Burgeoning Numbers of Birds

It started around August 12th or so. The numbers of Tree Swallows sweeping over each body of water, from the slough, to the pond, to the newer containment pond have been increasing steadily over the month. Swallows, whose families probably were raised in tree holes found in the woods around the bog, have come together as one. And how they delight me. I always have to stop in my tracks and look up, amazed at the swirl of iridescent green and white going on over my head. I stop because I know in just a few weeks time, this show, at least on the bog, will be over.

When they disappear from the bog though, there is a good chance I will find them with thousands more who will gather for their final staging on the dunes of Sandy Neck Beach, just a few miles from here. Going to see them there is one of the highlights of the fall. Of all the swallows, this is the one swallow who has extended it’s menu to include, not just insects, but the fruit of the bayberry bushes, small wax coated seeds that fuel them with the extra oomph they need to power themselves down the coast. They are often found on barrier beaches, dining as they make their way south. A much easier way to go, then say, some poor hummingbird that has to cross the Gulf of Mexico on nothing but the memory of the last nectar it sipped. Migration, of any species, should make us once again, be thankful for our, “drive as you go”, human status.

The other birds that are ever more present are the Robins. “Perp, perp perping”, greets me from the Tupelo trees on the eastern side of the bog as I round that bend. It seems when I go at about 7 am I am catching the early morning commute as they leave the roost of the night before and fan out in search of black cherries, tupelo seeds or of course, the worm that lurks beneath your grass.
But they too are doing spirited dives and chases that lets you know the tempo of the flock is rising as they get closer to saying “Adios” and head south. On the Cape, we have a treat of not being robin-less in winter though, for the Canadian Robin, a slightly more robust version of our Robin considers us “South of the Border” and they roost in spectacular numbers in a cedar forest near here. It is the awaited event of Dec and Jan, and when it does happen, surely you will hear about it.

More Sandpipers, Solitary and not so are “peep, peeping” at the edge of that containment pond. I know the sand flats at the ocean are sporting, or so I read, thousands of mixed migrant flocks of terns and sandpipers and all those returning from the north, now headed south, so my paltry little 5 or 6 are nothing. But they are my 5 or 6 and they are right out the back door, so they will have to do. I never seem to have the free time to get further down the Cape in the fall when it is so spectacular and the article is always pretty vague about where said “sand flats” are. I guess I should just know. Something to try to get my “ladies” to before fall is over.

The family of Red Tail hawks has to move over, literally, for the wave of migrant hawks that are also headed this way. I saw the large young Red Tail, actually move off its perch when a Sharp-Shinned Hawk landed on the same branch. Please, a little more dignity! A Sharp Shinned Hawk is a little smaller than a crow, and yes, it eats other birds, but not Red Tails! A Red Tail in need of a “self-esteem” seminar!



Round the later-summer crowd out with a pair of young Cormorants on the pond and the juvenile Great Blue Heron that entertained me last week with his arduous swallowing of a frog and you have the look of the bog, avian wise, at the end of August. I seem to hardly even notice the crows, which for awhile, after so many of these leave, will be the main entertainers.


Wherever you are, take notice of who is gathering and who is going and who, “Hey how did that happen”, is already gone. I always feel put out when the catbird that has serenaded me all summer leaves without so much as a “bye your leave.” Enjoy then, the end of heat is nigh, the bursts of color are about to begin, we see it already in the red branch here or there of Tupelo, and the little two legged dears will be back in school. A change of season is at hand once again and we are blessed to witness it aren’t we?

Of Damsels and Dragons

Oh Odonata, how I will miss you when you are gone. Jewels on the wing- damselflies, the delicate ones who hold their wings daintily over their back, and dragonflies, those B-1 bombers of the air, snapping up mosquitoes in their leg baskets with abandon. They have been the stars around the pond since late spring. Though many species have laid their eggs and ended their two-month stint as adults, other species are just now coming into their own. The sight of Ruby Meadowhawks on many of the trails I hike lets me know we are at the end of summer. Just as you can tell which month is which by the scent of flowers blooming, you can also track the progress of summer, to some degree, by which dragonfly is clattering by.

Swimming at the pond in July meant practically ducking to get out the way of male Calico Pennants, dive bombing each other whenever one strayed into the other’s territory. It also meant watching myriad’s of threads of bright blue fly among the pond side vegetation for the Bluets were having their coming out party. Now, I seldom see either of those, but last week at Hoxie Pond, the sought after treat was the sight of the almost-too-slender-to-see Violet Dancers.

If you manage to get a close look at them when they land you will see a slender, for these are damselflies, violet abdomen with bright blue at the tip. Those are the males. I actually got to see a mating pair, and what I thought had been a “ come hither dance”, turned out, now that I know a female, to have been two males sparring, not courting. The female, is a drab rusty color, but now I know. That is the way we learn, isn’t it? Watch and see and some things you thought were true may turn out to not be.

