I saw 22 different types of birds on a recent four-hour Wednesday morning birding trip led by Bill Gette of Joppa Flats Audubon Center in Newburyport. Three or four times a year I try to make it up to one of Bill’s birding trips. On this sunny but cold morning the group visited several spots on Cape Ann. Our first stop was Andrews Point, a mass of granite boulders on the edge of the Atlantic. The surf breaking against the rocky shore was the perfect place to see harlequin ducks. There were at least six of them diving in the surf, not six feet from the rocks. Farther out there were several common eiders. The eider is probably the largest duck in this region, the male being very distinctive, with black and white plumage, while the female is a drab brown. We noticed a single thick-billed murre amongst the eiders. This alcid winters on the open ocean and is seldom seen from land. The only time the alcids make it to land is to nest.
Walking back to the car we saw several European starlings. This often maligned bird has beautiful patterning in its feathers, really only appreciated if you put your binoculars on it and take a good look. These birds, Bill explained, were beginning to get their breeding plumage. The ends of the feathers are white in nonbreeding plumage and wear off during the winter to produce a glossy black plumage. Another indication of its amorous intentions is that the normally black bill turns a bright yellow. While watching a few of the starlings strung out on a telephone wire we noticed several cedar waxwings and a lone house finch in a bush below them.
After getting back in the vans, we wound our way along the coast road, stopping briefly in Rockport to observe more harlequins, loons, hooded mergansers, and the magnificent great cormorants. A “fly by” gave us a brief look at a couple of long-tailed ducks. During the rest stop at the harbor in Rockport we saw a single-horned grebe swimming among the fishing boats.
Our final destination for the trip was Eastern Point in Gloucester. Here we were treated to a lesson on gull identification. Among the abundant herring and ring-billed gulls we spotted several Iceland gulls. The Iceland gull is a fairly small gull and has all white plumage. It nests in Greenland and we occasionally get to see some of these birds in the winter. While scanning the gulls we noticed another all-white gull, but this was substantially larger than the Iceland—it was a glaucous gull. This gull is another rare visitor to Massachusetts from its nesting grounds in the Arctic—seeing it was a “first” for me.
We returned to Joppa Flats after seeing more than 20 species of birds and enjoying a wonderfully sunny, but cold, morning on the coast.
After this morning of birding, I thought it would be interesting to note what species we see around the farm on a normal winter’s day. They include: English house sparrow, white-throated sparrow, song sparrow, starling, crow, junco, goldfinch, pine siskin, redpoll, house finch, goldfinch, bluebird, tufted titmouse, black-capped chickadee, white-breasted nuthatch, cardinal, blue jay, Carolina wren, cedar waxwing, downy woodpecker, hairy woodpecker, red-bellied woodpecker, piliated woodpecker, Cooper’s hawk, red-shouldered hawk, and mourning dove.
We are lucky to live in a part of the country that offers such diverse habitats, as it gives us an opportunity to experience a wide variety of wildlife. The above list will soon be changing, with the departure of some of our winter birds from the north and the arrival of our spring migrants and summer visiting birds from the south. It is a great time of year to take a walk and see what spring has brought us.
David Durrant lives with his wife, Pamela, on East Bare Hill Road at Micheldever Farm, where they run their business, Durrant Design, and watch birds—their own peacocks, chickens, and wild birds.
