Everywhere on the trails were icy snow, slippery slush, muddy puddles, and I didn’t want to walk far along the roads. Most neighborhoods in Harvard have places where one can get outside to stand still or sit on a rock, and observe. So I went to such a place in my neighborhood, a wetland down the road that had some walkable access along a swamp. Even though the swamp looked quiet, I learned that it was full of activity.
A male hooded mersanger. (Photo courtesy Rhododendrites, CC BY-SA 4.0)
On a Thursday midafternoon, the swamp was mostly covered in ice and still, except for the red-winged blackbirds in the reeds and cattails that were disturbed by my presence. Male red-winged blackbirds had noisily flocked back into our area, all on one winter day a few weeks ago. At that time, their red and yellow epaulets were on full display as they sang and advertised their presence. But the flock of red-winged blackbirds that I startled out of their nests in the fuzzy cattails and reeds today has settled down, and now only bits of red on the wings are occasionally seen.
Then, in the distance, sunlight hit some splashing in the open water where the ice had melted along the edge of the woods. After walking quietly, I got to a spot where I saw three ducks I had never seen before. They were smaller than the mallards paddling around.
I stood there a long time looking at them, memorizing identifying features. They seemed to energetically paddle through the water as though trying to rise up out of it and occasionally made funny little shaking motions with their heads. This movement revealed a striking feature: a disproportionately large, white, triangular crest on their heads, which were black. They gave the impression of being dressed in tuxedos.
When I got home I looked them up in Roger Tory Peterson’s “Field Guide to the Birds East of the Rockies,” where l learned that they were hooded mergansers.
Early Friday morning, I grabbed binoculars and went to the same spot, hoping to see the hooded mergansers again. The red-winged blackbirds were in the reeds and cattails; mourning doves were cooing; a pileated woodpecker was already at work; and the ice was less thick and more water was exposed—but there were no hooded mergansers.
Instead, at least two male wood ducks were on the water. The bright sunlight diluted their colorful markings, but their jaunty caps of swept-back head feathers clearly distinguished their profiles, which I’d never seen before since I’d only ever seen them flying away when startled.
Later that afternoon, with the sun beginning to lower, the swamp was quiet. Even in my elementary birding experience, I’ve observed that birds have patterns of activity related to time of day. The swamp appeared deserted now, except for the wood ducks at the farthest edge of the swamp. When they retire for the night, they will head for a hole in a tree.
Rowdy waterfowl
Saturday, when I went to the swamp midafternoon, at least a half dozen mergansers were lustily swimming, diving, chasing, and charging each other. Some brownish ducks, probably females, were playing around with them also. They looked like rowdy youngsters at the neighborhood pool—diving, jumping part way out of the water with a wiggle, doubling over, disappearing into the water, and then popping up a few seconds later. The mallards and Canada geese somehow avoided getting mixed up in their wild play.
Then I continued up a hill into a deeper part of the wetlands until I reached tall trees with big nests of sticks in the highest branches. Just as I did so, three great blue herons soared through the treetops, their huge outstretched wings revealing deep blue undersides.
After a game in which one would land in a treetop nest, then be chased away by the other two, one bird finally remained standing on the nest. The other two crouched on a nearby tree limb, staring at the bird in the nest. Occasionally the bird on the nest would poke at the nest, appearing to rearrange a stick or two while the other two continued to stare.
Before I saw a resolution to the staring contest, it became too chilly to stand still any longer, so I started back down the hill where I saw that the mergansers had settled down. A tuxedoed male with a lowered crest and a rusty-brown female, displaying a stylishly demure crest, were sailing side by side, leaving silvery parallel wakes across the water.
Early Sunday morning I checked on the treetop nest of sticks, where now two herons were standing on the nest, preening and stretching, until they flew away one after the other. Ice had formed overnight on the water so all will be still for a while, except for sociable red-winged blackbirds.
Margaret Kusner is a retired middle school art teacher, a lifelong artist, and a walker who considers humanity to be a part of nature.
