"Peter! Peter! Peter!"

After easing in like the meekest of lambs, March assumed a decidedly leonine nature a few days into the month. The almost freakishly warm weather we had for the closing days of February that took away much of the snow that hit around Valentine's Day, was replaced by days that started out with temps in the single digits and did not warm beyond the mid-teens. As I walked out to the end of the drive to retrieve our newspaper on the coldest of these mornings I was cheered, but not really surprised, to hear the sounds of "Peter! Peter! Peter!"¹ coming from the tangles of honeysuckle and bittersweet that fill the area between our driveway and the private road that parallels it. It was the song of a Tufted Titmouse, a somewhat larger cousin of the Black-capped Chickadee, our Maine state bird.

Titmice are always among the first birds to begin singing in the run-up to Spring. This was not even the first time I'd heard one this year. That had happened nearly a month earlier--on February 10, to be precise. On that occasion I was out shoveling newly-fallen snow from the network of paths that connect our several bird feeders in the yard on the side of the house. There was still some snow drifting down. I soon worked up a bit of a sweat--this had been a wet, heavy snowfall--and stopped to rest for a couple of minutes. As I leaned on my shovel, trying to catch my breath, I was delighted to be serenaded by the sweet sounds of a Titmouse, Petering away in the woods. That time I was surprised, as this was the earliest I'd ever heard one. My previous first-of-year (FOY) record of a song had been February 16, 2011, the date on which I recorded the sound file in the above link.

Titmice are ubiquitous, year-round denizens of our yard and the woods that surround our house here in southern Maine. Along with Chickadees, Mourning Doves, Blue Jays, Downy & Hairy Woodpeckers, White-breasted Nuthatches, and Goldfinches, they're one of the species of birds we can almost always count on seeing whenever we look outside, regardless of the time of year.² They're handsome, endearing little critters. With their round, black eyes, short beaks, rusty-orange flanks, and prominent crests, they can only be described as "perky." They are frequent patrons of our feeders. Like Chickadees, they customarily select a single seed with each visit to the feeder, and fly off with it to a nearby branch where they crack it open and eat the nutmeat. They then make a return trip and begin the process all over again. Rinse, repeat. They are perhaps a bit more suspicious of human presence than are Chickadees, but in general they seem quite comfortable sharing habitat with us large, invasive bipeds. And we are certainly happy to have them do so!

As common as Titmice are here now it's sometimes hard to remember that things were not always this way; they are a relatively recent addition to the avian biota in Maine. And in the rest of New England, for that matter. They were seen only rarely, if at all, in western Massachusetts when I was growing up in the 1950s and '60s. It was not until I moved to Tennessee in 1985 that I became acquainted with them.

They are absent from early 20th century books on birds in Maine. Olive Thorne Miller makes no mention of them in With the Birds in Maine (1904), nor does Bates College student Carrie Ella Miller in her Birds of Lewiston-Auburn and Vicinity (1918).³

If we turn to the work of other early ornithologists we can track the northward creep of the Tufted Titmouse. Edward Howe Forbush somewhat hesitantly gives them an entry in the third volume of Birds of Massachusetts and other New England States (1929). He characterizes them as a "very rare or casual visitor," and a "mere straggler in New England." In those bad old days when ornithologists insisted on having a "taken" specimen in hand, rather than a mere "sight record" to establish a bird's residency in a given area, Forbush explains that he has "not listed it as a Massachusetts bird because although several sight records have been given me we have no record of a specimen taken in the state."

He confesses that he'd never had a good opportunity to observe Titmice himself, so we are not treated to any of the lovely descriptive prose that enriches so many of his first-hand species accounts. Rather, he relies on the words of others, from other states, to supply notes about nesting and feeding habits. But Forbush goes on to indulge in a bit of prognostication: "I predict that it will be taken and listed eventually in every New England state, as these states are not very far from its normal range and individuals are prone to wander more or less." (vol. 3, pp. 365-366)  He notes only one confirmed specimen from Maine, taken possibly in 1890, near Orono.

"Crested Titmouse," John James Audubon

Similarly, Mabel Osgood Wright, in the 1936 edition of Birdcraft, comments that "The Tufted Titmouse is quite rare here [i.e. southern Connecticut, where she lived], but is a summer, and perhaps, winter resident in southern New York." In the 1947 edition of Field Guide to the Birds, Roger Tory Peterson gives northern New Jersey as the northernmost limit of the Titmouse's range. By the time of his 1980 revision, he included a range map (Map #249) that indicated Titmice had moved northward to occupy territory through all of Massachusetts, as well as southern Vermont and New Hampshire, and had even crept into southern York County in Maine. In a note on the map Peterson says that the bird is "Expanding range north (helped by feeders)."

In a study published in 1999, Colby College ornithologist W. Herbert Wilson found that Titmice had begun to establish nesting and breeding populations in Maine as far north as Waterville. By now they are common in many parts of the state, though perhaps not yet in the far northern reaches. They are beginning to move across the Canadian border into the Maritimes, but are still considered rare in New Brunswick. A birding friend in Halifax rues the fact that they have not yet gotten across the Bay of Fundy to Nova Scotia.

Titmice are just one of several bird species that are now common around us but whose residence this far north is a relatively recent development. Seeing a Northern Cardinal at our farm in western Massachusetts was an exceedingly rare treat when I was growing up, much to my father's dismay; they were one of his favorite birds. Now a pair frequently visits our place in Maine, though they are not as omnipresent as some of the other species I mentioned.

I'd never even heard of, much less seen, a Red-bellied Woodpecker until I moved to Tennessee. They are another species that was regarded as an "accidental" in Forbush's day and was termed "casual" in New England by Arthur Cleveland Bent in his Life Histories of North American Woodpeckers (1939). They are also another species that Peterson, in his 1980 edition, noted was expanding its range north. Now we have a pair around much of the time. In the summer of 2015 I located a nesting site in our woods. Later on that year we were tickled to have a couple of young ones show up at the house in company with their parents. Maine Audubon naturalist Doug Hitchcox has written about the expansion of their range into Maine and presents data from eBird to show where they are now occurring in our state.

