There are some simple reasons I can’t stay away from watching and photographing purples this time of year.  Firstly, they are here on the Vineyard and fairly uncommon most other places.  I know where to find them when I want to, usually up scouring the rocks at Squibnocket, because they are location loyal.  That’s about the habitat, which is the habitat that shows up in the bird photos below.  They are not always there, but they are likely to be there on a bright winter’s day.

The other factor that brings me back to find them is that they are relatively tame when feeding or resting, even with Stella at my side.  Stella is very respectful and patient when it’s clear that I am trying to move slowly or I’m waiting for the sandpipers to approach me as they move among the rocks.

There were only a few yesterday.  So few that I was keeping track of them.  If you spook one, the others nearby are likely to jump as well.  So I was being careful, moving slowly, placing each step among the stones underfoot.  I was moving the camera back and forth between three of them, all quite close.  When I was done and Stella and I maneuvered back out of the rocks to the sand beach, still moving slowly so as not to upset the pipers, we put up two more that were nearer than the ones I photographed.  They must have been resting, not moving, in the stones.  Pretty amazing.  And I am not bad at spotting them either, picking out their shapes.  So that makes five all together.

Birds are cool!  Lanny

These images and Avian Art fine art prints are available for purchase. Contact me or View my gallery.

I have a list of folks who get an emailed notice from me with a URL to click on when I have posted a new blog.  There are also times when I just send out photos to the list without bothering to blog about them or post them to a listserve.  Not on the list?  Want to be? Just contact me  saying you want to be on the list or, better yet,  subscribe to Feedburner above, in the right side column for automatic blog feeds to your email.  Getting off the list is just as simple.

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Martha’s Vineyard, her rocky shores and the rich marine ecology that surrounds her, is very attractive to Common Eiders looking to winter in a place that grows and gives up enough tonnage of food resources to keep the feathered thousands alive through the coldest months.  The patterns of major sea duck concentration have changed this winter, presumably  moving with the food resource.  There are almost always a smaller number of eiders that congregate near the jetties at Menemsha.  What they were doing when I was there yesterday is what they often do at sea, just in a more confined space: riding the current and feeding, then flying back to take another pass on the current.  They were riding on the incoming tide ripping south between the stone jetties, with the wind at their backs, to enter the broadening waters of the tidal pond.  On cue, on a whim or reacting to an ambulatory threat they pattered into flight north against the wind between the walls of rock  to settle on the sea just outside the harbor, eventually funneling back to repeat the circuit.

This show is there for anyone to watch. I was on the Aquinnah side, but next time I will go out on the Coast Guard dock at the harbor and observe from the comfort of my car.  I include here a few bird photos which I previously sent out to my regular email list.

Birds are cool!  Lanny

These images and Avian Art fine art prints are available for purchase. Contact me or View my gallery.

I have a list of folks who get an emailed notice from me with a URL to click on when I have posted a new blog.  There are also times when I just send out photos to the list without bothering to blog about them or post them to a listserve.  Not on the list?  Want to be? Just contact me  saying you want to be on the list or, better yet,  subscribe to Feedburner above, in the right side column for automatic blog feeds to your email.  Getting off the list is just as simple.

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The checklist for the Martha’s Vineyard Christmas Bird Count, which takes place tomorrow, on January fifth, due to a weather delay, says the CBC has recorded one Tundra Swan  since 1999.  Soo Whiting’s book, Vineyard Birds II,  says tundras were seen more frequently and more regularly on CBCs up until ‘92 and then, for the most part, not seen after that.  She writes, “Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket are the two best places in Massachusetts where an observer might expect to see this rare visitor.”  It’s only a guess, but I would be quite surprised if the pair I saw will be seen tomorrow. How cool it would be if they were.

On New Year’s Day I took Stella out to Hancock Beach, on the lookout for winter Harriers and because we both wanted to stand at the edge of the ocean.  The road out to the dunes was flooded at the south end by the high waters of Chilmark Pond.  I parked the Jeep and reconnoitered for a way across, but it was soon clear that getting to the beach was not going to happen without a good chance of wet feet, even in my Muck Boots.  We backup up, turned around and went for another access further east, at Black Point Pond.  From a distance I could see that the beaches of the frozen pond were exposed, implying the water level there and on Tisbury Great Pond were still tidal, or at least relatively low.  This portends well for making it to the beach using the elevated wooden walkway that traverses the wettest areas just inboard of the barrier dunes.  Despite my optimism, thin ice covered water at each end of the walkway, water deep enough that I skirted the deepest parts and walked in the brushy sides to the path, where I thought the ice would hold me better and where there was some shrubbery to grab onto for stability.  Anyway, long story long, I slipped and slided out to the beach which was stunning in the harsh winter sunlight and devoid of any beings standing up.  No birds either.  I saw one skunkhead cruising just outside the incessant breakers, slowing occasionally to peruse small groups of other scoters.

