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Robins, Robins, Everywhere!

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Have you been noticing a lot of robins around even though it is absolutely freezing and there is snow on the ground? Every winter for the last 20 or so years we have been seeing more and more robins from farther north coming down our way as the winter closes in. Robins will eat berries when worms aren’t available and we have lots of berries here on the Cape, especially cedar berries.A few years ago the Christmas Bird Count listed thousands and thousands of robins in one location. Last year it was close to 100,000 birds. At dusk they fly in from all over. Some flocks are small, some are large and all are heading for the large stands of cedar where they will roost overnight.As the robins move in they settle into the trees around the edges of the woodland, even as hundreds more are flying overhead. I wish I could show you this. I took a video but it just looks like hundreds of black specks flying across the screen.

This is one of the groups. There are lots of predators, such as Cooper’s hawks, around to take advantage of all this. We saw several hawks on the hunt and some of the people I was with say they have seen a merlin here as well.

As the sun began to set in earnest more and more birds arrived. Those little black specks in the sky are all robins flying in…..really an awesome sight.

If you want to see the robins flying in to roost you need to be there about half an hour before sunset. They are in West Barnstable in the area around the West Barnstable Post Office, the railroad tracks, etc. You can also go around sun rise to see them as they leave for the day. We saw a large group settling in today in Hyannis where there is a lot of holly and cedar trees so you may see them just about anywhere during the day. These robins will hang around as long as there is food. They may travel a bit farther south in search of food but many will stay until late February or early March when they will return north. Our own spring robins, which are smaller, will return as these are leaving.

Treasures in the Snow

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It is so unusual for us to have snow on the ground for this long but I have to admit I’m totally enjoying the opportunity to go walk and explore in it. These photos are from the Murkwood Conservation Area in E. Sandwich. It’s a tiny area of old farmland overtaken by a young woodland that includes black locust and American Holly among the usual red cedar, pitch pine and white and black oaks that populate the area. The area juts into the marsh bordering Scorton Creek. There are lots of migratory birds there in season and it is not unusual to see or find signs of other native wildlife such as deer, fox and coyotes.Lots of beetle trails and insect holes in this fallen log.
There were lots of rabbit tracks around this pile of wood which is not surprising since it makes a perfect hiding spot.Pippsissewa leaves peeking out of the snow…..

And my favorite….a baby pine tree in a single whorl…..
No matter where you walk at this time of year there are lovely treasures to behold….

Where do worm, caterpillar, beetle and butterfly go for winter?

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I love starting out my week with curious 4 year olds! We talked about where the insects and worms go for winter today in an area pre-school. I used layers of felt to show snow, sand and layers of dirt to show where some of these creatures may hibernate.A felt log with lots of loose nooks and crannies helped show how some insects and spiders hide behind the bark and was lots of fun for the kids to find the hiding insects and eggs like the chickadees and woodpeckers do.We sang some silly songs together, too, about where beetles spend the winter and where the butterflies go. We even had different verses for the different butterflies, like the mourning cloak that hibernates behind the bark and the monarch, which migrates.

The kids loved it and I had a blast. The insects, worms, etc. were plastic for this lesson since the real ones are otherwise engaged….

Tracking birds and bunnies

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One of the fun things about taking a walk in the snow is following the trails of the animals and birds that passed through before you. Kids love tracks because they often tell a story that is easy for them to follow. These tracks are from a rabbit.These little bird prints are from the snow buntings….
More snow bunting tracks. Notice the little drag behind the prints.
These prints are larger and heavier and belong to crows….
And these prints show webbed feet. Not ducks, though….gulls!
More gull prints….
You can probably guess that these prints were found at the beach. No matter what time of year it is, the beach is always a great place to look for tracks, especially if you go early in the morning before people tracks cover up the animal ones.

Snow Buntings!

