BirdingGirl

I had the good fortune to sit down with wildlife biologist Dave Scarpitti and discuss his topic for a break-out session at the Mass Audubon Birders Meeting. Dave is an Upland Game Bird Biologist with MassWildlife and will be speaking about habitat management in Massachusetts and how birders can play a role in this conservation effort. Many birds have learned to adapt to their urban surroundings. Can you give some examples of birds going through such a transition right now? Red-tailed hawks and turkey vultures can be seen circling around highways- this is something that we've seen within the last 100 years. These are birds that have been around for thousands of years so they have learned to adapt to their current environment. The highway provides an open space for hawks to hunt small prey and it provides roadkill for the turkey vultures. Humans have altered every square inch of land so everything has learned to adapt. What are the types of birds in Massachusetts requiring large tra...

My friend Chelsea from the Cape was visiting Tuesday night and told me about her dog Jackson, who is apparently a bird dog. He flushed out a pheasant at Crane Wildlife Management Area in Falmouth, MA. Then he flushed out a Short Eared Owl at the Spit in Mashpee, MA. She was walking him at the wildlife reserve when he ran off into a field and began tracking the bird, following its scent on a random path through the field. Then all of a sudden she saw there was great commotion as he flushed the bird out and it flew up out of the tall grass. Jackson stopped in his tracks and pointed, then followed the bird, leaping all the way across the field. Her husband Chris said the same thing happened when he was walking Jackson at the Spit, which is a beach in Popponesset in Mashpee. She said he was walking him and then he ran off into the tall grass and out flew the owl. She was really excited to share this story with me about her "mutt" from Hawaii. She said a few weeks prior she had c...