keep moving

Three different days now I've heard cardinals singing in the morning. Not the full-on courtship song, but recognizable cardinal song nonetheless.

Heard what the Merlin software on my phone identified as a Carolina wren's song yesterday. Had at least two days of I'm Almost Positive That's A House Finch Singing, too.

Saw a red-winged blackbird a few days ago, the real (as far as I'm concerned) harbinger of spring around here.

Grackle seen two or three days ago, and heard yesterday. WAY early on those. I don't normally see grackles until summer.

I may start doing International Shorebird Survey protocol sweeps of my local shoreline this weekend just in case the oystercatchers decide to come up early.

There's a monk parakeet nest about a mile and a half from where I live. Quaker parrot. Whatever, it's the same thing- green birds that originated a lot farther south, escaped from being somebody's pets, and established themselves in the wild. They build great big shaggy nests that serve as colonial homes, sometimes in buildings, often on utility poles, and this nest is one of the latter kind. It's attached to an electrical transformer and it's almost as big as the transformer unit. Two parakeets built it some time back, May of 2021; the town took down the original nest, but the birds came back and built a new one, and nobody's removed it so far.

The thing about monk parakeets is that those huge shaggy nests are pretty solidly constructed and are good shelter against temperature and weather extremes. The parakeets were able to last out the winter. And they bred. There were two in 2021; yesterday I counted seven of them.

I also encountered several people who were looking up at the nest and speculating, and talked to one of them. Wound up answering a bunch of her questions about the birds- how long they'd likely been there, where they came from (almost certainly not migrating- I've seen signs in the area from at least one person who claimed to have lost a Quaker parrot), what they did in other parts of the country where I knew they lived, would human attention bother them (ahahaha no, the nest I saw in NJ was positioned above a high-traffic two-lanes-each-way road and next to a Whole Foods parking lot), things like that. I'd just come from a shorebird observation session at the beach, so I had my binoculars around my neck, but I was wearing a plain t-shirt and a pair of leggings that look like armor. She asked me if I was observing the birds for a living. Apparently she'd seen two older women who Really Looked Like Birdwatchers some time back- they'd brought binoculars or scopes or something and they were wearing multi-pocket vests and hats- but they thought the nest was empty and they left after a little while- and she said I was more knowledgeable than them. I told her it was just a hobby and that I was in the area every couple of days for the shorebirds, I just checked on the parrots every once in a while. She asked what I did for a living, and I told her it was an IT job at a finance firm in Boston. Apparently this constituted a suitably interesting job for somebody who Really Knew About Birds.

It occurred to me on the way home that I might be 48, but she was probably about twenty years older... and that since this was purely a hobby for me, and I got into slightly overenthusiastic talky mode, it was fundamentally That One Kid At The Science Museum Who's Telling The Adults All About The Dinosaurs They're Looking At. Just, you know. Aged up a little.

Tufted titmice look like God walked up to one of the angels and said, "I need a songbird and I need it kawaii. I expect the prototype on my desk in half an hour" and then shoved a fistful of grey and white feathers into the angel's hands.

(They sound like the angel started working up a soundboard but had that half hour deadline hanging over them, so they basically got 'high pitched squeent', 'squeent squeent ANGRY BUZZ', and 'LOUD LOUD. LOUD LOUD LOUD' before the boss's trumpet sounded.)

It's been a while, but I was working on a Visual Studio install for one of my users when I heard croaking noises. Thought it might possibly have been someone nearby suffering sinus congestion, but.... nope. Looked up and out the front window. BIG black bird, fingerlike wing feathers, wedge-shaped rather than fan shaped tail, and a wee bit of the croaking right before he or she (I can't spot most birds' sexes without a LOT of sexual dimorphism, ok?) flew over my rooftop and out of sight.

I should put out some shiny objects or food or something as a welcome-back-it's-been-a-while present. I realize they'll probably get grabbed by raccoons long before the ravens show up again but it's the spirit of the thing.

Clean up your fishing gear, people. And try not to lose the damned stuff in the first place. And if you forget your fishing gear and leave a hooked lure loose in the wild somewhere, and can't be arsed to go back and at least try to find it so you can throw it away, then I hope you step on a Lego. Lots of Legos.


That was not how I wanted to see my very first loon in breeding adult plumage in Massachusetts.

The raven was back this morning.

Didn't see it. But GHWAAAA GHWAAA GHWAAA noises are a little hard to mistake for anything else.

We've also, as it turns out, got orioles and goldfinches in the area. The orioles have been appearing in the backyard for several days now, I think mostly because the neighbor with multiple feeders has a fruit feeder in among the seed ones. The goldfinches, I think, come to anywhere in the area that has cover and seed; I've seen them on Deer Island and in Fisherman's Bend as well as here.

Also teeny little warblers of several kinds. Sometimes I wanna thump the people who gave bird species common names upside the head- for example, whoever named the American Black Duck, which is a species that looks like a slightly browner version of the mallard*, or possibly the Ring-Necked Duck, whose neck ring is only really visible to any great degree if the duck is dead and you are a hunter or taxonomist examining the corpse. Or the American Redstart; the 'start' in the name is an old word for tail, but the 'red' on an American redstart is two patches of orange near the base of the tail, which is mostly black. And sometimes the species namers are right on the nose, because a few days ago we had a visit from what my bird guides said was a Black and White Warbler.