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Every fall I watch the dunes while on one of my favorite beach walks for one of my favorite winter birds. Snow buntings arrive some time around the end of October each year and can be found at many Cape beaches that have protected dunes. They fly in from the arctic, where they breed each summer and when they first arrive you might be lucky enough to see a few still in their full breeding regalia. They are a lovely, elegant little bird with beautiful markings. Even in the winter I think they are quite lovely to behold.I think many people mistake them for sparrows, for they gather in small flocks, twitter as they are feeding and spend much of their time feeding on seeds on the ground.They are very well camouflaged and many folks probably walk right by them without a thought. I just get a kick out of them. They are quick and spunky and I love to watch them rise up and chase a crow or a hawk in a big cloud of wings and feathers. When they land they land with a bit of a chattering ruckus as if to say, can you believe the nerve of that guy?On this sunny afternoon I didn’t want to get too close and disturb their feeding and I knew they had a good eye on me. My camera has a decent zoom which is how I got these pictures but they don’t really show how beautiful these little birds are.

I snapped this quickly as they rose up to chase a crow and you can see how their wings simply shine in the afternoon sun. If you’re near some dunes on a Cape beach walk, keep your eyes and ears open for signs of snow buntings. These birds winter at Kalmus Beach in Hyannis but other flocks are noted throughout the Cape all winter long.

Snowy Beach

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A late afternoon walk on the beach after a snowfall is always beautiful….especially if it is a calm, sunny afternoon…..The gulls were standing byShelves of salty snow hung over sand washed by the highest of moon tides receding….Pale sky, yellow grasses, snowy dunes….Sun and shadow danced across the top of the dunes….

The sun began to slide down the sky into the sea, lengthening all the shadows as we left for home…
(Photos are from this afternoon on Kalmus Beach in Hyannis)

Berries and Birds

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At this time of year you can often see the most birds where you find the most berries. The multi-flora rose is an invasive and non-native plant but the tiny hips that remain at this time of year seem to be a favored food for many birds, including a very possessive and aggressive mockingbird that hangs out in the bush in my backyard.Barberry is another plant that supplies food for many birds at this time of year. There is a native barberry but the most pervasive one is the Japanese barberry, which is non-native and also very invasive. Unfortunately both these non-native plants are easily available at many local nurseries.
One plant that I believe is a native, at least to New England, is the privet. Known by most of us as “the hedge” privet has long been a favorite among those who want quick growing and easy to care for hedges. Many folks never see the masses of sweet smelling white flowers late in mid summer or the subsequent dark blue berries because they constantly trim and reshape their hedges. Hedges grown wild, however, put forth multitudes of these apparently very tasty berries.

Snow birds

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This little song sparrow arrived just after the snow storm blew out this week. The wind was still blowing and it was holding on to the weeds for dear life. You can see the movement of the tail as it tries to steady itself.
It finally had to give up and move but you can still see that little tail working away! Song sparrows are lovely little birds that are easy for children to learn to identify. They have a stripey front with a big dark spot in the middle of it which makes them look different from the other common sparrows we have on the Cape, such as the ubiquitous and non native house sparrows. Song sparrows often sit at the very top of bushes and in the spring are among the first birds to burst into song, other attributes that make them easy to identify.

Winter Moths….

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Does your house have something like this going on? A holiday wreath and…..moths at the front door? You may have noticed that moths have been literally rising up from the ground around you when you go out at night and in some areas the moths have been so thick they look like dark clouds in car headlights along the road.

If you’re thinking you didn’t used to see moths on the Cape in November and December you are absolutely right. These little guys are natives of areas like Canada and have been moving south into our area over the last five or six years. This is their mating time and the swarms of moths you are seeing are males. The females do not fly and are mostly found crawling up tree trunks, front doors, etc. They look more like plain old bugs without wings and you probably wouldn’t think they were a moth at all.

Male and female moths use pheromones to communicate with each other. These pheromones work like special scents to signal who is who and who is where. Female moths use pheromones like teenage girls and women use perfume to smell good and maybe attract a boyfriend. After the moths mate the female lays her eggs in the ground near or on the base of trees where they will stay all winter.
This all sounds pretty cool, right? Unfortunately the caterpillars (or larvae) of the winter moths hatch in the spring and climb up our trees and eat the leaf buds before the leaves can sprout, leaving many of our trees leafless all summer long. Eventually this will kill the tree so these moths are not a happy thing to find rising out of your lawn. The larvae go back into the ground to pupate (make a cocoon or crysalis) until late in the next year’s fall.
I have thousands of these moths around my house right now but there’s one thing that makes me feel better about it. So far I have seen only one or two females. Last year there were hundreds of females crawling everywhere! So maybe next year there will be fewer moths!