Nature Notes April 2020
April 5 - Karen called yesterday to say that she’d seen a great horned owl nest in the Forest Hills Cemetery earlier in the day – very exciting! She was tipped off by a group of birders with telescopes watching the nest. She wondered if I’d like her to show me the nest – absolutely, I’d like to see the nest! We met up at the cemetery around 9am this morning and went straight to the nest, high up in a pine(?), on the crest of a steep hillside. The nest itself was a jumble of sticks, perhaps 30” across, wedged into a crook of the tree, where several branches met the trunk. On the nest, two owlets, all tawny fluff, looking like ookpiks from the 1960s.
At one point, the owlets looked right at us and you could see the beginning of the tufts of the “horns” on one of them. After a bit, one of the adults flew in, landing in a nearby tree, observing the little clutch of birdwatchers watching its young. As the birders started approaching the adult, it flew off, over the gully and into the conifers on an adjacent hillside.
Another pair of great horned owls have been nesting at the Arnold Arboretum – I went to look for them later on in the month and found the large, roped off area, surrounding about 20 large conifers, where the nest was, but couldn’t find the nest itself. The Arb has some great photos on their website:
After leaving the cemetery nest, I went over to the small pond in the old part of the cemetery, where 4 female hooded mergansers were swimming together – unusual to see females without at least one male around.
Took some photos of monuments while I was at the cemetery. The first is the Milmore monument, Death Stays the Hand of the Sculptor, by Daniel Chester French. Martin Milmore was well known for Civil War monuments, including the Civil War monument at Forest Hills. Daniel Chester French is most famous for the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC. There are a number of French sculptures in Jamaica Plain – a few more at the cemetery and the Francis Parkman memorial on Parkman Drive, next to Jamaica Pond.
April 7 - On my 6am walk with Maddie, saw a muskrat swimming along edge of Jamaica Pond, between Eliot St and the boathouse.
April 9 – Blue flowers at the Arboretum.
April 10 - While doing some cleanup from the winter in the back yard, saw a pair of house finches perching on a bend at the top of the downspout, just beneath the eaves of the house, and flying about the yard.
April 11 – A raccoon sitting at the back of a yard on Eliot Street on my morning walk with Maddie.
April 12 - On the morning walk with Maddie, saw a single bufflehead furiously flapping over Jamaica Pond, landing and then taking off again a minute later. Great blue heron flying over Pond St, with its slow, deliberate wingbeat, going steadily on its way.
Later that morning, out in the yard, saw the pair of house finches again, flittering about, having a drink at the stone water basin and flying back up to their perch on the downspout. Went into the house to get my binoculars and then saw that they’re working on a nest – lots of little twigs shoved into the space between the downspout and the house shingles, the start of a nest. Looking forward to following their nesting!
Around 11am, while I was watching the West Roxbury Unitarian church service on zoom from the sunroom, I noticed a couple of birds, maybe woodpeckers, perched high up in one of the oaks next to the Arborway. Taking a break from the service, I went into the yard with my binoculars to check them out: two northern flickers, perched on the same branch, facing each other, swerving and jabbing their bills into the air towards each other. They stayed there for several minutes, continuing to jab at each other, before flying off, one chasing the other. I’d never seen this behavior before - here’s what the Cornell Lab of Ornithology says about it:
“Early in spring and summer, [Northern Flicker] rivals may face off in a display sometimes called a “fencing duel,” while a prospective mate looks on. Two birds face each other on a branch, bills pointed upward, and bob their heads in time while drawing a loop or figure-eight pattern in the air, often giving rhythmic wicka calls at the same time.”
https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Northern_Flicker/lifehistory
And this link shows a YouTube video of the behavior so that you can see it for yourself:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gAT43rYPbY
Later on in the afternoon, saw a male goldfinch at the granite water basin in the back yard, then a female a little bit later. A mourning dove has been hanging around the water basin, too, sometimes sitting on the wide edge of the basin for 5 or 10 minutes at a time. When I took Maddie out around 2pm, I saw a female turkey in Mary’s driveway, at the end of Prince St. The next day, her husband, David, told me it’s been hanging about their back yard and their neighbor’s, maybe looking for a nesting site – last year there were turkey chicks about.
