Tag Archives: nest

Blooming slippers, climbing fishers, swooping swallows, and more

Posted on June 29, 2016 by Sean K.

Natural History Notes for May & June

Although we are tucked right into the heart of suburban Canton, amazing natural history moments, capable of inspiring awe and wonder, pop up everyday on our wildlife sanctuary. The sanctuary has been bursting with life and activity over the past two month and here are a few of the highlights.

First ever sighting of a fisher (Martes pennanti)

During our spring Ecology and Art homeschool class, our students were lucky enough to witness three fishers sauntering through the forest and then bounding up several trees. It was a spectacular sighting.

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A wave of migrating birds

This spring Owen Cunningham, our property manager, and Sean Kent started a series of Friday morning natural history hikes that coincided with a fantastic wave of migrants, including many warblers.

Magnolia Warbler

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Ovenbird

Ovenbird

Ovenbird

Yellow-billed Cuckoo

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Wilson’s Warbler

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Birds have been busy building nests and caring for their fledglings

We have several pairs of nesting orioles, including one pair that has nested in the trees behind our bird blind, and their babies have recently fledged. During the last week of June, the Mulberry tree by our offices has produced copious amounts of ripe fruits that have been fattening up many species of birds on the sanctuary.

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Nesting Tree Swallows

This spring we have been lucky to host several pairs of nesting tree swallows. It’s been marvelous to witness the tree swallows raise their young, defend their nests against house wren intrusion, and grace the meadow with their majestic flight.

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Pink Lady’s Slipper

Every spring, starting in the middle of May and extending to early June, pink lady’s slippers, a majestic orchid, that thrives in acidic soils of our pine forest, emerge and bloom throughout the sanctuary.

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Hunting Hawks

The populations of chipmunks, red squirrels, and lots of other little critters have exploded thanks to a super abundant crop of acorns this past fall.

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Red-tailed Hawk

Flowering plants in our meadow, bird garden,
and new native pollinator garden

Pollinators, including many native bees, have been taking advantage of all the species of flowering plants that have been blooming on our sanctuary. False indigo (Baptista australis) bloomed in early June and had many species of butterflies, bumblebees, leaf cutting bees, and mining bees collecting pollen and nectar from the flowers. Check out two videos of a bumblebee collecting pollen and nectar from a few flowers.

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False indigo from the bird garden at the Museum of American Bird Art

 

Skipper gathering nectar from a False Indigo flower

Skipper gathering nectar from a False Indigo flower

Springtime in the Valley, Part 1

Posted on May 2, 2016 by Barry V.

This is from a series of posts by MABA resident artist Barry Van Dusen

Arcadia Wildlife Sanctuary, Easthampton on March 22, 2016

Bald Eagle Nest, detail - at 72 dpi

I know that spring arrives a bit earlier in the Connecticut River Valley, so I head out to Arcadia Wildlife Sanctuary in Easthampton this morning.   I drive first to the seasonal bridge on Old Springfield Road.  This is where the Mill River (which runs through the Sanctuary) empties into The Oxbow.  It’s a classic river floodplain landscape.

Floodplain Forest - at 72 dpi

At the bridge (which is closed to vehicular traffic at the moment), I meet John Such of Chicopee, a retired high school science teacher.   He knows the area and offers to lead me to a Bald Eagle’s nest on the Sanctuary!  John notes that this is the only Bald Eagle nest on a Mass Audubon property.

The expansive grasslands to the north of the bridge attract a variety of grassland birds, and these fields are carefully managed by the Society to provide for the needs of open country birds, many of which are declining in Massachusetts.  As an artist, I appreciate the wide open vistas and distant views – quite unlike the landscapes near my home in central Massachusetts.   Looking to the southeast across The Oxbow, the handsome hills of the Mt. Tom Range rise above the western bank of the Connecticut River.

We follow a track up along Ned’s Ditch – a large wooded swale between the fields that supports a marsh and floodplain forest.  We hear the creaking calls of wood-ducks and the “conk-a-rees” of Red-winged Blackbirds.

Eagle Nest - at 72 dpi

The Eagle nest, by its sheer size, is easy to locate, but to get the best views requires careful positioning of my scope and field stool on the hillside about the “Ditch”. I settle down to watch…

The nest is placed in a main crotch near the top of a large, live tree (oak?), and is truly MASSIVE in size – so much so that the bird’s head, protruding above the mass of sticks and twigs, looks ridiculously tiny!  I later learned that Bald Eagles make the largest nest of any single pair of birds!

Bald Eagle Head Studies - at 72 dpi

Sketchbook studies, 4″ x 9″

The bird sits on the nest throughout the hour and a half that I watch.  This could be either the male or the female, since both take turns incubating the eggs.  The other member of the pair comes to the nest at one point, and appears to pass an article of food to the sitting bird, (though I couldn’t make out what), then quickly departs.   Except for an episode where the sitting bird rises up and works diligently at something in the nest, all is quiet.  I took this to be a round of egg-turning, which happens every 1 to 2 hours.

I decide to do a painting, but find that the largest paper in my pack is 9″ x 12″.  A larger sheet would have been more suitable for the subject, but I start a watercolor, anyway.  For the sake of my picture, I make the birds head a little larger, and raise it up a little higher than it typically appeared from my vantage.

Bald Eagle Nest - at 72 dpi

Bald Eagle Nest at Arcadia, watercolor on Arches cold-press, 9″ x 12.25″

From my location on the edge of the “Ditch”, I can look to the west and see the nests of a great blue heron colony about a quarter mile away.   I scan the nests with my scope, and spot a Great Horned Owl sitting on one of the nests!  It’s a distant view, and my photo is rather fuzzy, but you can just make out the bulky, rounded shape of the owl.

GH Owl on Nest - at 72 dpi

I wondered how the owl and the eagle might interact as nesting neighbors.  Great Horned Owls have been known to commandeer eagle nests and drive off the eagles – apparently the only native bird capable of doing so.