October 2018https://www.birdobserver.org/Issues/2018/October-2018Fall Birding the Keene, New Hampshire, Areahttps://www.birdobserver.org/Issues/2018/October-2018/fall-birding-the-keene-new-hampshire-areaWhere to Go BirdingMon, 01 Oct 2018 00:00:00 GMTFall Birding the Keene, New Hampshire, Area<p class="caption"><img alt="" src="/Portals/0/Assets/bo46-5/AshBrookWetland.jpg" title="" /><br /> Ash Brook Wetland. All photographs by the author.</p> <h3>Ash Brook Wetland</h3> <p>Despite hosting droves of breeding Red-winged Blackbirds during the summer, Ash Brook Wetland often lacks a strong icterid presence on autumn days. Yet on certain days in October and November, flocks numbering in the hundreds will pass through the wetland. Ash Brook Wetland is best accessed from the south, after parking near the Target store at Monadnock Marketplace (42.929317, -72.300871) and walking behind the store where a paved access road begins. See Map 1: Ash Brook Wetland. The access road stretches 0.2 mile before intersecting with the Cheshire Rail Trail, which runs nearly 35 miles from the Massachusetts border to Walpole, New Hampshire.</p> <p>Just behind the Target store stands a row of conifer trees that can be a great place to locate foraging Cape May, Pine, and Blackpoll warblers during fall. Past the conifers the expanse of wetlands appears. Although little open water is visible from the access road, there are a few vantage points to check for ducks, geese, and grebes. Listen here for Swamp Sparrows singing late in the season, and look closely through the reeds for Marsh Wrens. Both species also occur in the wet drainage ditch west of the access road before the grassy field starts. Depending on the time of day, one of the best spots for photographing warblers is along the forest edge west of the access road at its southern terminus. A total of 21 warbler species have been observed at Ash Brook Wetland and, on some mornings in the fall, the branches seem to drip color as large, mixed-species foraging flocks of warblers and vireos move through the trees.</p> <p>The grassy shoulders alongside the access road yield high numbers of sparrows during the fall, and some days can offer seven species in a single walkthrough. Lincoln's, White-crowned, and Field sparrows are good highlights here, and large flocks of Song and Savannah sparrows are noteworthy in their own right. Upon reaching the Cheshire Rail Trail (frequently referred to as the "bike path"), one has the option of traveling east, west, or continuing north to Pitcher Street. Dog-walkers and birders alike often park where Pitcher Street meets the rail trail (42.931576, -72.302302), but there is no designated parking area. Heading west veers away from Ash Brook Wetland but offers thicker patches of forest, several backyard bird feeders, and a corridor of shrubby vegetation under the power line that runs parallel to the bike path. Heading east, on the other hand, offers additional wetland views and thick hedgerows. Northern Mockingbirds, Gray Catbirds, and Brown Thrashers enjoy the dense foliage and are most frequently observed foraging along the edges of the rail trail, perched in the trees, or surveying the wetland from the telephone wires. On the north side of the bike path, east of the access road, the wetter areas are worth checking for Northern Waterthrush, Common Yellowthroat, and Palm Warbler.</p> <p>Red-tailed Hawks enjoy scanning for prey from perches up and down the radio tower on the eastern side of Ash Brook Wetland. Although the wetland lacks the expansive views of many hawkwatch sites, the skies above the wetland and nearby field are devoid of trees, offering decent views of migrating raptors. Looking southwest over the wetland toward the Horatio Colony Preserve ridgeline can yield lone accipiters and buteos, Turkey Vultures, and small kettles of Broad-winged Hawks.</p> <p>If time allows, or walking around the wetland turns up few birds, a quick stop by Antioch University New England can be fruitful.</p> <p class="caption"><img alt="" src="/Portals/0/Assets/bo46-5/Map_1_-_Ash_Brook_Wetland.png" title="" /><br /> <strong>Map 1.</strong> Ash Brook Wetland.</p> <h3>Antioch University New England</h3> <p>Starting north of Ash Brook Wetland, head east along the Cheshire Rail Trail. Continue walking along the bike path, crossing the pedestrian bridge over Route 9, until you reach the University 0.4 mile from the junction with Pitcher Street. Alternatively, you could park at the University (42.931820, -72.294804), but this space is generally reserved for students, faculty, and staff. More parking is available in the Kohl's Plaza (42.932366, -72.295681), where a cut-through between the Famous Footwear and Great Clips businesses provides quick access to the rail trail.</p> <p>Bird feeders are located all along the eastern side of the university building, with two main feeder stations positioned in front of the main entrance and library windows. This second feeder station is the largest and is a mere 20 yards from the rail trail. The feeders, maintained by the Antioch Bird Club, are nearly always active, and the wooded patches to the north and south of the bike path provide ample foraging opportunities for a diversity of songbirds. As with most feeders, the occasional Cooper's and Sharp-shinned hawks swoop by, and both species are most often seen perched in the trees above the feeders or along the rail trail. Across from the University, to the south of the rail trail, a dirt patch is indirectly maintained by the city of Keene, which uses the site for dumping excess snow during winter months. As a result, mixed-species sparrow flocks forage here throughout the fall. Highlights include Lincoln's Sparrow, White-crowned Sparrow, and a pair of Dickcissels found in early October of 2017. Following rain showers, the dirt patch usually pools with water, which can attract songbirds and the odd shorebird.</p> <p class="caption"><img alt="" src="/Portals/0/Assets/bo46-5/Dickcissel.jpg" title="" /><br /> Dickcissel pair found October 2017.</p> <p>Tucked into the trees on the north side of the bike path, two brush piles are hidden. The larger one is positioned near the open lawn on the west side of the university building, and the smaller pile is about 30 meters east of the bird feeders. Sparrows and the resident Carolina Wren frequently visit both locations. On the south side of the bike path, the powerline corridor is dominated by sumac trees and young aspen, which host early-successional forest obligates such as Prairie Warbler, Eastern Towhee, Brown Thrasher, and Indigo Bunting.</p> <h3>Ashuelot River Park</h3> <p>Parking is available in the Elm City Bagels plaza (42.932905, -72.287792) at the junction of Island Street and West Street. See Map 2: Ashuelot River Park. From the parking lot the main trail loops through a small open area before heading due north. Although the open green can be busy with people enjoying yard games in the afternoons and evenings, mornings are relatively quiet and devoid of human activity. West and a bit north of the green a dam-restricted impoundment of water often hosts waterfowl, including Mallards and American Black Ducks. Great Blue Herons frequently visit the down-river side of the dam to forage. A suspension bridge crossing the river (just north of the green) provides excellent viewing of the river upstream and downstream of the dam. This location is also a great place to watch flocks of Cedar Waxwings pick insects out of the air above the water's surface.</p> <p class="caption"><img alt="" src="/Portals/0/Assets/bo46-5/AshuelotRiverPark.jpg" title="" /><br /> Ashuelot River Park.</p> <p>From the bridge, two options of travel present themselves: following a trail up the western side of the Ashuelot River, or following the Jonathan Daniels Trail (JDT) along the eastern side. Taking the western option offers a good mix of habitats, ranging from floodplain forest and open wetland, to shrubby habitat under the power line corridor. One of my best encounters on this trail, a Rusty Blackbird, was found in the shrubs along the river bank not 200 feet from the bridge. Checking this area and similar microhabitats on either side of the river can also turn up Northern Waterthrush. Listen and watch for Belted Kingfishers and swallows as they forage along the waterway.</p> <p>Taking the JDT offers more mixed deciduous-coniferous forests than the western trail and passes two oxbow ponds and forested wetlands. Additionally, an abandoned lot with patches of vegetation lies off the east side of the JDT about 200 feet north of the suspension bridge. I have yet to find any out-of-the-ordinary species here, but barring any redevelopment plans, I imagine the lot will turn into a sparrow haven over the next few years as nonwoody plants continue to proliferate. Continuing northward, the JDT meanders around the back of an apartment complex and passes the first, and largest, oxbow pond on the left. Not much farther along the trail, a second oxbow pond appears on the right, partially hidden by dense vegetation. Despite the dense canopy cover and thinness of the water feature, Wood Ducks are still attracted to these ponds throughout the fall.</p> <p>Roughly 0.8 mile from the suspension bridge, the JDT forms a T-intersection with the Appel Way Trail. Moving west on the trail takes pedestrians underneath Route 9 to Wheelock Park (0.7 mile), which is a suitable place to watch for migrating Common Nighthawks in late August and early September. Heading east from the T-intersection, the trail ends at Court Street after an easy 0.2-mile jaunt along the forested pathway.