The final tally for this year’s Felix Neck bird-a-thon is 127 species, which seems about typical for this event. Quite a few of the waterbirds are migrants or winter-resident species that have not left yet for their northern wintering grounds. The songbirds in this list are mostly species that breed here, which is expected unless we have unusually favorable southerly winds.
Western willets are not a separate species, but rather are the larger cousin of the willets that breed here. They are not expected in the spring, as they tend to migrate northward through the middle of the country. It may be that we will find them more frequently as more birders become familiar with their field marks.
Brewster’s warbler is a hybrid between blue-winged warblers and the ever-more-rare golden-winged warblers. According to the records on the website ebird, there have only been four other sightings of this hybrid this May in all of southern New England. This hybrid has only been recorded on the Vineyard a couple of times.
Strickland Wheelock led a team of birders from Drumlin Farms, the headquarters of Mass Audubon. They added the following species: from the Farm Institute they saw American golden plover, killdeer and ring-billed gull; their barn owl was at an up-Island farm; Great Rock Bight produced blue-gray gnatcatcher, chestnut-sided warbler and blackburnian warbler; near the Gay Head Cliffs they found another blue-gray gnatcatcher, veery, Nashville warbler and dickcissel; the saltmarsh sparrow was in a Mattakessett Bay marsh. They also found white-winged scoter, laughing gull and eastern bluebird.
Of course, birds have been seen since the bird-a-thon.
Cheska Zayda found a blackpoll at the Oak Bluffs pumping station at around 6 p.m. on May 18. At about that same time, I heard and saw a blackpoll in my yard as well. They are usually one of the last migrants to come through, so the migration is nearing its end.
Matt Pelikan heard of a possible sighting of a bald eagle at Crocker Pond, which is one of the man-made ponds along the Mill Brook on May 19. This is reasonable since Ginny Jones observed one at Deep Bottom Cove on May 12, as reported in last week’s column.
Alan Keith was birding Squibnocket on May 21. His highlights were a northern waterthrush and a chestnut-sided warbler.
I was birding from the boat-launching ramp on Edgartown Bay Road on May 22, scanning for shorebirds on Norton Point using my spotting scope. After finding the usual ruddy turnstones, black-bellied plovers and dunlins, I looked away from the scope for a moment and a cliff swallow was flying toward me. It flew by about 20 feet away, and could not be located again. That is one of the fun things about birding.
Between the two bird-a-thon teams (by the way, this is a fund-raiser for Felix Neck, so please be generous), a total of 141 species (not including the hybrid or the subspecies) were recorded on the Island. Adding the new species from this week (blackpoll, northern waterthrush and cliff swallow) to the four species from last week’s column (barred owl, bald eagle, red-headed woodpecker and bobwhite), we have recorded 148 species in the last two weeks. Phenomenal.
Migration is nearly over, so please get out looking for birds, and be sure to report your sightings to birds@mvgazette.com.
Robert Culbert leads Saturday morning Guided Birding Tours and is an ecological consultant living in Vineyard Haven.
Felix Neck Bird-a-Thon 2016 Results:
Brant, Canada goose, mute swan, wood duck, American wigeon, American black duck, mallard, green-winged teal, common eider, harlequin duck, surf scoter, black scoter, bufflehead, red-breasted merganser, wild turkey, red-throated loon, common loon, northern gannet, double-crested, cormorant, great cormorant, American bittern, great egret, black-crowned night-heron, turkey vulture, osprey, northern harrier, Cooper’s hawk, red-tailed hawk, black-bellied plover, semipalmated plover, piping plover, American oystercatcher, spotted sandpiper, greater yellowlegs, willet, “western” willet, lesser yellowlegs, ruddy turnstone, red knot, sanderling, semipalmated sandpiper, least sandpiper, dunlin, short-billed dowitcher, American woodcock, Bonaparte’s gull, herring gull, great black-backed gull, least tern, roseate tern, common tern,, black skimmer, rock pigeon, mourning dove, yellow-billed cuckoo, eastern screech owl, chuck-will’s-widow, eastern whip-poor-will, chimney swift, ruby-throated hummingbird, belted kingfisher, red-bellied woodpecker, yellow-bellied sapsucker, downy woodpecker, hairy woodpecker, northern flicker, eastern wood-pewee, least flycatcher, eastern phoebe, great crested flycatcher, eastern kingbird, warbling vireo, blue headed vireo, red-eyed vireo, blue jay, American crow, tree swallow, northern rough-winged swallow, bank swallow, barn swallow, black-capped, chickadee, tufted titmouse, white-breasted nuthatch, brown creeper, Carolina wren, house wren, golden-crowned kinglet, wood thrush, American robin, gray catbird, northern mockingbird, brown thrasher, European starling, cedar waxwing, ovenbird, blue-winged warbler, “Brewster’s” warbler, black-and-white warbler, prothonotary warbler, common yellowthroat, American redstart, northern parula, magnolia warbler, yellow warbler, pine warbler, yellow-rumped warbler, prairie warbler, black-throated green warbler, eastern towhee, chipping sparrow, field sparrow, Savannah sparrow, song sparrow, swamp sparrow, white-throated sparrow, dark-eyed junco, scarlet tanager, northern cardinal, rose-breasted grosbeak, indigo bunting, red-winged blackbird, common grackle, brown-headed cowbird, Baltimore oriole, orchard oriole, house finch, American goldfinch, house sparrow.
Comments
Comment policy »