October 2023: Hawks, Woodpeckers, Barred Owl
October1-7 Lots of walks, at the Arb, at Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge in Concord, and at Wachusett Meadows in Princeton, MA. Trees starting to turn color, love fall in New England. Unfortunately, the top of Wachusett Mountain was covered by dense fog.
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| Arboretum |
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| Great Meadows, Concord |
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| Observation tower at the summit of Wachusett Mountain |
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| Wachusett Meadows, Otter Pond |
Tuesday October 10 Looking out the bathroom window as I brushed my teeth this morning, saw six mute swans, all gleaming white, powerful, steady wingbeats thrusting them forward, flying low, descending to land on the pond. When I see them in their graceful flight, they stop me in my tracks, I'm so in awe of them. Sure enough, when I walked around the pond a little later, there they were.
Thursday October 12 On our way home from the pond early this morning, I saw this guy in the side yard of one of the houses on my street. I love his fluffy white back. Maddie was particularly interested but was a good girl and didn't lunge at it so nobody got sprayed.
I'm enjoying the wildflowers that have come up from the seeds I scattered in one of my
raised beds in the spring.
Saturday Oct 14 This morning, I went on a hawk watch with Mass Audubon at the Blue Hills Reservation, just south of the city. The Blue Hills Reservation is one of the treasures of Boston: purchased by the Metropolitan Parks Commission in 1893, it comprises 7000 acres (about 11 square miles) of wooded hills, with 125 miles of hiking trails. And it's just 30 minutes south of my house. The Native Americans who lived in these hills at the time of colonization called themselves the Massachusett or "people of the great
hills". The weather observatory at the top of Great Blue Hill, founded in 1885,
is the oldest continually operating weather station in the United
States. Beautiful fall day, with great views of downtown.
Our group met at Chickatawbut Hill, where an old Nike missile base has been converted into an educational camp for school kids operated by Mass Audubon. As we walked up to the observation tower at the top of the hill, Norm Smith, with Mass Audubon, pointed out a great horned owl attached to a post on the tower. I thought it was one of those plastic owls that people put up to deter pigeons. But as we got closer, I realized that it was a real great horned owl - Norm said after it died he stuffed it and put it up there to attract hawks (who hate owls and will swoop down to attack them).
And it worked: the highlight of the morning was a merlin that swooped right over our heads a couple of times as we stood on the observation tower, giving us a great look at it. Merlins are small falcons, with a dark, streaked breasts and pointed wings. Here's a little factoid from Cornell's All About Birds: "Medieval European noblewomen—including Catherine the Great and Mary Queen of Scots—used Merlins for sport to hunt Skylarks."
Got good views of a couple of Cooper's hawks and a red-shouldered hawk flying by. And a kestrel perched at the top of a pine. Norm entertained us with stories of his long career studying raptors in the field, especially snowy owls.
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| Norm with female wing on the left, male on the right. |
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| Snowy owl foot |
Sunday October 15 Went to the Mass Audubon Broadmoor sanctuary in Natick this morning, about 40 minutes west of my house, hoping to see some fall color. As I was walking through the woods towards the Charles River, I heard slow, loud, determined pecking quite close to me. As I looked around, I spotted a pileated woodpecker, the largest woodpecker in North America. It hopped up the tree trunk, pecking different spots as it went, then flew across the path and landed on another tree trunk. And as I watched it, a second woodpecker flew in, landing on a trunk near the first. I watched them for about 10 minutes, flying with their undulating pattern, landing on already rotting tree trunks, pecking as they worked their way up or down the trunk. At one point they were on the same tree trunk, facing each other. Exciting to see one, and two was a real treat! All About Birds says that mated pairs stay together on their territory year round, so I suspect this was a pair. At the river, there was some gorgeous fall color. On the way back, a red-tailed hawk perched on a top bare branch overlooking the meadow and pond.
Thursday October 19 In Provincetown, visiting Susan. Perfect fall weather for a walk - sunny, cloudless sky, mid-60s, bit of a breeze. Starting at Long Pond in Wellfleet, we went through the woods east to the ocean, passing by several other ponds. Along the way, saw a hairy woodpecker, pecking on a tree, and a couple of garter snakes lying still in the middle of the path. One looked dead, and we thought the other was dead, too, until it ever so slowly raised its head a little. I wondered if the cooler weather is making them more lethargic. Lots of mushrooms, brought out by yet more rain we've had recently - some edible, some not. Saw a couple of seals just a few feet from the shore at the ocean.
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| Long Pond, Wellfleet |
Later on, at home, Susan made prints of mushroom spores by placing a few caps on a piece of paper under a glass, so that the spores were undisturbed - cool to see the underside structure of the mushrooms in the spores on the paper.
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| Susan Brand |
After our walk, we drove down the Marconi Beach road, where Susan had recently seen more mushrooms. Got quite close, within 10' of a downy woodpecker in a bush, the hairy woodpecker's smaller, nearly identical looking cousin - fun to see it up close. Got us to see a very large edible mushroom right under the bush. Finally, we drove to Great Hollow Beach on the bay side to see the sunset.
Saturday October 21 Flocks of hundreds of swallows flying furiously past Susan's condo, along the shoreline, possibly bank swallows or tree swallows.
Monday October 23 Back in JP my beautyberry bush is gorgeous at the moment.
Thursday October 26 As I was brushing my teeth (again) in the morning, saw the trees on the hillside glowing with the sunrise. Later on, I noticed a very faint rainbow in the photo.
Friday October 27 We drove out to Mount Wachusett this afternoon to do a little leaf-peeping. From the top of the mountain (only 2006', not a real mountain in my view) we could see Mt. Monadnock (3165') in southern New Hampshire. There were a few people on the observation tower watching for hawks, but they hadn't seen too much: a bald eagle, Cooper's hawk, sharp-shinned hawk, raven. We didn't see any raptors while we were there. Drove down to the Audubon Wachusett Meadows sanctuary and went for a walk on the trails by the beaver wetland (didn't see any beavers, but it wasn't hard to imagine them there).
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| Mt Monadnock on the right in the distance |
At dusk, walking Maddie around Susan's neighborhood in Cambridge, spotted a barred owl take off from a rooftop, fly across the street right in front of me, and land in a tree near the sidewalk. Wasn't expecting that - really great to get a good look at it.
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