This week, and I always see this as a sign that we are turning towards Fall, the Ruby and I mean ruby- red Meadowhawk is out hawking along the trail. All dragonflies and damselflies start their life in the water, and will lay their eggs in the water, but some head to meadows and upland fields to live out their short adult lives and this is one of them. Look for them from now until October along sunny trails. I think with this species, the female is more of a yellow color. The one I saw today was hovering in the sunlight and it must have been newly emerged for it was as red as red gets. Beautiful!

One of the larger, maybe the largest dragonfly, that everyone recognizes is the Common Green Darner. They are common, as their name suggests, and they have a large green head and long blue abdomen. These are the ones that migrate south for the winter. Obviously, they manage to live more than the 2 months all the others do. They say this species can be seen massing together over fields by the 1,000’s. Wouldn’t that be something to see! I have only seen them by the 5 and 6’s but than maybe I just haven’t been at the right place at the right time. They are strong fliers who have been clocked at 40mph. I would easily believe a lot of them are capable of those speeds, especially when they are buzzing by my head as I float along in the water.


This entire jewel-like beauty of the adult phase is nowhere to be found in the nymph stage. Buggy eyes, long bodies, a mouth that flies out on a hinge to eat ever larger prey as they grow, the dragonfly nymph is the terror of the deep. The damselflies are also predators in their nymph stage but they swish their “tail” as they swim looking more like sashaying ladies than trained assassins. For that matter, my sympathy goes out to the male damselfly, for we tell the kids to remember which is which because the damselfly swims like she is saying “I’m a damsel in distress”, which probably isn’t the way a male damselfly would chose to be remembered!

Amazingly, both dragonflies and damselflies can take from 6 months to 6 years to go through their nymph stage before they come out and have their 2-month season as adults. That phase is all about, quick, find your true love, mate, and deposit the eggs one by one into the slit of an underwater plant and then, its curtains. Ah, the brevity of life.

But there are still a few months left to be entranced by them. Watch for the way they “power down” when they land. Just like a helicopter, a very mechanical lowering of the wings. Move slowly and you can get pretty close to them, close enough to see that dragonflies have HUGE eyes with, take my word on this, 30,000 facets to them. Damselflies, if YOU have good enough eyes to see, have smaller, more set-apart eyes. Watch for the also mechanical way they move their head as they get things in focus. And if you catch one eating, well, that’s pretty cool too. They have really strong jaws. For that matter, their Latin name of Odonata means, teeth, which they don’t have, but someone watching must have thought they must for the way they chomp down on things.


So, there’s your assignment, catch some of this Odonata show before it leaves town. Because once they are gone, it’s a long time before the air if full of clatter and jewel dancers again. At least, for those of us who live in the Northeast.

"Can you take Leviathan Home as a Pet?"...

“If you merely touched him, you’d never forget.” Wonderful lines from an old Michael Card song about Job from the Bible. God is reminding Job just who he is talking to, someone who can take Leviathan home as a pet. Every time I am on a Whale Watch trip and the whales come “poooshing” up with an exhalation, practically in your face, as you lean out over the bow, I think of the truth of that line. If you merely touched him, if you merely saw him this close, you would never forget. Consequently, I am an avid, more than avid some might say, dragger of people on whale watches whenever they come to visit us here on the Cape in summer.

And so, this past weekend we had just such an opportunity. My youngest daughter was home for the weekend with friends and one of them had never been on a whale watch, so, hot dog, a fresh victim, a fresh excuse to go! We are so fortunate to be one of the top 10 whaling spots on earth, so really, to miss this, is to miss the main event. Humpbacks, Finbacks, Minke, and Northern Right Whales all love to graze around Stellwagons Bank, just northwest off the tip of Provincetown so the trips are bound to produce something. I always favor the sunset trip, the last one of the day, for whatever you may see will be highlighted by a glowing orange sky. On one amazing trip when my children were young we saw a humpback breach more than a dozen times with the setting sun directly behind him.

But wow, Saturday when we went, it was completely whale soup! Humpbacks are always the main draw, for they are the most athletic of all the whales. Over past trips we have seen innumerable breeches, when they leap all 40 tons out of the water and crash back down with a huge spray, tail lobbing, flipper flapping, and fluke throwing. But the last few years have been superdy-duper spectacular with many more feeding displays than I remember seeing in earlier years. Maybe the sand lances that they love have increased in number, but whatever the reason it is beyond spectacular.


This past weekend we came upon several pairs of whales churning the water pale green with their “bubble nets”, then watched them coming up like synchronized swimmers right in the middle of it with mouths wide open. They were so close you could clearly see their baleen, hanging in sheets and even the pink upper palette of their mouth. Then they would cruise along at the surface, mouths still slightly open with their lower jaw with its rorqual pleats ballooned out as they filtered the water out and kept the fish in. Incredible, and more so, because it was happening within feet of the boat. One such pass brought them right under our bow, with a loud “booch” of exhalation that spread misty whale breath over we eager folks who spend the time out as far on the bow as is allowed.


