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.
AVI reminded us that the Cape Cod National Seashore turned 50 this week. That Sponge-headed Science Man loves the Cape as much as we do. The Farm is wonderful, but being inland has always made me feel a little claustrophobic. I like access to sea and sky.
Pic above of a stretch of South Beach, with our group of intrepid birders. We hopped down from Wellfleet to Chatham last week to catch a Mass. Audubon birding trip out to Monomoy Island (about which we posted recently). Monomoy is designated a National Wilderness. The size and shape of Monomoy is constantly in flux, as is its intermittent connection with Chatham's South Beach (which is an extension of Nauset Beach - the Cape's southern barrier island group which now reaches down towards Nantucket.
We ended up boating down to lower South Beach instead of Monomoy proper, due to tidal water depth. Our guide du jour, Ellison, an expert birder, led us on an arduous 4 mile barefoot (watch for sharp shells) hike through mud flats, soft sand, and sharp-edged marsh cordgrass - and non-stop biting marsh bugs - to check out the early migrants and the breeding shorebirds. Ya gotta be tough to be a birder.
The Monomoy Islands are where the the ocean longshore currents are taking the land of "lower" Cape Cod (ie, the upper part), at an average of 3' of shoreline per year. This is post-glacial shaping. Cape Cod, like Long Island, is a glacial construction - a moraine. Like all land, a permanent work in progress.
Just south of Chatham on the elbow of the Cape, reaching south towards Nantucket, the Monomoy islands are a National Wildlife Refuge. They are full of seals, nesting shorebirds, and are a busy migration resting place. Also, the fishing there is wonderful. You can even do flats-style fishing for Stripers.
You can visit these (relatively) new islands by boat from Chatham. Nice little trip. You can stay at the Chatham Bars Inn which, I admit, has gotten fancier over the years. There are plenty of B&Bs. Chatham is pleasant.
The Atlantic Cod population of the western Atlantic was essentially extinct from overfishing. With a moratorium, it has recovered a bit but I have not seen a Cod from Cape Cod in many years.
The Eastern Bluebird is always a sight for sore eyes, and apparently their numbers are recovering from a decline. Their recovery is in part because of human assistance with Bluebird houses.
In New England, you can put up Bluebird houses in early summer because they often have two broods per season.
You won't see Bluebirds in suburbia because they are partial to good-sized fields, large lawns (ie over 4 acres), orchards, and forest edges. They like open country.
At the farm, we have about 15 Bluebird houses up on snake-proof poles. Half the houses are usually taken over by Tree Swallows, some are filled with sticks by House Wrens, and our cheerful Bluebirds use the rest of them. In meadows, the nest poles are good markers for large rocks - for mowing.
In New England, Bluebirds are semi-migratory, and can sometimes be seen in winter flocks foraging widely for fruits and berries.
While you have to count man's habitat changes and destruction as the primary driver of decreasing songbird populations, let's just look at direct kills. The top two are windows and outdoor cats.
Neither are "natural" in North America. Ornithologists say the best thing you can do for wildlife is to keep your cat, if you must have one, indoors. Cats are native to Egypt and nowhere else. They have an instinct to kill for fun, so letting your cat roam is a more destructive act than taking your gun and shooting songbirds (which is illegal).
An update from our occasional contributor Black Dog:
Your intrepid scribe returned this past Sunday from San Antonio, TX, where I attended the Ducks Unlimited Convention, which celebrated our 80th year. I’ve been a volunteer since 1984, so I remember the 50th Anniversary celebrations well.
My notes from the Convention indicate since DU’s inception in 1937, DU has conserved almost 14 million acres of wetlands across North America. We are in the middle of a five-year capital campaign, Rescue Our Wetlands. The goal is $2 billion and I can tell you we are somewhere around $1.8 billion with 18 months to go, so I’m pretty sure we’ll meet our goal early and hopefully exceed it.
We’ve had to increase our emphasis on public policy efforts in Washington, DC, where we opened a new office on Capitol Hill last year. As you know, we partner with the Federal and State governments here in the US, as well as the Provincial governments in Canada on our wetlands and water conservation missions. I attended the DU Mexico BOD meeting and was amazed to learn how far our donor’s dollars go in Mexico. A number of the DU Mexico staff were in San Antonio and gave presentations on their efforts in the Yucatan, as well as Mexico’s Central Highlands.
