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WORDS ON BIRDS
Timing pays off for fellow birders
February 10, 2007
Steve Grinley
They say that "timing is everything," and that is
particularly true when it comes to birding. Good timing, a bit of luck
and, I suspect, some birding skill on the part of my good friend and
fellow birder, Doug Chickering of Groveland, resulted in some
excellent bird sightings last Sunday.
I'll let Doug tell you the story: "Of course there are
really no bad birding days. Yet we have all experienced those days
when we just can't come upon any luck at all. You arrive seconds after
the bird has flown, and then leave minutes before it reappears. You
take a chance on parking and get a ticket, you find that you've got
the wrong eyeglasses on, etc. I've even left the house and been on the
road a half hour before discovering that I forgot my binoculars. There
are no bad days but there are those days when you just are snake bit.
And then there are those days on the other side. The days when
everything goes right.
"Today (Sunday, Feb. 4) was just one of those days for
Lois Cooper and me. It got off to a slow start when we couldn't get
our morning into gear and didn't get out of the house until after 9.
But then on things went right. We pulled down Locust Street in
Cambridge and the Townsend's warbler was sitting in the tree just
above the fence. When I first got on it, it was facing me. Then,
during the time we watched, it turned one way, then another. It gave a
few flicks of the wings and generally displayed itself magnificently.
Lois and I were enraptured. It was clearly one of those birds that
pictures and field marks can't do justice to: beautiful beyond our
powers of description and more beautiful than its most artful
representations. No waiting, no hassles, just an extraordinary,
beautiful bird out in the open. We didn't even feel the chill of the
winter morning. Now that's the way to add to one's state list.
"Sensing that our luck was in, Lois and I then decided
to try for the chat reported at Halibut Point. We expected nothing. It
was quite likely the same chat that we had missed at Halibut Point
last November. The area is awash in thickets and chats are wicked
skulkers, so we felt our chances were slight. We arrived around noon,
went to the head of the trail and although we had a minor piece of
excitement when a Carolina wren responded by diving past us and into
the brush on the right-hand side of the trail, there was no sign of
the chat.
"We walked toward the quarry for a few yards and then
when the thickets thinned out, headed back. I had taken only a few
steps when I saw a small bird dart across the path from right to left.
We moved up and out into the sun and then I caught some movement in
the thicket nearby. Olive-green back, bright yellow throat. The chat.
It was so close that my old Zeiss' couldn't focus, and I had step to
the far edge of the trail before I could bring it in. It didn't dive
away, or skulk, but simply sat there and regarded us as we watched it
in full appreciation. Every time I can get a prolonged look at a chat
I become unalterably convinced; there is no yellow as brilliant, deep
and breathtaking anywhere in this universe as that at the center of
the throat of a yellow-breasted chat. Some may approach it but none
surpass.
"After the chat we couldn't lose. We hadn't seen a
screech owl in one of our favorite trees at Locust Hill Cemetery in
years. This morning there it was; perched at the edge of the hole; red
phased, soaking in the sun, all puffed out and eyes slit in deep
contentment. We hadn't gotten surf scoter yet this year, so we went to
our reliable spot on Penzance Road. Not many ducks there today, but a
stunning pair of surf scoter nice and near. It was just one of those
days. Maybe I should play the lottery today." Steve Grinley
Bird Watcher's Supply & Gift and Nature Shop at Joppa Flats
Newburyport, MA
BirdWSG@Verizon.net
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