BirdingGirl

I spent a half hour birding before work this morning. I stuck to my favorite section of the Charles River in Watertown, MA, but one of these days I really need to make the effort to bird along the other side in Nonantum. I've been invited to contribute to a new local blog called Newton, MA Birding . When I lived in Watertown I spent a lot of time on the Newton side of the river in the village of Nonantum. When I would go running or birding along the river I would always cross over the footbridge before Watertown Square and then again over Bridge St. I really enjoy birding in the Watertown/Newton area so I'm going to try and get over there someday soon. I chirped/tweeted this morning about the warblers being gone already from my favorite stand of trees along the Charles. Perhaps I just didn't spend enough time there, or maybe I didn't get there early enough. I'm confident there are still plenty of warblers at Mt. Auburn Cemetery though so I'll just plan on getti...

I've found a new way to work birding into my busy work week. As I mentioned last week, I've started birding along the Charles River before work to catch migratory warblers while they're at their peak. Some days I don't have enough time for a full walk so I've been pulling over and parking on Charles River Rd. right near the prime spot I mentioned (stand of trees right after Watertown Square) to get in some quick birding. I did it on Tuesday of this week and saw some more yellow-rumped warblers but didn't get any good pictures. Then on Thursday I decided to pull over and stop in the same spot on my way home. I was excited to see my first Baltimore Oriole of the year! This is a young male I believe- the black is still coming in on its head: Then I spotted another male along the banks of the river: I also enjoyed watching the double-crested cormorants that were roosting in the trees rather than perching on logs/dead trees in the river. This was because the Boston C...

I got up extra early this morning to do some birding along the Charles River before work. Since I don't live in Watertown anymore I need to take advantage of being near the river during the work week. For all of you Massachusetts birders caught up in the warbler frenzy right now (I see Christopher at Picus Blog made a recent trip to Mt. Auburn Cemetery and to Brighton to see the Townsend's Warbler at Chestnut Hill Reservoir- so jealous!), I'll give a tip of my own about the best spot for warblers on the Charles River Rd. stretch of the river in Watertown. Today confirmed for me that the best area is in the stand of trees immediately after Watertown Square. This is where I've seen nearly all of the warblers/kinglets I've spotted in along the Charles in Watertown. I walk the whole stretch between Watertown Square and N. Beacon St. when I go birding, but for some reason they only like that area. Especially where the trees border the lawn when it is nice and sunny. I...

These first pictures are from my birding trip to the Charles River three weeks ago. It took me a while to figure out what these little wading birds were, but I feel pretty confident they're Spotted Sandpipers. According to Cornell's All About Birds Website (see the link in my blog's sidebar) they're extremely common on the edge of nearly any water source throughout North America. I returned to the river today and was able to get some more pictures, this time of a solitary bird teetering on top of the lilypads: Let me know what you think of my ID. The turning point came when I got to step 11 in my methodology : the National Geographic Birder's Journal. Sometimes it takes getting a fresh perspective to be able to see the way. Then I returned to my Sibley Guide to see his description of the Spotted Sandpiper that's when I picked up on the yellow bill notation in Sibley's description. Aside from the spots on the body, that was one of the most distinguishable ...

These pictures are from my walk along the Charles River last week. I walked out onto one of the wooden lookout points and saw 2-3 of the birds perching on the branches on either side of it. At first I almost thought they were swallows, but the white tipping on its wings made me think otherwise. According to my Sibley Guide they will perch on any open perching area to watch for passing insects. The area I saw them in was perfect for that since the water is very shallow and calm there and plenty of bugs were out that night.

While on my recent walk at the Charles River I noticed lots of juvenile ducks that I initially assumed were Mallards, then thought were Blue-winged Teals, and finally realized were Juvenile Wood Ducks thanks to my friend Dave. Many of the ducks I saw were hanging out on overturned trees laying in the river, and this group was roosting in a tree right near the footbridge. There was a very large group of Canada Geese nearby since people were feeding them bread. This annoys me not only because I know it's not good for the birds, but also because it's frustrating if I'm running or walking because I need to navigate around the birds or avoid the path altogether if there's too many of them. According to a recent feature in the "Green Guru" column in the July/August issue of Audubon Magazine, feeding wild birds is harmful for the following reasons: White bread offers poor nutrition for the birds (refined sugar and processed fats are essentially "junk food"...

It was toward the end of my walk home yesterday that I heard this little guy and stopped to get some close-ups. This juvenile downy woodpecker (note the red on its crown) was pecking away on what appeared to be a sapling, or just a very small tree. I was surprised by that, but there must have been something inside it was trying to get at! Look at the red on its chest- is that coloring normal? I didn't see any mention of it in my guidebooks. I thought it just bumped into something messy like fruit on a tree. Note the black bars on the outer tail feathers. This is one of the ways to distinguish a Downy Woodpecker from a Hairy Woodpecker, yet apparently some Hairy Woodpeckers do show this. In which case the Downy's smaller size would be the giveaway.

Here are my pictures from last night of a black-crowned night heron fishing for dinner in the Charles River. This area is a hot spot to catch wading birds since fish get caught in the current and shallow water created by the dam approaching Watertown Square. I was really surprise at how well the heron defended its fishing territory. There was a seagull that kept encroaching on its space and the heron would turn around, climb up the wall and chase it away. It was really pretty entertaining.

I was on the hunt for a large gray heron-like bird with a short bill at the Charles River after one of my readers, John, wrote in about it. Here's the backstory, taken directly from my post at the Boston Birds Google Group: A reader of my blog emailed me back on June 9th about a mystery bird he and his wife had seen. He wrote: "Looking for info on a pair of birds my family saw while walking along a Waltham section of the river this weekend. They were about the size of blue herons without the long beaks. Their beaks actually looked more like parrot beaks. They were grayish in color except for their heads which were more of a yellow. There were two of them together (another non-blue heron trait) on a tree that had fallen over the river." I did a little bit of research and the best guess I could make was a Sora or some other type of Rail, although they seem to be pretty rare in Massachusetts. Then this morning I was jogging along the Charles River headed toward Watertown Squ...

It's been pretty steamy in Boston, and the birds are feeling it too. On my trip to Mt. Auburn Cemetery three weeks ago I also stopped to watch a Double-crested Cormorant cooling in Auburn Lake. These pictures were not taken at a fast shutter speed- the bird was simply holding its wings up and fanning them very, very slowly. It was such a hot day, and this was such a small, sheltered body of water it made me wonder why it wasn't out in the open ocean or even in the Charles River where I see lots of them. It's a mystery. Has anyone else spotted cormorants in small ponds like this before?