A fine little fresh water marsh just a couple of hundred yards in from the sea in southern Maine. My birding list from the long weekend is below the fold -
Photo is a large Gneiss ledge, a remnant of the great snow-capped mountain range which ran through New England in the distant past
Mrs. BD and I are in hiking mode now, especially with the cool Spring weather. (We have only been mostly casual or urban hikers in the past, but we're getting more serious now to the point of a visit to the big sale at REI for waterproof hiking gear.) We picked a steep, deep woodsy 5-miler on Saturday as a warm-up.
In New England, deep woods means relatively mature hardwood with a high canopy. Occasional Hemlock groves. Not very much understory. Whether that is due to deer or just the nature of things I don't know. I do know the Indians hated the understory, and often burned it out. Mature hardwood forest doesn't host a lot of wildlife except streamside. There are some warblers and other things up in the canopy which you can hear but not see without hassle. When there is a powerline cut, suddenly there are lots of birds. Edges, streams, and marshes are where most of the life is.
Birds seen or heard in the deep woods: Wood Pewee, Ovenbird (lots of them), Robin (yes, Robins are woodland thrushes), Wood Thrush, Veery, Rose-Breasted Grosbeak, Scarlet Tanager, Prairie Warbler, Flicker, Downy Woodpecker.
A friend tried to email an iPhone pic of the Barred Owl snoozing on a branch right off his deck, but the photo didn't come through. Regardless, this is my favorite local owl.
While we usually think of the Barred Owl as a species of the lowlands, and the Great Horned as the similar nighttime predator of the uplands (mice and rabbits get no rest in this world), the Barred can be a regular forest bird. A couple of weeks ago, I heard one every early morning in Georgia in the piney woodland.
We have had a pair nesting in a thick Hemlock grove on a rocky hillside above a flood plain at the Farm for many years. They use an old crow or hawk nest, not a nest hole.
The thing with owls is that it is great fun to see them, but even more fun and weird to hear them. If you are listing birds, hearing is as good as seeing.
Speaking of owls, no pair of Screech Owls have chosen my $45 Screech Owl nest box, and I am disappointed because it is perfectly situated. And at the same time I have seen them use Wood Duck boxes on tiny islands in the middle of ponds, which seems stupid and almost guaranteed to drown the chicks.
Crazy thing about Barred Owl: The experts want to kill thousands of them in the Pacific Northwest because they are "competing" with Spotted Owl. That is how some environmentalists think: Destroy the village to save it. It's like they want to kill immigrants with a slightly different color. Fact is, the Spotted is a west coast variant of the Barred. They interbreed, thus different races, same species.
I am all in favor of trying to destroy invasive species which threaten a stable, precious ecosystem (eg Burmese Python in Everglades, or Australian Pine in Florida and the Bahamas. "Invasive" usually means introduced by man, not critters and plants moving on their own.
I can think of one bird species that moved to North America: The Cattle Egret, blown over to the New World by hurricanes from Africa. They found their niche and fit right in.
Some man-introduced plants never become invasive in the sense of dominating an existing ecosystem. I am thinking of things like the Norway Maple which shades many urban streets, the Norway Spruce, - and the apple. Nobody complains about the occasional wild apple "escape" growing in a brushy forest edge. Some new species dominate, some just fit in unobtrusively and harmlessly.
Killing a Barred Owl is a sin unless you intend to dine on it.
Maybe the southern Indigo Snake can sometimes look like a black snake.
They are all wonderful, large critters and all can climb, but the Racers less so. They tend not to be wanderers, with home ranges of only around 30 acres so they know their way around. Naturally, they prefer rodent-rich home ranges, but they will always raid bird nests for eggs or babies in the Spring.
The Black Rat Snakes seem to prefer a mixed habitat with woodland edges, fields, plenty of brambles, and a pond, stream, or marsh.
Is that a frightening photo? Only if you identify with the baby birds instead of with the hungry snake. Or is it strangely sexual? Why are gals so often afraid of snakes while guys find them interesting?
As with lobsters, for conservation purposes it is better to eat the small ones and release the big ones. Laws are often irrational. Small sea critters have poor survival rates anyway, but the big breeders matter for the future.
Rational and effective conservation law would be to keep the small ones and throw back the big ones.
The Sanderling is familiar to anybody who has been to a saltwater beach. Their range is worldwide, and about half of their population lives in the New World. Their migration routes are astonishing for such little guys.
You can identify them by their beach behavior as much as by their appearance because few flocking shorebirds follow the receding surf as quickly, like mechanical toys.
Birders learn to ID birds as much by behavior as by appearance.
We had the privilege of birding last week with ornithologist and author Scott Weidensaul. He is a fine congenial fellow who knows everything, and while he is there he gives a splendid talk on some ornithological topic every evening after supper.
