Mark Faherty

In this time of social distancing, I’ve been noticing some strange things in my neighborhood – my neighbors. People and dogs I’ve never seen before are now sauntering down the road, perhaps venturing further from their house on some nearby road than they ever before dared on foot. And though state decision makers seem to still be in a little bit of denial about how exponential growth curves work, we may be headed towards “stay at home” orders, rather than just advisories, soon, meaning we will continue to spending a lot of time in our neighborhoods.

If you are like me, then you are, several times a day, seeing a term that most of us hadn’t ever heard before – social distancing. In the effort to curb the viral scourge, all good people are being asked to keep at least six feet away from each other when practicable. 

Early March can be a tough time in the birding calendar, because while we are more than ready for spring, spring is not quite ready for us. We seek flowers and songbirds, but March mainly offers mud. The first wave of migrants – the blackbirds, vultures, and woodcocks – have long-since settled in, and not much else is happening. While the coming weeks will bring the first real influx of Ospreys and Piping Plovers, migration for most birds doesn’t really get hopping again until late April. But there are still some critters to be on the lookout for in this time of mud, and many of them aren’t birds.

I began this unseasonably warm writing day enjoying a flock of amorous Eastern Bluebirds singing their way through my yard, battling for females and checking out bird boxes. Their perusal of my nest box real estate doesn’t mean much this early, but still served as a nice spring pick me up after some recent wintry weather. But there’s no question that this time of year, before the great greening brought by spring, before the songbirds return and nesting season breathes new life, literally, into the landscape, is still a time of death in the animal world. 

Though it’s been warmer than average, it’s still February. The nights are typically below freezing at my house, and the days are often cold and damp – it’s not exactly time to break out the beach towels. So even in this unusually warm winter, we need the early migrants to keep us going, to let us know that spring is indeed coming, eventually. These stalwart, hardy birds of February are already turning up every day, so my goal this week is to prepare you to receive their message of hope.

What’s black and white and attracts birders from all over? It’s a special Arctic seabird wintering in Provincetown Harbor, one that’s maybe never been seen in Massachusetts before. This representative of an obscure subspecies known as “Mandt’s” Black Guillemot has been causing quite a stir, and providing a few ecotourism dollars to Provincetown during this otherwise sleepy time of year.

Hopefully you have been enjoying the increased daylight - I know I have. And boy, you can really feel it right in the pineal gland, right? Ok, maybe not. But more than you realize, this obscure gland buried deep inside your brain is changing you and the world around you every day in response to changing day length, otherwise known as photoperiod. One of the more obvious and fun examples of this is through increasing bird song.

What’s blue and orange and generates a lot of questions from listeners? The answer is the Eastern Bluebird, everyone’s favorite neighborhood songbird. Especially your grandmother. While it may not seem like the right time of year to talk bluebirds, they can be fairly common in winter, and some lucky folks even get them in their yards.

Did you catch the Grammys this weekend? Let’s face it, except when they exhumed the bones of Aerosmith and reassembled them on stage, you had no idea who the majority of those musicians were. Even I, culturally literate, perennially hip bird guy that I am, found myself Googling the nominees because I have never heard of Tyler, the Creator and was only vaguely aware of Billie Eilish. If you find yourself disoriented and puzzled by today’s music, fret not - I’m here to offer you an alternative, something real to cling to in these confusing times – the Bird Grammys.

One of the biggest bird stories this winter has been the record number of Painted Buntings on the Cape, of which there have been upwards of nine individuals. The common-sense guess for the number of Painted Buntings on Cape Cod is of course zero – this colorful southern species breeds north barely into North Carolina and winters in tropical climes. This is a bird that should live the entirety of its natural life without seeing so much as frost on the windshield, never mind snow and ice. 

‘Tis the season for ducks - January is prime time to grab the mittens (or t-shirt and sunglasses, you never know anymore) and head to your local lakes and ponds to survey the waterfowl scene. At this point in the winter there has been sufficient time for ducks to arrive as ponds to our north and west freeze up. 

It’s finally over – after a whirlwind three weeks of intense birding, of wind and rain, calm and cold, the 2019 Christmas Bird Count season came to a close this past Saturday with the Martha’s Vineyard count. My back of the envelope calculations put the total species seen on the Cape and Islands counts at somewhere north of 170 species – pretty good bird diversity for this windswept winter landscape.

Most of this year’s Christmas Bird Counts are in the book, with Truro and Martha’s Vineyard coming up later this week. While we wait for these last counts to be tallied, I thought I’d share some of my favorite moments from the counts I’ve done this year. You may be surprised to learn that they don’t all involve birds.

If you’re new to the concept of Christmas Bird Counts, you may think that today is the day that birders are fanning out across the landscape armed with clipboards and expensive optics, ready to tally every last chickadee and Mallard. While that was true back when ornithologist Frank Chapman organized the first count exactly 120 years ago today, the modern counts take place between December 14 and January 5. With around 2500 count circles across North America, we probably couldn’t muster the personnel to get those done all in one day, let alone Christmas day. So far this year we have four Cape and Islands counts plus Plymouth in the books, so let’s check in on the results.

If you’re into bird-related citizen science, then this is your month. From the Cape Cod Waterfowl Census, to the Christmas Bird Counts, to Project FeederWatch, December offers several ways to contribute to long-term studies of bird populations on Cape Cod and beyond. You just need some binoculars and, depending on the project, some basic bird knowledge.