March 2022

March 1 I heard, and then spotted, a single male cardinal singing at the tippy top of a tree at 6:30am. With the sun just coming up, low in the sky, it glowed, looking like it was illuminated from within.

Throughout the first half of March, around 20 common and a dozen or so hooded mergansers continued at Jamaica Pond.  Some days I also saw a single bufflehead, tipping into the water, diving and bobbing up again, over and over.  A few ring-necked ducks hanging out at Ward's Pond.  And the screech owl has been at the tree cavity at the end of the street on and off. Mostly I see it dozing in the afternoon sun as the days get warmer. 

March 3 The ice on the pond is melting; I was surprised to see this nearly perfectly circular patch of open ice.

In the afternoon, at the Arb, I heard a great horned owl near the Hunnewell building but couldn't find it. Most years there is a pair that nests at the Arb.

In the evening, I went to a reception for a new exhibit at the Concord Museum, about William Brewster, the first President of Mass Audubon and a Harvard professor of ornithology.  In conjunction with the exhibit, the museum is having a number of talks, most of which are online as well as in person, which might be of interest: Scott Weidensaul (On the Wing, May 3); Joan Walsh (Founding Women and the Dawn of the Conservation Movement, May 10).  Their website with all the details to register is at concord museum.  

William Brewster's headstone, at Mt. Auburn cemetery in Cambridge, reads: "For, lo, the winter is past, the flowers appear on the earth, the time of singing of birds is come."  And it feels, indeed, like the time of singing of birds is come.  Welcome after another covid winter.

March 4 Appropriately, red-winged blackbirds singing on the marsh at the Arb this morning, the first of the spring. Also downy woodpecker, nuthatches, black-capped chickadees and tufted titmouse. The pussywillows gleamed in the sun.

 

 

At Ward's Pond, I saw a guy walking a Bedlington terrier, originally bred in Bedlington, Northumberland, a few miles from Ashington, where my parents grew up.  My mother loved Bedlingtons, always saying they look like little lambs.

 

 

Snowdrops coming up through the snow in a neighbor's front yard.

March 8 At the Arb, I see two hawks, I think red-tailed, flying one behind the other by the Hunnewell building and wonder if they are mates.

March 9 Maddie, always optimistic, checking out the box from Chewy.com on a neighbor's porch.

March 10 Light snowfall overnight, a little wet from the mild temperature, clinging to every branch and twig, everything sparkly in the brilliant sunshine.  Walkers stopping to comment to each other on how beautiful it is.

March 11 Taking Maddie out in the early morning, we're just walking along Prince St when a hawk drops out of a tree right above us, then swoops up and lands high up in another nearby tree.  Smaller and slenderer than a red-tail and with light and dark bands on its tail, possibly a Cooper's hawk. After breakfast, I go back to Jamaica Pond on my own to look at the ducks.  I see a grey blob up high up in one of the sycamores by the intersection of Parkman Drive with Perkins St; with the binoculars I realize that it's a peregrine falcon!  Just perched there, gazing out over the pond.  I suspect looking for some unsuspecting bird to prey on. I get a pretty good look at it and show it to a few other walkers, who are delighted to see it.  Continuing on, I run into my neighbor, Mary, and go back to show her the peregrine.  Along the way we see the usual common and hooded mergansers, along with a few ruddy ducks and ring-necked ducks.  On the way home, checking out the tree cavity, we see the rufous screech owl there. And at the end of the day, I see both the rufous and grey screech owls, snuggled up against each other, in the tree cavity.

On our afternoon walk, crocuses blooming.

 

And in the local JP Gazette, an article on what vets call "happy tail injuries:  this type of injury occurs when a dog with an outgoing personality and a long tail repeatedly whacks the tail against a hard surface such as a crate or wall."

March 12 Foggy morning, can't even see across the pond. But I do manage to see a pair of hoodies and a muskrat swimming along close to the edge of the pond.  

 

We've had a few mild days in the past week, completely melting the ice on the pond.

March 14  The mergansers were diving close to the edge of Jamaica Pond this morning so I got a photo.

 

A few days ago I noticed that the nest that a pair of red-tailed hawks started, but abandoned, last year, on a light pole over a local baseball field, has been greatly enlarged this spring. 

This morning, as I walked along the far edge of the field, a red-tailed hawk took off from the nest, landing in a nearby tree.  And when I went back a little later on, with my scope, I got a great view of the hawk on the nest.

 

Walking in the woods near the field, I saw a downy woodpecker, a northern flicker and a red-bellied woodpecker, all pecking away.  Lately I've been hearing woodpeckers drumming and am wondering if they are starting to peck out nesting cavities in trees in that area.