So what is behind this gradual, but persistent, northward movement of our friend the Tufted Titmouse, the Red-bellied Woodpecker, and other species? We have seen that this trend has been going on for quite some time--recall Forbush's prediction in 1929 that Titmice would eventually take up residence throughout New England, and Peterson's 1980 comments about backyard feeding contributing to range expansion. Most current commentators, however, point to global climate change as a major factor. Whether or not this has been at work since the early 20th century and is only now being recognized as a force is not something I'm qualified to comment on.

If this is the case, we should perhaps look at the presence of new species in our neck of the world as something of a silver lining in the cloud of man-made climate change. As I write, the thermometer reads 12° F and there's a nasty wind gusting. Numerous Tufted Titmice are busy at the feeder outside my office window, competing for food with a larger group of Chickadees. Whatever factors brought them here, I am delighted with their presence! I must go now and refill the feeders.

¹ Sound file recorded February 16, 2011. This is actually a conversation between at least three individuals. 
² Titmice are such a commonplace around the house that apparently I've never exerted myself to get any photos of them! In the absence of any original images I use as the lead illustration for this post the Titmouse card from the Seventh Series of  "Useful Birds of America," issued in 1918 by the Church & Dwight company, makers of Arm & Hammer and Church brand baking sodas. This was one of ten series of trade/trading cards issued by the firm over the course of many years. Numerous other companies issued similar series of cards as part of a movement to educate people about the importance of birds. The Church & Dwight cards carry the slogan "For the good of all, do not destroy the birds." These cards will be the subject of a future post, or perhaps multiple posts. The painting of the Titmouse was done by Mary Emily Eaton, a British artist who lived in the U.S. from 1911-1932, and who was better known for her botanical illustrations. She did all the paintings for the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh series for Church & Dwight..
³ I am unaware of any familial relationship between the two women.

Fair Time!

The end of summer and early autumn means fair time in communities throughout New England, and in pretty much all other places where farming is--or was--a major part of the local culture and economy. When I was a kid growing up in Western Massachusetts, the annual Cummington Fair was second only to Christmas as something we looked forward to with bounce-off-the-walls anticipation. Rides! Midway games! Livestock exhibits! Fireworks! Horse and ox draws! Cheesy variety shows! Aimless ramming around the fairgrounds with your buddies! Square dancing! Junk food! Visits from cousins! It was something for which you saved all the money you earned helping your father with the haying throughout the summer--and perhaps cadged a wee bit extra because, hey, it's The Fair!--so you could blow it on the aforementioned rides, games, and junk food.

The demands of life and career made it impossible for me to attend the fair for many years, but since I retired and moved to Maine we've made trips to Cummington at fair time a more-or-less regular part of our August schedule. Sally had had little or no experience with rural agricultural fairs until she and I got together, but she now looks forward to fair time at least as much as I do. She had certainly never seen horse and ox pulling competitions before, and now she's hooked on them! When we go to the fair we spend much of our time with our butts plunked down in the exquisitely uncomfortable seats of the grandstand at the pulling ring. 

So, at the end of August we duly made the 4-hour trek from southern Maine to western Massachusetts to take in this year's fair. Or some of it. In years past things began on Friday night, went all day Saturday, and wrapped up with a somewhat shorter day on Sunday. Now the fair begins on Thursday night and runs through the weekend. When I was a kid there was always a fireworks display on Friday night, which was a big favorite. That has now been displaced in favor of truck pulling on Thursday and demolition derbies on Friday and Saturday, neither of which holds the slightest bit of interest for me. Friday night also used to be the time when there would be a show by a semi-big name entertainer, usually a third- or fourth-tier country performer. I have very fond memories of some of those shows, but those are stories for another time. At any rate, we attended this year's fair only on Saturday and Sunday, August 27 & 28.

Today I want to write about the fair in times past. Not my own past, mind you, but the past of earlier generations of my family. A year or more ago I scored a copy (via eBay) of the 1912 Annual Report and Transactions of the Hillside Agricultural Society. (The Hillside Agricultural Society being the organization that runs the Cummington Fair.) Both of my parents came from farm families that have long tenure in Cummington, and that have been active in the fair for generations. My paternal great-grandfather, Alexius Wells (1828-1909), the ancestor who, in 1864, bought the farm where I grew up, was one of the founding members of the Hillside Agricultural Society.

With this in mind, I thought it worth the few bucks I had to spend on this report to see if perhaps it contained any trace of my family's fair-related doings. I was not disappointed! There is not a huge amount of information, but there are enough tidbits to give some insight into the agricultural activities of family members who were long gone before ever I arrived on this earth.

Alexius passed away a few years before this report was published but he appears in it in the list of deceased Life Members of the Society. (His name is spelled there "Alexis," as happened frequently, no doubt reflecting colloquial pronunciation practice.) Not surprisingly, the ancestor about whom I learned the most was my grandfather, Darwin R. Wells (1869-1948). At the time of the 1912 fair Darwin was 42 years old (his birthday was in December); a farmer in the prime of life. My own father, who was the third of the five children who would eventually be born to Darwin and his wife, Zola Morgan, was about 10 months old at fair time that year. In that era the fair was held at the end of September, and was only a two-day event. In 1912 it ran on September 24th and 25th -- a Tuesday and Wednesday, rather than a weekend. A situation about which I will have a bit more to say anon.

L to R: Mr & Mrs. Barnard; Zola & Darwin Wells

Darwin followed in Alexius' footsteps in maintaining involvement in the workings of the Cummington Fair. Like his father before him, he was a Life Member of the Hillside Agricultural Society. He also was an active exhibitor. The 1912 report includes lists of the prize-winners at the year's fair, at which Darwin (invariably identified as "D.R. Wells") took home prizes in fifteen different categories of produce: corn, apple collection, pears, Concord grapes (!), quinces (!!), peaches, vegetable collection, onions, and six different types of grain--plus maple syrup. All these prizes earned him a grand total of $9.10. While it may seem that he came out better in terms of bragging rights than in acquiring extra cash, his winnings that year equate to approximately $222.00 in 2016 dollars. Hardly a fortune, but perhaps enough to buy some seed for the following year, or a few sap buckets for his sugaring operation.

