From my office I can hear a bird hit the glass sliders in the bedroom. Some sound worse than others. In no instance is it a pleasant sound. Stella, our boxer, always hears them too and comes to find me, with a look that says, “Did you hear what I just heard? Come on, let’s check it out!” Sometimes there’s nothing to find, and it is business as usual. Sometimes all the birds are completely out of sight, meaning the neighborhood Cooper’s hawk has cruised the area at mach speed, closing down shop at the feeders. Sometimes there’s a groggy accident victim.

Don’t look now but those large gray and white geese out in a field near you may not all be Canada geese. It is worth checking through those flocks carefully just now. The reason is that several unusual but similar species have appeared in our region recently that are most likely to be found mixed in with the Canadas. A greater white-fronted goose has been seen on Nantucket within the last week. This western and Midwestern species has been found here five times, the last record in 1995. More surprising, a pink-footed goose which nests from eastern Greenland eastward into Europe, was seen on the Cape a few days ago, apparently the first Massachusetts occurrence of the wild bird. To top that off, a flock of 24 cackling geese was seen at Salt Pond in Falmouth within the week, in easy sight of West Chop. This species looks like a miniature Canada goose, not much larger than a mallard, also from the west. The most recent issue of North American Birds, published by the American Birding Association, has a fine article on how to distinguish the three races of cackling goose: Ridgways, Aleutian and Richardson’s. We know of only two records for this species here, in 1958 and 1987. I’ll settle for any of the three forms. And while on the subject of possible vagrant goose species, it should be remembered that barnacle goose, another wanderer from Greenland and Europe, turned up in both Rhode Island last winter and other years in Massachusetts. While we seldom see geese arriving here from the Cape, the recent spate of very cold weather may be just the kind of conditions that would prompt their doing so.

Cold weather brings our birds into feeders and bird baths. Please keep your feeders full, especially the suet feeders, and also try to provide some open water for our feathered friends.

Bird Sightings

The annual Christmas Bird Count was held on Saturday, Jan. 3, 2009. There was a tremendous effort from the 91 participants; 54 people were divided into 13 field teams, each with an assigned part of the Vineyard to cover and count all the birds that they could find, and 37 others counted the birds that came to their bird feeders.

I hope you all had a merry Christmas and that you are now thinking about spending some time outside scouting different Vineyard habitats for birds. This is important because Jan. 3 is the day set we aside for the Martha’s Vineyard Christmas Bird Count.