March 15 Driving to MIT, stopped at a red light near the hawk nest, I see a red-tail fly over the field and land on the nest.

March 18   70F (21C) today, sunny, balmy, people out everywhere: at the pond, the Arb, the streets, giddy with spring.  Over the last few days, I've noticed that after spending the winter flocked together, the Canada geese have paired up. After not seeing any all winter, chipmunks have reappeared.  Daffodils coming up, leaves on bushes starting to bud out.

Out with Maddie at dusk, I saw a small bat darting around near the tree tops. Maybe a little brown bat (that's it's name as well as its description).

March 19 The mergansers at the pond are all gone, perhaps prompted by yesterday's mild weather to head north.  In eastern North America, the common mergansers breed from mid-Vermont and New Hampshire, across Maine and north up to James Bay through Newfoundland and Labrador.  The breeding range of the hoodies stretches up through Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and across to the southern end of James Bay.  I'll be keeping an eye out for them, but suspect I won't be seeing them again until November.

A few ruddy ducks still at the pond.

March 20  Wonderful birdy day.  Went birding with my friends Nancy and Dinny, who were keen to see the red tail hawk nest.  On the way there, we stopped at the tree cavity at the end of the street, but no screech owls there.  Then to Jamaica Pond: 4 common mergansers, 3 male, 1 female and a few ruddy ducks.  Walked around Ward's Pond, a few ring-necked ducks. And then on to the hawk nest. At first, didn't see either of the hawks, but then, in a few moments, one landed on top of the light pole, the other emerged from down in the nest and after a few seconds, took off, at which point the first one hopped down and took over nest duty.  It was wonderful to see them both.  

Walking on a little further, to the woods at the end of Leverett Pond, we heard a red-bellied woodpecker close by in the trees, but couldn't see it.  It kept on calling and eventually we spotted just a head poking out from a hole in the very bottom of an upward sloping branch.  With the binoculars, you could see its bill moving as it called.  A couple of minutes later, it disappeared back into the hole.

In the afternoon, I went to an owl event at the Boston Nature Center, one of Mass Audubon's sanctuaries near JP, with three owls: a screech owl, a barn owl and a barred owl.  The handler was wonderful, chatting with the owls as well as everyone gathered there, full of interesting information about them.  She said that screech owls will return to the same nest if they've been successful in the past, which encouraged me to think that the ones near my house are will stay for the breeding season and lay eggs again this year.

Screech owl

Barn owl

Barred owl

Barred owl

If that wasn't enough birds for one day, after dinner I met up with my friend Beth to go back to the Boston Nature Center to look for woodcocks, odd-looking, plump, mottled brown birds, with bills nearly half the length of their entire bodies. Adding to their oddities, genetically they're in the shorebird family but live in scrubby fields and young forests.  We arrived at dusk to watch for the male's energetic courtship display;   Cornell's All About Birds website has this to say about it:

"The male woodcock’s evening display flights are one of the magical natural sights of springtime in the East. He gives buzzy peent calls from a display area on the ground, then flies upward in a wide spiral. As he gets higher, his wings start to twitter. At a height of 200–350 feet the twittering becomes intermittent, and the bird starts to descend. He zigzags down, chirping as he goes, then lands silently (near a female, if she is present). Once on the ground, he resumes peenting and the display starts over again."

 "Peent" doesn't really do the call justice; it's more like an sharp, short electric buzzing sound.  We heard the peent calls, but didn't manage to see the birds as the light was fading.  Might try again another evening.

While we waited, a flock of 8 or 10 turkeys appeared in the gravel parking lot.  As it grew darker, each one took a running start, going faster than I imagined they could, and flew up into the tree tops to roost for the night.  There was nothing graceful about their performance: they're not elegant fliers and once they got high up in the trees, they looked a bit precarious.  

March 21 Went back to the hawk nest to find both of them standing on the nest. Then one took off and the other settled down on the nest.  Really exciting to see such large birds coming and going from the nest.

March 24 The group of 3 male and 1 female common mergansers is no longer at the pond; still a few ruddy ducks, though. Haven't seen the hoodies for about a week; think they've headed north to breed.

Allandale Farm opened for the season today. I stopped by to check on their two black Highland cattle, Willard and Curtis. 

 

My parents, from the Borders between England and Scotland, always called them kyloe (which they pronounced ki (as in kite) -lee)  They are more commonly a dun or reddish brown color.  And even though they are massive, with huge horns, in Northumberland, you would sometimes see a Border collie herding them up.

On our afternoon walk, saw these crocusses in a neighbor's front garden.

