The Christmas Bird Count is behind us and there have been many interesting birds seen since. So let’s catch up with several of the attention-grabbing sightings. Dovekies have again caught people’s attention whether they are birders or not. In the recent easterly gales a number of these little alcids, which are about half the size of a football and weigh practically nothing, were blown onto the Island. Peter Huntington spotted a dovekie flying over Crab Creek at Quansoo on Jan.
A group of Vineyard birders and biologists were saddened to hear that David (aka Pops) Masch had died. Many folks had met Dave while he was the naturalist, chief cook, father figure/counselor and instructor for the Penikese Island School. Dave was at Penikese for 29 years, and before that he was a biologist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. Dave was an excellent fisherman/shell fisherman and a superb cook.
Red knots are a not something you tie, but a type of shorebird that is causing quite a stir in the birding world. A bit of history: the red knot’s Latin name is Calidris canutus, a moniker which was given this sandpiper by Linnaeus to honor the Danish king, Canute or Knut. King Knut was well-known for trying to hold back the tides. This makes perfect sense; if I were a sandpiper depending on horseshoe crab eggs or clams, I would want the tide to stay low so I could feed.
At noon on New Year's Day, Stephen Carlson of Oak Bluffs made
a remarkable discovery.
Mr. Carlson had just left his home on a dirt road when, upon
reaching the pavement, he noticed an object in the road. Dazed and
confused, walking and standing in the middle of the road, was a very odd
bird. As if recovering from a celebratory New Year's Eve, this
bird was bobbing and weaving.
A flap has arisen in Aquinnah over the illegal shooting of a large
number of cormorants earlier this month on tribal land. The killings
took place near the historic herring run, the oldest operating herring
run on the Island. The incident raised questions about how laws are
enforced by the tribe.
Now a genetic study of the skins of scores of heath hens, all of them from the Vineyard, shows that the Island bird, although it looked and behaved much like its supposed parent species in the Midwest, was a wholly distinctive creature. Genetically it was more different from the greater western prairie chicken - that supposed parent species - than the Midwestern bird is from any other family member in its genus, which includes the lesser prairie chicken, the endangered Attwater's prairie chicken of eastern Texas, and even the sharp-tailed grouse. It is possible that instead of being a subspecies of the prairie chicken - which scientists have considered it to be since it was first typed in the last years of the nineteenth century - the heath hen might have been a species unto itself.
Raptor. The name carries a lot of weight. So much velocity and ferocity are associated with it. In the bird world, the title refers to owls, hawks and eagles, vultures and the osprey.
The Vineyard has three owl species in summer and three or four more in winter. Three hawk species can survive here year-round. Almost any hawk species found in eastern North America might find its way here.
The forces which punched a hole in Norton Point and opened Edgartown
harbor to the Atlantic Ocean might present a headache for town
officials, but from an ecological viewpoint, they have all the benefits
of a big natural spring cleaning.
Tisbury Great Pond looked like a Japanese painting, flat calm with a fine mist hanging just over the surface. It was so quiet it was eerie. The silence was broken by the honking of a flock of Canada Geese. The birds rose up in a V-formation through the fog and headed directly towards my kitchen window, creating quite a din for such an early hour. At what seemed the last second, the flock sailed over the roof and headed towards Black Point Pond.
The Intracoastal Waterway (ICW), inland waterway, or the Ditch, as it is also known, is an incredible piece of water. It offers the boater, whether by sail, paddle, oars or motor, a fascinating peek into the history and natural history of the Eastern Seaboard. The ICW doesn’t officially start (mile marker number one) until Norfolk, Va., and ends in Key West, Fla. (mile marker 1241). However, many seamen believe it starts at Cape Ann and goes to Brownsville, Tex.
