Words On Birds 01-03-25

A New Year Brings Birds Anew!
January 03, 2025
By Steve Grinley

     New Year’s Day is the restart button for many birders. The new year refreshes the birding opportunities for those of us who keep a year list. It is the day when rock doves, house sparrows, and even starlings not only count, but are sought after! A year list is a kind of gauge of how the birds are doing, and how we are doing. Like a new season of baseball or football, it is also fun.

     This New Year’s Day was a rainy one to start, but the rain tapered off in the morning to just drizzle and mist. Not ideal, but at least the temperatures reached into the forties and the wind was fairly calm until later in the afternoon.

     We started the day as we usually do, watching the birds at our feeders while having our coffee, tea and breakfast. The tufted titmouse, Mr. & Mrs. cardinal, and a downy woodpecker were my first three visitors. Mourning dove, white-throated sparrows and juncos were on the ground. Our goldfinches, bluebirds, nuthatch, and Carolina wren all appeared as did our red-bellied and hairy woodpecker. Things quieted down just before we were ready to leave as we could see the adult Cooper’s hawk perched in its favorite spot high above the feeders.

     We had sixteen birds on out new year list as we headed out. Strangely, starling, house sparrow, and blue jay were not among them, so we had those familiar birds to search for as well. Starlings were no problem, as we saw a large flock covering one of the farm fields along Route 133.

     Our first stop was at another feeder – this one in Ipswich where the rare yellow-throated warbler had still been reported on the Christmas Count. The homeowner came out to greet us and said that the bird still visits every day. She said she enjoyed all the visitors who come to see it! Sure enough, after about 15 minutes, Margo spotted the beautiful black and white bird with bright yellow throat landing on a small platform feeder. It certainly brightened the dreary morning! We also added a chickadee and blue jay there, which didn’t show at our own feeders that morning.

     Near Corliss Brothers nursery we stopped for a flock of 91 Canada geese in a muddy cornfield. No different geese among them, but we also found our first mallards of the year and an unexpected killdeer.

     On our way to Cherry Hill Reservoir in West Newbury, we saw our first flicker of the year in Byfield and our first tree sparrow and more bluebirds at the Ash Street swamp. The reservoir was glazed over with ice with only 3 mute swans in a small open area on the far side. Disappointingly, a lone mallard standing on the ice was the only duck present!

     We headed down to the Rock’s Village Bridge where we knew water was open and we were rewarded with common and hooded mergansers, ring-necked ducks, bufflehead and, along River Road, lots of common goldeneye. We ran into our young birding friends Sam Mroz and Johnny Owens (who are now older and driving, Johnny at college and Sam graduated Dartmouth and working for a living!) They showed us a photo of a female Barrow’s goldeneye that they saw further down the road, so we went further along and found that bird as well. Thank you Sam and Johnny!

     Off to Plum Island for the afternoon where we encountered many more birding friends. We finally saw out first red-tailed hawk of the year perched near the Plum Island airport. On the refuge, strong waves pounded the Lot 1 beach where some brave surfers tried to make the most of the still dreary conditions. The fog had rolled in and low visibility only allowed us to see a horned grebe and a single long-tailed duck also riding the surf.

     A harrier was hunting the marsh side of the lot and a merlin was perched atop the first midden where photographers were starting to gather, trying to get “the shot.” More long-tailed ducks were in the river as we drove down the island. Black ducks and pintails were hidden in the grasses around the salt pannes and our first black-backed gulls of the year were stationed along the river with the herring gulls.

     The maintenance area and the North Pool Overlook were filled with photographer’s cars, all apparently waiting for a short-eared owl to fly by! We continued past the mayhem and headed further south where some birders told us they had seen short-eared owls.

     Along the way, we stopped for a barred owl that was perched out in the open near the road. Margo took a few quick photos from the car and we quickly left when photographers saw that we were stopped and they were getting out of their cars with big cameras and tripods.

     We went to the Pines Trail platform and watched 2 short-eared owls hunting the marsh through our binoculars and scopes. Another birding couple arrived and we shared our scopes with them so they could get better looks at the graceful owls. We could also view white-winged scoters and common loons in the river from there. We had very distant views of the huge raft of common eiders in Plum Island sound between Grape Island the Cross Farm Hill.

     The couple told us about scaup and gadwalls in Bill Forward Pool. The sun was going down, so we decided to head back up the road, past the photographers still chasing the barred owl, to the Hellcat dike to view the ducks. We counted more than 40 gadwalls and 4 greater scaup, both year birds for us to end the day.

     We ended up with 51 birds that first day. Not bad considering the conditions, and still a lot of fun to start our year list anew!