March 25 Went for a guided bird walk at the Boston Nature Center.  Three types of sparrows: fox sparrow, with its chestnut coloured butt and tail; white-throated sparrow, with its white throat, black cap and white and yellow dash above its eyes; and song sparrow, with its dark dot centered on its streaked breast.  A wood duck in the marsh took off when it noticed our group.  Lots of red-winged blackbirds and grackles at the marsh.  So great that the BNC is in Mattapan, one of the lowest income neighborhoods in Boston.  They have terrific camp programs, with scholarships for low income kids, a nature pre-school and a teen youth leader program.

March 27 This morning, at the parking lot by Ward's Pond, I ran into my neighbor, David Friedman, a retired professor in art history at MIT, who has taken up photography.  As we chatted, he told me that he's working on a project on the city in nature, along the lines of this rusted out lamp pole along one of the Emerald Necklace paths. We laughed, because my nature notes blog is the opposite: nature in the city.

Ring-necked ducks still at Ward's Pond.  Red-tail hawk on the nest at the ball field.  A pair of wood ducks at Leverett Pond. From across the pond, I first noticed the white breast of the male, standing on a horizontal root running along the bank of the pond. The female waddled down the bank into the water, paddled about 15 feet, then turned around, got out of the pond and waddled back up to the male. Maybe urging him into the pond? But he wasn't having it and hopped up onto the grass above the bank.

Haven't seen either of the screech owls at the tree cavity for a little over a week now.  Uh-oh... wondering if something happened to one of them (great horned owls eat other owls) or if they've moved on... The Cornell All About Birds website says that the males will defend a territory with several tree cavities, so perhaps they've moved elsewhere.

March 28 Snow this morning! And cold: wind chill 15F (-9C).  

March 29 Even colder! Wind chill 7F (-14C).  Ice forming on the base of the bushes at the pond.

Sitting in the sunroom, I saw a robin, mourning dove and some house sparrows on the ice in the stone water basin in my back garden, trying to get a drink. And when I looked more closely, there were 4 cedar waxwings, perched on the edge of the basin!  I just love how elegant they look, with their perky tan crest and black masks.

This afternoon I went to a talk on the history of the Arboretum given by their librarian, Lisa Pearson; today is the 150th anniversary of the founding of the Arboretum. You can read more about it here and here (the second link has some interesting old photos).  It's named for James Arnold, a New Bedford whaling merchant, who left a bequest of funds to Harvard University “for the establishment and support of an arboretum, to be known as the Arnold Arboretum, which shall contain, as far as practicable, all the trees [and] shrubs . . . either indigenous or exotic, which can be raised in the open air.” (As of November 2020, the Arb had 15,500 trees of 2050 species; the goal is to have at least one of every species that will grow in Boston.) The land was left by an earlier bequest by Benjamin Bussey, for the "creation of an institution for instruction in farming, horticulture, botany, and related fields".  Frederick Law Olmsted, the co-designer of Central Park in New York, designed the landscape and roadways. In return for the City of Boston paying for the cost of building roads, landscaping and planting the original trees, Harvard donated the land to the city which then gave Harvard a 1000 year (renewable) lease for one dollar per year. (Love that Harvard plans to renew in 850 years.) 

This evening, went to a virtual talk by Scott Edwards, an ornithology professor at Harvard, who spoke a little about the history of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard, founded in 1859, as well as William Brewster's role at the MCZ. 

I've given many talks at the Arb over the years:  Tree Mobs on the different species of woods that were used for different parts of colonial ships (white oak for hulls, eastern white pine for masts etc.); using bamboo for structural bamboo products, similar to plywood (sometimes called plyboo or plybam) and oriented strandboard; the internal sandwich structure of cattail and iris leaves that makes them stiff and light; and lectures on how birds work.  

And I've used the resources of the MCZ for several projects:  looking at the microscopic structure of animal quills (porcupines, hedgehogs, echidna etc.); my woodpecker video, Built to Peck; and now, my project on Namaqua sandgrouse, a desert sandgrouse from Africa, looking at the specialized microscopic structures in the feather that allow the males to carry water in their belly feathers to their chicks (which can't fly to watering holes).  I feel so lucky to have the Arboretum and MCZ here in Boston and Cambridge. 

Many educational and cultural institutions in Boston were founded in the last half of the 19th century - it was an amazing time.  Here's a short list: MCZ (1859); MIT (1861); Museum of Fine Arts (1870); Arnold Arboretum (1872); Emerald Necklace park system (built over the 1870s-1895).  William Barton Rogers, the founder of MIT, was also one of the founders of the MFA.

March 30 Cold again this morning. One pair of common mergansers and a few ruddy ducks at Jamaica Pond.  On my way back from the pond I saw a hawk, maybe a red-tail, sitting right on the top of a telephone pole by the rotary at the end of the pond, then take off, swooping down low before landing up in the trees beyond the pole, attracting the attention of a group of crows.