We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
I wonder whether Buffleheads can dislodge and eat Limpets. My photo is a beach of pure limpets (aka Slipper Shells). Something ate them, and I saw only Buffleheads.
I had one rummaging around in my shrubs recently (American Red Squirrel), and had not seen one here for years. Cute little guys, not often seen on the ground or away from good-sized conifer stands.
This colorful species of the jay family is fairly common from the East coast of the US to the eastern edge of the Rockies. In winter here I occasionally find their feathers scattered around where a Sharp-Shinned Hawk has caught one for dinner.
Apparently some migrate and some don't. It is termed "partial migration." I have seen large flocks migrating south along the Hudson River. However, there are always plenty of them around in a New England winter especially if you put bird food out.
Factoid: they mate for life, like Canada Geese. How do they know who is who, because they all look the same?
I looked it up, to some extent. Did not cover all North American owls.
The very common Great Horned Owl does not migrate at all. They lay their eggs in January, wherever they live.
The common (but rarely seen) Long Eared Owl does move down from its northern breeding range in winter as does the tiny Saw Whet Owl.
Screech Owls tend to stay put.
The Short-Eared Owl migrates widely from its breeding grounds on the tundra. I've seen them on marshes in winter in New England.
The arctic Snowy Owl is famous for its occasional irruptions south. I've been lucky to see them a few times, mostly on beaches but once on the roof of a suburban house.
Their strands of small black and red berries ripen in September. A Wild Cherry tree in September will be full of birds until the tree is stripped. That happened here this week.
Unlike the Spring songbird migration, which comes in giant waves, Fall migration is scattered and gradual. I've seen a few fall warblers in recent days (difficult to identify because they are so drab), and our Catbirds have departed.
As in Spring, small birds (Passerines and the like) migrate at night.
For birders, the cool thing in Fall are the hawk, eagle, and, to some extent, owl migrations. They are daytime migrants. Our breeding Ospreys left last week, headed mostly for the Caribbean.
Actually, not sure about how owls move south but they do not do extensive migrations.
The chorus of crickets chirping on these late summer evenings is one of the finest things in life, and last night they were loud. That evening bug-song has followed me through most of my life, and fills me with joy.
Field Crickets are found across the US. In New England, we have the Black Field Cricket (photo) who is at his prime in early October until the first hard frost. They are mainly nocturnal insects and eat almost anything.
Taxonomically, crickets (along with grasshoppers, locusts, katydids) are in Order Orthoptera of Class Insecta.
The males rub their forewings together producing the chirp or trill, of which the frequency is temperature-related. The function of the trill is, of course, to attract females desirous of fertilization - or to fight. Only males chirp.
Around here, we still have the Katydids singing at night along with the rapidly-growing Field Crickets. Open the windows. Or open the doors: two Field Crickets are occupying the Maggie's HQ right now, and I need to leave them some crumbs from my Subway sandwich to keep them happy.
They are a bummer for surfers and we body-surfer fanatics, but I guess it is a conservation success. Historically, they were abundant up there until the fishermen shot all of the seals.
The restaurant is now open, but sharks can't tell a seal from a person. Why would they care anyway? Sharks are not humanitarians.
Wolves were exterminated in the Northeast US centuries ago. In the 1800s, the sheep farmers hated them, put bounties on them, and killed every last one.
The piece of New England where we were trout fishing yesterday was packed full of mostly-migrating warblers. A migrant trap. In a week, most will have gone north to breeding grounds.
This stream valley is a first-growth woodlands, plenty of underbrush (Shadbush, wild azalea, Mountain Laurel, etc.) and some small swamps full of swamp critters. A few pasture giant trees still standing. Probably was pasture 70 years ago, with woodlots on the slopes. Instead of cattle tramping through the stream, it's back to nature with otters, beaver, and a new forest.
Warbler migration time in May is big fun for birders. One reason is because they are in breeding plumage. Another is because they pass through in great waves, unlike fall migration back to South and Central America. A third reason, I guess, is because all of our other passerine migrants arrive at the same time as the warblers.
My goal would be to ID warblers by their song instead of trying to catch them by binoculars. They flit through the new leaves so frenetically, and some are so high, that it's just annoying. They have moved by the time you get the binocs up.
If I could memorize most of their tunes (and all other passerines), I'd consider that a huge life accomplishment. I could walk through a place like a blind person, still "seeing" everything.