This list of the crops that D.R. grew that he was sufficiently proud of to enter in the fair gives a fascinating window into the world of the family farm of a century ago. That he entered corn, maple syrup, and a collection of vegetables is not surprising. Making maple syrup was part of the yearly flow of farm work in my own lifetime; my father reluctantly gave it up in the 1990s when he was in his ninth decade. Likewise, a stand of sweet corn, and a large vegetable garden, were staples of summers on the farm. Younger members of the family might puzzle over the apples but there was once a sizable orchard on the property. Somewhere among the family papers that I have, but have yet to fully sort and process, is a chart showing all the different varieties of apple trees that once stood on the farm. My father had the orchard cleared in the early 1960s, but there are still numerous venerable old trees standing along the stone walls that define the borders of fields and pastures. In a good year most still produce fruit.*

As for the various other entries...I remember one large old pear tree that stood in the field below the farm house, and I suppose that it could have yielded enough exhibit-worthy fruit for D.R. to select some samples to enter. If there was ever anything resembling a pear orchard on the farm, though, I have no knowledge of it.* But quinces?? Well, again, I guess that one need have had only a single bush to produce enough fruit to exhibit one or a few. I've searched my memory in vain for any hint of where a quince bush, or bushes, might have been located.

The prize-winning Concord grapes are another matter altogether! I have fond memories of eating my fill of luscious, juicy Concords on many a crisp, autumn day, and of a cheesecloth bag full of cooked grapes hanging in the kitchen, the juice seeping through into a large kettle, as my mother made a year's supply of grape jelly. The annual yield from the vines that grow along the wall below the farmhouse has varied greatly over the years. My father carried out a somewhat cyclical, if desultory, pattern of tending them or neglecting them, of shoring up the arbor that supported them, or letting it succumb to the weight of winter snows. I have long wondered just how old these vines were. I always suspected that they pre-dated my father's time but had no information to support that hunch. The fact that Darwin exhibited grapes at the 1912 Cummington Fair strongly suggests (though does not prove) that the vines are, indeed, over a century old. I take some comfort in thinking that the same venerable vines have provided fruit that has been enjoyed by multiple generations of the family. 

I am pleased to report that not only are the vines at the farm presently in fine shape, and flourishing on a wonderful new arbor constructed by my cousins who now own the place, but that a scion of them has taken root in my own yard in Maine. Our fingers are crossed that it will prosper in its new home and one day provide us with our own supply of delicious fruit--and help keep alive my memories of the grapes that I enjoyed when I was a kid.*


I learned other tidbits of family history from the 1912 fair report beyond the nature of my grandfather's produce exhibits. My uncle Bob, my father's oldest sibling, won $1.50 for his rabbits--breed not specified. Apart from exhibiting vegetables, D.R. was paid $6.60 for "vegetables for the hall"--presumably veggies that would have been on the menu for the dinner that was--and still is--always served in the main hall. My father carried on this tradition, often supplying many bushels of sweet corn to help feed the multitudes who gather for the fair dinner.

View of fairgrounds, prob. early 20th century

It was not just my father's side of the family that was involved in the fair. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that my maternal great-grandfather, Milton S. Howes, was president of the Hillside Agricultural Society at this time--a fact that if I had ever known, I had long since forgotten. He also exhibited. He won prizes for his corn, as did D.R. Wells, and for his Angora Goats. The goats are listed as having been exhibited by "M.S. Howes & Son," though which of his three sons this might have been is not indicated; perhaps it was my grandfather, Almon.

Apart from family history, the acquisition of this old annual report piqued my interest in the broader history of the Cummington Fair. This year when we were there I spent a good bit of time studying, and photographing, the several antique posters from fairs held in the late 19th century that hang both in the main exhibit hall (the large building with the flagpole on top, in the photo above), and in the small museum dedicated to fair history that stands on the grounds. None of the photos are suitable for inclusion here due to the large size of the posters, and the fact that they are all framed under glass, resulting in considerable glare. But I was able to glean a good bit of information from them.

Postcard, prob. stock photo, not actually of Cummington fairgrounds.

As I noted earlier, the fair in those days was held in late September, rather than late August as it currently is, and ran for only two days. While this was not a surprise to me, the fact that the two days were in the middle of the week--generally Tuesday and Wednesday--rather than the weekend--was. I have yet to undertake any research to try to determine why this was the case. Perhaps at the time weekends were not as important to the working public, particularly in what was largely an agricultural community. Still, kids would have needed to get out of school on weekdays in order to attend the fair. Or did the school year perhaps start later in those days, so the young people would be free to help with late-summer farm work? Questions for another time. Nineteen forty-six was the last year that the Cummington Fair was held in September, and by this time it had been moved to Friday and Saturday--September 20 and 21, to be precise--though the shift to the weekend may have occurred in an earlier year. When, in the next year it was moved to August, it also expanded to become a three-day event; the 1947 fair ran from Friday, August 22, through Sunday, August 24.

Postcard mailed Oct. 6, 1910

Postcard dated Sept., 1908

Regardless of when it is held, the Cummington Fair has been a vital part of life in the Hilltowns of western Massachusetts for nearly 150 years; it was first held in 1868. I well remember the celebration of the centennial in 1968, and look forward to whatever events are planned to mark the sesquicentennial in 2018.

Much has changed in the world during those 150 years. Cummington is by no means any longer a community defined by agriculture. When I grew up in the 1950s and '60s there were, by my reckoning, at least twelve active dairy farms in town, a large apple & peach orchard, and many acres given over to growing potatoes. Today there are, at best, three full-time dairy farms, and the orchard and potato operation are long gone. These changes are reflected in the fair. There are fewer sheep and cattle being shown, and the produce exhibits in the main hall are much smaller than they were when I was growing up. One barn formerly used for housing show cattle is now devoted to craft sales. The number of teams in the horse and ox drawing contests is down from what it used to be. Some weight classes this year had only three entrants. The fair continues to draw large crowds, and it remains an event to which we look forward every year. But one can only wonder if it will survive to mark its 200th year.

I'm pleased to acknowledge the assistance of Stephen Howes, my 2nd cousin and another great-grandson of M.S. Howes, for help establishing the dates of some of the changes to the fair calendar. Stephen was serving as docent in the small fair museum this summer, and I enjoyed some very pleasant, informative conversation with him.

---

*Update: In later posts I write more about the grapevine on the farm, and about a couple of pear trees in what was principally an apple orchard.

Turkeys!

Tom in full display on the Natchez Trace in Tennessee, 2010.

