Memorial Day Weekend Birding

Well this past holiday weekend was certainly a fun-packed, bird-filled one. So much so that blogging about it is seeming like quite an overwhelming task. (And especially now that it is Tuesday and I will be working until 11pm tonight.) I am going to try something a little different than usual in order to try to mitigate the task, and start this in a word processor, then cut-and-paste the text into the blog and add the photos. This way I can work at it during lunch breaks, etc.

I suppose I should start at the beginning. Friday evening, I managed to get out of work at about 4:30pm and decided to head over to the ‘mountain’ at Horn Pond, (our local patch) to see if I could finally get some photos of Indigo Buntings that I was relatively happy with. The results of these photos can be seen in my previous Bird Photography Weekly post. They breed in this area, along with Prairie Warblers and Field Sparrows.

Also while there, a pair of Orchard Orioles were pretty active as well, and managed a few shots of the male too. (The female tended to stay in the thickets)


Saturday dawned a little overcast and cool, and while some of our friends were out camping or kayaking, Pam and I decided to be a little less ‘one with nature’ and took our time getting out of the house. (By which I mean we left by 8:00am.) Our only solid plans for the day were to meet a group of friends at Wompatuck State Park in Hingham that afternoon where Rob and Corey had reserved a campsite for the weekend. We planned to get a bit of birding in then have a cookout. While we were out and heading north, Rob called to let us know that he had found a Kentucky Warbler right at the entrance to the campsite – unfortunately it was well over an hour away from where we were at that point, so we just crossed our fingers that he’d stick around for the rest of the day. Instead we headed to Marblehead Neck Sanctuary, where there had been some good warbler sightings in the previous few days – including Mourning Warbler. This skulking oporornis warbler is something of a nemesis bird for me. It’s not that I haven’t seen them before, but like many, the few looks I’ve had have been all too brief and left me wanting more. It seems like this year, people had been spotting them in several locations, but like other years – I just couldn’t seem to find one. Unfortunately, Saturday was no different. In fact, the whole area seemed to be pretty quiet, and after about an hour or so, we decided to call it quits with a handful of the more regular warblers like Yellows, Common Yellowthroats, and Magnolias (and not a single photo to show for it.)

We headed next to the Ipswich River Sanctuary, where we thought we might run into Mark & Laura, Paul & Diana who were participating in the annual Essex County Ornithological Club Canoe Trip (which makes a stop at the canoe launch at the sanctuary) and to hopefully find the Prothonotary Warbler that had been seen there regularly for the last few weeks. As on our previous trips – we gave it quite a bit of time (almost two hours), and heard the bird, but were never able to lay eyes or bins on it. (Very frustrating after reading so many reports from those who’d had the bird 10-15 ft away) Feeling like we were striking out on the target birds, we threw in the towel, and decided top get lunch then to get ready to head to Wompatuck.

We arrived at the park, and quickly found Rob and Corey, and tried for the Kentucky Warbler. Once again, a heard bird, but never seen by us. Also tried for Worm-eating Warbler, which had been vocal there earlier in the day, but couldn’t buy one in the middle of the afternoon, and finally tried for the Cerulean Warbler – which AGAIN, we heard but never really saw. (Rob got on it just as it flew away) Ever have one of those days when it seems like you just can’t see a bird to save your life? (Don’t get me wrong, we saw a lot of birds throughout the day – just none of the ones I really wanted to see – much less photograph!) Grumble, grumble, grumble.

The constant “dipping” on birds was made up entirely by a great evening with friends – Rob & Corey hosted us at their campsite, where we grilled hamburgers and hot dogs, had plenty of chips and snacks, but most importantly were joined by our friends Mark & Laura, Eddie & Maura with Jason, Denise, Paul & Diana. We were only missing was our buddy Mike, who couldn’t make it that evening – and there were plenty of comments about how much we wished he’d made it. Next time we will not take ‘no’ for an answer. A cookout and campfire with good friends – life doesn’t get much better than that.