</p> <p>Perhaps one of the understated features of the JDT, at least from a birding perspective, is the relative quietness of the pathway underfoot. Despite being covered by forest canopy almost its entire length, falling leaves are constantly crushed by foot traffic. The popularity of the trail, especially for cycling commuters and joggers, helps maintain the quiet footing, which increases one's chances of hearing distant birds and decreases the likelihood of flushing birds out of sight.</p> <p>For birders in need of a quick breakfast or energy boost, Elm City Bagels and the local Starbucks café are located on West Street adjacent to Ashuelot River Park.</p> <p class="caption"><img alt="" src="/Portals/0/Assets/bo46-5/Map_2_-_Ashuelot_River_Park.png" title="" /><br /> <strong>Map 2.</strong> Ashuelot River Park.</p> <h3>Krif Road</h3> <p>Relative to other birding hotspots in and around Keene, Krif Road boasts the greatest amount of agricultural acreage. Additionally, most of the field edges have drainage ditches that supply a substantial amount of dense grasses and shrubs, much to the delight of sparrows. Clay-colored and Vesper sparrows have been found here in small numbers. Tennessee and Connecticut warblers have also been reported from the forested and shrubby edges around the field. Visiting Krif Road in the evening in early fall, you can witness flights of migrating Common Nighthawks or have a rare look at a Short-eared Owl. See Map 3: Krif Road, Dillant-Hopkins Airport, and environs.</p> <p>At the corner of Comwell Drive and Krif Road, the southern end of the field often becomes flooded after rainstorms. This large, shallow pool often attracts migrating waterfowl, including teal, American Black Ducks, and Snow Geese. Mixed flocks can number in the hundreds. Shorebirds are an uncommon sight during migration in Keene, but Krif Road is one of the best places to look.</p> <p>Birding Krif Road and Comwell Drive can be done by car, which is convenient during snaps of cold weather. Wide shoulders along the road allow for ample parking, but the best place to park is at the east end of Krif Road in the pulloff on the north side of the road (42.914714, -72.285658), at the gate to Keene State College's Owl Athletic Complex. Generally, Krif Road and Comwell Drive do not see much vehicular traffic, and pulling off to the side anywhere for a brief amount of time is not frowned upon. There is a UPS facility at the north end of Comwell Drive, so take care to leave plenty of room for large trucks to pass by.</p> <p class="caption"><img alt="" src="/Portals/0/Assets/bo46-5/Map_3_-_Krif_Rd%2C_Dillant-Hopkins_Airport.jpg" title="" /><br /> <strong>Map 3.</strong> Krif Road, Dillant-Hopkins Airport, and environs.</p> <h3>Dillant-Hopkins Airport and Airport Road</h3> <p>Of all the local birding places around Keene, Dillant-Hopkins Airport and Airport Road along its perimeter boast perhaps the greatest diversity of habitat. Unique to the airport is the extensive grassland surrounding the airport's two runways. Mature deciduous and pine forests, forested wetland, freshwater marsh, and shrubland surround the airport in a complex, bird-rich mosaic.</p> <p class="caption"><img alt="" src="/Portals/0/Assets/bo46-5/AirportRoad.jpg" title="" /><br /> Airport Road.</p> <p>To get to the airport from Keene, travel east on NH-101. Take a right onto main Street/NH-12 South, and travel 0.9 mile before turning right onto Old Homestead Highway/NH-32 South. Two-tenths of a mile after turning onto Old Homestead Highway, turn right onto Airport Road.</p> <p>Driving down Airport road, the view opens to the right at 0.1 mile. This area is worth checking for American Kestrel and Vesper Sparrow perched on the fence line. Thirteen other sparrow species have been observed at the airport, most notably Grasshopper Sparrow, which is best found at airports across New England. In late fall, this open patch of land hosts American Pipit, Snow Bunting, and Horned Lark. At 0.5 mile, just after the airport parking lot, there is a gate. The gate blocks vehicular traffic to the Keene Waste Water Treatment facility on weekends, but it is open Monday-Friday from 6:30 am to 3:00 pm. Even if the gate is locked, public foot-traffic is welcome at any time. Free parking is available outside the airport building (42.906949, -72.272560), and the lot here is never full. When the gate is open, birders can drive in and park anywhere along the side of the road. Be courteous to drivers going to and from the plant, and pull off far enough to leave room for them to pass. Thankfully, the road is rarely busy.</p> <p>Starting at the gate, Airport Road bisects a thin strip of wetland. Here you can see bitterns and herons in addition to the more standard Marsh Wren, Swamp Sparrow, and Red-winged Blackbird. After the wetland the road passes through a mixed deciduous-pine forest where all six common woodpecker species can be found until most Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers and Northern Flickers depart in late October.</p> <p>After moving through the forest, the road curves to the southwest 0.3 mile after the gate. On the right, a short dirt road leads toward agriculture fields along the Ashuelot River. The forest at the end of the dirt road is the Keene State College Wildlife Management Area and is open to the public year-round. The start of the dirt road is a good place to park and has enough room for cars to pull completely off Airport Road. Just after the junction with the dirt road, Airport Road cuts through a large, open tract of wetland. The wetland itself hosts a variety of microhabitats, from dense stands of cattails to semi-dry clusters of shrubs. Ground crews at Dillant-Hopkins airport cut back the vegetation here every few years, which maintains a low-cut wet field with bushy patches. The shrubs here often attract a Northern Shrike during the winter months, but they can be seen as early as late fall. This general area can present large mixed- and single-species blackbird flocks. Rusty Blackbirds are most frequent here in September and October.</p> <p>The road begins to turn southeast 0.5 mile from the gate, and early-successional forest rises up on either side of the road. This corner of Airport Road is spectacular for photographing mixed-species foraging flocks of warblers in first light. After the turn, mature forested wetlands dominate both sides of the road. Relative to other areas near Keene, Pileated Woodpeckers can be observed here semi-regularly. Wood Ducks, with their adept maneuvering skills, can often been seen slowly swimming through the wetlands on either side of the road. Starting 0.9 mile after the gate, the forest on the east side of the road thins out, and views of the open airport lands are regained. The large wetland on the east side of Airport Road, beginning 1.1 miles after the gate, is another place to check for flocks of waterfowl. You can observe shorebirds, ranging from Spotted Sandpiper to Greater Yellowlegs, here and at the first wetland if the water is shallow enough. Approximately 1.5 miles after the gate, the road ends at the gate to the Keene Waste Water Treatment Plant. There is no convenient place to turn around, since the road past the facility's gate is off limits, but there is enough room for most cars to perform a three-point turn.</p> <p>Similar to Krif Road, the wetlands often flood, providing a large expanse of shallow water for waterfowl to rest and forage. Common Merganser, Hooded Merganser, Green-winged and Blue-winged teal, and Wood Duck, among other waterfowl, typically stop over during the fall. Alas, many waterfowl at this location seem to be one-day wonders. Other notable fall migration sightings at the airport include large numbers of Great Egret, Northern Harrier, Sora, Upland Sandpiper, Yellow-bellied and Olive-sided flycatchers, Philadelphia Vireo, and Blackpoll Warbler.</p> <h3>Wilson Pond</h3> <p>Wilson Pond stands out as one of the most accessible bodies of standing water in the Keene area. Just a short drive from downtown Keene, Wilson Pond is a 72-acre pond with an average depth of seven feet. Just 0.8 mile south on Old Homestead Highway/NH-32 from the airport entrance, Wilson Pond is an easy addition to birding trips to the airport. Common species at Wilson Pond in the fall include Hooded and Common mergansers, Ring-necked Duck, Common Loon, and various dabbling ducks and geese. More notable observations include White-winged and Black scoters, Bufflehead, Ruddy Duck, Red-throated Loon, and Double-crested Cormorant. Each of these species regularly occurs along the New Hampshire coast, but they are a treat for Cheshire County birders. A small dirt pulloff serves as a parking space (42.898245, -72.263581) and provides access to a public boat ramp.</p> <hr /> <p><em><strong>Steven Lamonde</strong> is an avid birder and recent graduate of Antioch University New England, where he obtained his MS in Conservation Biology. While at Antioch, Steven served as a Golden-winged Warbler graduate research assistant to Audubon Vermont., He also co-directed the Antioch Bird Club, which organizes regional birding trips and offers educational walks and talks for community members. Steven has traveled extensively throughout New England in search of birds, particularly wood warblers and raptors.