Where is that guy? He is sooo slow!

Then there is the bit about posing, when I could be running, chasing, wading, digging ...

Same shot, west to Lucy Vincent Beach, less Stella

No birds in sight. All the inland water is frozen.

The way in. The way out. So far, two Great Black-backed Gulls and some distant scoters.

The place was absolutely beautiful.  You can’t really go wrong with the location.  If you feel bad here, then you feel bad.  It’s not the place.

I saw a distant mocker.  A couple of TVs. I heard a Song Sparrow complain.  Can’t blame them, given the conditions on the ground, plus a biped and a boxer.  As I was walking over the too short bridge, I heard an unfamiliar sound.  Sometimes the metal-on-metal of my bino strap connection to my binos makes a little annoying squeak.  But no, this wasn’t that sound.  It was lower, and soft.  Straight ahead and up maybe fifty/sixty feet were two swans winging west, not in a hurry, but steady on.  I unslung my camera first, keeping the shutter punched and wheeling in and out of focus as the birds moved on.  When the swans were too far out for the camera, I used my binocs to see if they put down anywhere.  They made one looping pass over the northeast end of Greater Chilmark Pond and then continued west beyond my tolerance for straining my eyes.

Now that I think of it, I do not remember hearing any whistle from the swans’ wings, the way you would with a Mute Swan.  That reedy vibration the flight feathers make.  Perhaps subliminally that lack of wing sound told me these were Tundra Swans.

I am told there were tundras spotted on the Nantucket CBC, also on the first of the year, later in the day than I encountered the Vineyard birds.  So have a second look at swans you are taking for granted this time of year.

But wait! What's that unfamiliar call?

Birds are cool!  Lanny

These images and Avian Art fine art prints are available for purchase. Contact me or View my gallery.

I have a list of folks who get an emailed notice from me with a URL to click on when I have posted a new blog.  There are also times when I just send out photos to the list without bothering to blog about them or post them to a listserve.  Not on the list?  Want to be? Just contact me  saying you want to be on the list or, better yet,  subscribe to Feedburner above, in the right side column for automatic blog feeds to your email.  Getting off the list is just as simple.

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The young Cooper’s Hawks at the nest near Abel’s Hill in Chilmark on Martha’s Vineyard are up and out and lounging in adjacent trees.  The last time I was there, on July fifth, the female allowed herself to be seen, keeping a quiet eye on things, then audibly admonishing her brood, or maybe me, from deeper back in the oak forest.  I had never seen her before.  I have never seen the male; and so I have never been aware of more than one adult.  Of course, I could be mistaken, if the two adults are close in size.

In the dappled light of the woods it is pretty hard to make out any of these raptors when they are still, especially if you don’t have advanced knowledge of where to look.  But, boy, are they nice to watch when you do find them.

I do not really expect to find them near the nest,  should I go back.  There is too much to see and do … and to eat.

1st sighting of the adult female after she cruised out of the woods:

so easy to miss back in the woods

One thing you notice right away, looking at the young hawks, is that they are armed with adult weaponry:

A gray squirrel making his rounds tentatively approached one of the young Coops, not the best idea with one of the parents nearby.  When it got close enough, the youngster flared its wings and the encounter ended with the squirrel parting company.

so young and so serious

This Madonna, short of there being a Great Horned Owl in the neighborhood, which I doubt, will have fledged four new hawks into the growing company of Cooper’s Hawks established on Martha’s Vineyard.

These images and Avian Art fine art prints are available for purchase. Contact me or View my gallery.

Birds are cool!  Lanny

I have a list of folks who get an emailed notice from me with a URL to click on when I have posted a new blog.  There are also times when I just send out photos to the list without bothering to blog about them or post them to a listserve.  Not on the list?  Want to be? Just contact me  saying you want to be on the list or, better yet,  subscribe to Feedburner above, in the right side column for automatic blog feeds to your email.  Getting off the list is just as simple.

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