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WORDS ON BIRDS
Milder weather is a double-edged sword
March 31, 2007
Steve Grinley
As the weather is turning a bit milder, some of the
early spring migrants are making their first appearances. A few snowy
and great egrets are showing up in area marshes. Ospreys are beginning
to arrive and, hopefully, pairs will return to the osprey poles on
Plum Island and in Salisbury. Woodcock are starting their spring
ritual "dances" in the evenings. Phoebes are beginning to return to
some their previous nesting sites. Wilson's snipe and American pipits
are showing up in Common Pastures in the fields off Scotland road in
Newbury. It won't be long before the first early warblers, the pine
and the palm warbler, make it to our region.
Most migrants come in on southwest winds, often thought
of as the warm wind direction. But not all of us long for those
warmer, spring days.
I know I do, but Doug Chickering of Groveland shares
with us another perspective on the varying weather that we have been
having the past couple of weeks. He presented this argument just
before the last snow storm: "Wouldn't you know it. Just when the end
of winter seemed right on the horizon; just when the daylight was
seeping into what used to be night, and just as the blanket of snow in
the backyard is retreating into the shadows at the edge of the woods,
the bad weather returns. Snow again predicted for tonight. Is it going
to be one to three inches? Or two to four? Or perhaps more? This is
not knowable. What is known is that it is a little discouraging. When
can we put away that snow shovel?
"Yet in the face of an oncoming March storm I can't
help but think it might be worse. It might be a March blizzard. Or
even worse it might be a March heat wave. Believe it or not the only
thing that would depress my enthusiasm more than snow, would be
temperatures in the upper 80s or 90s. And if a New England birder were
to reflect upon this, it might not seem so preposterous. Early spring
will pull the foliage out early. I have seen that before, and it's
effects are a great deal more annoying than pushing snow off the car.
"In all actuality I am hoping for bad weather or, to be
more accurate, I am hoping that April will be dreary, wet and cold. In
Massachusetts that is what April should be. It keeps buds in the trees
and the underbrush from bursting forth too early. When I am trying to
pinpoint the location of a tantalizing call from a tree, I don't want
to be faced by an opaque wall of greenery. I can remember a day at
Mount Auburn Cemetery approaching a cluster of birders surrounding a
large, fully leafed maple tree. They informed that there was a
Tennessee warbler somewhere therein, and they were trying to get a
look. I then heard the unmistakable trill, and I too tried to peer
into the impenetrate the dense cloak of green. I could see immediately
that it was hopeless; that if I were lucky I might catch a glimpse of
belly or undertail, or if I were extraordinarily lucky I might see it
fly out and over the horizon.
"Last year at Plum Island I had a Tennessee warbler 3
feet above my head in a bush just outside the rest rooms at Hellcat on
Plum Island, and the year before I saw one at eye level just off the
boardwalk also at Hellcat. In both cases the foliage had been retarded
by a properly dismal spring. Plum Island always seems to be a week or
so behind Mount Auburn in the progress of foliation. This can be
useful. It is one of the reasons I have always been a little
ambivalent about fighting traffic to get into Mount Auburn. It is true
that there will be rarities unavailable anywhere else and their
general bird list will be impressive. But it is also true that many of
the birds I will be straining my neck to see at the crown of a nearly
fully leafed out tree, I will be seeing a few days later on Plum
Island, just above eye level among the new buds of a tree nearer to
winter.
"Therefore, when this storm is gone, I will be hoping
for a slow arrival of spring, a spring that will reach its full bloom
just as the warblers are coming in off the ocean."
I'm not sure I agree with you, Doug. I think I'd trade
some foliage for a warmer April! Steve Grinley
Bird Watcher's Supply & Gift and Nature Shop at Joppa Flats
Newburyport, MA
BirdWSG@Verizon.net
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