Bird News
We’ve had more than our share of beastly weather recently, which put the brakes on both bird migration and birding activity. But with a run of exquisite spring days last week and into this past weekend, the birding season has bounded ahead. Grackles and red-winged blackbirds are ubiquitous around the Island; robins, song sparrows and Carolina wrens are in full voice; and in general, the world is growing rapidly birdier. This makes me happy.
It was a whirlwind getting ready to leave. On the way to pick up Pat Hughes and Hal Minis, we met Merrily Tuck and her husband, Tickles, for lunch in Ft. Lauderdale. Pat and Hal came in from Puerto Rico where they had been visiting Pat’s father, John Hughes, and combined a bit of birding and swimming with a good dose of golf. Between packing we took Pat and Hal “out west” — which, on Florida’s east coast, means west of Interstate 95 — for an introduction to Florida birding.
Once the Christmas Bird Count has come and gone, memorable birding experiences can be hard to come by in the dead of winter. What tops the list for me is the avian activity that conveniently takes place right outside my kitchen window at the bird feeders. The number of birds using my feeders this winter is way down. It took me a while to catch on, but the reason eventually became clear. In past years a marauding Cooper’s hawk has been the culprit — sometimes a beautiful adult with blue-gray plumage, and sometimes a brown-backed youngster. Their stealth tactics are worthy of awe and their speed a little frightening.
My parents used to call such visitors “visiting firemen.” The guests could only stay for a day, not an overnight, so you tried to give them the best overview of the Island in a short time. The 50-cent tour as it is called. I find the same is true when I am in Florida. Recently I had back-to-back visiting firemen and had an excuse to put aside the bloody income tax preparation and go birding!
It is that time of year again — a season when I truly become a bird-watcher with disambiguation (split personality). One of my alter egos is excited by the return of red-winged blackbirds, common grackles, and to a considerably lesser degree brown-headed cowbirds, to the Vineyard. The red-winged blackbird males are perched on high grasses in the fields and marshes of the Island singing their hearts out, waiting for the females to return and hopefully choose them as a mate. Waterfowl are beginning to pair off and build nests.
Katherine Colon and Laurie Walker three weeks ago reported a sharp-shinned hawk sitting leisurely on the Colon’s back porch on Skiff avenue in Vineyard Haven. Lanny McDowell in stealth mode fully stalked and photographed the sharp-shinned hawk which has been haunting his West Tisbury feeder. Katherine hadn’t seen her sharpie for a while and then during a walk on Feb. 15 found this hawk harassing a flock of house (English) sparrows at the other end of Skiff avenue.