January 2025 Owls, eagle and duck stamps

Wednesday January 1 Great birding at the pond this afternoon. First, walking along the Parkman Drive side of the pond, we spotted the two common loons across the pond, near the boathouse. As I was watching, a raptor, maybe a peregrine falcon, flew low over the water in front of them, heading towards the intersection of Parkman Drive and Perkins Street. Strange, as I think of them in the city diving to kill pigeons from downtown buildings, not flying across the water. (Outside of cities, they nest on cliffs.) As we walked on, I kept an eye out for it, and sure enough, there it was, perched high in the sycamore tree at the intersection. Very cool! I've seen one there, in the same tree, once before. The bald eagles sometimes hang out there, too, scoping out birds on the water to go after.

Walking further along, Susan spotted a great blue heron standing on the edge of the little island.

At the little bay by the corner of Perkins and Pond St. we saw the usual crowd of hooded mergansers, with a few common mergansers interspersed among them. Everybody diving, fishing. Occasionally one bird would chase another, which then scampered along the surface of the water, sometimes flying a few yards before landing again. A few ruddy ducks nearby. Near the bank of the pond, a pair of gadwalls and a little later, a single lesser scaup, neither of which I usually see at the pond. As we watched all of this, a hawk swooped overhead, landing at the top of a pine; we saw it take off again a little later, but couldn't tell what it was - maybe a juvenile red tail.

Friday January 3 The regulars at the pond this morning: lots of hoodies gathered closely together, diving, occasionally coming up with a fish. Love seeing them juggle fish down their throats. A few common mergansers, mostly females, ruddy ducks and ring-necked ducks. The two loons still there. Saw a black-capped chickadee, a golden-crowned kinglet and a white-breasted nuthatch foraging for insects on a tree together. This evening, I read about wintering mixed-species flocks in Pete Dunne's new book "The Courage of Birds", about the wintering strategies of birds. Here is what he says:

"The roving flocks consist of leaders and followers, are mostly insectivorous, and combine species of similar size but dissimilar foraging techniques... the dominant (typically) male chickadee leads his troop on a daily route that hits the best foraging places in the territory...Follower species...include nuthatches, creepers, kinglets, some warblers, wrens and, it seems every flock has an attending downy woodpecker..." 

This explains why I keep seeing the same group of birds foraging together (as you may remember from the December nature notes).

The highlight of the day was my outing to the Arb at dusk to look for great horned owls. My neighbors, Mary and David, have heard a pair hooting to each other around the area of the conifer path over the last few days and in previous years a pair has nested in that area.  I've been out a couple of times at dusk recently, but not yet heard them. Today, I got there around 4 and was determined to stay until it got dark. I wandered around the conifers, hoping to hear their distinctive hoots: "ho hoo hoo hoododo hoooo hoo" according to the Sibley field guide. You can hear an example from Cornell's Macaulay library here.

After about half an hour, I heard a single hooting call, close to where I was standing. A guy I ran into earlier, who was also looking for them, heard it, too. Then nothing for ten minutes or so before more hooting from a different tree: the pair hooting to each other. The guy pointed up in the direction of first hoots, and there it was, perched at the top of a tree - got a good view through the binoculars. After more hooting from the other owl, the one in the tree took off, huge wings spread out, heading towards its mate, landing high in one of the conifers. Magical!

 

Sunday January 5 Couldn't resist trying to see the great horned owls at the Arb again at dusk. Standing near the spot where I saw one on Friday, I waited, hoping to hear hooting. Suddenly, I was startled by an owl flying silently in front of me and then swooping up to land on a pine branch close by. Not wanted to disturb it, after I had a quick look at it, I moved on and walked back to the car. Just as I was driving away from the parking lot, heading up a little hill, another owl (I think) flew along the edge of the Arb, below the tree branches, before heading into the conifers. Wonderful! 

Wednesday January 8 Had another drawing class this morning, flowers this time. Here's the original photo of foxgloves along with my drawing.
 

Friday January 10 I'm in Greenwich CT today, to see an exhibit of duck stamps at the Bruce Museum. Each year, US Fish and Wildlife has a competition for an illustration of ducks (or swans or geese) that is used to produce a stamp that waterfowl hunters have to buy to put on their hunting licenses. The stamps sell for $25 and Fish and Wildlife sells about 1.5 million each year; the funds raised go towards the purchase of wetlands for conservation. Here are the paintings for 2007 and 2010: a Northern pintail (by Joe Hautman) and wigeon (by Robert Beale).