Turkeys! Love 'em or hate 'em, they're now very much a part of the biota here in New England, and in many other parts of the country as well. As I write on a chilly, 20-something morning the day before Thanksgiving, Turkeys have been a more-or-less constant presence in my yard. A flock of seventeen cruised through early on, making the rounds of my bird feeders, scratching the ground underneath in search of seed that the Chickadees, Juncos, Nuthatches, et al have scattered. They were followed an hour or so later by a group of seven. The second bunch may have found slim pickings, but they're all looking pretty plump these days.

Things weren't always this way, of course. The comeback of Wild Turkeys is one of the big success stories of 20th century wildlife management. I clearly remember when I saw my first one. In the spring and summer of 1972 I worked  for a farm supply company based in Greenfield, MA, driving a small truck applying liquid fertilizer to farms in the region. I covered a lot of ground. One day when I happened to be driving on Route 9 through my hometown in Hampshire County, a large, brown bird came out of the woods on my right and flew across the road right in front of me. After a few nanoseconds of disbelief, I recognized it for what it had to be--a Wild Turkey. Not only was I astonished merely to see one--at that point I'd heard nothing about any restoration programs--but also to see a bird that bulky, flying with such apparent ease well above the surface of the road.

When I told people what I had seen they greeted my story with a combination of skepticism and the sort of pitying looks that let me know they thought I was nuts. No matter...within a few years Turkey sightings in Western Massachusetts had become relatively commonplace. By 1980 the population was deemed healthy enough that the state instituted a spring hunting season.

Nevertheless, it was still something of a treat in the early 1980s to see a few. One summer, probably in 1984 or '85, when I was doing some tractor work in the big field above the barn on the family farm, a small flock of Turkeys appeared in the pasture across the brook that runs through the property. I stopped the tractor, got off, and tried to get a closer look at the birds. Not surprisingly, my approach spooked them; they took off and flew into the neighbor's cornfield. When I clambered over the stone wall between the two fields to look for them I had a major "Aha!" moment, as the meaning of the phrase from the old song,  "He was long gone, like a turkey through the corn," suddenly became abundantly clear to me. I had not a chance of seeing them again!

Although the idea that the Pilgrims and native Wampanoags dined on Wild Turkey at the harvest celebration held in Plymouth in 1621 that has become mythologized as "the first Thanksgiving" is just one element of the extensive body of apocrypha surrounding the event, Turkeys did function as an important food source in the early days of English colonization. So important that our forefathers seem to have done their best to wipe them out through over-hunting. No surprise there. As early as 1672 English traveler and writer John Josselyn wrote that "'tis very rare to meet with a wild Turkie in the woods." By the end of the 18th century Turkeys were all but gone from most parts of Massachusetts and elsewhere in the Northeast. Edward Howe Forbush does not include an entry on them in his Birds of Massachusetts (1925-1929), but gives a comprehensive survey of their history and decline in the section on "Species Extinct or Extirpated," in his 1912 work, A History of the Game Birds, Wild-Fowl and Shore Birds of Massachusetts and Adjacent States (which is my source of the Josselyn quote).

Turkey in the Maine snow.

John James Audubon, writing in the 1830s or 1840s, also speaks of their relative rarity in the Northeast. "In the course of my rambles through Long Island, the State of New York, and the country around the Lakes, I did not meet with a single individual, although I was informed that some exist in those parts....Farther eastward, I do not think they are now to be found." He noted, however, that regions to the south and west, including parts of Tennessee, Alabama, Arkansas, Ohio, Kentucky, and elsewhere, "are...most abundantly supplied with this magnificent bird."

Audubon's admiration for Turkeys is reflected in the fact that he included not one, but two, renderings of them--one of a female with chicks and one of a Tom--in his Birds of America, the only species that he so honored. He further demonstrated his esteem for the bird by granting his portrait of the Tom pride of place as the first plate in BoA.

 

It is regrettable that because Turkeys were not part of the active avifauna in Massachusetts at the time Forbush wrote his book on birds of the Bay State, we have no painting by Louis Agassiz Fuertes to go along with all the other wonderful ones he did for Forbush's volumes.

Historical inaccuracy notwithstanding, Turkeys are, of course, now an essential part of Americans' Thanksgiving celebrations. I'll no doubt consume my fair share in tomorrow's feast. I'll confess that I've never eaten Wild Turkey; I've heard from various folks who have that it leaves something to be desired. So the Turkeys who hang out in my yard have no need to fear that they might end up in our oven, though these guys are taking no chances:

"Hello, we must be going..."

An Appreciation of Swallows...and of Edward Howe Forbush

Tree Swallow, West Kennebunk, ME

One day late in the summer of 1984 I was mowing a nice crop of rowen in the upper part of the big field that we called the Drake Lot, on the family farm in western Massachusetts. It was a gorgeous, damn-near perfect August day; sunny, with a few white puffy clouds in an otherwise clear blue sky, temperature in the mid-70s, just a bit of a breeze blowing. The air was crisp and dry; I knew that the grass I was cutting would be ready for raking and baling by the next afternoon. It was the kind of day when riding a tractor for a several hours was as pleasant an activity as anything else I might have been doing.

After I'd been around the field three or four times I was delighted to find myself accompanied by a sizable flock of swallows. They were constantly in motion, swooping and diving gracefully as they feasted on the insects that the mower was stirring up. Birds would come in low over the field behind me, flying swiftly over the swath I'd just cut. They'd snatch up a few morsels as the grass fell, go into a vertical climb over the mower, bank sharply to the right or left, then loop back to make another circuit. Others would come in from the sides, or the front, sweeping as many bugs as they could into their open mouths as they flew. With all the activity it was impossible to get anything approaching a precise count but there were at least a couple of dozen birds following me. Their numbers swelled with each successive lap I made around the field.

Their aerial acrobatics were such a joy to watch that it was all I could do to keep my mind on the mowing. The grace, speed, and precision of their flight was enthralling. George Lucas and his cohorts must have had the flight of swallows in mind when they developed some of the maneuvers of the tie fighters and other small spacecraft in the battle scenes of the Star Wars movies.

As the multitude of birds around me grew, I started to pay more attention to just what kinds of swallows they were. The familiar Barn Swallows, with their blue backs, reddish-orange bellies, and long forked tails, were much in evidence. They were equaled or perhaps surpassed in number by Tree Swallows, whose iridescent gunmetal blue-green backs and pristine white undersides flashed brilliantly in the afternoon sun.