This is a photo travelogue of our second visit to Little Saint Simons Island on the Georgia coast for this year's birding week there. I'll post my bird list at the bottom of this post.
Little Saint Simons is not for everybody. It's a barrier island nature preserve, Southern Maritime Forest habitat and vast salt and brackish marshes. It's rustic and therefore not inexpensive, and you have to entertain yourself unless you partake of the planned outings (ie kayaking through the marshes, birding, fishing trips. Booze and family-style meals included. You can take a bike, kayak or motor skiff out anytime you want, or fish and swim on the ocean beach. The self-serve bar is open 24 hrs/day. There are 3 excellent naturalists available all the time for hikes. The bugs weren't too bad this year but I did donate my share of A+ blood to the cause of mosquito conservation.
Two innovations have been adding a/c to the cabins, and revamping the unheated pool with a gator-proof fence. It used to be a downer to find a 6' gator in the pool. An unwelcome innovation (for me) is the "healthy eating" trend instead of the traditional Southern fare that I love. I like to stay at least 6' away from kale, cilantro, organic produce, and veggie wraps or I break out in a bad case of annoyance.
Cool things about this very special place with photos, below...
Eels are very cool fish with remarkable life histories. They are also good to eat. Eeling, like crabbing, used to be a major cottage industry along the North American coast.
The first time I caught an eel, as a kid, I thought I had caught a snake. Unlike snakes, Eels are slimy and difficult to get a grip on.
Damming of rivers and streams is the likely cause of the drop-off of eel populations, just as with other anadromous fish.
Right now is the peak of shorebird and songbird migration down south where I am camping and tramping on a remote island for a few days, so there will be a brief break from my morning buffet of links. If all goes according to plan, our breakfasts will be biscuits and gravy, and shrimp 'n grits. Fried oysters and grilled oysters for supper, maybe with fried chicken. In the South, I break my No Breakfast rule because I can't resist that stuff.
To us Yankees, the South is a magnificent, exotic wonderland.
I'll try not to tangle with a rattler. Those sobs are everywhere so you have to watch your step on or off the trails on Little Saint Simons but there are other more interesting snakes to look at too. The clouds of mosquitoes are just something up with to put.
Vernal Pools are (usually temporary except in high-rain years) marshes. "Wetlands," aka swampy areas. They are a cool and productive part of an ecosystem because they contain no fish or turtles to eat all of the baby amphibians.
Generally the spring pools are fed by snow melt, early Spring rain, or slow seeps from springs which do not produce enough water to keep the area wet in high summer. Springs are interesting things.
Critters that breed in vernal pools clearly need to lay eggs which produce rapidly-maturing young who can leave the pools before they dry up. For example, Bullfrog tadpoles take a long time, up to a year, to grow and mature via that crazy amphibian metamorphosis so large frogs require permanent bodies of water.
Around here, typical Vernal Pool breeders are Spring Peepers, Common Toad, Wood Frog, Cricket Frog, various salamanders. Spring Peeper eggs - tadpoles - tiny frogs are ready to leave the water in 8 weeks. Toads can do it in 12 weeks.
Thanks to California rains, the Anza-Borrego Desert Park is experiencing one of its rare wildflower superblooms. There is plenty of usually-hidden life in deserts. Maggie's Farmer Bruce Kesler sent me some of his pics -
Red Tailed Hawk Sharp-shinned Hawk Mourning Dove Purple Grackle Cowbird Redwing Blackbird Red-bellied Woodpecker Downy Woodpecker WB Nuthatch Chickadee Robin Blue Jay House Finch Cardinal Fox Sparrow SC Junco Song Sparrow Tufted Titmouse WT Sparrow Goldfinch
The Atlantic Cod population of the western Atlantic was essentially extinct from overfishing. With a moratorium, it has recovered a bit but I have not seen a Cod from Cape Cod in many years.
The 
Your intrepid scribe returned this past Sunday from San Antonio, TX, where I attended the Ducks Unlimited Convention, which celebrated our 80th year. I’ve been a volunteer since 1984, so I remember the 50th Anniversary celebrations well.
A friend tried to email an iPhone pic of the Barred Owl snoozing on a branch right off his deck, but the photo didn't come through. Regardless, this is my favorite local owl.
There are several black-colored snakes in the US. Notably, the 
The Sanderling is familiar to anybody who has been to a saltwater beach. Their range is worldwide, and about half of their population lives in the New World. Their migration routes are astonishing for such little guys.
