on the great granite blocks with their eyes closed.
 Common loon. Then I took a spin by Weskeag Marsh. Not much hoppin’ there—a few Canada geese, a pair of black ducks, a solitary gull. That’s all I saw.
So I headed to Beech Hill. Also relatively packed, with a number of vehicles in the parking lot. Still warm and bright as I strode up the trail—but with strong, variable breezes that scattered last fall’s leaves like miniature herds of springboks beneath the tall bare hardwoods on either side of the trail. I heard only the voices of chickadees, dogs, and people.
 Deer trail, Beech Hill. Curiously, I ended up alone on the summit. A stout west wind bent the stalks of old wildflowers on the sod roof of Beech Nut. You could see open water on the fringes of Chickawaukie Lake below, and Monhegan Island—and neighboring Manana—floated hazily on the southern horizon.
For early March, the day was unnaturally, outlandishly warm. I didn’t mind it—in fact, consciously savored it on more than one occasion—but it made me worry a little. A sort of nebulous, hard-to-pin-down worry. It wasn’t so much fear of climate change as it was concern about migrating species and their arrival times and the possibility of a late, killing blizzard. Crazy, dreamlike worry. Not anything I take too seriously.
Later today, I took an unscheduled drive to Owls Head. En route, I saw a pair of buffleheads floating alone in the middle of a tidal pool—perhaps contemplating their flight back north on some upcoming day just like today.
Today’s List
Herring gull
American crow
Rock pigeon
Ring-billed gull
Northern cardinal
Common eider
Common loon
Long-tailed duck
Black-capped chickadee
Canada goose
Black duck
Bufflehead
 Harbor sky.
Tags: American crow, black duck, black-capped chickadee, bufflehead, Canada goose, common eider, common loon, herring gull, long-tailed duck, northern cardinal, ring-billed gull, rock pigeon
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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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| 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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