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Friday, March 12, 2010

Once the Christmas Bird Count has come and gone, memorable birding experiences can be hard to come by in the dead of winter. What tops the list for me is the avian activity that conveniently takes place right outside my kitchen window at the bird feeders. The number of birds using my feeders this winter is way down. It took me a while to catch on, but the reason eventually became clear. In past years a marauding Cooper’s hawk has been the culprit — sometimes a beautiful adult with blue-gray plumage, and sometimes a brown-backed youngster. Their stealth tactics are worthy of awe and their speed a little frightening.
» Full Story By Lanny Mcdowell

Bird News from the Vineyard Gazette Archives

Friday, March 5, 2010

My parents used to call such visitors “visiting firemen.” The guests could only stay for a day, not an overnight, so you tried to give them the best overview of the Island in a short time. The 50-cent tour as it is called. I find the same is true when I am in Florida. Recently I had back-to-back visiting firemen and had an excuse to put aside the bloody income tax preparation and go birding.
» Full Story By Susan B. Whiting

Friday, February 26, 2010

It is that time of year again — a season when I truly become a bird-watcher with disambiguation (split personality). One of my alter egos is excited by the return of red-winged blackbirds, common grackles, and to a considerably lesser degree brown-headed cowbirds, to the Vineyard. The red-winged blackbird males are perched on high grasses in the fields and marshes of the Island singing their hearts out, waiting for the females to return and hopefully choose them as a mate. Waterfowl are beginning to pair off and build nests.
» Full Story By Susan B. Whiting

Friday, February 19, 2010

Katherine Colon and Laurie Walker three weeks ago reported a sharp-shinned hawk sitting leisurely on the Colon’s back porch on Skiff avenue in Vineyard Haven. Lanny McDowell in stealth mode fully stalked and photographed the sharp-shinned hawk which has been haunting his West Tisbury feeder. Katherine hadn’t seen her sharpie for a while and then during a walk on Feb. 15 found this hawk harassing a flock of house (English) sparrows at the other end of Skiff avenue.
» Full Story By Susan B. Whiting

Friday, February 12, 2010

A reminder: The Great Backyard Bird Count starts today, Feb. 12, and continues through Monday, Feb.15. For details on the count, visit birdcount.org.
» Full Story By Susan B. Whiting

Friday, February 5, 2010

Thirteen years ago, in 1997, we first heard about the Space Coast Birding and Wildlife Festival in Titusville, Fla. The venue for this festival is the Brevard Community College North Campus. Strategically located next to Cape Canaveral, the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge and many other birding hot spots, this festival is in a prime location for bird watching.
» Full Story By Susan B. Whiting

Friday, January 29, 2010

Felix Neck Wildlife Sanctuary invites the public to join them at Felix Neck for a Full Moon Walk between 5:30 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 30 and then gather inside to meet the wildlife photographers who contributed to the 2010 Felix Neck Wildlife Calendar.
» Full Story By Susan B. Whiting

Friday, January 22, 2010

The question all the people that are sharing the Baltimore orioles on Lambert’s Cove Road, and now one in Oak Bluffs, are asking is, why are they still on Island? There are two answers, and they both have to do with genetics. Unlike many of the waterfowl that learn how to migrate from their parents, passerines or dickie birds are programmed by the genes of their parents. Therefore orioles, which are passerines, can innately navigate to their wintering grounds in Mexico and Central America. However sometimes there is a glitch in these inherited programs and either the young birds remain in their summer digs or, more commonly, a youngster makes a 180-degree turn and reverse migrates. So the Baltimore orioles here on the Vineyard were either born here and didn’t leave this fall, or came from points south. Unfortunately most of these birds will not survive the winter — although some do. The crew on Lambert’s Cove seems bent on keeping the young male alive with oranges and jelly! Good luck.
» Full Story By Susan B. Whiting

