Thoughts and Words Ill-Sorted

Today it was really foggy in the morning so I awoke to the sound of fog horns blaring all over the place. Maybe that would be one disadvantage to living on an island with a fishing-based economy. Other than that, I enjoyed to fog. I went to the southern tip of the island which ends in high cliffs. It was one of those magical, edge-of-the-world sort of experiences.

And this is looking straight down a couple of hundred feet:

Some more lupins:

I suspect this little squirrel had been told to stay put, though it seems to me that a railing beside a path might not be the best place to be told that:

I like this place. I think I could stand to live here. But, sadly, tomorrow I have to move on, drive some more, and then buckle down and get back to work.

Sydney

My main excursion yesterday was to the western side of the island for several hours of hiking. One of the interesting geological features of Grand Manan is that the eastern side gently slopes into the ocean and has sandy beaches and lots of sheltered coves. So that’s where pretty much everybody lives. The western side, on the other hand, is much more dramatic with rock cliffs plunging a couple of hundred feet down into the water. Pretty much nobody lives on that side (I imagine the prevailing westerly winds blowing off of the cold water helped keep people away). But shipwrecks happened on that side as well and so there are lots of trails to and along the western side. So that’s where I went for some hiking yesterday.

But before I get to the pictures of the scenery, I have to live up to the title of this post. Before heading over to the other side of the island, I checked out a marshy area just down the road from the hotel and found my life bird of the day: Nelson’s Sparrow. No, they’re not named after my brother. That might be just as well: I thought they were kind of cute in their demure, sparrow sort of way, but their singing is about the most wheezy and feeble that I’ve ever heard out of a bird. Click on the link to hear what I mean.

At the beginning of my hike on the western side of the island I came across a Black-throated Blue Warbler and a Magnolia Warbler sharing a tree. I’ve seen both before, but they’re not exactly common and they’re two of my favourite species so it was a treat to get good views of both in the same tree. Warblers are considerably less demure than sparrows.

By far the cutest thing I saw was a family of Winter Wrens. I was hearing all these high-pitched call notes that I didn’t recognize and whose source I couldn’t find. So I decided to sit down and wait. Sooner or later something was going to show itself. And they did. All of a sudden I started seeing fledgling Winter Wrens all around me. I think there were around half a dozen of them plus their parents. Remember the Winter Wrens from my previous post? Well, now imagine them with stubby little tails sticking up and oversize beaks for having food shovelled into. They were definitely right up there with bunnies and that sort of thing.

They were flying around in various random directions so Mother Wren had quite the job of trying to shepherd them. Father Wren seemed less concerned—he spent the whole time sitting on a perch and singing away.

Okay, on to the pictures (some of these pictures definitely work better when seen larger, so click on them and then hit F11).

The fog at the top of the cliff was a bit spooky. It was breezy so it was moving rapidly up and over the cliff. The only thing was that there was never any fog at the bottom of the cliff or inland from the cliff. I guess there must have been some sort of temperature differentiation such that the water in the air started condensing just as the wind reached the top edge of the cliff and then stopped once it got over the edge.

Here’s Maine:

There was more dwarf cornel or bunchberry than I’ve ever seen before. The forest floor was carpeted with acres of it.

Dwarf cornel, incidentally, provides some of the fastest action in the plant world. Those white things aren’t petals—they’re bracts surrounding a cluster of little, nondescript flowers. Or visually nondescript. The real petals have filaments underneath them that are cocked, waiting for an insect to land on the flower. When one does, the flower effectively explodes, launching pollen out of little containers attached to the filaments. The pollen accelerates 800 times as fast as a space shuttle at liftoff.

A Hermit Thrush had built a nest a couple of feet from the path. It had babies in it:

Remember the second picture above? Here’s the same view on the way back:

The hike was about as good as they get. It was a warm, sunny day, but with a wonderfully refreshing breeze coming up from the ocean below. The air was redolent with sun-warmed fir and spruce resin. Winter Wrens and Hermit Thrushes were singing … remind me again why I should ever set foot on a university campus again.

Sydney

Katherine’s first-year molars are coming in, and it’s really doing a number on her.  She remains pretty perky, but she’s not able to get to sleep until late in the night, when she’s finally exhausted.  Last night she was crawling all around me, collapsing on me every few seconds, until 1:30 am!  Although I’m glad she is old enough to sleep through the night, I certainly wish that night could start a little earlier!

Erin

This morning I hiked a couple of trails on the island, though I’ve developed an annoying blister on one of my toes (of all places!) that’s making walking less fun than it could be. Here are a few of the thousands of lupins in bloom:

There are also lots of carnivorous plants, i.e., sundew and pitcher plants, on the island. I have yet to watch an insect being caught, though.

