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Friday, February 17, 2012

Approximately 1,500 crows roost at the land bank’s Tradewinds Preserve off County Road in Oak Bluffs.
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Bird News from the Vineyard Gazette Archives

Friday, February 10, 2012

Adam deBettencourt sent us this e-mail while we were attending the festival in Florida: “I have observed what appears to be a conjunctivitis infection in both a male house finch and male American goldfinch that have been visiting my feeder in Chilmark. Has this been noted elsewhere on the Island? I have done some reading and research on the subject and am wondering if there is anything else I should do besides cleaning my feeders and feeding stations? Is there a risk of this infection being passed to other species that visit my feeder?”
» Full Story By Susan B. Whiting

Friday, February 3, 2012

We ran away. The reason was the 15th annual Space Coast Birding and Wildlife Festival in Titusville, Fla. Now, Flip likes to look for birds, but fishing is his real passion. So when we first heard about this festival 16 years ago, run by a female commercial fishing boat captain, I had no problem convincing Flip to attend.
» Full Story By Susan B. Whiting

Friday, January 27, 2012

Be vigilant, for you never know when you might see an unusual bird.
» Full Story By Robert A. Culbert

Friday, January 20, 2012

There has been a collection of 1960s songs going through my head, so when Wendy Weldon called to say she and James Langlois had found a stranded bird, could I come and tell them what it was and what to do with it, my mind snapped and starting playing Jim Dandy to the Rescue.
» Full Story By Susan B. Whiting

Friday, January 13, 2012

This is the season not of the witch but the razorbill.
» Full Story By Susan B. Whiting

Friday, January 6, 2012

The 112th annual Christmas Bird Count has been completed nationwide. The Vineyard started participating in the count years later, so conducted its 52nd annual CBC on Jan. 2.
» Full Story By Susan B. Whiting

Friday, December 30, 2011

Hear ye, hear ye! Do not forget that the Vineyard’s Christmas Bird Count will take place on Monday, Jan. 2, from dawn to dusk, rain or shine. Vineyard birders will join tens of thousands of volunteers who are taking part in the oldest and largest demonstration of crowd science in the world. This count is in its 112th year so the data that has been gathered over the years has shown the world the changes in the environment and bird populations.
» Full Story By Susan B. Whiting

Friday, December 23, 2011

The occasion was the 25th annual St. Catherines Island Foundation Christmas Bird Count. Flip Harrington and I have participated in 10 of the 25. We were to fly from Boston to Brunswick, Ga. spend the night with a friend and drive north to Half-Moon Marina. The marina is where visitors to St. Catherines are to congregate and board motorboats that whisk them to the island.
» Full Story By Susan B. Whiting

Friday, December 16, 2011

Subspecies of birds are interesting. What is a subspecies, anyway? It is best to start with species, which is an individual that has common characteristics with others and can breed and produces offspring that are fertile and similar in looks...
» Full Story By Susan B. Whiting

Friday, December 9, 2011

The time is quickly approaching for the annual Christmas Bird Count. The Vineyard’s CBC, as it is abbreviated, is slated for Jan. 2, 2012, rain or shine. Rob Culbert is again the compiler for this event. I give him encouragement and help as the cocompiler.
» Full Story By Susan B. Whiting

Friday, December 2, 2011

Two special birds were found on and around the Vineyard on Nov. 29. Anne Lemenager was walking around Farm Pond and what should appear but a sandhill crane! She watched it for a bit and then it flew off. We should keep our eyes peeled and check all open fields as the crane may stay around with this beautiful and weird warm weather. The second bird was a first winter Iceland gull that I found in with a flock of northern gannets, razorbills, red-breasted mergansers and gulls (Bonaparte’s, herring, black-backed and ring-billed) off Cape Pogue the same day.
» Full Story By Susan B. Whiting

Thursday, November 24, 2011

I suppose that I should be writing about turkeys, but you have had your holiday meal, so I will just remind all of you that the turkeys on Martha’s Vineyard are not wild. They are a cross of domestic turkeys. One flock started at Elisha Smith’s farm in Edgartown and the other at Craig Kingsbury’s farm in Vineyard Haven. No doubt individuals from each have interbred. A true wild turkey is very wily and wouldn’t be caught on someone’s back porch.
» Full Story By Susan B. Whiting

Friday, November 18, 2011

There are times when I receive a bird sighting from individuals that I morph into a person resembling a detective. I proceed to grill the bird-watcher in a similar fashion to an investigator questioning a perpetrator of a suspected crime. So how do you think I felt when I heard that Tim Rich, the past chief of police of Chilmark, had reported an immature red-headed woodpecker at his Chilmark feeder?
» Full Story By Susan B. Whiting