</em></p> The Secret Lives of the Gulls of Appledorehttps://www.birdobserver.org/Issues/2018/October-2018/the-secret-lives-of-the-gulls-of-appledoreFeature ArticlesMon, 01 Oct 2018 00:00:00 GMTThe Secret Lives of the Gulls of Appledore<p>Appledore is a tubby looking island on a map—roughly rubber-ducky-shaped, one of my students decided. It is the largest of the Isles of Shoals, an archipelago straddling the line between New Hampshire's and Maine's jurisdictions. In summer, the island is crawling with undergraduates taking classes and working research internships through the Shoals Marine Laboratory, a project jointly overseen by the University of New Hampshire and Cornell University. Spring and fall migration seasons bring a cadre of songbird banders who work the mist nets from predawn until well past supper time. Tourists visit the historic site of nineteenth-century poet Celia Thaxter's garden (immortalized in paintings by American impressionist Childe Hassam), and groups of sustainability-minded engineering students work on thorny problems of life on an island six miles out.</p> <p class="caption"><img alt="" src="/Portals/0/Assets/bo46-5/Banding_and_Bleeding.png" title="" /><br /> <strong>Figure 2.</strong> Banding and blood sampling a Great Black-backed Gull. Only a very small amount of blood is required to perform DNA sexing on the bird. Photograph by Luis Robles.</p> <p>For our team of researchers, student assistants, and interested gull enthusiasts, however, Appledore is first and foremost a gull colony. Herring Gulls build their grassy cup nests on the island's exposed rocky skirt, and Great Black-backed Gulls select the more vegetated sites a bit farther back (Figure 1). The gulls of Appledore are habituated to humans and will tolerate foot traffic close to their nests. Still, visitors to the island receive a cautionary talk upon arrival advising them to hold sticks above their heads while walking to draw the ire of particularly defensive gull parents—the birds will strike the highest point on their target—and to wear a bicycle helmet when entering the densest areas of the colony.</p> <p>Our research on the gulls of Appledore was started by Dr. Julie Ellis, an ecologist, now at the University of Pennsylvania, who was interested in how gulls affected the island's ecology and trophic web. She started banding individual birds in 2004, and since then thousands of gulls have been captured, measured, and blood-sampled for DNA determination of sex by the project's team members (Figure 2). The focus of the project has changed over the years as different scientists have pursued their own interests. Sometimes the studies were on behavior, sometimes on eggshell pigment, sometimes on the observed hybridization between a Herring Gull and a Lesser Black-backed Gull—the first such successful breeding documented in North America, aside from Greenland. The project has now passed from Dr. Ellis into new hands, and is co-led by me, from my base at Northern Essex Community College in Massachusetts, and Mary Everett, a recent graduate of the University of Massachusetts, Lowell who has expertise in geographic information systems and mapping.</p> <p class="caption"><img alt="" src="/Portals/0/Assets/bo46-5/A_worn_band.jpg" title="" /><br /> <strong>Figure 3.</strong> A worn band. Placed on a Herring Gull chick in 2005, it was removed and replaced after 11 years. The bird now wears band 13J.</p> <p>Our current focus is on the Great Black-backed Gulls, in part because they are easier to trap and band, but mainly because far less is known about them as compared with their well-studied Herring Gull cousins. As we have for several years now, we place both a metal, federal band and a large, colorful, field readable band with an alphanumeric code on each bird—green for Herring Gulls and black for Great Black-backeds (Figure 3). Though these field readable bands are expensive at over five dollars each, the return is great in terms of sightings of our birds. People can often read the bands without binoculars, especially if the bird is one of our bolder, beach-going animals with little fear of humans.</p> <p>Our project relies entirely on the contributions of sightings by members of the public. Indeed, two previous articles in <em>Bird Observer</em> have discussed sightings contributed to our project (Adrien 2016, Miller 2018). Sightings come from as far away as Indiana, Texas, and Florida, and although some gull spotters are dedicated larophiles who drive to known gull haunts on the lookout for birds, many of our sightings come from more casual observers who happen to notice a banded bird and, out of curiosity, search online for information.</p> <p>Citizen scientists who contribute a sighting are often surprised to receive back a complete record on the bird: when and where it was banded, by whom, and where it has been seen since. This degree of detailed history is only possible through the efforts of long-time volunteer Bill Clark who has served the gull project in innumerable capacities over the years and now fields all the inquiries from the public about our birds. Some reports come from surprising quarters—this summer, our on-island banding team included Brad Natti, a lobsterman who sends us photos of our birds as they stand on the deck of his boat hoping for scraps. Like us, he has spent time observing gulls and has found them to be inquisitive, clever, and entertaining.</p> <p>It seems a trend for humans to despise creatures that remind us too much of ourselves. Organisms that are common, that frequent urban or suburban environments, are generalists that will eat almost anything, and are adaptable to many circumstances, as humans are, get ignored, or worse, viewed as pests to be exterminated. Gulls are often placed in that category. It's a curious psychology at play. Bald eagles and bears, too, feed opportunistically at dumps and dumpsters, but somehow retain their ability to impress a feeling of having been in the presence of something wild. Maybe it's context: bald eagles also soar over pristine wilderness, and bears stalk the deep forests of mountains, but Norway rats and pigeons are, if not confined to, then strongly linked with, our built-up habitations. To which category do we assign gulls? Are they human-reliant opportunists, or do they caucus with seabirds, albatross, and petrels, and gannets falling from the sky like javelins into schools of fish? From what we have seen of them in our work, it's both.</p> <p>Gulls deftly straddle two worlds. They can be at home on land or out at sea; eating french fries or eating mackerel caught miles out on the continental shelf; seen on the same seawall day after day at a Connecticut beach fighting over a bag of chips or never seen by human eyes at all, save for the couple months a year they come back to Appledore to breed. Our banded gull data illustrate this duality. Year after year certain birds are seen repeatedly, often in a very circumscribed location, across a season or even the entire year. Other birds, in contrast, are seen all or most years on a nest on Appledore, but never sighted anywhere off the island. Finally, there are birds we band and are never seen again anywhere. Particularly in juveniles, we presume most of these birds are dead since mortality rates in the first years of life are high.</p> <p>Great Black-backed Gulls are sexually mature at four years old, so we begin looking for them to breed at that age at the earliest. If they don't come back by six or seven years after banding as a fledgling, odds are high that they are dead. Most gulls show natal philopatry—a drive to return to breed in the same colony where they hatched and fledged. Appledore gulls, therefore, are generally Appledore gulls generation upon generation. However, there are surprising exceptions.</p> <p>During this summer of 2018, for example, we received a resighting report from Kiah Walker, working with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Thacher Island in Rockport, Massachusetts—about 25 miles from Appledore. Kiah found two of our banded Appledore gulls nesting there. Each had an unbanded mate. One bird was nine years old and the other was seven years old. We do not know if either had been nesting on Thacher every year since reaching maturity. We have a handful of reports over the years of Appledore gulls nesting on other islands in the Isles of Shoals archipelago, so not every gull remains an Appledore gull forever.</p> <p class="caption"><img alt="" src="/Portals/0/Assets/bo46-5/Banded_bird_0J2_with_GPS_logger.png" title="" /><br /> <strong>Figure 4.</strong> Banded bird 0J2 with GPS logger. Photograph by Kate Shlepr.</p> <p>What drives some birds to select other colonies is unknown, but it seems unlikely that overcrowding or lack of territory on Appledore would be the cause. Gull populations in the Gulf of Maine are believed to have reached their peak sometime between the 1970s and the mid-1990s. In the state of Maine, both the overall number of breeding birds, and the number of islands that play host to gull colonies have been on the decline. Between 1977 and 2013, there was a 30% decline in the number of Great Black-backed Gull nests (Mittelhauser et al. 2016).<span lang="ar-SA"> </span>In addition, Appledore specifically suffered a precipitous drop in the gull census in 2004 when raccoons were introduced onto the island from the mainland and consumed large numbers of eggs (Ellis et al. 2007).