April 14 - Went out around 9am to check on the house finches and their nest-building. A flurry of activity, but not the good kind. An interloping, large male house sparrow was hanging around the nest, driving the house finches away every time they tried to get near it. The finches perched on top of the roof, looking down at their nest forlornly as the sparrow hopped about on the downspout by the nest. Every now and then the finches would approach the nest only to be driven away by the (evil) sparrow. Later in the afternoon, no birds at all at the nest, not the finches, not the sparrow.
Around 4pm, walking Maddie at the Arboretum a carpet of lovely yellow flowers beneath the trees.
On the way back from our walk, on the hillside near the main visitor building, I saw 3 northern flickers fly past, presumably 2 males after a female. Two landed on a tree not too far in front of me - one started the fencing duel routine but when the other didn’t engage they both flew off beyond where I could follow them.
April 16 – A tiny flurry of snow as I walked Maddie early this morning. A black-capped chickadee perched in a bush with snow falling around it.
Checked on the downspout nest again this morning – no birds around - I think the house finches have given up and moved on. Three mourning doves hanging around the back yard – on the stone basin, on the ground by the daylilies, flying up to perch on the telephone wire once in a while. A white-breasted nuthatch on the fascia of the one-story kitchen bump out. Cardinals flying across the yard at high speed.
Later in the afternoon a chipmunk snuffled its way across the back yard and then perched on the wooden borders of one of the raised beds for a while, contemplating its next move.
April 17 – Heard a couple of woodpeckers drumming on our early morning walk. Been hearing drumming for about a month or so now.
Lots of trees in blossom right now – a couple of photos of the magnolia around the corner, on Pond St and a photo of the tree across the street from my house.
For the last month or so, I’ve been on the lookout for the stripey robin with some mutation that produces white stripes on its wings. It’s been spending the spring/summer/early fall at the end of our street near the pond every year since 2016. But no stripey robin this year. It may have died – my guess is that robins don’t generally live for much more than 4 years in the wild. BirdNote says that robins typically live something like 3 years, although one banded and recaptured bird lived 14 years.
April 18 – Snow falling overnight, about a couple of inches of wet, slushy snow this morning when I took Maddie out. The beautiful magnolia from yesterday now covered in snow.
The snow on the trees at the pond was beautiful in the early morning misty light.
And, a little later, at the Arboretum, snow hanging in the conifers, looking wintry in April.
April 19 – The snow turned to rain yesterday morning and is all gone now. Today is a beautiful sunny, clear day, forecast to be 62°F (17°C). After walking Maddie and having breakfast, went birding at the Arboretum – lots of activity. Along the drumlin footpath, saw several tufted titmouse and nuthatches – several on trees quite close to me. Along the oak path, a pair of chipping sparrows flying into small trees together, then taking off, going nearly straight up and doing some sort of aerial dance together, flying in tight circles around each other. Saw both downy and hairy woodpeckers pecking away. In a bush near the lilac hill, saw a wren – couldn’t be sure what type, but probably a house wren.
There have been robins and mourning doves hanging around the back yard for a couple of weeks now. The robins are building a nest in one of the small bushes. I’ve seen them flying around with bits of grass/twigs in their bills and this morning one flew into the bush with bits of grass and flew back out again without it. The mourning doves are less ambitious – one often just sits on the mulch or the fence for hours at a time (it’s been on the fence for the last hour or so) and the other flits in and out – on the mulch or stone water basin or perched on the phone wire.
April 22 – Saw an adult rabbit in the back yard, hopping onto one of the raised beds, then over to and under the gate to the driveway. Then I noticed a baby bunny, about ¼ of the size of the adult, hop out from under the canoe and look around. It paused before hopping over to the back fence and then through a narrow opening between the fence and the garage to go behind the garage. Then another adult appeared in the corner of the yard near the back of the house just as I let Maddie out. She went into her predator mode and chased the rabbit to the fence, at which point it went under the fence at a well-worn spot (where I suspect rabbits enter the yard whenever they feel like it). Maddie was so excited, even though the rabbit was never in any real danger.