Thursday, November 10, 2011

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Friday, November 4, 2011

The occurrence of a late hummingbird on the Vineyard is always exciting. Molly Cournoyer e-mailed that she spotted a hummingbird feeding on the pineapple sage around her Indian Hill home on Oct. 22. Molly said: “It did not look like a ruby-throated hummingbird. There was no red. It had a lot of brown on its sides and black splotches on its breast.” Island birders are always alert when late hummingbirds arrive. The “normal” hummingbird for the Vineyard is the ruby-throated, but it is possible to have stray black-chinned, rufous and other western hummingbirds. Molly’s description suggests a rufous hummingbird. We have no photo, so unfortunately we cannot make Molly’s hummingbird a new record.
» Full Story By Susan B. Whiting

Friday, October 28, 2011

Every birder has a nemesis bird, a bird so frustrating you might consider tearing your hair out. Allan Keith’s nemesis bird on Martha’s Vineyard was a yellow-headed blackbird. Allan can now relax; he saw the yellow-headed blackbird at the Maxner home on Oct. 20 thanks to Joyce Thigpen, Matt Pelikan and yours truly.
» Full Story By Susan B. Whiting

Friday, October 21, 2011

Once a boy met girl. They bought a sailboat and used it to do marine mammal, bird and lizard research between Maine and the Lesser Antilles. They made a pact when they met that they wouldn’t do the same thing for more than 10 years. Kiddingly, they also said when they reached a certain age — old folks — they would purchase an RV and travel around the United States. The same couple sold their sailboat and went to work running a small cruise ship that held 85 passengers. He was the captain and she the naturalist. They worked in the Bahamas, the Great and Lesser Antilles, Belize, Guatemala, Trinidad and Tobago and Panama.
» Full Story By Susan B. Whiting

Friday, October 14, 2011

What a weekend! A sandhill crane, western kingbird and Say’s phoebe are the three western species that were present this past weekend. It must be the fall migration for all these western strays to be here at the same time.
» Full Story By Robert A. Culbert

Friday, October 7, 2011

We lucked out and had a beautiful day for Basil Welsh’s memorial service which was held at Abel’s Hill Cemetery. Basil loved birds and frequently called me when he had an unusual visitor to his pond or yard. He would have been pleased to see the pair of red-tailed hawks circling overhead during the graveside service. We have lost a true Island character and a lover of birds and all things wild. I would like to suggest that the town of Chilmark put up bird houses in appropriate locations around Abel’s Hill Cemetery. It is a very birdy area and this would encourage more birds to keep Basil and others company.
» Full Story By Susan B. Whiting

Friday, September 30, 2011

Why do I have to be punished every time I go away? This time while I was in Brazil Lanny McDowell found and photographed a handsome yellow-throated warbler. This striking bird is considered a southern warbler and in the past was considered a rare vagrant on the Vineyard. As of 2007 it had been seen only 22 times on the Island and mostly during April to May or September to October. Things are changing, and with the weather warming we are seeing this southern belle almost annually. The yellow-throated warblers are wont to appear after storms as well, so this bird may have been a gift from Hurricane Irene.
» Full Story By Susan B. Whiting

Friday, September 23, 2011

It was a grueling eight-and-a-half-hour flight from Miami, but it was worth it. We landed in Sao Paulo, Brazil at 5 a.m. and proceeded to a local airline to fly to Curitiba. We chose to see the countryside between Curitiba and Florianopolis, our final destination, instead of flying.
» Full Story By Susan B. Whiting

Friday, September 16, 2011

Ruby-throated hummingbirds are tiny little bundles (3.5 grams or 0.12 ounces) of activity that must eat constantly, especially at this time of the year, when they are migrating southward to their wintering grounds in Central America. Here I report that their aggressive behavior of chasing other hummingbirds away from a food source — as reported in last week’s column — takes place even during tropical storms!
» Full Story By Robert A. Culbert

Friday, September 9, 2011

Liz Baldwin, the assistant director of Biodiversity Works, Inc., e-mailed me that her camcorder for recording the movements of the otters, which is located at the west end of Crab Creek at Quansoo, is missing. Liz and Luanne Johnson have been working on the Island’s otter population for over a year! Liz doesn’t care that much about the camera, but wants the data. If anyone knows about the whereabouts of the camcorder please contact Liz at biodiversityworksliz@gmail.com.
» Full Story By Susan B. Whiting

Friday, September 2, 2011

The Vineyard birders predicted storm driven birds to land on our shores. Our wish came true. Hurricane Irene brought the Vineyard a group of unusual birds, two vagrants and a few that we expect sooner or later in the fall.
» Full Story By Susan B. Whiting