</p> <p>Though gull numbers on the island now are either stable or slowly declining, they never rebounded from the severe predation and nearly colony-wide breeding failure of 2004. As a result, the number of birds nesting on Appledore remains well below the known capacity of the island, at least in terms of nesting sites and territories. Why the gulls have not rebounded over the nearly fifteen years since 2004 raises questions about gull population trends in the region and beyond. Much of the research focus has been on what gulls eat and how food availability may have shifted over the decades.</p> <p>Gulls associate with human habitations and, as inventive foragers, often make use of human-derived food sources. Just how reliant the various species are on anthropogenic food is not fully known and may be different not just between species of gull, but between individual gulls within each species. Data from southeastern Canada correlated declines in numbers of both Herring and Great Black-backed gulls with a moratorium on groundfish fishing put in place in 1992 (Wilhelm et al. 2016). The researchers posit that the resultant dearth of discarded fish and bait thrown overboard by fishing vessels left large numbers of gulls without their accustomed food source. While this correlation does not definitively demonstrate that the moratorium caused the drop in gull numbers, we have found that individual gulls are creatures of habit, often specializing in a certain type of food, or frequenting the same stretch of beach every day month after month. Gulls that had come to rely on fishery wastes may have struggled to adapt to their sudden absence and could have faced the additional challenge of having to compete for alternate food sources, which they might have been inexpert at obtaining.</p> <p>To help answer these types of questions, we placed solar powered GPS loggers on five Great Black-backed Gulls nesting on Appledore Island in the summer of 2018. All five birds had been banded in a previous year, but most of them had never been observed anywhere but the island during breeding season. We have been curious about this phenomenon—why some banded birds are seen over and over again, and others never seen at all off the colony. The loggers are extremely lightweight and are mounted to the gull's lower back using a ribbon harness around the legs (Figure 4). The logger records the bird's position every fifteen minutes, and whenever the bird returns to the island, all the data are downloaded to a base station there. We now have almost two months of data on these five birds, and, as with most endeavors in science, what we have seen has raised as many questions as it answers. One of the birds flies straight to a landfill in Rochester, New Hampshire when it leaves the island to forage. Another frequents the mud flats near Rye, New Hampshire. Several others are spending most of their time at sea, ranging from north of Portland, Maine out to sixty miles east of the island (Figs. 5 and 6).</p> <p class="caption"><img alt="" src="/Portals/0/Assets/bo46-5/Band_0J2_travel_log.png" title="" /><br /> <strong>Figure 5.</strong> Band 4ET travel log. Bird's code is shown as (25) and locations are numbered sequentially. Photograph by Sarah Courchesne.</p> <p>The loggers alone can't tell us exactly what the birds are doing, only where they are, and a bird out at sea might be fishing for itself or might be following fishing vessels foraging on scraps and discarded fish. We hope to obtain satellite data on ship traffic in the region and see how it aligns, or doesn't, with the paths taken by the birds. We do receive resight reports from individuals on board ships, lobstermen or fisheries observers working for NOAA, so we know at least some of our banded birds spend time riding on boats.</p> <p>Whether all of our logger birds out at sea are eating fishery discards is not yet clear. It is a surprisingly difficult problem to solve. Many of the conventional ways of determining what food source an animal is utilizing cannot resolve the critical differences at issue. Techniques like stable isotopes or DNA barcoding can tell you whether a bird has been eating fish, or even what species of fish, but it can't tell you if the bird caught the fish itself or received it as a free handout off a boat. Making that determination is important for understanding population changes and making management decisions about gulls. A gull that fishes for a living will face different challenges than one reliant on the human fishing industry.</p> <p class="caption"><img alt="" src="/Portals/0/Assets/bo46-5/Band_4ET_travel_log.png" title="" /><br /> <strong>Figure 6.</strong> Band 0J2 travel log. Dot denotes Appledore Island. Each pushpin represents a position. The bird's logger code is shown as (29), and its locations are numbered sequentially as the bird traveled, i.e. 235(29), then moved to 236(29). Photograph by Sarah Courchesne.</p> <p>For a long time, biology has treated individual organisms as representatives of their types and drawn conclusions at the population level. Gather up a large enough sample size, the idea was, and you could say everything about what that organism is like. Variation is the fundamental underpinning of natural selection, but that variation has often been subsumed by attention to the general behavior, the "average" bird, or the tendencies of the entire colony. What our study seeks to do is to tease apart that average and to know the birds as individuals. What is internally consistent in a particular gull? Is she an early nester every year or does the timing vary depending on conditions? Is he a crab specialist or a more generalist forager? Do all the gulls provide extensive post-fledging care to their young or are some birds more invested parents than their neighbors? Do these things make a difference, in the long run, in who survives and who doesn't? Who leaves a legacy of successful offspring and who is wiped off the genetic map?</p> <p>For much of this work, we rely on observers who see our banded birds and send reports to us. The information we gather on adults continuing to feed their young even after leaving the breeding colony comes to us only because birders and casual gull watchers write in to tell us what they saw. A note that "M99 and Z09 were acting chummy," or that 2E2 and 5T9 were seen "sharing a skate meal" tells us who is caring for whom and when mates begin associating with each other before arrival on the colony.</p> <p>The field season on Appledore is an intense flurry of activity. We capture and band birds, document their breeding success or failure, and identify birds that are visiting or surveying possible territories for future years. The rest of the year, when the gulls have left the island, we wait for these messages in bottles, our banded birds, to be seen and recorded on a beach, or at a wastewater treatment plant, or far out at sea on a ship's rail. Everyone who reports one of our birds is a collaborator in this research. To those who have already helped us, thank you. To those who have not yet, we offer an invitation to join us in studying these complicated, entertaining, sometimes frustrating, but always fascinating animals.</p> <h3>References</h3> <ul> <li>Adrien, D. 2016. A Close Look at Banded Gulls. <em>Bird Observer</em> 44 (5): 316–323.</li> <li>Ellis, J. C., M. J. Shulman, H. Jessop, R. Suomala, S. R. Morris, V. Seng, M. Wagner and K. Mach. 2007. Impact of Raccoons on Breeding Success in Large Colonies of Great Black-backed Gulls and Herring Gulls. <em>Waterbirds</em> 30 (3): 375–383.</li> <li>Miller, J. B. 2018. 2E2: A Successful Gull. <em>Bird Observer</em> 46 (1): 40–41.</li> <li>Mittelhauser, G. H., R. B. Allen, J. Chalfant, R. P. Schauffler, and L. J. Welch. 2016. Trends in the Nesting Populations of Herring Gulls (<em>Larus argentatus</em>) and Great Black-backed Gulls (<em>Larus marinus</em>) in Maine, USA, 1977–2013. Waterbirds 39 (sp1): 57-67.</li> <li>Wilhelm, S. I., J. F. Rail, P. M. Regular, C. Gjerdrum, and G. J. Robertson. 2016. Large-Scale Changes in Abundance of Breeding Herring Gulls (<em>Larus argentatus</em>) and Great Black-backed Gulls (<em>Larus marinus</em>) Relative to Reduced Fishing Activities in Southeastern Canada. <em>Waterbirds</em> 39 (spq): 136-142.</li> </ul> <hr /> <p><em><strong>Sarah Courchesne</strong> grew up in Massachusetts, lives in New Hampshire, and has been a bird enthusiast since childhood. She trained as a veterinarian at Tufts and is currently an Associate Professor of Natural Sciences at Northern Essex Community College in Massachusetts.</em></p> <p><em>To learn more about the Gulls of Appledore project, or to report a banded bird sighting, visit our website at <a href="http://gullsofappledore.wordpress.com" target="_blank">gullsofappledore.wordpress.com</a></em></p> Kathleen S. (Betty) Anderson: June 15, 1923–August 24, 2018https://www.birdobserver.org/Issues/2018/October-2018/kathleen-s-betty-anderson-june-15-1923-august-24-2018MemorialMon, 01 Oct 2018 00:00:00 GMTKathleen S. (Betty) Anderson: June 15, 1923–August 24, 2018<p>I want to paraphrase part of the speech Betty made upon receiving one of Mass Audubon&#39;s most prestigious awards, the Allen H. Morgan Award, in 2009:</p> <p>From the day in late October 1949 when I first came upon a group of Mass Audubon birders at the Lakeville Ponds, this organization has enriched my life in so many ways. Foremost, always, the friends I&#39;ve made who share my interests and my concerns. But also the events, the publications, and the incentives for providing active participation in environmental issues.</p> <p>Betty Anderson claimed that her 60 years as a Mass Audubon member offered a continuous learning and enriching experience, along with ongoing opportunities to contribute to various projects where she always felt she learned more than she produced.