A few small stones have appeared at the bottom of the water basin in the back yard again. I cleared a not small pile of stones out of the basin after the winter. And now more stones have appeared. I have no idea how they are getting there. A raccoon?
April 24. On a drizzly grey day, the robins continued working on their nest, bringing beakfuls of dried grassy stems into the bush. The mourning dove still hanging around the back yard. A friend, Di Goldsmith, sent a photo of a female wood duck that her nephew, Chris, rescued from his chimney. Maybe it got confused – they normally nest in hollows in trees.
April 25 Beautiful warm sunny spring day. Working in the back yard, finishing off cleaning up the winter debris, found myself next to the bush where the robins have been working on a nest – a bit of a jumble, but hidden among the bits of long dried-out grasses, a nest. Saw one of the robins bringing more grassy stems to it after dinner.
And today is the day Martin and Katherines’s cats, Thistle and Patches, were liberated from their winter house arrest. Those of you who came to visit Jeannie will remember them perched on the cat stand in their living room, overlooking the driveway and our dining room where Jeannie lay all winter long. Now they are out on the prowl, slinking around the water basin in my back yard, hunting for birds who come there to drink and bathe. But Katherine thwarts them by putting lots of bells on their collars to warn the birds. And Maddie is on their case, at the ready to chase after them when they creep into our back yard.
April 26 Around 7am, went for a bike ride up to the BU bridge, along the Emerald Necklace bike path and the back roads that parallel it – the roads are less busy than the bike path. Saw my first Canada Goose goslings of the season – 3 tiny yellow and brown fluffballs, close by their parents, on the bank of the Muddy River.
April 27. Saw Margaret Renkl’s oped in the NY Times today. She often writes about nature from her home in Nashville, Tennessee. Today, she wrote about wild animals coming into towns and cities, now that fewer people are about. And, at the end of her article, she wrote about seeing northern flickers doing their “fencing duel” just like I saw a couple of weeks ago. I was very tickled to see her description:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/27/opinion/coronavirus-shutdown-environment.html?searchResultPosition=1
April 28 Maddie wants to report that she saw a baby squirrel, 1/3 the size of an adult, at the base of a long stone wall at the end of our street this morning on our way back to the house. It was snuffling along the wall and Maddie took chase (well, on the leash). Several times it tried to jump up onto the top of the wall, a couple of feet up, but it was too little to make it and bounced off the side of the wall onto the ground again. After a bit, I let it get away and it ran off further down the wall, stopped in a little depression filled with leaves, and then kept trying to jump up the wall. Eventually it made it, went down the other side and then up the nearby tree. As Maddie and I walked up to the tree the squirrel perched on a low branch to check us out, then ran further up the tree.
April 29 Trillium in flower along the oak path at the Arb. The symbol of Ontario, where I grew up.
A sealskin ookpik from the mid-1960s.
HazelAB. CC BY-SA 4.0]
At one point, the owlets looked right at us and you could see the beginning of the tufts of the “horns” on one of them. After a bit, one of the adults flew in, landing in a nearby tree, observing the little clutch of birdwatchers watching its young. As the birders started approaching the adult, it flew off, over the gully and into the conifers on an adjacent hillside.
Another pair of great horned owls have been nesting at the Arnold Arboretum – I went to look for them later on in the month and found the large, roped off area, surrounding about 20 large conifers, where the nest was, but couldn’t find the nest itself. The Arb has some great photos on their website:
After leaving the cemetery nest, I went over to the small pond in the old part of the cemetery, where 4 female hooded mergansers were swimming together – unusual to see females without at least one male around.