I eventually realized, however, that there were a couple of other, much less-familiar species in the mix. Some had brown backs, and white bellies similar to the Tree Swallows but with brown bands across their upper chests. Their tails had a bit of a fork in them, though nowhere near as pronounced as those of the Barn Swallows. Others had coloration somewhat similar to Barn Swallows but were chunkier, and lacked the classic forked "swallowtail." I scratched my head about these two and resigned myself to having to look them up when I got back to the house for dinner.

Upon reaching home I turned to one of the few bird books I owned at the time: A Natural History of American Birds of Eastern and Central North America. This is essentially an abridged version of Edward Howe Forbush's monumental three volume work, Birds of Massachusetts and other New England States (1925-1929). I quickly learned that the brown birds with the chest stripes were Bank Swallows, a species I knew about but had seen only rarely. Cool. Even cooler was learning that the more colorful ones were Cliff Swallows, a species that was entirely new to me. I had not yet begun keeping a life list at this time but it was still a great treat to have spotted, and learned about, a new bird.

The real joy of doing this bit of research, however, came when I turned to Forbush's description of the Barn Swallow: 
No bird in North America is better known or more truly the friend and companion of man than the swift and graceful Barn Swallow. It nests within his buildings, and with a flight that seems the very 'poetry of motion' it follows the cattle afield or swoops about the house dog as he rushes through the tall grass, and gathers up the flying insects disturbed by his clumsy progress. When the mowing machine takes the field, there is a continual rush of flashing wings over the rattling cutter-bar just where the grass is trembling to its fall. The Barn Swallow delights to follow everybody and everything that stirs up flying insects--even the rush and roar of the modern juggernaut, the motor-car, has no terrors for it.

Wow. It was as if he'd not only been riding along with me on the tractor as I mowed, but had crawled inside my head and described what I'd been seeing. It was more than a little spooky to read something that I felt as if I could have written myself...though Forbush said it better than I could have.

Although I'd been familiar with Forbush's work for some time, up until that afternoon I had not fully appreciated what a fine descriptive writer he was. This was far from the last time that I would turn to him for information about some bird or bit of behavior that had aroused my curiosity, and have him describe exactly what it was that I had just seen. In an earlier post I wrote about watching a pair of Pileated Woodpeckers working away on a pine tree near my house. Forbush, writing roughly ninety years earlier, summed up what I saw quite well:
Pileated Woodpeckers are such powerful birds that they can split off large slabs from decaying stumps, strip bushels of bark from dead trees, and chisel out large holes in either sound, dead, or decaying wood. They like to strip the bark from dead pines, spruces, and especially hemlocks. Their size and strength and their long spear-like tongues enable them to penetrate large trees and draw out borers from the very heart of the tree.

Where I live now, on the banks of the Mousam River in southern Maine, I often enjoy the sight of Wood Ducks cruising past on the open stream, or paddling around the boggy backwaters. Again, Forbush's description of watching these striking ducks matches exactly what I have observed myself. He writes with such grace, beauty, and affection that reading his words brings another whole level of enjoyment and appreciation to the experience: 

Male Wood Duck, Murfreesboro, TN

See that mating pair on the dark and shaded flood of a little woodland river; they seem to float as lightly as the drifting leaves. The male glides along proudly, his head ruffled and his crest distended, his scapular feathers raised and lowered at will, while his plumes flash with metallic luster wherever the sun's rays sifting through the foliage intercept his course. She coyly retires; he daintily follows, exhibiting all his graces, the darkling colors of his plumage relieved by the pure white markings of head and breast and the bright reds of feet and bill and large lustrous eye.

Forbush wrote with knowledge and affection in equal measure. I will repeat the quote from Joseph Kastner about Forbush that I included in a previous post: "Going through his volumes is like going along on a long bird walk, getting to know birds through the eyes and ears and feelings of scores of birders--all their perceptions filtered through the mind of one of the finest and most literate ornithologists the country has ever known." Would that I could tag along with him on such a walk.

Forbush, who lived from 1858 to 1929, was writing in and of a New England that has now largely vanished, the New England of family farms, open country, and minimal suburban sprawl. It was a quieter world, a world in which "the rush and roar of the modern juggernaut, the motor-car" had only begun to make incursions. Although my bird-loving, farming father was of a generation after Forbush, he still lived much of his life in this same world.

I came along only at the tail end of this era but it has, in many ways defined me as well, particularly in my relationship with, and love for, birds. I am grateful that I had the opportunity to grow up doing things like mowing hay in the summer while swallows swarmed around me, and fixing fence in the spring when the woods and pastures were filled with the sights and sounds of warblers and other returning migrants, and hauling wood in the fall with flocks of southbound Canada Geese honking overhead. I am grateful also to have had a father who had an interest in, and was knowledgeable about, birds. As I have written previously, my father's copy of volume 3 of Forbush's Birds of Massachusetts was one of the books that set me on the path of my own efforts to learn about birds. These factors combine to give me an attachment to Forbush and his work that I simply do not get from any modern field guide or smartphone birding app.

I intend to write more about Forbush in the future, and examine some of his books, but for now I'll wrap up this post by returning to swallows. Tree Swallows this time. Forbush wrote of them:
In August, thousands of Tree Swallows, with other species, arrive at the seashore, where they roost in the marshes. They scatter about in the daytime, feeding on insects and berries. Their numbers continue to grow by accessions from the interior, until many thousands are gathered along the coast. Sometimes they alight on telegraph wires, covering them for miles, or they may light on the beaches until the sand is black with their hosts.

I experienced this phenomenon first-hand while visiting Plum Island, near Newburyport, Massachusetts, in September of 2012. Tree Swallows filled the air around me--many hundreds more than had accompanied me while I was mowing back in 1984! It was hard to believe that these were birds; it felt more as if I was caught in a swarm of very large insects.

I had my camera with me that day and captured a bit of the experience:

The human world may, indeed, have undergone vast changes between the time Forbush wrote about the late summer gathering of Tree Swallows and the day I found myself in the midst of a virtual cloud of them, but this seasonal behavior of the birds continues. The timelessness of this annual mustering of swallows makes Forbush's description of it equally timeless; his words are just as apt today as they were when he wrote them decades ago. I take comfort in this.

How Do They Know?