I didn’t actually expect to add any birds to my life list today, but I did: Bicknell’s Thrush. Like most thrushes, it’s a drab bird with a beautiful song. They’re hard to spot when not singing. Actually, they’re hard to find even when they are singing and even when they’re close to you. I just about missed this one. But it suddenly seemed to me that one of the tree stumps in the woods ended in a bird shape and so I looked at it through my binoculars and, wouldn’t you know, there was a thrush.

I also heard three Winter Wrens singing. These I’ve encountered before—there are quite a few of them in some spots around Ithaca—but I can never get enough of their amazingly complex, silvery songs. I had the good fortune of spending several mornings this year birding with Bob McGuire and he helped produce this beautiful video portrait of Winter Wren. The part where the song is slowed down by a third really helps reveal just how complex it is. And to think that all of this sound is produced by a tiny bird that weighs a mere third of an ounce!

Sydney

After birdwatching in Jamaica Bay on Thursday, I drove up to Maine. I kept driving on Friday in order to catch the afternoon ferry to Grand Manan Island where I plan to stay put for a few days.

The ferry ride was fun. I found it curious when the captain insisted on rearranging a lot of the vehicles before departure, but I think I figured out why. There were some pretty significant swells and so I think he was especially concerned to have the weight evenly distributed. Anyway, I always complain that ships feel about as steady as terra firma when I’m on them, so this was a nice change.

Being on ferries also allows one to do some pelagic birdwatching. Doesn’t it look like fun?

It is true that oceans involve a lot of non-birds, but when one does see a bird it is quite likely to be a species that one wouldn’t see on land even if one is at the shore. I added two species on the 1 1/2 hour ferry ride: Common Murre and Red-throated Loon. I also saw two small flocks Common Eiders. I’ve only seen them a couple of times before in my life and had never gotten decent looks at males in breeding plumage. Compare the nonbreeding plumage with the breeding plumage and you’ll see why the latter is special.

Here’s one of the lighthouses on the island:

Lighthouses are important here. Grand Manan has long been notorious for the number of shipwrecks in the area. The book Shipwrecks of Grand Manan describes over 300 wrecks—I don’t know how comprehensive the book is. As it turns out, I will be a beneficiary of this tragic history. The island is crisscrossed with dozens of trails that were used to be able to get quickly to different points along the coast during rescue attempts. Those trails now make for lovely hiking.

Some more trivia about the island:

• Grand Manan was given to the British in 1817 in exchange for the islands Dudley, Frederick, and Moose, which are now part of Maine. A nearby island, Machias Seal Island, is still disputed territory. But we Canadians staff the lighthouse on it.
• There are at least four Baptist churches on this little island.
• All students at the local school are required to take an aquaculture class in grade 9.

Here’s the view from the window of the room in which I will be staying for the next few days:

And the ferry departing:

I save some money if I never return. You only have to buy a ferry ticket if you return to the mainland.

Sydney

On Thursday I got up early and experienced the joys of New York City morning traffic on my way to one of the country’s best birding sites (Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge) in one of the unlikeliest locations: right next to John F. Kennedy International Airport. I found 56 species. Many of the birds were ones that I don’t normally see, but they were mostly ones that I did see in the last couple of days. In other words, many additions to my New York state list, but not many to my world list. I did add one to my world life list, though: Brant. I suppose you have to be infected pretty seriously with the birdwatching bug to be excited about this one. I suspect people would just think that they were seeing yet more Canada Geese if they saw Brant. But Brant are a bit smaller, darker, and have a white necklace lower down on the neck instead of the bold cheek patches that Canada Geese have. It is also a bit odd that I should have to go to NYC to see them, since they do show up in Ithaca during migration each year. But I somehow managed always to miss them.

I also saw a turtle laying eggs. Unfortunately, there was a raccoon walking around a few hundred feet away and raccoons love turtle eggs. The remains of lots of turtle eggs already littered the path. Here’s hoping this turtle’s eggs somehow escape that fate.

Sydney

Give that my plan was to do a post for each day, I think I have some catching up to do! The new posts will likely be shorter, since I think I would have to go to the West Coast or leave the country in order to again see seventeen new species of birds. The fact that I’m moving closer and closer to home territory of course also lowers the number of new species to be seen.

I did see some new species on Wednesday, though. Instead of walking the beaches, I headed inland a ways in the morning and walked some forest trail. I was just far enough south to have a chance at finding some birds that don’t make it up to Ithaca. And I did: Yellow-breasted Chat, Kentucky Warbler, and Prothonotary Warbler. I also heard a Summer Tanager, which I haven’t encountered since my childhood in Belize.