</p> <p>Here I have to disagree. Betty Anderson gave so much of her knowledge, her friendship, and herself to so many people for so many years, that her greatest legacy will forever be her love of other people and her own incalculable ability to enthuse, enlighten, educate, and motivate others to become the best that they can be. And I&#39;m confident that there are legions of ornithologists and conservationists throughout the country who <em>learned from what she produced,</em> which will long withstand the test of time.</p> <p>What Betty Anderson produced throughout her life is truly remarkable.</p> <p>Always curious and ever-intrepid, Betty began her professional ornithological career in 1957, working with the Massachusetts Department of Public Health&#39;s Encephalitis Field Station in Lakeville, where she was employed trapping, banding, and bleeding birds in cedar swamps in Raynham as part of early research on Eastern Equine Encephalitis. When her two children were young, Betty became a Mass Audubon teacher where weekly she introduced hundreds of young children to birds and natural history in school systems in southeastern Massachusetts.</p> <p>By the 1960s, Betty&#39;s enthusiasm for research and birdbanding led to her establishment of an Operation Recovery banding station on Duxbury Beach. Betty&#39;s active involvement with this cooperative banding project&mdash;coordinated by Chandler Robbins, James Baird, and other active banders of the day&mdash;and her long-standing friendship with John and Rosalie Fiske&mdash;whose summer home was in Manomet&mdash;ultimately led to the establishment of the Manomet Bird Observatory (now called Manomet, Inc.). She was the founding director from 1969&ndash;1983.</p> <p>As Betty&#39;s reputation and expertise in conservation-related activities broadened, her influence and experience similarly grew. In 1973, she became a founding trustee of the Plymouth County Wildlands Trust (now the Wildlands Trust). From 1981&ndash;2018, she began a continuous run as a member and eventually chair of the Massachusetts Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program&#39;s Advisory Committee. Betty received the prestigious Governor Francis W. Sargent Award from the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife in 2007.</p> <p>While her many honors and tributes are legend, several of the most notable are: being among the first women elected to membership in the Nuttall Ornithological Club in 1974 and being one of only two women to serve as president of that Club in 1987; receiving the Cornell Lab of Ornithology&#39;s Arthur A. Allen Award in 1984; being elected a Fellow of the American Ornithologists&#39; Union in 2005; and her service on the boards of Mass Audubon, Hawk Mountain Sanctuary, the New England Wildflower Society, the North American Loon Fund, and the American Birding Association.</p> <p>Throughout her career Betty authored more than 50 professional papers and published numerous popular articles in journals and magazines. However, her personal journals documenting and detailing indications of climate change as a result of 50 years of continuous observation of events on Wolf Trap Hill Farm, her 100-acre property in Middleboro, may be among her most valuable professional and valuable contributions.</p> <p>The beacon that was Betty&#39;s life for me was a brilliant beam that significantly shaped my life and career. May her rich legacy live on forever, and the lessons that she taught me always remain a beacon for others to follow.</p> <p class="author">Wayne R. Petersen</p> Photo Essay: Godwitshttps://www.birdobserver.org/Issues/2018/October-2018/photo-essay-godwitsPhoto EssayMon, 01 Oct 2018 00:00:00 GMTPhoto Essay: Godwits<p class="caption"><img alt="" src="/Portals/0/Assets/bo46-5/M__Godwit___%281%29.jpg" title="" /></p> <p class="caption"><img alt="" src="/Portals/0/Assets/bo46-5/BlackTailed_Godwit_%282%29.jpg" title="" /><br /> Top: Marbled Godwit. Bottom: Black-tailed Godwit.</p> Musings from the Blind Birder: When Our Beloved Birds Are Not So Belovedhttps://www.birdobserver.org/Issues/2018/October-2018/musings-from-the-blind-birder-when-our-beloved-birds-are-not-so-belovedMusings from the Blind BirderMon, 01 Oct 2018 00:00:00 GMTMusings from the Blind Birder: When Our Beloved Birds Are Not So Beloved<p>That wildlife includes our beloved birds, which, on occasion, are most certainly not beloved. My mother and her husband, until his death in 2003, cultivated gardens on this property for forty years, a practice that Bob and I are continuing under the supervision of my mother, now 93. Planting and cultivating a garden is hard but highly rewarding work. In the spring, we painstakingly place small seeds an inch or so deep in the soil spaced appropriately apart, then ensure that the seeds and young plants are sufficiently watered as they take hold. We constantly try to stay ahead of the weed game, never missing an opportunity, however short, to pull weeds whenever we are anywhere near the gardens.</p> <p>Thus, especially in the days and weeks after planting the garden and as the plants start to emerge from the ground, I am not amused at seeing deer, bear, or other wildlife roaming in the garden that we have worked so hard to cultivate. You will not hear me say, "Oh, look at that beautiful deer chomping on our growing spinach and lettuce." Nor do I say, "Oh, well, the bear must have needed all the corn that he consumed overnight, so I guess it is okay that he destroyed our corn crop and we will have to wait for next year." No, indeed, we try to do what we can to protect the fruits of our labors from wildlife.</p> <p>And the wildlife of which we speak most certainly includes birds. I nearly lost it this past spring when we put netting around our blueberry patch about one to two weeks before we predicted that the berries would start to ripen for picking. After completing the task in the afternoon, we discovered that evening six Blue Jays flapping frantically inside the enclosure, apparently easily gaining entrance but having no clue how to get out. After making an opening and shooing them out, we set about trying to figure out how they got in and shoring up the netting. Well, this went on for another two days, each time with us trying to shore up the netting only to come back an hour or more later and discover frantic Blue Jays unable to get out. This surprised us because the berries were not ripe, and usually we do not get problems until the food is ripe to eat. Still, their flapping knocked many unripe berries off the plants. Thus, in effect, even if they did not eat the berries, we lost part of the crop to them. Finally, we were able to seal everything and were able to harvest at least part of the crop.</p> <p>For the rest of the summer, my mother was cursing every jay she saw, even as she could enjoy other birds, such as the Ruby-throated Hummingbirds at the feeder or the Eastern Phoebe parents darting back and forth to feed young in a nest above our back door. Having been denied access to the blueberry patch, the jays took up residence on posts in and among our raspberry patch, which was also threatened by these birds. I would periodically go outside and clap my hands, yell at the jays, and ask them, "I wonder what Blue Jays taste like?" I doubt those words were much of a deterrent.</p> <p>But jays are not the only avian culprits raiding gardens or fruit plants. Roving flocks of Cedar Waxwings can do a job on berry patches as well. Some years ago, my parents were about a day or two away from picking elderberries just about to ripen. When they went out to harvest them, they found all the berries gone, consumed by Cedar Waxwings over a matter of hours. Cedar Waxwings were also a major problem when my parents tried to cultivate strawberries, as the waxwings somehow managed to pick the berries through carefully placed netting. After only a couple of years, they gave up due to several factors, not the least of which was trying to protect their crop from marauding birds.</p> <p>They also had memorable battles with American Crows. After carefully planting several rows of corn and seeing the beginning of stalks emerging from the seeds, they came out one morning only to discover very neat rows of small holes where the emerging stalks had been. The crows had dug up all the plants and that was it for the corn that year.</p> <p>There are plenty of stories about birds and the damage they can do to crops. A commercial farmer growing strawberries about 10 miles from my mother's house was advertising for pickers as the harvest time neared. Then, overnight, approximately 50 Wild Turkeys descended onto the strawberry field and wiped his entire crop out for the year. This event, coupled with the previous loss of a crop due to a late frost, led the farmer to abandon any further attempt to grow strawberries commercially.</p> <p>While electric fences are a common method to try to keep animals such as deer, bear, raccoon, or skunk out of gardens, they are not helpful when it comes to birds. So other methods, such as netting or flash tape, need to be tried with varying degrees of success. I must say, even with my deep passion and admiration for birds in general, I really am not happy, not happy at all, when they destroy something that I put a lot of work into and look forward to. After this summer, my appreciation of Blue Jays in particular has become much more subdued. Yes, they are beautiful birds, but, oh my goodness, are they trouble in the gardens and boisterous to boot!