Sunday started again cool and overcast, but quickly developed into a beautiful day. We picked up Paul & Diana at about 7:30am, and headed north again. We first went to Nahant Thicket, where Mourning Warbler had been reported on Saturday, but couldn’t seem to find one. (Seeing a pattern developing here?) The trees in New England have pretty much all leafed out, making bird-photography a little more difficult – notice the lack of photos in this narrative? We saw a good number of species, including Canada Warbler (which isn’t very common nor particularly rare around here) and a quite a few Blackpoll Warblers, which tend to be among the last wave of our spring migrants as they are moving through to their boreal breeding areas. We also made a quick stop at the ‘stump dump’ where we found the Golden-winged Warbler last fall (nothing overly exciting), and at the shore, where there were quite a few Black-bellied Plovers in various stages of molt. Upon leaving Nahant, we decided to continue a little further north and visited Marblehead Neck again, where activity levels were up a little bit from Saturday, and we were able to add Wilson’s, Blackburnian, and Black-throated Blue warblers to the list. Afterwards, we stopped in at the Barnacle in Marblehead – a local haunt that serves a good lunch at a decent price and is right on the water. The rest of the afternoon was spent relaxing before heading in to work the second job.

On Memorial Day Monday, we slept in again (until about 7:30 – I didn’t get in until after 11:15pm after all) but it was simply too beautiful out to stay in for long. As soon as we were able, we headed out and were at Plum Island by about 9am. I wasn’t sure what would be left in terms of migrants, but the weather made it a perfect day to be there. Soon after arriving, we saw Laura & Mark, and jumped out of the car to bird the ‘s-curves’ near the wardens, which turned out to be pretty productive – Canada, Blackpoll, Blackburnian, Magnolia, Yellow, Common Yellowthroat, Black-throated Green all were spied within a few minutes. (Slightly dulled by the fact that I received a call from Paul & Diana who had managed to see the Mourning Warbler with Marj that morning not far from where we live). While there, we also heard Black-billed Cuckoo calling, and moved up to the next stop to see if we could spot it. No luck there, but Bobolinks and a Savannah Sparrow put on quite a show.
(I believe this is the same SASP that I posted pics and a movie of a few weeks ago, as it was in the same exact location!) We then proceeded slowly down the refuge to Hellcat Swamp, where Least Bitterns had been seen a bit earlier. In the parking lot, we also ran into our friend Linda, who is always wonderful to see and who is also very linked in to what is around. (On several occasions, Linda has let me know about some great birds – including the Ivory Gull earlier this year with enough time to get to it from NH before dark) The five of us, spotting scopes in hand moved up to the North Pool Overlook dike to look for the bittern and within a few minutes we spotted one, that proceeded to put on quite a show for us – certainly one of the highlights of the weekend thus far. I tried my hand at digiscoping a bit – something I don’t do nearly as often as I don’t have a camera that allows as much control as I need for it, but I did get a couple of 'ok' shots off:
We did a little more birding on the refuge with them all, then Linda headed off in her own direction, as did Laura & Mark a little later. We grabbed a bite to eat at one of our favorite Thai restaurants in Newburyport (Andaman Thai) then decided to check out a tip we’d heard about at Crooked Pond in Boxford. We weren’t there long before we saw what I think was truly the avian highlight of the weekend:

I’ve heard but not seen Barred Owl for a while now, and really had hoped to lay ones on one – but really this takes the cake. I’m guessing this little guy had only recently stepped out of the nest box, and was sunning itself. We snapped a couple of quick pics and left him to enjoy the warm sunlight. I wasn’t able to spot either parent, although I am quite sure they couldn’t have been far, and they were probably watching us every moment of the few minutes we were there. While I was in the neighborhood, I figured I’d make one last stab at trying to get the Prothonotary Warbler in Ipswich, but once again, no joy. I did hear another bird I’d been looking for all spring, but it unfortunately stayed out of sight – Yellow-billed Cuckoo. As we were hading back towards Woburn, I received another call from Paul letting me know that a Y-B Cuckoo was calling not to far from the “Phoebe Bridge” (so called by birders because guess what nests below it) , so we headed there for a nice late afternoon walk. Although we heard the cuckoo, we never did lay eyes or bins on them. A Great-horned Owl’s location was disclosed by a loud group of crows, Blue Jays, and a few oriole, and I watched and listed to a pair of Hairy Woodpeckers “peek” at each other through mouthfuls of bright green food (for expectant young mouths I presume), and we saw several dragonflies, which I’ll post pics of in another post later (once I have them safely identified).

I think that about does it. A fun-filled, bird-packed weekend. As far as I am concerned – this is what holiday weekends were made for! What did you do with yours?