Rose-breasted Grosbeak

It's a source of wonder to me how regular and predictable migrating birds can be. We've lived in this house for five years and I've kept desultory notes on the comings and goings of the bird life around us for all this time. The data I've gathered (such as they are) give me some sense of what (or who) to expect, and when.

Each year I eagerly look forward to the first week in May--i.e., now!--as this is the time when Spring migrants really begin to arrive. Not only is it cool simply to have some new birds to look at, but those who typically show up during this period are among the most colorful birds we see all year. Rose-breasted Grosbeaks, Indigo Buntings, warblers of various sorts, Ruby-throated Hummingbirds, Baltimore Orioles, and Scarlet Tanagers--each species brings its own special brand of bling to the table. There are often times during the winter when the bird life in the yard seems like an avian take on of Fifty Shades of Grey. Although the chickadees, titmice, nuthatches, Hairy & Downy Woodpeckers, and juncos look stately and elegant, colorful they are not. Our pair of more-or-less-resident cardinals provides virtually the only spark of color among the birds of a Maine winter.

We moved into this house permanently in late April, 2010. Because we had to deal with the chaos of unpacking and setting things up, my bird notes for that first Spring are pretty sketchy. I did note, however, that by May 10 we had Baltimore Orioles, Rose-breasted Grosbeaks, and Scarlet Tanagers in the yard. The first Indigo Bunting showed up the following day. I have no notes on hummingbirds--we probably did not hang feeders until a bit later--but we had had a warbler species or two by the time I made my first records. In 2011, the grosbeaks, orioles, buntings, and hummers, plus a single Black-and-white Warbler, all made their first appearance on May 4. A couple of Grey Catbirds had already been around for a few days that year.
 

Indigo Bunting

In 2012 it was again on May 4th when I saw the first Rose-breasted Grosbeak, together with a couple of warblers. Two days later the orioles graced us with their presence, while the first buntings and hummingbirds did not arrive until the 8th.

The colorful returnees were a bit tardier the following year; my notes tell me that it was not until May 11, 2013 that I saw the year's first grosbeak, and May 12th the first oriole. Last year the first grosbeak was a bit more prompt, showing up on May 3rd. I apparently failed to note the arrival of the first oriole of the year but a pair of Scarlet Tanagers was here, happily feeding on my suet, by May 12th.

Scarlet Tanager

So, here it is, May 4th (aka Star Wars Day) and things are right on schedule. This morning when I looked out of my office window into the woods, the first bird I saw was a Black-throated Blue Warbler! Upon going outside with binoculars for a better look, I saw that he was accompanied by a Yellow-rump. A bit later in the day a Black-and-white was busily skittering up and down tree trunks. Around 1:15 a male Rose-breasted Grosbeak was pigging out on sunflower seed in the window feeder. Earlier in the day I'd made up a batch of nectar for hummingbirds. I hung out the first feeder about the time I saw the grosbeak and had a customer within 15 minutes. I also put out an orange half for the orioles but so far it's gone unsampled.

I look forward to celebrating the return of more of our avian prodigals in the next few days. The Indigo Buntings and Scarlet Tanagers should be along soon, as well as many more species of warblers. It's a bit surprising that catbirds have yet to show themselves but they'll surely be here soon. The best part of having all these guys come through now is that the trees are just beginning to bud out. For the next couple of weeks our ability to spot and identify tiny birds bopping around in the treetops is as good as it's ever going to be.

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I will again ask the question that I posed in the title to this post: how do migrating birds manage to keep to a schedule that is, if not exactly precise, at least predictable within a fairly small range of deviation? Ornithologists have devoted a good deal of time and attention in an effort to come up with an explanation for this and other mysteries surrounding bird migration.

Frankly, I don't really want to know, at least not on a technical level. I don't want to trouble myself with matters of migration triggers, or shifting seasonal resources, or trying to calculate the air speed velocity of an unladen swallow (either African or European!). While it's wonderful that there are intelligent people in the world who work long and hard to understand the whys and wherefores of such things, I prefer to let my question stand as a rhetorical one. It is simply enough to know that the birds will be back around the same time next year, when they will again brighten both the visual and aural environment around our house. In the words of Iris DeMent (singing about larger metaphysical issues), I'm content to let the mystery be.

Photos (all of male birds) taken May 12, 2014.

"And smale fowles maken melodye..."

Ever since we left March behind and moved on into April, the opening lines of the "General Prologue" to Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales have been running through my brain:

Whan that Aprille with his shoures sote
The droghte of Marche hath perced to the rote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,

Of which vertu engendred is the flour...*

Although we have not had an overabundance of shoures sote this month and March was not so much plagued by droghte as it was by snow and ice lingering from the horrendous February that Maine endured, Spring seems finally to have arrived. Granted, small piles of snow remain in those dark corners that don't get much sun, or lie buried under layers of gravel pushed up by snowplows (like those at the end of my driveway!). Average daily temperatures have yet to get very far out of the 40s but floures are beginning to bloom, adding some much-welcome color to the landscape. Given how much snow we had dumped on us in February it's pretty remarkable how quickly it disappeared. A walk in the woods two weeks ago required wearing snow boots; now light hiking boots are more than sufficient. The downside of this quick flipping of seasons: ticks are already active. I've taken a few off both myself and the cat in the past few days. Sheesh....snow one week, ticks the next. In the immortal words of Celtics announcer Tommy Heinsohn: "Gimme a break!"

The best thing about Aprille though, is that it marks the time of year when, once again, as Chaucer tells us, smale fowles maken melodye. In some ways things are not so different today from the way they were in late 14th century England. The annual bird migration is gaining momentum here in southern Maine and the changing of the guard is well underway. As the warblers, sparrows, swallows, plovers, blackbirds, raptors and many other species arrive, we say farewell to the Juncos, Pine Siskins, Snowy Owls, Tree Sparrows, and whatnot who endured the winter with us. I say "endured," but for them, coming to Maine was the equivalent of human snowbirds heading to Florida for the winter.

With the migration, of course, comes nesting activity and the concomitant staking out of territory by singing males. Soon the chorus of smale fowles maken melodye outside our bedroom windows in the early morning hours will serve as a call to drag our sleepy butts out of our beds and go out to see what we can find by way of birdlife. Chaucer tells us that the season of birdsong evoked a different sort of longing in his protagonists:

Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages

And palmeres for to seken straunge stronds

To fern halwes, kowth in sondry londes.*

But our own April outings are pilgrimages of a sort. They may not take us to Canterbury, or even as far as shires ende, but we all have our fern halwes to which we venture in the hope of reveling in the sights and sounds of birds we have not seen since this time last year. Or, even better, spotting a new species or two that may have eluded us in prior years.

