Join Me at the Wetlands Institute
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I’ll be speaking Friday evening, March 30, at 6:00 at New Jersey’s Wetlands Institute.
So bring a covered dish and your thinking cap, and I’ll see you there.
Plus ça change…
By · CommentsThe First Watchung Mountain has always been an important lookout point. The traprock ridge offers great views across the coastal plain to the Hudson River and Manhattan.
During the American Revolution, the fugitive Continental Army kept an eye on the British from up here. And more recently, just 70 years ago, anti-aircraft guns were placed here to defend the coast against the Germans.
All that remains of installations today is a circular concrete pad, a favored resting spot for hikers and birders–and the site of the spring Montclair Hawk Watch, which starts up on March 15.
I’ve been pushing the season a little the past couple of days, but Turkey and Black Vultures, Red-tailed and Sharp-shinned Hawks, and a Bald Eagle this morning all bode well for the northbound flight. See you up there!
Antiphony
By · CommentsSouthwest winds are bringing us birds this week. The hidden pond at Mills Reservation rang this morning with the song of a Red-winged Blackbird, the first male actually in residence there this spring.
His possession of that tiny patch of phragmites didn’t go uncontested, though. Another bird sang against him from across the road, the two alternating songs as red-wings are wont to do. “Ok a ree!” “Ok a ree!” And so on.
As I watched, the second bird flew in to the trees above the pond not far from the first. They exchanged a couple of more songs, then Bird #2 switched to the high-pitched chinp note; so did Bird #1. Then one of them changed to the “normal” low-pitched chack; so did the other. Then a couple more songs, and finally Bird #2 decided that possession was in fact nine points of icterid law and flew off to join the European Starlings and Common Grackles on a nearby lawn.
This singing back and forth is well known and expected, but I don’t think I’d ever witnessed a duel that included at least two other vocalizations in addition to the song, all given in strict antiphonal alternation. Who says birds don’t talk to each other?
Birds Bring Out the Best In All of Us
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I remember the days when Canada Geese were not yet a plague on the land, when that mellow honking meant a welcome change of seasons and we’d run outside to watch the great V’s pass overhead. The experience has been cheapened by the introduction of big Canadas across most of the continent, but childhood memories die hard, and I’m still moved even when I know I’m hearing the resident pests of lawns and parks.
Others are moved, too, though sometimes in different directions.
This fellow is said to have set out Sunday morning to take matters into his own hands. The goose is a treacherous adversary, so he armed himself well: two crossbows, three knives, and “several sleeves of crackers.”
Take that, “scourge of the bluegrass”!
