State wildlife officials and the Mass Audubon bird conservation group are advising residents to bring in their bird feeders and birdbaths until more is known about a mysterious avian ailment.
There are a lot of eagles, hawks, falcons and owls around the Island. These large birds are always fun to see and many people continue to report them.
There have been three very interesting sightings this past week. One is of snowy owls that were seen and photographed in two locations.
The thought of alerting bird watchers to make sure their bird baths are full on Oct. 31 never crossed my mind. However, I find that with this drought, the birds in my yard and the woods and fields that surround my home are looking hard for sources of water.
Flip Harrington and I had our first yellow-rumped warbler and white-crowned sparrow in our Quenames bird bath on Oct. 19. The holly trees behind the bath provided shelter and probably insects for our first ruby-crowned kinglet.
A warbler seen in the Phillips Preserve and a thrush spotted in the Gay Head Moraine are members of groups of birds I have always had trouble distinguishing between. The Connecticut warbler is one of three warblers that are tough to separate. The other two are the Nashville warbler and the mourning warbler. The MacGillivray’s warbler is also a look-alike, but is a western species never seen on the Vineyard and, to my knowledge, only five times in Massachusetts. The last time was in 2009 in Boston.
We were packing to leave for a trip to Maine on Sept. 14 to visit old Vineyard friends and attend a wedding. Our backpacks were on the kitchen table and I had just filled the hummingbird feeder. One of the juvenile ruby-throated hummingbirds flew up to the kitchen window, hovered for a few seconds and then flew off. That was the last time we saw our hummingbirds.