And you know that is the secret to an exciting whale ride. As soon as you get on board, head up front, stake your claim on this narrow part of the boat and ride out that hour of high-speed, up-and-down with the waves, that gets you to Stellwagon. Its worth it just for the wild ride that is, and puts you in perfect position to be among the first to spot the whales, and the most likely to get whale breath on your face. And who would want to miss that!

Ok, back to the whales. So at the risk of anthropomorphizing, you sure would have guessed we had shown up at suppertime. Apparently there were schools of lances, small fish that they love, and everyone was joining in on the feast, so not only were there several pairs of humpbacks but, also, feeding along with them were Finback whales, second only to the Blue whales in size. They are long and slender and seldom show much more than a dorsal fin, but these were lifting their long narrow heads out of the water and showing much more than I am used to seeing of a Finback. Zipping around all of these were Minke whales. Small for baleen whales but 30 tons of zippiness all the same.


As if that wasn’t enough, several pods of Atlantic White Sided dolphins showed up, crisscrossing crazily among the larger baleen whales, putting this on the map as one of the best whale watches ever! Toothed whales are the high-speed whales who love to ride the boats bow, or leap, Sea World like, three abreast. It was just incredible! Now, add the birds, pelagic birds you only see out to sea, like Greater Shearwaters and Wilson’s Storm Petrel. The Shearwaters swooped in, practically swooping into the whale’s open jaws to go after the same obviously irresistible sand lances. Wow, wow, wow! What a gift it all was-to my daughter, to me, to her friends, to everyone on the boat.


Interestingly, when it was finally over, our guide warned us against ever expecting anything like that again. “You should expect a nice boat ride and a sighting of a whale or two and be happy with that”. Well, respectfully, I beg to differ. Take the sunset trip, spend the whole time out on the bow, look for glory in the sea, the sky, the wind, and I think each time, you too would leave singing, “Can you take Leviathan home as a pet, if you merely touched him you’d never forget.” Or whatever song reflects pure gladness in your heart.

Taking the Long View

Four, or maybe it was five years ago, I headed out to walk around the bog and as I got closer,I heard the loudest crashing sounds and I couldn’t imagine what they were. When I crested the tracks I saw, to my horror, that the woods to the east of the bog were being systematically eradicated. I was so shocked, so sad to see that all these trees that had been in a small valley that a stream cut through, were just about gone. It turned out that the grower was making a new containment pond out of the stream and all vegetation had to go. I know it is his land, but at the time I was crushed.

Now, this morning, some five, or maybe four (time has a way of being elusive doesn’t it?) years later, I walk around the containment bog and is this a ruined habitat? No, it is a completely changed, but still,a life-filled habitat. This morning, which happened to be an exceptionally good morning, there were two young looking, Green Herons perched, pretty obviously, in the branches of the dead tree that stands in the middle of the pond. A few other dead limbs are around it, favorite-watching spots for Phoebe and her gang, and the Kingbirds when they are in the mood to share. Today, it seemed to be Phoebe’s turn. Accompanied by her charges, flitting out on their own for bugs now.


A Solitary Sandpiper has been here for the last week, and today, I see three. As Solitary Sandpipers are usually just that, solitary, I have to happily assume that these may be her summer brood, just learning the ropes of plunging that bill in after, who knows what, worms and hidden yummy things under the mud. A Bullfrog chug-a-rumed from the banks, Swallows swooped in after the bugs, missing a few as I was getting pretty chewed up by mosquitoes as I watched, and well, not today, but other days, I have seen the poked up nose of a turtle. Dragonflies clatter by, slender threads of Damselflies alight on the veg at the edge and none of them would be here if the woods hadn’t become water. So, I am simply being reminded that,at times, I need to take the long view.


What are we at,Day 104, as they like to tell us, of the Gulf Coast disaster? Sometimes I think, what if someone had been keeping count after the K-T asteroid struck? The one that formed the 100-mile-wide Chicxulub crater beneath the sea near the Yucatan which pretty effectively removed dinosaurs from the hit parade. How many 1,000’s of days would that have gone on, and yet, here we are, the new Big kids on the block and probably somewhat thankful that T-Rex isn’t living up the street. The long view. What we see now, isn’t what will always be, and sometimes the change works out for someone’s good. Perhaps an altogether different someone, but life has a way of going on doesn’t it?

For today, I am going to try to go with the flow. Life changes, kids grow and become adults, woods can change to water and in both cases, life is a flourishing thing. Remind me that I said this, when you hear me wishing aloud for a magic wand that could make everything revert to a former time. After all, if that were the case, T-Rex could come knocking at my door!