Friday, January 15, 2010

Our Southern Ocean trip is still fresh in our minds. We have visited Chatham Island with you but we still had many miles of ocean to go. The islands we visited included: Mangere, Pitt, Bounty, Antipodes, Campbell, Enderby, The Snares, Ulva and Stewart. There were special sightings and views whenever we stopped, and to tell it all would require a tome!
» Full Story By Susan B. Whiting

Friday, January 8, 2010

The weather on the proposed date (Jan. 3) for the Christmas Bird Count wasn’t fit for man nor beast. Rob Culbert made an excellent decision and moved the count to Tuesday, Jan. 5. The only problem with this change was that some participants were unable to join us as they were working. We were very shorthanded. However, the Vineyarders who participated should be proud, because even with a much reduced crew at the end of the day the unofficial total number of species seen was 115. Now that is a lower tally than CBCs of milder winters but was the same as Cape Cod. Cape Cod usually has the highest number of bird species seen on CBCs statewide. Rumor has it that Nantucket had the highest count in the state this year with a total of 118. So we were only three down from the “top dog.” The Vineyard had the best weather of any of the state CBCs, and with a few more participants we probably would have bested Nantucket.
» Full Story By Susan B. Whiting

Friday, January 1, 2010

There are very few people in the world who would take a vacation to the Southern Ocean. Flip and I and 60 others are part of these few. The flights alone might discourage the weak at heart. They started on the Vineyard, thence to Boston, Newark, N.J., San Francisco, over the international dateline to land, 20-plus hours and a day later, in Auckland, New Zealand.
» Full Story By Susan B. Whiting

Friday, December 25, 2009

The news of the week has to be centered on snow. Twelve inches of it in my yard, and reports of 16 to 18 inches up-Island.
» Full Story By Robert A. Culbert

Friday, December 18, 2009

This is the start of the quiet time for wildlife on the Vineyard. Fall migration is essentially over, with the possible exception of a few hawks that got a late start. Most of the hardy species that usually winter here in small numbers have retired to thickets and swampy places. This group includes birds like hermit thrushes, rufous-sided towhees, a few field and chipping sparrows, white-throated sparrows that nest much further north, and some slate-colored juncos. They will survive on natural seeds and berries from poison ivy, bayberry, bittersweet, winterberry, holly and an occasional crabapple. Cedar waxwings, robins and eastern bluebirds also are still around in small groups. Later in the winter, more of these three species may arrive from the Cape if they run out of food over there, making it look like an early spring influx.
» Full Story By Allan Keith

Friday, December 11, 2009

The Bird Line (508-696-7577) would often languish unattended were it not for Happy Spongberg, who always keeps an alert eye open in the productive habitat near her home off Tea Lane in Chilmark. This week, Happy reports not one but two yellow-bellied sapsuckers, an adult male and an immature bird, on the same pine tree. The pair, reports Happy, were climbing in a spiral around the tree “like the stripe on a barbershop pole,” with the adult bird occasionally taking a swipe at the youngster, just to be sure everybody knew who was in charge. Sapsuckers are not exactly rare on the Vineyard, and they do linger into the early winter and sometimes beyond. But they are never common; two in one day is unusual, and two in one tree is the kind of thing that makes one go home, make a cup of tea and feel content.
» Full Story By Matt Pelikan

Friday, December 4, 2009

There is a Sphyrapicus varius on a holly tree in Luanne Johnson’s North Tisbury yard. No this is not a disease, but a yellow-bellied sapsucker. Sphyrapicus, for translation purposes, is Sphyra (mallet or hammer) and picus (woodpecker), varius (variegated or multicolored). So the sapsucker is a woodpecker with a mallet of a bill sporting various colors. This is indeed a great description of this woodpecker which is a spring and fall migrant and becoming a common winter resident of the Vineyard.
» Full Story By Susan B. Whiting

Friday, November 27, 2009

Announcing that there are no wild turkeys on Martha’s Vineyard is akin to breaking the news that there is no Santa Claus. But that is the truth whether you like it or not. Barbara Pesch and I noted in Vineyard Birds 2 that wild turkeys were introduced by Gus Ben David from Arkansas in the 1970s. These wild turkeys were extirpated in the 1990s.
» Full Story By Susan B. Whiting