I could not get a photograph of one, but you may judge for yourself exactly how black and white this bird is.



*One wonders if this falls under the heading of "Black Irish" being "pale pink people who happen to have *gasp* DARK HAIR in a nation of REDHEADS AND BLONDES", or possibly "tall, dark, and handsome" meaning "six foot tall, BROWN HAIR OMG, and NO SERIOUSLY WE TOTALLY CANNOT GET OVER HIM HAVING DARK BROWN HAIR". But that's a resentment for another post.

The ravens are back. Yes, plural.

I was out in the backyard yesterday afternoon trying not to let the wind get to me- it was hardly as bad as it'd been the day before- when I heard GRONK, GROOOONK noises from across the street. A few seconds later I heard them from another direction. I got my bird sound ID app up and running and recorded several more of the noises, and the app definitely thought they were raven rather than crow noises; I assumed the different directions I was hearing them from simply reflected one bird on the move.

( Nope. )
Wish I had a better pic but when I saw how fast they were moving overhead I knew I wasn't going to have time to get the camera out and powered up and focused properly. But these birds were definitely bigger than crows, had wedge-shaped rather than fan-shaped tails, and croaked rather than cawing.

Almost positive I heard an owl last night. At least, something made a noise outside my window during the civil twilight time frame that sounded like hooting. Given that I'm several floors up and no one is working on any of the houses or tree branches at this altitude it wasn't a human, and I haven't heard or seen mourning doves in this area for weeks, so I'm thinking I did hear hooting and just didn't see where it was coming from.


I will be paying extra close attention to the dead trees in my vicinity for a while, I think. I'm told several species of owl like to roost in holes in dead trees during the daytime, and I have lately grown quite frustrated with never having seen an owl in the wild.

I have been having too many days lately that ended in utter exhaustion when I have not done anything physically outstanding. I'm reverting back to the tactic I found worked for me after the Disaster Mental Health guy talked to me and sent me home post-ten straight days of Red Cross work for 9/11: if I find that I am too wiped to complete a relatively simple familiar task, such as a Bejeweled game or a Duolingo lesson in Italian, without my brain going to pieces, then I stop seeking out news for the day. Deal with whatever comes in my email, because I am on way too many OUTRAGE!!!! mailing lists, but don't go to news web sites and don't read the paper other than local news and maybe the Tech or comics section. Resume news reading tomorrow.

That being said, on Saturday I was bird watching down by the harbor when a couple on their way home from the local $SOCIAL_ESTABLISHMENT asked if I had seen any bald eagles. Apparently one's been spotted recently in the vicinity of the part of town nearest to Logan. We have bald eagles in Mass., but I've never seen one south of the Lawrence area*. I've gone down that way twice now. No sign of an eagle, but so far I've seen a Cooper's hawk, another raptor that I'm almost sure was a Northern Harrier, and several goldeneyes. The duck, not the EMP weapon from the James Bond movie. So the detour's been worth it.



*Mostly I've seen them during flying lessons. Which is kind of awesome, realizing that you are literally looking down on an eagle in flight, but also leads to a level of extra special terror the first time your flight instructor says it's okay to fly through the small cloud ahead of you so long as he's prepared to grab the controls, because if your brain is at all like mine you are then beset with the mental image of having to inform the FAA, the NTSB, and the Wildlife Service that you flew through a cloud and hit a bald eagle.

Like a lot of folks in this part of Massachusetts, my landlord has people in the family who use lobster traps and a boat. During the winter the lobster traps are stored on land. Specifically, along the back edge of this house's property. There's a fence marking the property edge. I think there's about a foot or so of space between the traps and the fence. Maybe less. They look like the ones here: https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-stacks-of-new-yellow-wire-lobster-traps-at-state-pier-newport-harbor-24144967.html

One of the neighbors whose yard abuts ours has multiple bird feeders in the backyard. The local sparrows, finches, chickadees, titmice, etc. ADORE these feeders. They cluster up in nearby bushes and trees to get a crack at the feeders. They also love to cluster up on and occasionally in the lobster traps for this purpose. At the right time of day and under the right conditions, if you stand in the backyard you can see and hear the sparrows flying in waves every few seconds- "OKAY! EVERYBODY GET A SEED AND FLY BACK TO THE TRAP! REPEAT! REPEAT!"

The day before yesterday I saw the sparrows make a different use of the lobster traps. There's at least one Cooper's hawk in this area. Maybe other birds of prey, too, but I can only really vouch for one. Cooper's hawks are known to stalk feeders, since they represent an opportunity to get smaller birds as prey. I've seen one sitting in a tree on the opposite side of the property, watching the area where the sparrows were staging their waves. The day before yesterday? It came cruising in low under the tree branches and dove into the space between the traps and the fence.

Every. Single. Little brown bird. Dove into the bodies of the lobster traps in response. And started SHOUTING THEIR HEADS OFF.

I don't think the hawk was able to fit into any of the lobster trap openings, because it flew off a few minutes later with nothing in its talons or its beak, and once it was gone there were a few seconds of silence before the sparrows emerged and resumed normal twittering and feeder-raiding.