November 2022

 October 31 These puffins arrived at my porch on Halloween and I couldn't resist including them. I especially liked their orange feet.

I also couldn't resist sending the photo to my colleague at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology who hosted my visit last month. In response, she sent me this picture of the bird of paradise costume she made for her son one year.  I think, but am not positive, that her costume is the Vogelkop superb bird of paradise; to really appreciate this, you need to watch a video of the male's amazing courtship display.

There are 42 species of birds of paradise, all living in New Guinea and the northeastern tip of Australia; the Cornell website describes them as "the world's most spectacular birds". To get an idea of just how spectacular they are, take a look at this BBC/David Attenborough clip of their courtship dances. 

November 1  Susan was keen to see the ginkos turning golden at the Arb, so we walked over to the collection at Peter's Hill and were not disappointed.

The Arb's ginko collection is especially noteworthy.  While ginkos are commonly cultivated, there are thought to be only a few isolated wild populations remaining, in two regions of China. In 1989, Peter del Tredici, an Arb researcher, visited some of these refugia (locations which support an isolated or relict population of once widespread species) to assist in assembling an inventory of the ginkos there and to bring seeds back to the Arb, which were then grown into the trees we see today. Michael Dosmann, Keeper of the Living Collections at the Arb, says “Because of Peter’s work, the Arboretum’s Ginkgo collection is one of the most important conservation collections of its kind, anywhere.” Living Collections Fellow Terry Huang, says “The Arnold Arboretum holds the largest collection of Ginkgo from the two regions researchers believe harbor wild or relict populations—Tianmu Shan in eastern China and the mountains of southwestern China. This collection showcases morphological range of Ginkgo and the preservation of its genetic diversity.”

November 2  Took Maddie for a walk in the Arb, loved the color on the drumlin by the Leventritt garden.

 November 3 With the run of unseasonably warm weather we've been having, this azalea on Prince St. decided it was time to put forth a little blossom again.

Susan suggested I go see the fire ant one of her Cambridge neighbors created for Halloween - a two-headed monster, nearly as wide as their house.

November 4 Walking through the trails at Mass Audubon's Habitat sanctuary in Belmont, we spotted this plaque on a bench, in memory of Paul Samuelson, a Nobel-prize winning MIT economist.  The quote, from HL Mencken, made me laugh.

In the garden by the house that serves as a visitor center, we saw this fierce looking owl sculpture.

November 5  My neighbor, Mary, spotted hooded mergansers on Jamaica Pond this morning; the first I've heard of this fall.

November 6 Walked along the Emerald Necklace, past Jamaica Pond, Ward's Pond and Leverett Pond this morning. Saw a couple of dozen wood ducks near the islands in Leverett Pond and two pairs by the reeds at Ward's Pond.  The males are so elegant; the females look a little sly, with their white, teardrop-shaped eyeliner.

November 7 In Provincetown for a few days.  A flock of about two dozen Brant geese landed on the water just in front of Susan's condo and stayed there, feeding, for a while.  Fun for me as I hadn't seen any in several years.  

The temperatures so far this month have been just wacky: Nov 1 64F; Nov 2 70F; Nov 3 61F; Nov 4 72F; Nov 5 75F; Nov 6 76F (a record); and, today, 75F. (For those on the metric system, 60F = 15C and 70F = 21C).

November 8  Woke up a little before 6am this morning, just in time to see the eclipse of the moon, the blood moon, near its maximum.

Later on this morning, saw a male common eider in the water just off the condo. And then three female  mergansers, not sure which species, snoozing, heads tucked in, until one came too close to another and it gave a little chase.   

November 9  Maddie is staying with her dog friend, Marsha, and her cat friend, Bruce, who live with Beth and Dale, while I'm in Ptown.  Beth says Maddie told her she'd like me to get her a cat.

November 10  Up early this morning, the tide out. About 75 Brant geese feeding a little ways off the shore.  A gull flying high then dropping a shell onto the beach, landing, examining it and picking it up and dropping it repeatedly until the shell fractured.  A glimpse of a what I think was a fox trotting along further down the beach, by the houses before turning into one of the walkways.  At one point, saw the sun rising over Truro.

Just as I sat down to write this, looking out the window, lots of splashes out in the water: a group of about thirty Northern gannets, mostly juveniles, diving. So spectacular to watch them dive from a height, head first, pulling their wings tight to their bodies just before plunging into the water!  Watching them from the deck with binoculars, they flew towards the harbor, diving along the way, then stayed in one area, diving over and over.  Gradually, more and more gannets joined the group until there must have been around a hundred; I could see them flying in from further out in the bay. Over ten or fifteen minutes, they flew back and forth across the bay, pausing to dive here and there.  You can get a sense of how wonderful it is to watch them from this BBC video.

Later on, saw buffleheads and I think female red-breasted mergansers in the water just off the condo. I need to bring my telescope the next time I come to Ptown.

November 13  Back in Jamaica Plain, saw 9 hooded mergansers on Jamaica Pond this afternoon - the first I'd seen there this fall. Later on in the afternoon, saw these delicate red berries in a creamy, satin pod on a wintercreeper euonymus shrub in my neighborhood.

November 15  From the glass doors in my kitchen, I spotted these four mourning doves hunkered down, all fluffed up, taking in the sun.

November 17  Frosty this morning, tiny white crystals of ice gathering on the dead, dry leaves.