</p> <hr /> <p><em><strong>Martha Steele</strong>, a former editor of </em>Bird Observer<em>, has been progressively losing vision due to retinitis pigmentosa and is legally blind. Thanks to a cochlear implant, she is now learning to identify birds from their songs and calls. Martha lives with her husband, Bob Stymeist, in Arlington. Martha can be reached at <a href="mailto:marthajs%40verizon.net">marthajs@verizon.net</a></em></p> Field Note: Chicken Little?https://www.birdobserver.org/Issues/2018/October-2018/field-note-chicken-littleField NotesMon, 01 Oct 2018 00:00:00 GMTField Note: Chicken Little?<p>Now you might look at this poult and say it doesn&#39;t look like a chick, but it looked a lot like a less than one-week-old chick to me. Rumor was it had been lost for a couple of days. Anyway, it wasn&#39;t going to fare well in the middle of the road, so we rescued it. My kids brought it a mirror and a hot pack in a sock to keep it company and that calmed the poult down. My mother Christine King, the proofreader for <em>Bird Observer</em>, and I brought it to New England Wildlife, where they had another lone poult. Now they can be buddies.</p> <p>New England Wildlife Center relies on contributions to rehabilitate wildlife. To learn more about them, support lost little poults, and more, go to their website: <a href="http://www.NEWildlife.org" target="_blank">www.NEWildlife.org</a>.</p> About Books: The Wired Gannethttps://www.birdobserver.org/Issues/2018/October-2018/about-books-the-wired-gannetBook and Video ReviewsMon, 01 Oct 2018 00:00:00 GMTAbout Books: The Wired Gannet<p>&quot;Modern electronics are revolutionizing our knowledge of the activities of seabirds at sea.&quot; (p. 1) <em>Far from Land</em> describes what we now know of what seabirds do at sea, and at the same time traces the evolution of the methods and devices by which we have gained that knowledge as well as the hard-working scientists who study the seabirds.</p> <p>One of the most basic questions to ask about a seabird is: &quot;where is it when it&#39;s not nesting?&quot; Traditional ringing (banding) had only a limited use in answering these questions. A bird ringed at a nesting colony might be retrieved on the wintering ground, but we would have no idea where the bird was in between these two locations. Then came radio telemetry and radar and even the use of thermal imaging. New Zealand Petrels were thought to be extinct but were rediscovered in 2003. At that point we knew they were alive but had no idea where they nested. Scientists using radio telemetry discovered New Zealand Petrels&#39; nesting burrows in 2013 on Little Barrier Island. Black-capped Petrel nesting areas in the mountains of Hispaniola have been found using thermal imaging and radar. But this was only the beginning of the electronic revolution in seabird monitoring.</p> <p>&quot;The overall impacts of VHF radio telemetry and radar have been slight compared to what has been learned from satellite telemetry.&quot; (p. 19) Satellite telemetry, or PTTs&mdash;platform transmission terminals&mdash;offers an accuracy of around 500 meters in locating the position of the birds and has been used in many seabird studies. Global positioning systems (GPS) are even more accurate and give the researcher more detailed information about where a bird flies. The one drawback is that the device needs to be retrieved from the bird in order to download the data stored on the GPS tag. Geolocators or GLS devices&mdash;global location sensing&mdash;are also used. They are cheap, weigh one gram, can run for two years, and can show the time of sunrise and sunset where the bird is located. Drawbacks are that their latitude information is poor around the equator and they are not as accurate as PTTs. These are just a few of the modern devices used to show us where seabirds travel.</p> <p>We may now know <em>where</em> the birds are, but what are they <em>doing</em> while out to sea? Are the birds feeding, diving, or resting on the water? There are immersion loggers that can be attached to the legs of a seabird to tell if the bird was flying or sitting on the water at different times. Capillary tubes attached to seabirds can tell researchers how deep species of seabirds dive.</p> <p style="margin-left: 40px;">If the species is bobbing on the sea, it might well dive for food. How deep does it dive? Early in the quest for answers capillary tubes were attached to birds. Because the capillary is sealed at one end, the air within becomes compressed when a bird dives and water under pressure enters from the other end. The deeper the dive, the further the water moves. The movement was recorded by an indicator powder (e.g. icing sugar or water soluble dye) dusted on the inside of the capillary that changes as it gets wet. Thus, when the device is retrieved from the bird, the capillary gives an indication of the maximum depth reached by the bird and the device during the period of attachment. (p. 22)</p> <p>Other modern devices include time-depth recorders that digitally record the data of how long the bird spends under water and how deep it dives.</p> <p>How successful are the seabirds at catching prey on every dive? Technology originally developed for use on Weddell seals glues a &quot;reed-contact and magnet&quot; to the mouth that records when the electrical contact is broken when the seal or bird opens its mouth to chomp on some prey item. This has now been used in studies of penguins and cormorants. Small cameras (45 grams) have even been attached to the central tail feathers of gannets to record their interactions with fishing vessels. <em>Far from Land</em> describes well the details of even more technology used to investigate seabirds&#39; lives. Just as we have witnessed an electronics revolution in data storage and presentation in the last two decades, ornithologists and other biologists have also seen a revolution in monitoring electronics. Everything has become more powerful, smaller, and more precise. But it&#39;s not just all about the electronics and other measurements that can be recorded using tissue samples. Non-electronic methods, such as stable isotopes extracted from minute samples of a bird&#39;s blood, muscles, bones, or feathers can provide supplementary information on diet and travels. (p. 45)</p> <p style="margin-left: 40px;">From the data, a picture of mastery emerges. Seabirds are not helpless morsels of life tossed hither and thither by wind and waves. Rather they employ strategies that enable them to cover huge distances and detect scattered food with relative ease, and with the advantage that they are less subject to day-to-day predation than are landbirds. (p. 27)</p> <p>In each of its chapters, <em>Far from Land</em> follows different species through their lives, beginning with the birds&#39; first trip out to sea from the colonies where they were hatched, through their acquisition of flying skills, to their first flights at sea. For many species, their immature years were considered lost to ornithologists because we knew nothing about where they went beyond the occasional anecdotal sighting. Species like albatrosses can fly around for a number of years before they are mature enough to breed. But where do they go during these lost years? The new monitoring technology is enabling ornithologists to fill in these formerly huge gaps in our knowledge with precise information. Some of what has been discovered is surprising:</p> <p style="margin-left: 40px;">Again using a combination of geolocators and immersion recorders, Jannie Linnebjerg of Lund University found that male Brűnnich&#39;s Guillemot [the European name for Thick-billed Murre] parents and their chicks achieved the autumn journey southward of almost 3,000 km entirely by swimming. (p. 33)</p> <p>When <em>Far from Land</em> turns to seabird migration, the reader cannot help but get caught up in how amazing seabirds are. Short-tailed Shearwaters breed on islands around southeast Australia, including Tasmania. Every year they travel north to the Sea of Okhotsk and the west end of the Aleutians.</p> <p style="margin-left: 40px;">Immatures leave the breeding grounds in March, breeders follow in mid-April and fledglings make up the rear guard in late April-early May. The trans-equatorial movement north of perhaps 30 million of these shearwaters is surely one of the world&#39;s greatest bird migrations, a fluttering avalanche of 20,000 tonnes of sentient flesh, roughly half the weight of the Titanic. (p. 37-8)</p> <p>It has been estimated that these shearwaters fly at about 50 km/hr for 20 hours a day, covering on the average 1,000 kilometers a day! Sometimes the distances traveled are difficult to comprehend. Arctic Terns are well-known long-distance migrants, but the distances traveled by certain well-monitored individuals are mind-boggling. This data was discovered using geolocators and a multi-national team of ornithologists that tracked 10 birds from Greenland and 1 from Iceland.</p> <p style="margin-left: 40px;">The numbers gathered from these travels are exhausting. The journey totaled at least 72,000 km, comprising 35,000 km southbound at about 330 km/day; 11,000 km while (relatively!) dawdling in Antarctic waters, and finally 26,000 km northbound at 520 km/day. (p 55-6)</p> <p>Some species of seabirds have evolved specific physiological mechanisms to aid them in their long hours gliding at sea.