Friday, November 20, 2009

The sighting of short-eared owls at both Wasque and Katama in the last two weeks is exciting. This owl used to breed on the Vineyard in the 1980s but verification of its breeding on Island has not been possible since 1986. One wonders why. Is it lack of food, climate change, habitat loss, predation or disease? I don’t have the answer but would wager it is not due to lack of food. Short-eared owls love voles, mice, small birds and rabbits. If mice can find their way into our barns, sheds and houses, there probably is a sufficient supply to feed an owl or two.
» Full Story By Susan B. Whiting

Friday, November 13, 2009

Wow, how time flies! Once again it is time to start planning for the 50th annual Christmas Bird Count, which will be held on Sunday, Jan. 3, 2010.
» Full Story By Robert A. Culbert

Friday, November 6, 2009

There is an idiom we are all familiar with: eating crow. I was curious as to the derivation of such an unusual phrase. Wikipedia suggests the exact origin is unknown. The Wikipedia entry goes on, however, to suggest a couple of possible explanations. First, the phrase was originally “to eat boiled crow.” The bit that followed was my favorite, however: Wikipedia figured it might be similar to “eating humble pie,” an English phrase that was something of a pun — “umbles” were intestines or less valued meats of the deer. People of lower classes than the kings, lords or governors were served pies made of these “umbles” (humble pie). These lower class folks were also served rook (a crow’s cousin) pie.
» Full Story By Susan B. Whiting

Friday, October 30, 2009

Wow, I can’t remember such a colorful fall. The bright birds may have gone south, but the vegetation is filling in for the missing hues. The riot of color is incredible: golden yellow of sassafras, duller yellow tinged with brown of the horsechestnuts, purpley-red of sumacs, reds of swamp maples and Virginia creeper and mottled browns, greens and yellows of our oaks. Throw into the mix the greens of pitch and white pine and cedars (really junipers) and we have a spectacular array of colors.
» Full Story By Susan B. Whiting

Friday, October 23, 2009

Fall storms can raise havoc in harbors as well as on land. The winds of these tempests can bring back birds that have tried to migrate south. This is a treat for birders, but for the birds, not so great. Imagine flying hard to get as far as the Carolinas or Florida just to be blown back from whence you came.
» Full Story By Susan B. Whiting

Friday, October 16, 2009

It is the changing of the guard so to speak. The double-crested cormorants are joining up in long skeins and moving south. The greater cormorants are arriving from the north. When the two species of cormorants are sitting on the same rock, it is obvious which is which. The greater is greater — weighing almost twice as much as the double-crested and having a wing span of 11 inches more than its cousin. Standing upright, the greater cormorant is three inches taller than the double-crested and has a heavier bill.
» Full Story By Susan B. Whiting

Friday, October 9, 2009

It all started with a déjà vu birding experience by Whit Manter. He was returning from a trip off-Island on Sunday, October 4. As he drove out to his house on Tisbury Great Pond, he spotted a bird which he recognized as a rare visitor. The reason Whit was able to identify the bird quickly is that he spotted the same species, a Say’s phoebe, six years before in almost the exact location.
» Full Story By Susan B. Whiting

Friday, October 2, 2009

Several of the women in my aerobics class queried me about their loss of hummingbirds. Yes, unfortunately it is the time that the tiniest of our avian buddies move on. It always amazes me that a minuscule creature, a little short of four inches in size and weighing less than one-eighth of an ounce, can migrate from the Vineyard all the way to Mexico and points south.
» Full Story By Susan B. Whiting

Friday, September 25, 2009

Bird identification puzzles, as with all mysteries, are great fun to work on and, best of all, to solve. Tuesday Pete Gilmore, Lanny McDowell and I were birding around the flower gardens at the Farm Institute in Katama. We watched several Savannah sparrows perched on the fences surrounding the garden, when suddenly another larger “sparrow” landed.
» Full Story By Susan B. Whiting