As I have said, the most warbler species I have ever seen in one day (24) was in NYC's Central Park in a May some years ago. Here's a sample of what birders do in May, on the US Central Flyway in Ohio -
Before I dig a little into this topic, a perspective and a few definitions.
Every Eastern gardener knows well how much nature wants to turn your garden into a grassy weed-patch, then into a woodland. Humans force nature to obey with great difficulty. Everyone who sanctimoniously bemoans deforestation in South America and Africa should first look out their window to see one's local deforestation.
Our Great Plains, it is believed, were at least partly the result of Indian burning practices and wildfire. And the Scottish moors? Much is the result of deforestation too, but they are beginning to re-plant. Permanent deforestation is definitely a bad thing from a conservation standpoint, but often not from a human economic standpoint. Manhattan Island is now pretty nice without the forest.
Clear-cutting, as opposed to selective logging, involves cutting almost every tree down in an area, with the intention that things will grow back. It is an efficient form of silviculture because, when the woods grow back whether re-planted or just re-seeded by Nature - most of the new trees will be ready for harvest at the same time. Unlike deforestation and selective harvesting, clear-cutting restarts the clock of natural forest succession, just as does forest fire or severe wind damage. Fire is a key to woodland health and diversity: we see the unhappy consequences of fire suppression in the West, with apocalyptic fires due to fallen dead trees rather than routine smaller fires which efficiently recycle forest litter. In an era of unnatural and probably foolish fire suppression by government (essentially a subsidization of the lumber industry and the vacation-home real estate business), only clear-cutting can imitate the normal cycle of forest succession and renewal, habitat diversity, and thus the species diversity, that conservationists seek.
(An aside on the subject of forest succession. This much-studied topic is difficult to discuss in any general way, because every habitat, region, latitude, altitude and soil has its own pattern of forest succession following disturbance. There are even areas where the normal climax forest is never achieved, as in some areas of the South where fire maintains fire-resistant pine forest in areas where deciduous trees would otherwise be the climax forest. Each stage of forest succession has specialized species which are adapted to it - and to it only. One example, from Ohio. I will need to do a piece just on the subject of forest succession, sometime.)
Which brings me to the subject of environmental concerns. I think of environmentalists as being of either the sentimental-esthetic sorts, the politically-motivated sorts, and the hard-nosed scientific sorts. This might be an unfair depiction, but I think it holds up much of the time. Mature forests are wonderfully attractive to the human eye, but, in most US ecosystems they have little biodiversity and support fewer species of plants and animals than transitional woodlands or woodland edges. Also attractive are lovely rolling green meadows, but they are about as natural as lawns, and it requires plenty of gasoline and machinery to maintain that unnaturally scenic, clean-cut condition.
The controversy, it seems to me, derives from the emotional, not the factual. It's my conclusion that clear-cutting, judiciously applied, preserving contiguous areas of mature forest and without destroying streams with erosion, best duplicates the natural condition of the life cycle of woodlands, which, in nature, are always a work in progress and never complete.
Nature is a dynamic, changing thing, but the human infestation of the planet begs for thoughtful stewardship, and sometimes that means compensating for our actions: it's our big garden, now.
Photo on top: An example of deforestation in the form of a Vermont hayfield
Photo below: Smokey the Bear, Capitalist Tool in the service of the lumber industry!
Around here, anyway. It means they have laid their eggs, and do not wish to advertise their presence. It's not just Robins, it's all of the songbirds.
All the same, for the next several weeks the crows will be swooping everywhere to steal the songbirds' eggs and nestlings. They know how to find them.
In other breaking news, our wrens are back this morning. Welcome home, little friends.
Have not seen a warbler yet but our trees have not leafed out yet -still just tree flowers. Not ornamental, just yellowish tree blossoms spewing pollen.
In winter, our diving ducks like shellfish and sea worms.
I had one rummaging around in my shrubs recently 
This colorful species of the jay family is fairly common from the East coast of the US to the eastern edge of the Rockies. In winter here I occasionally find their feathers scattered around where a Sharp-Shinned Hawk has caught one for dinner.
Photo is Long-Eared Owl 
The 
The chorus of 
I have not seen or heard one of these big bugs yet. Maybe in July.
Wolves were exterminated in the Northeast US centuries ago. In the 1800s, the sheep farmers hated them, put bounties on them, and killed every last one.