Walking Maddie down Susan's street in Cambridge, I caught something moving out of the corner of my eye: a hawk, maybe a Cooper's, flying low and fast, just barely over the rooftops, crossing overhead in a flash. 

And at home, the beautyberries gleaming in the sun.

November 18 About 30 hooded mergansers, in two groups, on Jamaica Pond early this morning. Hard to count exactly how many, as they were diving, coming up for a few seconds, and diving back down again.  Love seeing them, even though it's a sign of colder weather coming. A couple of ruddy ducks, too.

Along the Parkman Drive side of the pond, there has been a downed tree trunk in the water at the edge of the pond for months.  I've seen muskrats perched on the log before, grooming themselves, and sometimes swimming in that area of the pond, but just today I noticed that they've built a lodge into the side of the log, with sticks and leaves woven together.

At the base of one of the benches by the pond, there is a small plaque commemorating Emily Greene Balch, who won the 1946 Nobel Peace Prize.  She grew up on Prince Street, across from the pond. (I'm always amazed that Prince St was the childhood home of both Emily Greene Balch and Sylvia Plath.)

 The Nobel website has this to say about her:

"A Radical Champion of Peace

When Emily Greene Balch was given the Peace Prize in 1946 for her lifelong work for disarmament and peace, she received no congratulations from the US government. The official US had long regarded her as a dangerous radical.

The sociologist Balch studied the living conditions of workers, immigrants, minorities and women, and this resulted in her declaring herself a socialist as early as in 1906. During World War I she worked with the 1931 Peace Prize Laureate Jane Addams to persuade the heads of state of neutral countries to intervene to stop the war. When the US entered the war, the anti-war campaigners Addams and Balch were stamped as dangerous dissidents.

In 1935 Emily Greene Balch became leader of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. She warned against fascism, and criticised the western democracies for not attempting to stop Hitler's and Mussolini's aggressive policies."

Her Nobel biography, with more details of her life, is here.

Back home, Jeannie's Christmas cactus is doing its amazing, annual November bloom.  Jeannie had such a green thumb.

November 19 Late this afternoon, I went to the pond to look for hoodies and saw an even bigger group, with around 50, swimming in one area.  

November 20 Walking with Susan, Shirley and Amelia along the Emerald Necklace, we saw a group of maybe 30 hooded mergansers on Jamaica Pond along with a single, lone ruddy duck.  Heading down the gully to Ward's Pond, we didn't see anything at first, but then spotted a pair of wood ducks by the reeds on the far side of the pond.  Going through the woods towards Leverett Pond, a hawk flew low through the trees, its talons dangling with some small thing in them, landing on a branch.  After looking around for a minute, it began tearing meat off whatever it was that it had caught. So cool to see it. At Leverett Pond, there were a few hooded mergansers, wood ducks swimming close in, along the side of the islands, and a great blue heron standing in the shallow water by one of the islands.  Wonderful to be able to see all of this on a walk from the house.

November 21 This afternoon, I met with a couple of women from a university in the Netherlands to talk about women in engineering; they said that only 2% of the engineering students in the Netherlands are women.  They're keen for me to give a talk on engineering and nature at their university and asked me if I'd seen any good birds recently. When I said I'd seen gannets on the Cape, they looked puzzled at first, but when I explained about how gannets dive, one of them asked if they were white and when I said yes, they immediately nodded and knew what birds I was talking about: fish thieves, they're called in the Netherlands.

November 22  Saw a muskrat lying still in the water at Jamaica Pond this morning, just a little of its head and back showing out of the water, looking a like an old, rotted, sunken log.  As we got closer it dove and swam off.

Walking with Beth at Stony Brook Reservation later on, there was still ice on the marsh.  At Turtle Pond we saw a few ring-necked ducks paddling across the still pond.

November 25 In Provincetown, for post-Thanksgiving dinner with friends.  White-winged scoters in the bay just off the condo when we arrived. And early the next morning, a half dozen or so Brant geese dabbling, tipping into the water, their butts in the air. 

November 27 Birding at Race Point near high tide.  Most impressive were flock after flock of 20-30 or so smallish ducks, white undersides, flashes of black on their backs and wings, maybe buffleheads, flying fast and low over the water.  One little flock would zip past, there would be a short break, and then another, flying right behind them, on and on the entire time we were there.  They were a little too far out for me to identify them when we were there.  Tonight, I find out that All About Birds from Cornell says that buffleheads fly low over the water; the Aquarium of the Pacific website notes that buffleheads have fast wingbeats and are one of the fastest waterfowl, clocking in at up to 48 mph (77 kph); and Sibley comments that they are "Usually in small flocks that sometimes gather into larger numbers." All of which makes me think that they were, indeed, buffleheads.

Buffleheads that winter around here breed in the Northwest Territories, and in northern Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario.  A bufflehead migrating from Saskatoon to Provincetown flies something like 2300 miles which sounds like a long way. But at nearly 50 miles/hr, this takes 46 hours, or about 8 days if they fly 6 hours each day. 

 Also, I think, some gannets diving, torpedo-like, and a black scoter.  

Afterwards, we walked along the Hatches Harbor trail, enjoying the views, the beach roses, still with color in the leaves, and the marsh grasses waving in the wind.

 

November 28 Home again. Jeannie's other Christmas cactus exploded into bloom while we were away.

November 29 Walking Maddie this afternoon, on our way to Yumont Hardware, where she knows where they keep the dog cookies, I saw a tree blossoming, looking incongruous along side its shriveled leaves. Also a hanging basket of yellow pansies brightening the grey day.