It’s time for the Mass Audubon Bird-a-thon!

Posted on May 4, 2022 by admin

As many of you know, I’m a huge supporter of Mass Audubon. My family first brought us to the Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary back in the 60s when it was housed in a home on the property and most of it was field, forest, and marsh with only a few rough trails. I remember vividily almost stepping on a nest of bob whites and also seeing the albino robin the sanctuary director was taking care of in a cage by the home’s back door when I was 8 or 9 years old. They’ve grown a lot! In the 90s and early 2000s I was fortunate to work for them as a seasonal and classroom naturalist educator.

My grandson scanning for seabirds at Manomet Point, Plymouth

For the past ten years or so I have supported the Mass Audubon Bird-a-thon, the organization’s biggest fundraiser of the year. My youngest grandson does this with me and is a great spotter and listener for our team. He’s now 15 and this is his sixth year.

We bird with Stu and Kathy Parsons and here is my grandson getting some good advice from Stu when he was first starting out. Now he’s almost as tall as Stu.

The Bird-a-thon is a fun team event that has a bit of a competitive edge to it. Which team will see the most species? Which will raise the most money? Each region has multiple teams that will begin logging the birds they see at 6 p.m. on Friday, May 13th. For 24 hours they will spread out over the state in all sorts of habitats to see what they can see. Each sighting or birdsong must be attested to by at least two members of a team and in our team’s case, we try to spot the singing bird as well, especially if it is an unusual or unfamiliar bird.

Last year at Burrage Pond in Hanson where we hoped to repeat our sighting of the sandhill cranes that can often be seen there.

Our team begins in Sandwich, at Sandy Neck and the Game Farm and we head off Cape very, very early on Saturday morning. We have until 6 p.m. that day, giving us a full 24 hours to add to our sightings. We usually log over a hundren species which is good, but other teams will often log many more. We don’t mind, we have fun doing what we do. We go out no matter what the weather is doing, by the way, so we always hope for a rain free day. That doesn’t always work but that’s what rain coats are for, right?

I’m writing this hoping you will join us in spirit and perhaps donate as well. My grandson and I have our own page and hope to raise a nice donation for Mass Audubon. Your help would be much appreciated. I will post results here after the event so stay tuned.

Here we are at Danial Webster Sanctuary in Duxbury, one of my grandson’s favorite spots. This is where we can always count on seeing the bobolinks sing and court, a bird sometimes known as the skunk bird, due to the stripes on its back.

I’ve included photos of my grandson from over the years, including 2020 when we birded within a square mile of our homes due to the pandemic.

Thanks for reading and for your support!

May on Cape Cod

Posted on May 25, 2018 by admin

Ah, May….It came in like winter and is heading out almost like spring. Must be Cape Cod. This sure has been a rough spring weather-wise but those warm, lovely days? Can’t be beat and maybe we think that because they’ve been so rare.

Beach walks have been brisk right up through this week. Winds have been steady and some days so much sand has been blowing that it’s been difficult to walk without getting sand blasted. Some days, however, have been just perfect. Terns are here, piping plovers and willets are nesting and ospreys are calling overhead. Doesn’t get much better than that. This weekend marks the beginning of the summer season here so solitary walks will be more difficult to pull off over the next few months.

You may have noticed lots of fluffy white flowered shrubs along the beach and even along the median strips on the highways here. These are the famous beach plums blossoming. Jam makers note these locations for future plum picking.

Many people confuse the beach plums with the fat orange and red rose hips of the Rosa rugosa, commonly called the beach rose. These are just coming into flower and by late summer the hips will be all over. They are also edible thought not as sought after as their purple plum cousins.

Earlier this month I participated in Mass Audubon’s Birdathon. My youngest grandson came along for the full 24 hours of birding and proved himself to be a wonderful bird spotter. The Birdathon is one of Mass Audubon’s biggest fundraisers and our team aimed to raise a certain amount of money. If you’d like to contribute, donations are being accepted up to June 1.

About 6 weeks ago I decided to join a #100dayproject in which you pledge to do something for 100 days and post it to Instagram or Facebook or whatever. I decided to sketch something in nature every day for 100 days. Although I regularly sketch, I don’t think I’ve ever worried about doing it daily. I’m on day 53 as of today and have been faithful to the challenge. It’s been a blast. And, my little sketchbook is a diary of sorts of spring waking up on the Cape. If you are interested in keeping a nature sketchbook, I’ll be offering an online class this summer. You can email me at capecodartandnature at gmail dot com for more info (I can’t add email links here for some reason.)

Birdathon 2014 Results

Posted on May 20, 2014 by admin

Friday, May 16, the Mass Audubon Birdathon 2014 began at 6 p.m. sharp. Our little sub team of 5 began at the game farm in East Sandwich. The forecast was for rain showers and it was gray, windy and cool. Not perfect birding weather but we were ready.

We quickly added common and easily found birds such as red-winged blackbirds, common grackles, chickadees and titmouse. There was a willet and an osprey, a downy woodpecker and a Baltimore oriole. We were hoping for a ruffed grouse and a wood thrush as we have had them here in Birdathons past….we got the wood thrush but no grouse this year. We stopped to watch some fox kits play with their mother….

We left after dark and prepared for a very early morning the next day. We got up at 4 and were at our first meeting place at 5:30. Our big score for the early morning was the raven sighting at the canal. Not just one, but five! It began to pour rain

but we put on our game faces and made the soggy drive to Wompatuck State Park in Hingham where all the birders seem to go each spring to score the most warblers and other migrants. The rain slowed and finally stopped.

We got lots of warblers, a scarlet tanager, a very insistent veery, tons of noisy ovebirds and even a Louisiana waterthrush. We also got a yellow billed cuckoo, which was very cool for me. I also had a life bird, a blue winged warbler!

The birds were singing, buzzing and whistling like crazy. Birders were running around like crazy. Some talked, some did not. Did I mention this was a competition? We never thought we’d win so we shared info. Let’s just say some others did not….

We carried on….sometimes we just stopped and listened and enjoyed the scenery…

We got an upland sandpiper, a kildeer, horned larks, a field sparrow, a vesper sparrow and tons of prairie warblers at the Plymouth airport but not the kestrel we hoped for. We moved on to Manomet Point where we got purple sandpipers, northern gannets and bank swallows as well as assorted terns, gulls and lots of cormorants and ducks.

As you can see, once the rain cleared out it quickly became a beautiful spring day. We moved on down to the marshes in Ellisville and ended our day scoping out scoters at Sandy Neck. It was an awesome day and our little sub team ended up with 100 species in 24 hours! Our bigger team, spread state wide, ended up with about 180 species. Not too shabby! For me, the day was as much about good company as good birding as I got to hang out with my long time friends, Stu and Kathy Parsons. One of Kathy’s plover monitors, Liz, was a great addition to the team as well. Katie, who joined us for Friday night was unable to join us Saturday so I do not have her photo.

I am not a big fan of my own photos but here I am with Kathy, to commemorate a wonderful Birdathon 2014! Thank you to those of you who supported the Coastal Waterbird Program. It is still not too late to make a donation!

2014 Birdathon is right around the corner!

Posted on May 14, 2014 by admin

Beginning at 6 p.m on Friday, May 16 and ending at 6 p.m. on Saturday, May 17, I will be birding for the annual Mass Audubon Birdathon with the Coastal Waterbird Program Team from Mass Audubon’s Long Pasture Sanctuary in Cummaquid. Our team will be competing with teams from different Mass Audubon sanctuaries from around the state to see which team can amass the most sightings of different species. Each sighting must be verified and it is a very fun and yes, a bit competitive, day for all.