Took some photos of monuments while I was at the cemetery. The first is the Milmore monument, Death Stays the Hand of the Sculptor, by Daniel Chester French. Martin Milmore was well known for Civil War monuments, including the Civil War monument at Forest Hills. Daniel Chester French is most famous for the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC. There are a number of French sculptures in Jamaica Plain – a few more at the cemetery and the Francis Parkman memorial on Parkman Drive, next to Jamaica Pond.
I also love the Barnard monument, with its great and loyal dog, keeping watch over Henry and Lucinda (who made it to 100!).
April 9 – Blue flowers at the Arboretum.
April 10 - While doing some cleanup from the winter in the back yard, saw a pair of house finches perching on a bend at the top of the downspout, just beneath the eaves of the house, and flying about the yard.
April 11 – A raccoon sitting at the back of a yard on Eliot Street on my morning walk with Maddie.
April 12 - On the morning walk with Maddie, saw a single bufflehead furiously flapping over Jamaica Pond, landing and then taking off again a minute later. Great blue heron flying over Pond St, with its slow, deliberate wingbeat, going steadily on its way.
Later that morning, out in the yard, saw the pair of house finches again, flittering about, having a drink at the stone water basin and flying back up to their perch on the downspout. Went into the house to get my binoculars and then saw that they’re working on a nest – lots of little twigs shoved into the space between the downspout and the house shingles, the start of a nest. Looking forward to following their nesting!
Around 11am, while I was watching the West Roxbury Unitarian church service on zoom from the sunroom, I noticed a couple of birds, maybe woodpeckers, perched high up in one of the oaks next to the Arborway. Taking a break from the service, I went into the yard with my binoculars to check them out: two northern flickers, perched on the same branch, facing each other, swerving and jabbing their bills into the air towards each other. They stayed there for several minutes, continuing to jab at each other, before flying off, one chasing the other. I’d never seen this behavior before - here’s what the Cornell Lab of Ornithology says about it:
“Early in spring and summer, [Northern Flicker] rivals may face off in a display sometimes called a “fencing duel,” while a prospective mate looks on. Two birds face each other on a branch, bills pointed upward, and bob their heads in time while drawing a loop or figure-eight pattern in the air, often giving rhythmic wicka calls at the same time.”
https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Northern_Flicker/lifehistory
And this link shows a YouTube video of the behavior so that you can see it for yourself:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gAT43rYPbY
Later on in the afternoon, saw a male goldfinch at the granite water basin in the back yard, then a female a little bit later. A mourning dove has been hanging around the water basin, too, sometimes sitting on the wide edge of the basin for 5 or 10 minutes at a time. When I took Maddie out around 2pm, I saw a female turkey in Mary’s driveway, at the end of Prince St. The next day, her husband, David, told me it’s been hanging about their back yard and their neighbor’s, maybe looking for a nesting site – last year there were turkey chicks about.
April 14 - Went out around 9am to check on the house finches and their nest-building. A flurry of activity, but not the good kind. An interloping, large male house sparrow was hanging around the nest, driving the house finches away every time they tried to get near it. The finches perched on top of the roof, looking down at their nest forlornly as the sparrow hopped about on the downspout by the nest. Every now and then the finches would approach the nest only to be driven away by the (evil) sparrow. Later in the afternoon, no birds at all at the nest, not the finches, not the sparrow.
Around 4pm, walking Maddie at the Arboretum a carpet of lovely yellow flowers beneath the trees.
On the way back from our walk, on the hillside near the main visitor building, I saw 3 northern flickers fly past, presumably 2 males after a female. Two landed on a tree not too far in front of me - one started the fencing duel routine but when the other didn’t engage they both flew off beyond where I could follow them.
April 16 – A tiny flurry of snow as I walked Maddie early this morning. A black-capped chickadee perched in a bush with snow falling around it.
Checked on the downspout nest again this morning – no birds around - I think the house finches have given up and moved on. Three mourning doves hanging around the back yard – on the stone basin, on the ground by the daylilies, flying up to perch on the telephone wire once in a while. A white-breasted nuthatch on the fascia of the one-story kitchen bump out. Cardinals flying across the yard at high speed.