</p> <p style="margin-left: 40px;">Sailors and biologists have long been fascinated by the ability of albatrosses to glide for hours with barely any movement of their wings. A key factor is anatomical; a shoulder lock in albatrosses and giant petrels has the effect of reducing or even eliminating the need for any muscle power to hold the wing outstretched and horizontal. (p. 113)</p> <p>Gliding over the seas is next to effortless for species like albatrosses, even in heavy weather. As you might expect, researchers have done heart rate monitoring of albatrosses, and their findings are reported in detail in <em>Far from Land</em>.</p> <p style="margin-left: 40px;">Languid is the word that comes to mind when watching a gliding albatross. And the efficiency of albatross flight is confirmed by modern heart rate measurements of gliding Wandering Albatrosses. Combining information from externally-attached heart beat monitors, leg mounted immersion recorders that reported whether bird was afloat or airborne, and a satellite pack for relaying the information back to Toulouse in France, French scientist Henri Weimerskirch discovered that the heart rate of flying Wandering Albatrosses, around 80 beats/min, was barely faster than the rate of birds resting on the water, around 60 beats/min. But take-off, involving flapping, was seriously hard work. The heart rate then topped 200 beats/min. (p. 115)</p> <p>Sometimes in <em>Far from Land</em> the ornithologists are just as surprising as the seabirds they study. For decades, nobody knew where the wintering grounds were of Ross&#39; Gulls, a particularly difficult bird to study because of its Arctic haunts. Mark Maftei, Shanti Davis, and Mark Mallory used data from geolocators and satellite tags to track the gulls&#39; movements. When they delivered their findings at the 2015 World Seabird Conference, it was done partly &quot;in impeccable rap.&quot; (p. 59) The lyrics are reproduced in <em>Far from Land</em>. It is now known that Ross&#39; Gulls can be found in winter off Labrador in seas just south of the Arctic Circle, an area rarely visited by researchers at that time.</p> <p>The last chapter of <em>Far from Land</em> is devoted to all the dangers seabirds face. These include ocean-mounted wind farms, longline fishing, direct pollution of the oceans, light pollution, power lines near nesting colonies, the introduction of predators on breeding islands, and finally, climate change. This explains why so many species of seabirds are endangered or at risk of being endangered. The health of the world&#39;s oceans directly affects the health of all seabirds.</p> <p>If you have ever enjoyed watching gannets plunge dive off the Cape in fall or marveled at the flight of Great Shearwaters on a local whale watch, <em>Far from Land</em> will give you a more complete picture of how these birds breed, migrate, and find food. We only may be able to enjoy these birds briefly from some beach or the deck of a ship, but thanks to the efforts of creative researchers, as well as the evolution of monitoring technology, we can now virtually follow these birds as they leave our sight and wander far from land.</p> <p>This book has attempted to paint a picture of how modern devices have enabled researchers to discover more about the lives of seabirds at sea. That simple sentence undersells the reality. Posed 50 or even 20 years ago, certain questions would have been totally unanswerable. Now, for many birds, they can be answered with confidence. (p. 203)</p> <h3>Reference</h3> <ul> <li>Smith, Malcolm et al. 2018. Further evidence of transatlantic migration routes and Pacific wintering grounds of Red-necked Phalaropes breeding in Shetland. <em>British Birds</em> 111|417-90: 428&ndash;37.</li> </ul> Seth Kellogg: A Massachusetts Birding Icon Steps Downhttps://www.birdobserver.org/Issues/2018/October-2018/seth-kellogg-a-massachusetts-birding-icon-steps-downFeature ArticlesMon, 01 Oct 2018 00:00:00 GMTSeth Kellogg: A Massachusetts Birding Icon Steps Down<p>Seth's long-time interest in bird record-keeping of migrating raptors, as well as birds in general in western Massachusetts, eventually led him to take an early role on the roster of the Massachusetts Avian Records Committee, where his even-handed approach to record-keeping made valuable contributions to that group's formative years. When <em>Bird Observer</em> first began publishing western Massachusetts bird records in 1999, Seth Kellogg's name soon graced the magazine's masthead as an associate staff member responsible for systematically collating and supplying western Massachusetts bird records for the journal's bi-monthly bird record archives. His knowledge and extensive experience with bird populations in central and western Massachusetts also made him a valuable member of the Important Bird Area (IBA) Program's Technical Committee during that program's seminal years in 2000–2002.</p> <p>Sad to say, Seth Kellogg is stepping down from his illustrious and valued service to <em>Bird Observer</em>, but all of us on the staff want to wish him well, acknowledge his past efforts, and thank him for his valued service not just to <em>Bird Observer</em> but to the Massachusetts birding community as a whole. Nicely done, Seth!</p> <p class="author">Wayne R. Petersen</p> Bygone Birds: Historical Highlights for May-Junehttps://www.birdobserver.org/Issues/2018/October-2018/bygone-birds-historical-highlights-for-may-juneBygone BirdsMon, 01 Oct 2018 00:00:00 GMTBygone Birds: Historical Highlights for May-June<h3>20 YEARS AGO</h3> <table class="table"> <tbody> <tr> <td><img alt="" src="/Portals/0/Assets/bo46-5/Cover_1998.png" title="" /></td> <td> <h6>May–June 1998</h6> <p>Two (!) <strong>Little Egrets</strong> were discovered on May 16: at Nantucket and 25 miles away at North Monomoy. A <strong>Bar-tailed Godwit</strong>, presumably the same bird that overwintered in the Plymouth area, was found at North Monomoy. A female <strong>Ruff</strong> was present at West Bridgewater from May 10–13. Arctic Terns (four or five pairs) were discovered nesting at a new site: Penikese Island in the Elizabeth Islands. A <strong>Western Kingbird</strong> in East Boston on June 28 was only the third spring record, and a <strong>Scissor-tailed Flycatcher</strong> spent five days at the Daniel Webster Sanctuary at the end of June. A <strong>Loggerhead Shrike</strong> spent almost a week in Newburyport from May 16–21.For nearly two weeks, a <strong>Yellow-headed Blackbird</strong> was a daily visitor to the feeders at Wellfleet Bay Audubon Sanctuary.</p> <p>Best sighting: <strong>Black Vulture</strong> (!) The first breeding record for New England was documented in the Blue Hills in Milton.</p> </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> <h3>40 YEARS AGO</h3> <table class="table"> <tbody> <tr> <td><img alt="" src="/Portals/0/Assets/bo46-5/Cover_1978.png" title="" /></td> <td> <h6>May–June 1978</h6> <p>A breeding-plumaged <strong>Curlew Sandpiper</strong> was at Newburyport Harbor from May 18–20. Two reports of <strong>Wilson's Plover</strong>, both on June 3, came from Nauset and Plymouth. Five to six <strong>South Polar Skuas</strong> were present throughout June on George's Bank. The largest colony of Arctic Terns, at Nomans Land, an island off the southwest tip of Martha's Vineyard, numbered 30 pairs. An immature <strong>Sandwich Tern</strong> was on Monomoy on June 11. May 3 delivered a <strong>Scissor-tailed Flycatcher</strong> to Rochester and a <strong>Loggerhead Shrike</strong> to Wellfleet.</p> <p>Best sighting: a male <strong>Townsend's Warbler</strong> at Mt. Auburn Cemetery, May 4. This was the first documented record for the state of this western warbler.</p> </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> <p class="caption"><img alt="" src="/Portals/0/Assets/bo46-5/gullX2_copy.png" title="" /><br /> William E. Davis</p> Front Cover: October 2018https://www.birdobserver.org/Issues/2018/October-2018/front-cover-october-2018Front CoverMon, 01 Oct 2018 00:00:00 GMTFront Cover: October 2018<h3>Common Gallinule</h3> <p>The Common Gallinule (<em>Gallinula galeata</em>) has had nearly 40 different common names in North America. The American Ornithologists&#39; Union (AOU) in the late 1800s called it the Florida Gallinule and retained that name even after lumping it with the Eurasian Common Moorhen (<em>G. chloropus</em>) in 1923. The AOU later changed the name to Common Gallinule in 1957 and then declared it to be the Common Moorhen in 1983. The AOU changed its collective mind again in July, 2011, splitting the Western Hemisphere birds from the Common Moorhen of Europe, Africa, and Asia and making it a new species, <em>G. galeata</em> with an old name: Common Gallinule. The Eurasian birds became the Eurasian Moorhen. The AOU cited substantial differences in vocalizations and minor morphological differences as justification for the split.</p> <p>The now Common Gallinule is a chicken-like bird&mdash;another of its common names is Marsh Hen&mdash;of freshwater ponds and marshes. The sexes are similar in plumage, dark gray below with blackish neck and head and a brownish back. The undertail coverts are white and there is a prominent white streak along the flanks. The legs are yellow and the bill is bright red with a yellow tip. Juveniles are grayish brown with pale underparts and lack the bright bill color. They can be distinguished from juveniles of American Coots and Purple Gallinules by the white flank slashes and white undertail coverts. The Common Gallinule has seven subspecies including one found in Hawaii. The North American subspecies is <em>G. g. cachinnans</em>.