Almost two months of winter are yet to come, but signs of spring are becoming more plentiful. Matt Pelikan reports two common grackles were teed up and singing from a treetop in his back yard on Jan. 25, when the thermometer read 11 degrees. Patsy Donovan mentions that she had two grackles at her Vineyard Haven feeders this past week. Red-winged blackbirds will return pretty soon.
Seeing a bald eagle is always fun. Suzan Belllincampi and Linda Cheng report that MassAudubon’s Vocational-Transitional Internship Program and the high school’s Navigator Program members saw and photographed an adult bald eagle at Felix Neck on Jan. 13. Two other eagle reports are from Jan. 25. Scott Bliss found an adult bald eagle on State Beach, and Sherry Countryman found two adult bald eagles sitting on an osprey nest on Lagoon Pond.
Marsha Smolev found an immature red-shouldered hawk near Christiantown Road on Jan. 18. Most likely it is one of the youngsters that fledged from a nearby nest last summer.
There is at least one snowy owl on the Island. On Jan. 18, Tara Whiting saw a snowy owl fly not more than 50 feet away along Chilmark’s South Shore. She also spotted a barn owl in a field at Quenames on Jan. 19.
Ray Ewing spotted a barn owl near Quansoo on Jan. 21. On Jan. 26, the quartet of Shea Fee, Nancy Weaver, Luanne Johnson and Janet Woodcock saw a barn owl flying along Lobsterville Road. They also observed a flock of a dozen or so horned grebes feeding together off Lobsterville Beach.
The Martha’s Vineyard Center For Living reports that their staff and clients spotted a flock of robins from their Vineyard Haven property on Jan. 22.
Christmas Bird Count Results
Here are the final results of the 65th annual Martha’s Vineyard Christmas Bird Count. We found 128 species on count day, Dec. 29, 2024, two species more than the preliminary results. Such an increase happens almost every year, as compiler Luanne Johnson gets reports of species seen on count day that field and feeder observers missed. This year Chris Jones posted finding a purple finch and two common grackles along Larson Lane in Menemsha.
We counted 21,253 individual birds. This is slightly higher than the average for the past decade of 19,827 individuals, but well below the average of 37,141 individuals since 1980 when we started counting birds across the entire island. Birds are not as abundant as they used to be.
Here are the numbers we counted for each of the 128 species we observed plus Ipswich sparrow (a subspecies of the Savannah sparrow) and the gulls, crows and perching birds that could not be identified to species because they were too distant or maybe obscured by the morning fog that day.
Snow goose 2, brant 74, Canada goose 2162, mute swan 56, wood duck 2, blue-winged teal 4, northern shoveler 1, gadwall 5, American wigeon 152, mallard 448, American black duck 583, northern pintail 23, green-winged teal 22, ring-necked duck 6, greater scaup 539, lesser scaup 97, common eider 1642, harlequin duck 36, surf scoter 332, white-winged scoter 701, black scoter 325, long-tailed duck 190, bufflehead 1252, common goldeneye 319, hooded merganser 260, common merganser 17, red-breasted merganser 900, ruddy duck 212, northern bobwhite 4, wild turkey 252, rock pigeon 88, mourning dove 212, Virginia rail 2, American oystercatcher 2, black-bellied plover 68, killdeer 4, Wilson’s snipe 12, greater yellowlegs 34, ruddy turnstone 9, sanderling 189, dunlin 93, purple sandpiper 4, razorbill 50, black-legged kittiwake 4, Bonaparte’s gull 6, black-headed gull 2, ring-billed gull 410, American herring gull 1088, great black-backed gull 109, lesser black-backed gull 4, gull species 1, horned grebe 44, red-throated loon 30, common loon 110, northern gannet 1, great cormorant 30, double-crested cormorant 106, black-crowned night heron 45, great egret 4, great blue heron 28, turkey vulture 20, sharp-shinned hawk 4, Cooper’s hawk 9, northern harrier 17, bald eagle 1, red-tailed hawk 29, American barn owl 9, eastern screech-owl 22, snowy owl 1, northern saw-whet owl 3, belted kingfisher 15, yellow-bellied sapsucker 3, red-bellied woodpecker 42, downy woodpecker 71, hairy woodpecker 17, northern flicker 48, American kestrel 1, Merlin 5, eastern phoebe 2, blue jay 299, American crow 1156, fish crow 56, crow sp. 65, common raven 9, black-capped chickadee 665, tufted titmouse 120, horned lark 24, ruby-crowned kinglet 5, golden-crowned kinglet 61, white-breasted nuthatch 107, red-breasted nuthatch 11, brown creeper 13, house wren 1, winter wren 4, marsh wren 2, Carolina wren 233, European starling 1011, gray catbird 12, brown thrasher 2, northern mockingbird 28, eastern bluebird 43, hermit thrush 16, American robin 1721, cedar waxwing 32, house sparrow 198, American pipit 7, house finch 145, purple finch 1, American goldfinch 149, snow bunting 61, chipping sparrow 1, field sparrow 5, American tree sparrow 3, fox sparrow 7, dark-eyed junco 131, white-throated sparrow 136, Savannah sparrow 13, ‘Ipswich’ sparrow 14, song sparrow 334, swamp sparrow 20, eastern towhee 22, eastern meadowlark 26, Baltimore oriole 2, red-winged blackbird 54, common grackle 2, orange-crowned warbler 4, common yellowthroat 2, palm warbler 2, pine warbler 3, yellow-rumped warbler 358, northern cardinal 211, passerine sp. 10.
An additional six species were seen in the three days before or after count day: Eurasian wigeon, redhead, red-necked grebe, peregrine falcon, pine siskin and rose-breasted grosbeak.
The Christmas Bird Count is a fun field day. And compiler Luanne Johnson deserves a heartfelt thank you for all the work she put in organizing and compiling this annual event. Please help us break the all-time record of 130 species on count day — we came so close this year. The 66th annual Christmas Bird Count will be held on Sunday, Dec. 28, 2025. Mark your calendars.
Please email your sightings to birds@vineyardgazette.com.
Robert Culbert is an ecological consultant with Nature Watch living in Vineyard Haven.
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