Later in the afternoon a chipmunk snuffled its way across the back yard and then perched on the wooden borders of one of the raised beds for a while, contemplating its next move.
April 17 – Heard a couple of woodpeckers drumming on our early morning walk. Been hearing drumming for about a month or so now.
Lots of trees in blossom right now – a couple of photos of the magnolia around the corner, on Pond St and a photo of the tree across the street from my house.
For the last month or so, I’ve been on the lookout for the stripey robin with some mutation that produces white stripes on its wings. It’s been spending the spring/summer/early fall at the end of our street near the pond every year since 2016. But no stripey robin this year. It may have died – my guess is that robins don’t generally live for much more than 4 years in the wild. BirdNote says that robins typically live something like 3 years, although one banded and recaptured bird lived 14 years.
April 18 – Snow falling overnight, about a couple of inches of wet, slushy snow this morning when I took Maddie out. The beautiful magnolia from yesterday now covered in snow.
There have been robins and mourning doves hanging around the back yard for a couple of weeks now. The robins are building a nest in one of the small bushes. I’ve seen them flying around with bits of grass/twigs in their bills and this morning one flew into the bush with bits of grass and flew back out again without it. The mourning doves are less ambitious – one often just sits on the mulch or the fence for hours at a time (it’s been on the fence for the last hour or so) and the other flits in and out – on the mulch or stone water basin or perched on the phone wire.
April 22 – Saw an adult rabbit in the back yard, hopping onto one of the raised beds, then over to and under the gate to the driveway. Then I noticed a baby bunny, about ¼ of the size of the adult, hop out from under the canoe and look around. It paused before hopping over to the back fence and then through a narrow opening between the fence and the garage to go behind the garage. Then another adult appeared in the corner of the yard near the back of the house just as I let Maddie out. She went into her predator mode and chased the rabbit to the fence, at which point it went under the fence at a well-worn spot (where I suspect rabbits enter the yard whenever they feel like it). Maddie was so excited, even though the rabbit was never in any real danger.
A few small stones have appeared at the bottom of the water basin in the back yard again. I cleared a not small pile of stones out of the basin after the winter. And now more stones have appeared. I have no idea how they are getting there. A raccoon?
April 24. On a drizzly grey day, the robins continued working on their nest, bringing beakfuls of dried grassy stems into the bush. The mourning dove still hanging around the back yard. A friend, Di Goldsmith, sent a photo of a female wood duck that her nephew, Chris, rescued from his chimney. Maybe it got confused – they normally nest in hollows in trees.
April 25 Beautiful warm sunny spring day. Working in the back yard, finishing off cleaning up the winter debris, found myself next to the bush where the robins have been working on a nest – a bit of a jumble, but hidden among the bits of long dried-out grasses, a nest. Saw one of the robins bringing more grassy stems to it after dinner.
April 27. Saw Margaret Renkl’s oped in the NY Times today. She often writes about nature from her home in Nashville, Tennessee. Today, she wrote about wild animals coming into towns and cities, now that fewer people are about. And, at the end of her article, she wrote about seeing northern flickers doing their “fencing duel” just like I saw a couple of weeks ago. I was very tickled to see her description:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/27/opinion/coronavirus-shutdown-environment.html?searchResultPosition=1
April 28 Maddie wants to report that she saw a baby squirrel, 1/3 the size of an adult, at the base of a long stone wall at the end of our street this morning on our way back to the house. It was snuffling along the wall and Maddie took chase (well, on the leash). Several times it tried to jump up onto the top of the wall, a couple of feet up, but it was too little to make it and bounced off the side of the wall onto the ground again. After a bit, I let it get away and it ran off further down the wall, stopped in a little depression filled with leaves, and then kept trying to jump up the wall. Eventually it made it, went down the other side and then up the nearby tree. As Maddie and I walked up to the tree the squirrel perched on a low branch to check us out, then ran further up the tree.
April 29 Trillium in flower along the oak path at the Arb. The symbol of Ontario, where I grew up.
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