Even though I noted in one of my very early posts that I'm not much of a lister, the Spring migration seems to bring out in me the urge to tabulate and quantify my experience more than at any other time. My birding notebooks that are generally maintained in a pretty desultory fashion throughout the rest of the year suddenly become repositories of daily sightings once the migration gets underway. I suppose this is largely in response to the fact that the avian landscape outside the windows of my home and in the countryside around is now filled with new sights and sounds. After watching a relatively stable cast of characters play out their daily lives at my feeders and in the trees near the house, the influx of newcomers to the scene prompts me to note their presence as a means of celebrating their return.

All this notwithstanding, to me the act of logging what I see is perhaps the least important reason to go birding in the Spring. There is just something very special and soul-restoring about being outside this time of year and immersing oneself in the natural world. Three short ventures in recent weeks had the character of pilgrimages, and made me realize yet again how important it is to get out into the real world.

---

Two weeks ago I made an evening visit to the Kennebunk Plains, a property owned by the Nature Conservancy and one of the state's birding hot spots. I am fortunate that the area is not far from my home so I am able to visit frequently. It was a fairly cold, windy evening, and still a bit early in the season to expect to see some of the bird species that The Plains are famous for. In fact, it was not a very birdy evening at all.  A lone Kestrel, a couple of crows, an Eastern Phoebe or two, and a medium-sized mixed flock of blackbirds were pretty much it. No Meadowlarks, no Vesper Sparrows, no Upland Sandpipers. But simply being out at dusk on a Spring evening and experiencing the almost magical transition from day into night was sheer delight.

Finally, as I began the trek back to my vehicle, I caught sight of something I'd been hoping to see: a Gray Ghost--i.e., a male Northern Harrier--tilting from side to side as he glided low over the ground in search of his evening meal. As I stood and watched, marveling at his silent grace, I was rewarded with another unexpected treat--a second Harrier, following not far behind!

Edward Howe Forbush, my favorite bird writer, characterized the Harrier (known primarily as "Marsh Hawk" in Forbush's day) as a "slender, graceful...bird of tireless flight." The seemingly effortless way that Harriers skim close to the ground over open fields, looking for the small mammals that make up most of their diet, is always a joy to watch. I followed the two birds for as long as I could but they soon crossed over Route 99 and I lost them in the rapidly diminishing light.

It really made no difference that I saw so few other birds that night. The sight of the two Harriers was enough. The gray birds in the gray light of dusk was visual poetry.

---

Mousam River, May 15, 2013

The following afternoon I took a walk from my house, through the neighbor's woods, to the banks of the Mousam River. There's a special spot a short distance upstream from our own property where there is a lovely little cove, just below a bend in the river. It's a great vantage point from which to watch the activities of the birds and animals that are drawn to the water. I have occasionally  seen beaver and muskrat from this spot, and ducks, herons, swallows, woodpeckers, flycatchers, and many other birds are frequently present.

After a few minutes of quiet observation I noted some ripples on the water a little upstream from where I stood. I initially dismissed them as having been caused by the slight breeze that was blowing, but no! A dark brown, rounded head broke the surface of the water, moving in my direction. Then, a moment later, a second head appeared! My first thought was that it was a pair of beavers, but when a slender, almost snake-like body became visible above the surface and I got a glimpse of a tail that was flattened vertically rather than horizontally, I realized that I was seeing something even better--two River Otters! They twined around each other as they cavorted in the middle of the stream, repeatedly disappearing under the surface, then popping back up moments later.

I stood and watched their play for several minutes but finally lost track of them when they got to the far side of the river. Just as with the Harriers the previous night, observing the two wild animals going about their lives, oblivious to my presence, was utterly marvelous. It was an enthralling, almost spiritual experience. As if this were not enough, the scene was enhanced further by the sight of two Great Blue Herons, a pair of Ring-necked Ducks, and a few Mallards that were also on the river. A Pileated Woodpecker cackled in the woods behind me and a small group (if there's only three of something, can it legitimately be called a "flock"?) of Canada Geese announced their presence with authority as they flew overhead to some destination downstream.

The spot from which I watched all this is, indeed, a shrine. My visit to it was as much a pilgrimage as was the journey of Chaucer's characters to Caunterbury, as they sought the hooly blisful martir.

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My third recent venture was a walk with Sally this past Saturday on the section of the Eastern Trail that runs from Kennebunk Elementary School to Limerick Road in Arundel. The highlight of this segment of the trail is the dedicated pedestrian bridge that passes over the Maine Turnpike just north of the Kennebunk Service Plaza.

Pink Lady's-slipper, June 8, 2014

This is one of our favorite walks. The round trip from the parking lot at the school to the crossing at Limerick Road and back makes a nice 5 mile walk. It's a fairly birdy corridor and there are spots along the trail where in another month or so Pink Lady's-slippers will be abundant. Last summer we dubbed the short section between the place where the spur trail from the school parking lot joins the main trail, and the bridge over I-95, "Vireo Alley." We could pretty much count on hearing at least one Red-eyed Vireo proclaiming his territorial rights every time we passed through his 'hood.

Perhaps the birdiest spot along the way is the area about 2/3rds of the way up to Limerick Road where the trail crosses a bridge over the Kennebunk River. The combination of water and fairly open, but brushy, habitat makes this an attractive location for many birds. There are often a couple of ducks in the water, an Eastern Phoebe or two in the trees, and even at times a Great Blue Heron wading in the river. Best of all, it seems to be prime "warbitat"--the kind  of area where warblers like to hang out.

Since it's still a bit early in the season my expectations of what we might see there in terms of warblers were fairly low. Happily, I was mistaken! In the trees right by the trailside we spotted a Yellow-rump, our first of the year. Then...a second one! And a third! And....well, we quickly lost count, as they were being their peripatetic little warbler selves and not staying in any one spot for more than a few seconds. (Warblers have the uncanny knack of sitting still for exactly as long as it takes for a human to focus a pair of binoculars on them, and then flitting off to another branch or a different tree.) We soon spotted a couple of Palms in the mix, and Sally gleefully picked out a Black-and-white, one of her favorites, in the tree next to us.