</p> <p>Common Gallinules breed in freshwater marshes in southern Ontario and Nova Scotia, and through much of the eastern half of the United States, in widely scattered locations in the Southwest, and also in the West Indies. The breeders from southern Virginia to Texas along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts are year-round residents. Gallinules from inland and more northern areas migrate to the coast and they winter from North Carolina to Texas. Common Gallinules also breed from Mexico south through Central America and south to Northern Chile and Argentina. In Massachusetts, Common Gallinules are considered uncommon to rare fall migrants and rare breeders. They are rare in winter in Massachusetts.</p> <p>Common Gallinules are generally monogamous, but some may also be polygynous. They may produce more than one brood per season. Pairs may remain together for more than a single breeding season. Courtship displays consist of a variety of maneuvers, including touching bills, head-feather nibbling, bowing, chasing, and the male may swim toward the female while bill-dipping. Gallinules give a wide variety of loud, harsh sounds and squawks as well as softer clucks and a repetitive <em>ka-ka-ka-kree</em> cackle series. The cackles are thought to be used in territorial advertisement by males, and the clucks are considered contact calls. Gallinules aggressively defend their territories by charging at interlopers with tail raised, wings arched, neck and head forward and down. They may run on the water surface at an opponent with wings flapping and neck stretched forward. Sometimes fights occur where one bird grasps an opponent with one foot and kicks it with the other foot while stabbing it with its bill.</p> <p>In the north, Common Gallinules prefer cattail marshes that border freshwater ponds and shallow freshwater marshes with emergent vegetation. In southern areas, they will also utilize rice fields. They place their nests in aquatic emergent vegetation, and also on mats of floating vegetation and have even been known to use nest boxes. Often the nest is at the edge of vegetation near open water. Both parents construct the nest with a base of twigs and plant stems and lined with a cup composed of leaves. They continue to add plant material to the nest throughout the incubation period. They often build a separate brood nest that the whole family moves to after hatching. Both parents develop brood patches and both share incubation duties.</p> <p>The usual clutch of 6&ndash;9 drab gray eggs covered with darker patches or spots is incubated for about three weeks until hatching. The chicks are covered with down and their eyes are open when they hatch. Within a day they can leave the nest, often to follow their parents to a brood nest. The parents bring both plant and animal food to the offspring for the first week after hatching, after which they feed on their own, although they may continue to receive some food from the parents for up to six weeks. Dispersal occurs after about 10 weeks.</p> <p>Two types of cooperative breeding may occur. Juveniles may remain on territory and help feed the youngsters of a succeeding brood. Or the parent female may share a nest with a grown daughter or daughters and they may share the parental female&#39;s mate. Conspecific brood parasitism is relatively common, with females laying eggs in a nest other than their own.</p> <p>Common Gallinules forage on both plants and animals, which they take from the water or from floating or emergent vegetation. They forage while swimming or walking on floating plants, or by tipping from the surface. Most of the diet consists of grass and sedge seeds, with snails dominating their animal food. They also take crustaceans, beetles, wasps, flies, and spiders&mdash;about anything small enough to swallow.</p> <p>Common Gallinules expanded their range northward during the twentieth century and most populations are relatively stable. Human impact has been inconsistent: hunting and the drainage of wetlands have a negative impact, and the formation of ponds, lakes, and agricultural wetlands has generally been beneficial. Because of the wide distribution of this delightful rail and its ability to utilize some human-modified environments, its chances for survival remain strong, although in Massachusetts it is listed as a Species of Special Concern.</p> <p class="author">William E. Davis, Jr.</p> At a Glance: October 2018https://www.birdobserver.org/Issues/2018/October-2018/at-a-glance-october-2018At a GlanceMon, 01 Oct 2018 00:00:00 GMTAt a Glance: October 2018<p>Can you identify the bird&nbsp;in this photograph?</p> <p>Identification will be discussed in next issue&rsquo;s AT A GLANCE.</p> At a Glance: August 2018 Revealedhttps://www.birdobserver.org/Issues/2018/October-2018/at-a-glance-august-2018-revealedAt a GlanceMon, 01 Oct 2018 00:00:00 GMTAt a Glance: August 2018 Revealed<p>First, there is no doubt that the mystery bird is a diving waterbird species, an attribute that explains why the photograph conveniently depicts only half a bird. It is also obvious in the photograph that the bird has webbed feet, another feature that should not be surprising given that the bird is a diving species.</p> <p>Even if it is only viewed in black-and-white in the print magazine, other characteristics that are obvious in the picture are that the mystery bird is strikingly white below and, based upon the underside of its stubby tail, seems to be contrastingly black above. This impression is further reinforced by a tiny bit of dark (black?) barely visible on the bird's right wing right at the waterline.</p> <p>Using only these few clues, it is possible to definitively identify this "half bird." There are few diving birds that are as compact as the pictured individual and that are also pure white below. Most such species are alcids, which further explains the stubby black tail and the suggestion of black wings. The only diving duck likely to appear as white below as the mystery species might be a male Common Merganser. But a merganser of any species would appear longer-tailed and would no doubt appear longer and slimmer overall, not chunky and short-tailed. However, the clincher in this picture becomes obvious if one examines the colored version of the mystery species in Bird Observer Online. It is then abundantly clear that the bird's legs are bright orange—a hallmark feature of the Atlantic Puffin (Fratercula arctica). While it is true that Black Guillemots in nonbreeding plumage are white below, guillemots possess bright red legs and feet, not orange as in the pictured alcid. And finally, it is interesting to note that this puffin has a band on its left leg, no doubt hardware that it obtained on Eastern Egg Rock in the Gulf of Maine close to where the bird was photographed.</p> <p>The Atlantic Puffin is a rare winter visitor to offshore Massachusetts' waters. Most individuals remain far out at sea unless occasionally driven close to shore at coastal vantage points at Cape Ann or Provincetown by fall and winter nor'easters. They may also sometimes be seen during fall or winter pelagic trips to offshore waters. Don Freiday photographed this Atlantic Puffin off Eastern Egg Rock in the Gulf of Maine on June 7, 2018.</p> <p class="author">Wayne R. Petersen</p> Advertisers 46-5https://www.birdobserver.org/Issues/2018/October-2018/advertisers-46-5AdvertisersMon, 01 Oct 2018 00:00:00 GMTAdvertisers 46-5<p>In this issue:</p> Hot Birds: October 2018https://www.birdobserver.org/Issues/2018/October-2018/hot-birds-october-2018Hot BirdsMon, 01 Oct 2018 00:00:00 GMTHot Birds: October 2018<p class="caption"><img alt="" src="/Portals/0/Assets/bo46-5/hb_skua.jpg" title="" /><br /> Pelagic birders have had very good luck finding <strong>South Polar Skuas</strong> off New England this summer. After a few were initially reported on July 28, the Brookline Bird Club&rsquo;s annual overnight pelagic photographed several more on August 25. A pelagic off New Hampshire on September 4 encountered a couple as well. Sean Williams took the photo above.</p> <p class="caption"><img alt="" src="/Portals/0/Assets/bo46-5/hb_stint_standing.png" title="" /><br /> Toward the end of a 14 hour day on Monomoy, Sean Williams and Maili Waters noticed a <strong>Little Stint</strong> sleeping among a group of roughly 600 other roosting shorebirds at South Beach. This is the seventh record for Massachusetts, of which four have been found in the same location. Fred Atwood reported the bird still present a few days later. Sean took the photo above.</p> <p class="caption"><img alt="" src="/Portals/0/Assets/bo46-5/hb_ringed_plover.jpg" title="" /><br /> Massachusetts has a disproportionately large share of the <strong>Common Ringed Plover</strong> records in the lower 48 states of the USA, and Monomoy has a disproportionately large share of the records for Massachusetts. A bird found by Sean Williams, Marshall Iliff, Sue Finnegan, and John Pratt on August 19 was the third for the island and fifth for the state. Sean and Marshall found a bird of this species again about two weeks later which differed in several aspects of its appearance but may or may not have been the same individual. Sean took the photo on the right.</p> Zaps: 46-5https://www.birdobserver.org/Issues/2018/October-2018/zaps-46-5ZapsMon, 01 Oct 2018 00:00:00 GMTZaps: 46-5<p style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" src="/Portals/0/Assets/bo46-5/2018_MassWildlife_Hunting_Info.png" title="" /></p>