Adventures on the Atlantic Flyway

~ by Sumalee ~

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Some time ago, V. and I made a discovery: the better birders we are, the fewer new birds we see. In our birding infancy, our life list expanded at hummingbird speed. Presently, just out of birding adolescence, our list has stalled around 230. Even as we have fine-tuned our birding eyes, gaining skill in spotting and identifying what may come down to a half-second’s fleeting sight of the flash of a wing and smudge of color through foliage, spotting new species has eluded us.

We’ve even embarked on birding stake-outs to spot a particular bird recently listed on e-Bird, but this has always failed. No less than three outings have been hazarded to see the Black-throated Gray Warbler that some anointed birder posted to e-Bird at our favorite local refuge, but ‘twas all for naught. This isn’t to say that spotting familiar birds no longer brings us the battleship-loads of joy it once did—it does. We can’t imagine it otherwise. Yet we do want to have new species grace us with their presence, because the world just seems bigger and better when they do.

That being said, there is an easy way to growing your life list, as we’ve surmised from perusing other birders’ records. Quite simply: go to South America, then double, triple or quadruple your life list. At this time, this particular course of action hovers out of our reach but we do appreciate the tactic.

So it was that V. concocted a scheme to combine a long-overdue family visit with some birding forays. And so it is that V.’s aforementioned family lives on the other side of the country. The Other Coast to our Pacific, and that means the other flyway. Our birds come down the Pacific Flyway, from Alaska to Patagonia and back again. The Atlantic Flyway stretches from Greenland down the East Coast to the Caribbean and South America, and encompasses a whole different flock of birds, so to speak. Our list was destined to grow.

We visited a diverse representation of birding spots, which included city birding in Boston. We birded at local town parks, an enormous reservoir, a sewage water treatment plant, coastal beaches, and of course, a national wildlife refuge. We noticed some differences up front: on the East Coast, the term “reservation” applies to nature reserves, for instance, the Belle Isle Marsh Reservation, whereas this term customarily applies to American Indian reservations on the West Coast. Also, V. is from the East Coast but I’ve also lived on the East Coast, so we were familiar with shorelines and beaches that have, in general, more litter, dirtier sand, are less expansive, and more packed in.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that where there is a protected beach, dog owners will run their dogs off leash. Where the shy, endangered Snowy Plover must endure dogs wantonly but unknowingly—it is the owner’s crime—destroying nests and eggs in California, the cutely rotund and also endangered Piping Plover witnesses the same in Massachusetts. We saw some DCR (Department of Conservation and Recreation) monitors attending to the flagged areas and talked to them about this predicament. They described the battle waged between conservationists and the townspeople, the latter who held the opinion that the beaches belonged to them and who resented any limits placed in the interests of protecting the plovers. In the blunt words of the monitors, “they hate the birds.”

On a much more positive note, V. and I were delightfully surprised at the temperament of East Coast birders. Because birding is a more established and commonplace activity on the East Coast than on the West Coast in the same way that classical piano and violin training are more prevalent there, I expected East Coast birders to be more competitive and snobbish than back in Oregon, California, and Washington. On the contrary, according to our experience: Massachusetts birders were helpful, warm, and friendly, with so many of them freely pointing out a hot spot or calling us over to see a species we mentioned was of interest and sharing any information that might benefit our endeavors. A comical moment illustrates precisely this generosity: at Parker River National Wildlife Refuge, we related to two birders who crossed our path that another birder had alerted us to a Pine Warbler nearby, but we had failed to spot him thus far. After this exchange, we lingered at the spot while the two ladies continued up the trail. Moments later, I heard very soft pishing—the noise that birders make when trying to call birds to the area. I ignored it, thinking that V. was just pishing for the Pine Warbler, but when the pishing became more insistent, I looked at V. To my surprise, V. wasn’t pishing and, in fact, was looking at me quizzically. We both turned and looked up the path—one of the birders was pishing at us! She was calling us over to see the Pine Warbler who had reappeared.

