Wednesday Morning Birding Report, April 4, 2018

A common element of spring is unexpected gloom, the antithesis of the encouraging balmy mornings we await with a sense of urgent longing. The heavy murk that greeted us this week was perfect, however. With the foreboding, cool damp keeping most people home, Dave Weaver and I had only a small group of birders, which we took first to the wet meadows of the Common Pasture on Scotland Road in Newbury. As we pulled in along the first field that the platform overlooks, we found three Snow Geese, an adult and two young ones grazing near the road, along with eleven Glossy Ibises and many Canada Geese.

Snow Geese at Common Pasture – Mike Densmore

The pools in the field on the left were crawling with ducks, and what ducks! Immediately we were struck by the preponderance of American Wigeons, nice and fancy after a winter of American Black Ducks. For a few minutes, it was hard to know which way to look, as a flock of 25 or so Wilson’s Snipes repeatedly circled overhead, landed, and took off again. This week, the Eurasian Wigeon that has been reported for some time was easily visible. A pair of Northern Shovelers and plenty of Green-winged Teal made searching the newly green fields a compelling treasure hunt, as we worked to pick out the snipes that were on the ground, blending with clods of soil.

Waterfowl at Common Pasture in Newbury, 4/6 – David Moon. The show continues. See the Eurasian Wigeon?

Feeling that the gloom of the day was in our favor, and as the ducks certainly didn’t mind, we headed out to Plum Island. No Killdeer were walking around on the airport fields yet, though we did encounter a couple both at Scotland Road and on the island. We began finding new stuff from the platform at parking lot #1, with large rafts of Long-tailed Ducks, some Black Scoters and one White-winged Scoter, and both Red-necked and Horned Grebes. Some of the grebes are molting into their beautiful breeding plumage!

Northern Shoveler in North Pool – Mike Densmore

What with all the duck action so far, we were a bit surprised to find only a few Gadwalls, American Black Ducks, and some Red-breasted Mergansers on the salt pannes. Not giving up, we pulled into North Pool Overlook to find 11 Northern Shovelers and two Ring-necked Ducks! A pair of the shovelers swam off from right below the parking lot, and the Ring-necked Ducks seemed out of place. We like seeing birds where they don’t usually show up. In a list of birds in order of commonness on Plum Island, the Ring-necks come right before Eurasian Wigeon, as in quite uncommon. Continuing to be buoyed by our good luck, we rolled south, stopping to admire one of our first Ospreys for the year on the tall platform off of the Pines Trail. A few Wild Turkeys were displaying near the Bill Forward Pool Blind.

Ring-necked Duck in North Pool – Mike Densmore

At Bar Head, we were struck by the loss of beach from the successive winter storms of March. The image below of the platform off parking lot #7 gives the story of the huge amount of sand that moved off of the beach there; much more large cobble is exposed below Bar Head. We hope that enough of that material moved around to Sandy Point to make an adequate beach for the return of Least Terns to the breeding colony that washed away last year. Happily, three Piping Plovers were running around near the water’s edge. Welcome home! A raft of Black Scoters was joined by three more Horned Grebes behind Emerson Rocks, and another three foraged in the breaking surf farther south.

Parking lot # 7 platform, 4/4/18 – Mike Densmore

With not much time remaining, we decided to take a quick look from the dike at Hellcat Swamp. It was one of those quiet moments up there, with a few mergansers, one lone female Bufflehead, and three Mute Swans dotting an otherwise empty Bill Forward Pool. Another check of the Pines nesting platform found two Ospreys at home working on their nest — the pair was back. We then headed north, pausing for a Merlin that dashed off quickly, and a Belted Kingfisher that made us believe spring will at some point get more…springy. In great WMB fashion, we finished with a bang when a male Cooper’s Hawk with a House Sparrow in its talons took off from the bushes near the gate and landed on a utility pole. Bon appetite!

Cooper’s Hawk with prey – Mike Densmore

Our list:
Scotland Road (Common Pasture) —
SNOW GOOSE (3) – 2 white juveniles & 1 white adult; in pasture adjacent to and east of wet meadow.
Canada Goose – common.
EURASIAN WIGEON (1) – male; with American Wigeons.
American Wigeon (~ 30)
American Black Duck (4)
Northern Shoveler (2) – pair.
Green-winged Teal (~ 20)
Great Blue Heron (1)
Glossy Ibis (11) – in pasture adjacent to and east of wet meadow.
Wilson’s Snipe (~ 25)
Rock Pigeon
Mourning Dove
American Robin
European Starling
Song Sparrow (1)
Northern Cardinal (1)
Red-winged Blackbird – common.
Common Grackle – a few.
Plum Island —
Canada Goose – common.
Mute Swan (3) – Bill Forward Pool.
Gadwall (5) – pannes.
American Black Duck – common.
Mallard (~ 6)
Northern Shoveler (11!) – North Pool Overlook.
RING-NECKED DUCK (2) – drakes; North Pool Overlook.
Common Eider (~ 15) – Emerson Rocks.
White-winged Scoter (3) – 1, parking lot #1, ocean; 2, parking lot #7, ocean.
Black Scoter (~ 21) – ~ 9, parking lot # 1, ocean; ~ 12, Emerson Rocks.
Long-tailed Duck (~ 60) – parking lot # 1, ocean.
Bufflehead (1) – hen, Bill Forward Pool.
Red-breasted Merganser (4) – pannes.
Wild Turkey (10) – South Field.
Common Loon (2) – 1, parking lot #1, ocean; 1, parking lot # 7, ocean.
Horned Grebe (8) – 2, parking lot # 1, ocean; 6, parking lot # 7, ocean (several moving into breeding plumage).
Red-necked Grebe (1) – parking lot # 1, ocean.
Great Cormorant (1) – flyby, parking lot # 7, ocean.
Great Egret (~ 15) – various.
Osprey (2) – Pines nesting platform.
Northern Harrier (1) – over North Marsh.
Cooper’s Hawk (1) – apparent male; just n. refuge gate.
Piping Plover (3) – parking lot # 7, beach, seen from Bar Head vicinity.
Killdeer (2)
Herring Gull
Great Black-backed Gull
Rock Pigeon
Mourning Dove
Belted Kingfisher (1) – flying south over marsh north end S-curves.
Downy Woodpecker (1) – shrubs roadside, parking lot # 2.
Northern Flicker (2) – south end South Field.
Merlin (1) – flying south at north end S-curves.
Blue Jay (2)
American Crow (1)
American Robin
Northern Mockingbird (5)
European Starling
Song Sparrow – common.
Northern Cardinal (3)
Red-winged Blackbird – common.
Common Grackle – common.
Brown-headed Cowbird (3) – S-curves.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *