Words On Birds 10-18-24

 

     If, late in the day, you happen to be traveling south over the Gillis Bridge which connects Newburyport and Salisbury, glance down to the old railroad bridge on the west side and you will likely see a massive number of double-crested cormorants roosting for the night. They can be best viewed from the south end of the Salisbury Rail Trail on the Salisbury side of the river or from Cashman Park on the Newburyport side. They spend the night there, after spending the day fishing in the Merrimack, or offshore in the ocean, building up body fat in preparation for their journey south.

 

     Earlier this week, Margo and I stopped at the Joppa Park Water Street Boat Ramp late in the day to view the harbor. The flats were exposed but the tide was coming in fast. There were dwindling numbers of shorebirds, mostly black-bellied plovers, greater yellowlegs and dunlin. Also present was a flock of 175 Bonaparte’s gulls, one of our smallest gulls, feeding on bait fish in the shallow water near shore along with our resident herring, ring-billed, and great black-backed gulls. 

 

     Among the gulls we found four late Foster’s terns also fishing the river. There were also a few great egrets and great blue herons catching a late day meal. Most amazing were the numbers of cormorants that were feeding in the river, constantly diving in and out of the depths of the Merrimack. They would catch their fish, swallow it whole down their long, thin necks, and then fly to the nearest rocks in the river. 

 

     Cormorants are fish eaters and are most often seen in the water diving for fish. Their long, thin necks give them a loon-like appearance, but they sit lower in the water and have a distinct hooked bill, used to catch fish. Their feathers lack the oil to shed water, unlike loons and diving ducks, so you often see cormorants on land with their wings spread to dry. 

 

     After fishing, the cormorants occupied every inch of rock exposed above the water to dry off. We estimated 700 birds, but there was likely many more. Then, in small groups, they lifted off the rocks and headed upriver, presumably to their large roost on that old railroad bridge next to the Gillis Bridge.

 

     In October we see large flocks of birds moving in broken lines across the skies that don’t keep the strict formation of geese. These are our summer resident double-crested cormorants that are migrating in flocks, often a hundred or more birds at a time. Margo and I have tried counting the streams of migrating cormorants on days we are on Plum Island late in the day. We have counted close to a thousand cormorants in a short period of time as they move south across the sky. If you are near the coast and you can sit and watch these birds flying by, they would easily number in the thousands on any given day.

 

     Another smaller cormorant roost is on the wires over the Wilkinson Plum Island bridge. These roosts will shrink, and eventually disappear, as more double-crested cormorants head South for the winter. Soon, however, the larger great cormorant will begin arriving for the winter, in smaller numbers, to fish the waters vacated by the double-crested cormorants.

 

     The late Doug Chickering of Newbury once shared his experience watching the migrating cormorants:

     “There are times when the very ordinary becomes quite extraordinary. Double-crested Cormorants are very common sights on Plum Island from spring to late fall. Some would even say they are too common. They fish the pools, sun themselves on the power lines over the Plum Island bridge, and dry themselves on points of land at Hellcat, Stage Island and in the marshes. They are colorless and numerous, and eventually tend to vanish into the background. When we decide to count the birds we find Cormorants are a pain and because we see them constantly fishing the shallow pools, we worry that they are pushing out other, more attractive species.

 

     “Usually, Cormorants are little more than a nuisance, but this morning at Plum Island they provided a spectacular scene. It is difficult to fully and adequately describe the sight of thousands of Double-crested Cormorants spread in long ragged formations above the western horizon on a Plum Island dawn. The sun has not yet pushed above the dunes; the sky is a pale but bright blue and the land below is just starting to take on definition.

 

     “It takes a little bit to notice them at first; amorphous strings, moving south not in perfect symmetry but in long fluid strings with occasional clusters of birds in the forefront. The sheer number of them is impressive and they nearly spread the entire horizon. A soundless, relentless movement, an antique ritual as emblematic of the changing seasons as the scarlet leaves on the hillsides.

 

     “Summer is gone and the winter moves in on the wings of migrating Cormorants.”