With this kind of interaction among birders, we also felt free to address other birders and avert them to species present, such as Palm Warblers. We first became familiar with the Palm Warbler at the Federated Women’s Club State Forest near the Quabbin Reservoir. The Palm Warbler’s Sunny Delight yellow streaked with bronze-brown makes me think of it as a true harbinger of spring.

We also noticed far more female birders than on the West Coast, and they were not part of organized birding groups on field trips but out independently. This was not the bastion of men who guard their knowledge and pass us on the trails silently and unsmiling as they do back home. And when I say that birding is more established and serious, I really mean it. With perhaps one or two exceptions, all the folks out on the refuge and IBAs (Important Bird Areas) were actually . . . birding. We weren’t the exception with our enormous scope and zoom lenses—everyone had scopes and zoom lenses. Everyone was birding—which means that everyone was behaving quietly and respectfully toward the wildlife.

In contrast, when birding in the West Coast states, a segment of the population frequenting wildlife refuges are represented by trail runners in stark defiance of the rules which prohibit jogging (as some signs explain, it startles the wildlife and uses up energy needed to survive migration or daily survival). For another segment, by all appearances completed disinterested in nature and wildlife, refuges and sanctuaries merely provide a setting to socialize at the top of one’s lungs, ostensibly because when one is in the great outdoors, one needs yell to be heard. I’ll spare you the subject matter of the conversations, but suffice it to say, they are not about the wildlife.

All this aside, the point was to visit family and see new birds, and indeed, both coincided when we spotted the first new species at V’s sister’s home. A male cardinal flashed in the center copse of the cul-de-sac our first morning in Massachusetts, and later, male and female cardinals scratched in the backyard leaf litter.

Our initiation to East Coast birding really began in earnest at Mass Audubon’s Arcadia Wildlife Sanctuary. We were delighted to identify our first Tufted Titmouse, but we soon learned when one sees one, one sees a dozen forthwith. These little guys would be nearly too adorable if it were not for the crest that imparts some gallantry.

At Quabbin Reservoir, a clear, descending trill described as a bouncing ball rang throughout a field, leading us to scrutinize power lines and dense shrubbery. S. decided to try out the Merlin Sound ID app, which immediately identified the song as a Field Sparrow’s. Reflecting his song in his manner, he led us on from shrub to shrub, perching long enough to sing before moving to the next spot, until he deemed V. worthy enough to approach closely and capture his likeness. He distinguishes himself from other sparrows by his pink-orange bill and plain face, construed by the Audubon app as lending him “an innocent expression.” Somehow, this subjective description struck us as innately accurate, but in V.’s photo, the dappled sunlight on his chubby face also confers this impression.

When we set our goals for new species, we had no idea we would end up adding twenty-one to our life list. We vowed to see two species, the Tufted Titmouse and the glamorous, elegant Long-tailed Duck, and the East Coast came through for us. The Long-tailed Duck is a true seabird, floating distant from the shore, and requires a scope to identify. We did not bring the digiscope adapter with us, so V. missed the opportunity to photograph, but at least we were able to appreciate the geometric markings and Chanel palette of a good dozen. Some of the birders we met unwittingly broke our hearts when they mentioned that in two weeks, forty or so species of warblers would be deluging the area, but this doleful fact merely grants us an excuse for a return visit to the other coast.

✓ Piping Plover

✓ Eastern Wood-Peewee

✓ White-throated Sparrow

✓ Grackle

✓ Field Sparrow

✓ Black Scoter

✓ White winged Scoter

✓ Mute Swan

✓ Glossy Ibis

✓ Great Black-backed Gull

✓ Eastern Towhee

✓ Northern Mockingbird

✓ Blue-headed Vireo

✓ Yellow Sapsucker

✓ Palm Warbler

✓ Pine Warbler

✓ Common Eider

✓ Long-tail duck

✓ Blue Jay

✓ Northern Cardinal

✓ Tufted Titmouse