Wingin’ It: Farewell to the birds of summer

This summer Mass. Wildlife, out of concern, recommended removing feeders because an unknown disease was affecting birds in other eastern states. They have since lifted the ban. It is still recommended that feeders be cleaned regularly with a bleach solution to combat the spread of diseases (www.mass.gov/news/advisory-report-dead-birds-and-
remove-feeders). This break in feeding birds reinforced the importance of nurturing native species of plants that can supply food for the birds—through the seeds they produce and insects they attract—in the absence of feeders.

Migration is slowing down. Most birds migrate at night and exterior lights disorient and even kill migrating birds. We urge people to turn off exterior lighting (including those unnecessary post lights) or use motion sensors. As always, keep cats indoors and try to make windows safer during the day by using reflective decals.

Rufous towhee. (Photo by Thomas Tetzner/USFWS)

Summer on our farm found lots of birds nesting here. We had two pairs of Baltimore orioles nesting—one in an old sugar maple beside the drive and one in the maple overhanging our terrace. Over five or six days while sitting on our terrace, we watched the female build her hanging nest on the tree farthest away and with lowest-hanging branches. The nest was easily visible from the terrace where we have all our meals in the summer. Over a couple of weeks we watched it, noting the comings and goings. We were thrilled when the parents started bringing caterpillars and bugs to the nest, a signal that the eggs had hatched. Within a short period the young birds fledged and joined their parents at the orange and grape jelly feeding station.

While eating lunch on the terrace one day the alarm “rattle” of a kingfisher brought our attention to the pond where a Cooper’s hawk was chasing the bird. The kingfisher dove into the water three times, thus avoiding the hawk trying to grab it, and finally said to heck with this and took off across the fields, leaving a slightly bewildered hawk to look for easier prey.

We are alerted to the presence of birds by their calls. We often hear the call of the little green heron approaching the pond. This gives us time to follow it to where it lands, often in pondside vegetation that conceals it. Raptors are sometimes too high to see easily with the naked eye, but their calls carry long distances.

Birds in the barn

A phoebe nested in its usual spot above the barn door. Inside the barn a Carolina wren built its spherical woven nest on a shelf beside my chainsaw. In the lower barn, above the sheep pens, we had over a dozen pairs of barn swallows. We love to see these birds swooping above the farm, plucking insects on the wing and dipping into the pond for a drink. We like to think that because of their voracious appetite for mosquitos we’re able to enjoy our terrace all year.

Cedar waxwings, catbirds, song sparrows, cardinals, and robins all made nests in trees and shrubs we have planted over the years. Leaving standing dead trees gave homes to downy, hairy, and red-bellied woodpeckers, flickers, chickadees, and tufted titmice. Although we do not always find their nesting holes, we always know they have nested nearby when they bring their noisy fledglings to the feeders.

We have had several broods of bluebirds this year and now are pretty sure several will stay with us all year. They love hawking insects in the fields that we have let grow precisely for that reason.

One bird David especially likes is the great-crested flycatcher. They are easily identified by their distinctive “whistle” but not always easy to find. They generally hang out at the very top of trees. One day Pam noticed the distinctive insect-hawking of a flycatcher and checking closer found it was a great-crested right beside our barn, flying out and grabbing insects and often returning to the same perch as most flycatchers do.

Enter the juvenile hooded mergansers

Toward the end of the summer we had four juvenile hooded mergansers on the pond for several weeks enjoying the abundant frogs and small fish. We initially thought these were common mergansers. Several common nighthawks flew over one evening, a few of the hundreds that are migrating south this time of year. A regular visitor was a great blue heron whom we believed to be a juvenile. The heron typically landed in our pasture and spent at least an hour patiently stalking chipmunks or voles. He would then walk (not fly) over to the pond to finish his meal with a few juicy frogs. This is probably the same bird that has been seen by several of our neighbors on their properties. Although most people assume great blue herons eat only fish or frogs, we have actually seen one grab a chipmunk and down it.

One Saturday we joined the Boxborough Birding group for a walk at Fruitlands. It was a magical morning with the whole of the Nashua River Valley blanketed in fog, looking as though someone had laid cotton wool over the valley. We started birding in the parking area with the fog making it hard to positively identify birds. Checking out a dozen Canada geese in the field beside the driveway, David saw a bird in the distance that was not like the many robins hopping around. One of the group grabbed his scope from his car and identified it as an eastern meadowlark—a great start to a walk where we saw 39 species. Among them were six warbler species, four sparrow species and, what was a first for a few of the people, a couple of indigo buntings.

Fruitlands has let a lot of its previously mowed areas grow up through the year, which seems to have had a positive impact on grassland birds like bobolink, meadowlark, and sparrows. We encourage more people in town, and indeed the town itself, to do away with their “pristine” lawns and not irrigate.* We have done that with a lot of our grassy areas, just mowing once at the end of the year. This has a positive impact on the environment, not only attracting more birds and insects but saving on gas and pollution from mowing. Reduction in noise level is another benefit.

Jocelyn, a young neighbor, likes to visit the farm to check out the birds. In fact it was she who identified the juvenile hooded mergansers we originally thought were common mergansers. On a recent 40-minute visit she saw 17 species. Most exciting was a pair of scarlet tanagers in the brush pile in the lower field. She saw and photographed a pair of towhees eating fruit of a native viburnum or arrowwood in an area of shrubs we had cleared of bittersweet and multiflora rose in early spring. As with a lot of birders, Jocelyn submits her sightings to Cornell’s eBird app, where all sightings are available to anyone who signs in—a great citizen science project. It is heartening to us to see young people involved in birding like this.

On a recent visit to the farm our grandson George couldn’t wait to get out of the car and tell “Poppy” what he had seen. He and his dad, Ian, had come across a bald eagle eating roadkill right around the corner from their house. That is one bird we have yet to see on the farm, and what a thrill for George to have seen it so close.
     

Pam and David Durrant live and work at Micheldever Farm on East Bare Hill Road

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