Around noon it started raining and so I headed about an hour north to a coastal wildlife refuge that has a wildlife drive. That way I could do my birdwatching from the car. And since there was pretty steady wind from the south, I could have the windows on the north side of the car open to allow for clear viewing. Here I added Black-bellied Plovers, Short-billed Dowitchers, and Gull-billed Terns. I was particularly pleased at finding the Black-bellied Plovers. They were a good deal more handsome and striking than I had imagined from looking at my bird guide. Their size helps them to be so striking; for comparison, they weigh about three times as much as robins. I could easily have missed them, since I think most of them migrate through in May.

So six new species for the day. Not bad at all, especially given how many of the potential new species I had already seen on Tuesday.

Sydney

I’m sitting in my old bedroom, typing away, when I hear this running commentary from my father in the kitchen downstairs:

“That’s a lot of banana for one little girl.  Are you really going to eat the whole thing?  Have you filled up that hollow leg yet?  Oh, no need to cry.  Do you want some applesauce?  Nope, no applesauce?  Do you want down?  There we go.  Alright, run your little legs off.  Now what are we doing?”

Erin

Apparently nobody is into guessing around here. Or into a bit of detective work. I’m pretty sure there’s enough information in my last post to make for a good chance of getting it right.

Anyway, my morning balcony experience wasn’t misleading. By day’s end, I had tallied 17 new species for my life list. In addition to the five of the morning, I identified Boat-tailed Grackle, Black-necked Stilt, Blue Grosbeak, Glossy Ibis, Piping Plover, Seaside Sparrow, Willet, Snowy Egret, Black Rail, Clapper Rail, Chuck-will’s-widow, and Saltmarsh Sparrow. Aren’t bird names cool? Who would name something ‘Chuck-will’s-widow’? A lot of the names are appropriate, though: a Blue Grosbeak really is blue, a Black-necked Stilt really does look like it’s on stilts, a Boat-tailed Grackle really does have a boat of a tail, …

In the evening I went to an isolated spot on one of the creeks that runs through the extensive salt marshes in the area. This turned out to be a remarkably unearthly experience. I was miles from any other people in the middle of thousands of acres of marsh grasses with the sun having set and it rapidly becoming dark. But what made it most weird was the bird sounds. Birds usually sing the most during the early morning hours but there are a few species that call after the sun sets and I was hoping to find some of those. And I did. But I hadn’t anticipated (a) how much of a chorus there was going to be and (b) how utterly bizarre it was going to sound. Basically none of the calls were ones with which I had any previous acquaintance. But it wasn’t just a lack of prior familiarity. These species just sound weird like they’re from some other planet. Listen for yourself: Clapper Rail, Black Skimmer, Willet, Marsh Wren, and Seaside Sparrow (clicking on the links will take you to audio samples from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology). These were the species that provided a constant backdrop of sound. In combination, they made for quite the orchestra.

I don’t have proper equipment for bird photography, but here are some pictures from the day. This is a picture of one of the most famous birding spots in the country (among others, Alexander Wilson, John James Audubon, Roger Tory Peterson, and David Sibley birded here). I counted 44 species in this area.

One of the things this place is well-known for is as a breeding site for Least Terns. These have quickly become one of my favourite birds. Think swallows dipping over a field in the summer and then transpose the birds to white and the field to a beach. They’re really cute when one member of a pair returns to the nest with a gleaming little fish, lands near the nest, and then takes little, mincing steps towards the mate before offering the fish. Anyway, there are at least half a dozen nesting Least Terns in this photo—good luck finding them!

Seeing birds on their nests or with their young is one of the lovely aspects of birdwatching this time of the year. Here’s a Mute Swan with four cygnets:

And here is an American Oystercatcher on it’s nest:

And here’s it’s mate annoyed that I’m in the vicinity:

One of the things I had not expected to find in New Jersey was prickly pear cactus:

Another surprise was the size of the horseshoe crabs all over the beach. For some reason I always thought of these as small creatures. But this one was pretty near two feet long with its tail, which makes for a bit of fearsome looking creature:

Finally, a picture of two Laughing Gulls, which you may remember was the first addition to my life list yesterday morning. It turns out that they are very common around here, as in this is the species of gull that you’ll see on every store parking lot around here. But in Ithaca people get very excited about seeing one of these (there has been quite a bit of chatter on the email list-serve about one that showed up in Ithaca yesterday). Anyway, I think these are one of the more dapper-looking gulls. It’s too bad that my camera can’t quite do them justice.

Sydney

This afternoon I took Katherine out for a walk down my old road.  It was pretty warm, but all I could think was, “I used to call these hills???”  Apparently my stint in Ithaca has changed my view of elevation.

Erin