The program has been going since 1934 - here's a drawing for the stamp for that year, by JN Darling.

The Bruce is a lovely regional museum. In addition to the duck stamps, they also had small, one room exhibits of early David Hockney paintings as well as early Impressionist-style New England landscapes.

Sunday January 12 Back in JP, early this morning the pond almost entirely iced over from the recent frigid weather. The geese and ducks concentrated into three open areas at the edge of the pond. Not everybody happy - saw a Canada goose chasing a female wigeon, nipping its tail. A flurry as a flock of common mergansers took off to one of the other open areas across the pond. As I passed by them later on I was amazed at how many there were - several dozen, maybe forty or so.

And a lone loon in a tiny patch of open water, making short, shallow dives. I think I saw a fish in its bill at one point. The day warmed up later on, melting some of the ice. When I passed by later on, the loon was no longer at this spot.

Monday January 13 The loon was still at its small opening this morning, but taking longer dives. I think it must have been swimming underwater under the ice, returning to the opening each time. Also saw a red-bellied woodpecker checking out a large crevice in a tree trunk and a golden-crowned kinglet flitting around the same area.

Wednesday January 15  Gorgeous sunrise over the frozen pond this morning.

Freezing temperatures overnight have reduced the amount of open water at the edge of the pond so that the geese and ducks are even more crowded in; nearly all the common mergansers are gone. The loon was gone, too; the opening where it had been for the last couple of days was completely frozen over this morning.

Friday January 17 Went to the Parker River National Wildlife Refuge (aka Plum Island) on the north shore this morning to look for snowy owls, which have been reported there recently. Just before turning off into the refuge, a huge, brown raptor with some speckled white (I think an immature bald eagle) flew alongside the road. On entering the refuge, I pulled in beside the little creek and spotted a mature bald eagle just standing in the midst of the grasses across the creek. After a minute or two, it took off. So cool to see it! 

I walked along each of the three boardwalks out to the ocean, scanning the dunes for snowy owls. In previous years I've seen them standing quite still on the tops of the dunes, looking over the grassy gullies between the dunes, searching for prey. Wonderful views of the dunes, the beach, the water, but no snowy owls. I also scanned the marsh for them, as I've seen them there before, too, but no luck. Other birders told me that they'd talked with yet others who had seen one this morning. But no one I talked to had actually seen one. I did see a number of suspiciously owl-shaped blocks of ice, some with grey/black dirt streaks resembling a snowy; one person I talked to referred to them as ice-owls.

In compensation for not seeing a snowy, I did get to see a short-eared owl in the marsh grasses; I hadn't seen one in years, so that was a definite highlight. I stopped along the road to talk to a couple of other birders who seemed to be looking at something: I was amazed they had found it in the grass.

While searching for a snowy owl, I did see a Cooper's hawk perched in a tree and a Northern harrier fly over the marsh, flashing its white band at the base of its tail feathers.  A fun outing in a beautiful spot, even without the snowy owl.

Saturday January 18 Glimpsed red and white in a opening in a tree trunk at the pond; someone had installed a little scene of gnomes, fairies and mushrooms.

The little stretch of open water is getting even smaller and the geese and ducks are getting squeezed ever closer together.  Mostly geese, a few ducks: one or two hooded mergansers, a handful of ruddy ducks, a couple of ring-necked ducks and even a gadwall.

Monday January 20 Snow overnight, and now, beautiful, sparkly, crystal clear morning. Pond looking glorious. The little open water area filled with Canada geese; only a couple ruddy ducks with them.

Thursday January 23 The snow on the roof of my garage is melting in the sun, dripping down into the bush next to it, creating huge, long icicles, nearly the height of the garage.

Friday January 24 The little patch of open water at the pond froze over. The Canada geese are reduced to sitting on the ice, beaks tucked in under their wings, looking forlorn.

I did a little more work on the drawing of a great horned owl that I started in December at the Audubon class. Thought you might like to see my drawing along with a photo of the owl.

 

Monday January 27 Bald eagle at the pond this morning, perched high up in the sycamore tree near the corner of Parkman Drive and Perkins Street. Pointed it out to a driver stopped at the traffic light, who was delighted.

On the way back home, walking along the sidewalk, I saw a small hawk, maybe Cooper's or sharp-shinned, swoop low over a driveway and land beneath a bush that runs along the side of the house. I walked over to try to find it, but couldn't see it; it must have walked deeper into the bush. I wondered if was going after a small bird or a mouse and if that's where it goes in bad weather or at night.

Tuesday January 28 Spectacular sunrise this morning over the pond.