After a bit the action shifted across the river. There were many, many Yellow-rumps ("Butterbutts") bopping around the trees and bushes on the far bank, and several more Palms. We spent a very pleasant quarter of an hour or more just enjoying the sight of so many colorful little birds doing what they do, again seemingly with little or no awareness of our presence.

As delightful as this first big helping of warblers was, I know that, in the words of one of the trolls in one of my favorite scenes from The Hobbit, "There's more to come yet, or I'm mighty mistook." As the season progresses we can expect--or at least hope--to see and hear many other bird species in this and other places along the trail. Last summer, Chestnut-sided Warblers frequently hung out in the vicinity of the bridge. Common Yellowthroats could usually be heard singing their wichety-wichety-wichety song both in an area just south of the bridge as well as further north near the Limerick Road crossing. Ovenbirds, Veerys, Hermit Thrushes, Catbirds, and others should soon be arriving. There's also a little backwater just north of the bridge where a large chorus of Bullfrogs held forth last August, maken melodye in their own fashion.

I regard the Eastern Trail in general and the Kennebunk River bridge in particular as another shrine, another favorite destination for continued pilgrimages.

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I have no illusions that my characterization of these brief encounters with nature as pilgrimages, or as quasi-religious experiences, is in any way original. Thoreau, Muir, Burroughs, et al, have written far more eloquently than I about the healing, spiritual effects of immersing oneself in the natural world. But this does not in any way lessen the importance of doing so, for me or for anyone else. I regard myself as fortunate to have grown up with the opportunity to engage in such immersion regularly, and even more so now as an adult living in a society in which fewer and fewer people seem to know and understand the value of spending quiet time outdoors in the wild. I shall continue to treasure the chance to goon on pilgrimages, beckoned to do so by the sounds of the smale fowles [that] maken melodye in the world around me.
 
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*There are numerous websites that offer translations of Chaucer's prose into modern English. I have used this one from Librarius.com as my reference.

Birder's Bookshelf 2: Joseph Kastner, "A World of Watchers"

Joseph Kastner, A World of Watchers, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1986.

Whereas Kastner's first book, A Species of Eternity, was a broad survey of the development of the study of natural history in North America, A World of Watchers, his second, is a focused look at the history of bird watching.* Chronologically, Watchers picks up more or less where Eternity left off, i.e., in the latter half of the 19th century. Which makes sense. The men whose work was chronicled in the first book laid the broad foundation of knowledge in all the various areas that can be said to comprise the study of natural history. In this book, Kastner writes of the men--and now also some women--who built on this foundation and began to delve deeply into one particular branch of the field, i.e., the study of birds and bird life.

In today's world, bird watching, or birding, is among the most popular forms of outdoor activity. According to one study from 2011, there currently are an estimated 47 million bird watchers over the age of sixteen in the U.S. Birding clubs are numerous; anyone who develops an interest in birds and wants to flock together with similar-minded folks can find a local club without much difficulty.**

Things were not always so, of course. Early avian enthusiasts were, by and large, few and far between, folks who pursued their passion in relative isolation. Kastner tells us (p. 4 and Chapter 3) that the first organized bird club was not established until 1873, when the Nuttall Ornithological Club was founded in Cambridge, Mass. The formal organization was an outgrowth of the activities of two young ornithologists from that city, William Brewster and Henry Henshaw. Other clubs in other areas soon followed, and there was a concomitant growth in the number of bird watchers.

Kastner goes on to provide accounts both of professional ornithologists and amateur enthusiasts who made contributions to the growth of our knowledge about birds. Among the pros to whom Kastner devotes a chapter is one of my personal favorites, Edward Howe Forbush (1858-1929). Forbush was the state ornithologist in his native Massachusetts from 1891 until his death. His magnum opus was the three-volume Birds of Massachusetts, which was published by the Mass. Dept. of Agriculture from 1925-1929.

I mentioned this work in an earlier post, and will write more about Forbush in the future. For now I will just note that Kastner's chapter on Forbush, "A Friend of Bird and Birder," is a marvelous, affectionate portrait of a man who I wish I had known, and had had the opportunity to learn from. Kastner writes: "Going through his volumes is like going along on a long bird walk, getting to know birds through the eyes and ears and feelings of scores of birders--all their perceptions filtered through the mind of one of the finest and most literate ornithologists the country has ever known."

Amen to that. Many's the time I've observed a bird in the field, and noted some particular aspect of its behavior or appearance. Then, upon returning to the house and consulting Forbush, been delighted to find a perfect description of what it was that I had just seen, a description written in prose so lovely that it bordered on the poetic. It was as if he had been looking over my shoulder as I watched and made my own observations.

Apart from his own stellar work, Forbush's Massachusetts volumes are notable for the magnificent paintings by Louis Agassiz Fuertes that illustrate them. Fuertes (1874-1927) was a brilliant artist, the most important bird painter after Audubon, and arguably the best ever. Kastner employs small field sketches by Fuertes as epigraphs at the beginning of each chapter, and includes a special section of color plates with a few samples of Fuertes' paintings. Fuertes' oeuvre was immense; his paintings graced the pages of many other bird books in addition to Forbush's. His story is as much a part of Kastner's narrative as is that of any ornithologist. I intend to devote a future post or two to him. For now I will just include a sample of his work, the small falcons--Kestrel and Merlin--from the Birds of New York, by Elon Howard Eaton.

Kastner writes also of the growth of the conservation movement; of the change from specimen collection to sight records; of numerous eminent pioneer ornithologists such as Elliot Coues, Witmer Stone, Frank Chapman, and Lowell Griscom; of the influential female writers such as Mabel Osgood Wright, Olive Miller, and Neltje Blanchan; and numerous other topics. His own prose is a delight to read. This, coupled with the evident comprehensive research that underlies the writing, makes A World of Watchers a much-valued item on my bookshelves. Like A Species of Eternity, it is also out of print, but copies are easy to come by on the used-book market. Definitely worth looking for.

*Given the importance of various optical devices to birdwatching--note the design of the book's dust jacket--there's probably a bad joke about focusing lurking in there somewhere, but I'll be damned if I can find it.

**Talk about bad jokes...