July 9, 2011 Mount Auburn Cemetery

July 9, 2011 Mount Auburn Cemetery

Nice day out, mild, late afternoon

So I headed back to Mount Auburn today to see if I could find the Black-Crowned Night Heron again. The cormorant was still there, however I did not get to see the heron again.  I did get to see something else cool though.  While by Willow Pond someone asked me if I had seen the Phoebe nest, which I had not. He directed me to where it was, at the twin ponds with the bridge over them, by the birdfeeder.  So I headed out there to see what was shaking, and easily found the nest.  Now let me say that this was NOT easy to photograph at all.  I was on a steep bank that goes down into the pond, photographing at an angle, trying to hold myself up, and get a decent shot.  Most of my early shots were not usable as they’re too dark.  I ended up using a flash, which did not seem to bother the parents in the least.  In fact even as I was only about 10’ away they still continued their flights in and out to feed their young hatchlings.

The nest itself was stuck to a stone wall underneath the bridge that covers the narrow span of water that joins to the two ponds.   It appeared to be constructed mainly of moss and dirt.  Nearby there were several stalactites that hung down from the underside of the bridge and were dripping moisture into the channel below.  There were four hatchlings in there when I observed them, and the parents were coming at intervals of about 120 seconds or so.  The babies were largely quiet except for one who frequently stuck his head out when not napping.  I could only get a good look at two of them that were the closest to me, however the all appeared healthy at the time.  The most vocal and active hatchling was getting most of the food, as is typical in these situations. 

                The day was quite nice even if I did not get to see the Heron again.  This is my first time observing a Phoebe nest, and was pretty cool to get to watch this part of their life cycle.  I have had a great stretch the last couple months with birdwatching and this just continues it.  I also have a video of the nest, here. 

               I ended up watching them for about an hour before packing up and heading home.  Here are a few more shots of the Phoebes:

 

Also since every trip I seem to be coming across a multitude of turtles, here’s one for the road:

July 8, 2011 Mount Auburn Cemetery

Pleasant weather, warm, no wind, mostly sunny

This ended up being an amazing day.  I went to Halcyon lake to begin with just to see if there was anything around.  I actually chased around a Northern Flicker for quite some time and got some great shots of it, as well as a couple of rabbits.  Apparently Wendy thinks one of the rabbits is a hare, and the other is a rabbit.  I’m not sure what that means but she seems convinced.  The shots of the rabbit/hares came out pretty good, I’ll post some of them here.  Actually I’ll post them on their own page to compare.

OK, so the picture above is a rabbit I think she said, and the one below is apparently a hare…at least according to Wendy.  Something about the ears.   I think she’s out of her mind, but I digress.

    Alright, so after fumbling about with members of the Lepus family I decided to search for the Great-Blue Heron around Willow Pond.   So I get there and I’m by the willow with its branches dipping into the water.  As I walk to the right of this around the pond by where the workers put in a log for turtles to sun themselves on I noticed…a Great-Crested Cormorant!  I think I had seen one here a couple years ago, but this was pretty surprising.  I was shocked.   Here it is cruising along. 

 I’m including this picture on the left here only because it looks absolutely horrified.   For the record I think it might have been; when it saw me come within twenty feet of it, it scooted off into the pond and continued circling near the middle of it without getting anywhere near shore until I left.  I don’t know what brings cormorants this far in land.  I guess in the grand scheme of things we’re only about 5 or 6 miles from the ocean so it’s not that far.  Still I don’t think of Cormorants as venturing very far from the shore lines that they inhabit.  So after watching this bird for a while I decided that it was time to move along and began to walk away.  As I did I glanced back towards the log that the cormorant had been sitting on and ended up doing a double-take.  There was some sort of baby heron or bittern sitting on the log.  I did not have any of my guides with me at the time, ironically this was the first time I had neglected to bring them with me all year.  So I settled on it being a least bittern, but that was a complete guess.   I got some of the best pictures of it that I have ever gotten with this camera; here’s a couple of them, I’m going to take up the next block of space here with just pictures of this bird, it’s absolutely beautiful. 

Sad Heron is Sad

I wanted to include one of the habitat it was hanging out in as well, so there you go.  I want to start including more pictures that include the context of where the birds were as opposed to just shots of the bird itself.  So it turns out this is NOT a Bittern  at all. It’s juvenile Black-Crowned Night Heron.  These are not seen at Mount Auburn very often, but if there’s a juvenile here there must be a couple parents around somewhere.  Of course I had already written on the bird-sighting chalk-board that I had seen a Bittern, so I had to go back and make a correction the next day.  In the meantime though I was taking pictures like crazy when the Great-Blue Heron landed nearby and started fishing.  I got some GREAT pictures of it eating a frog, and then flying off to some of the trees and wandering around in the woods.  You don’t see Heron’s wandering around in the shade of trees on dry land very often.  Of course my memory card craps out and I lose all the pictures of the Great-Blue, but fortunately all the Night-Crowned pictures were safe.

Eventually I decided to leave the water fowl alone and continue walking around the pond, getting a shot of some ducks mucking around in some mud, a clear shot of a chipmunk (harder than it sounds), and a robin stereotypically eating a worm.  As I finished my lap around the pond I noticed a frog in the muck and got a good shot of that one too.  It was a pretty big frog, I think it might’ve been a bullfrog.   Also present, some bizarre looking dragon flies that looked like someone had spray painted white.

Muck Duck

All in all it was a great day, got to see a bunch of diverse life, and my first ever black-crowned night heron!  

June 25, 2011 Mount Auburn Cemetery

Was at Mount Auburn with Wendy on a cloudy overcast day to see what was around; I figured Warblers would be out of the question but who knows what else would be there.   We stayed around the Dell and by where the owls had been nesting; they have since fledged.   I did finally manage to get a few decent pictures of a Blue Jay; somehow I had gone the entire time of having this SLR and not getting a single good picture of one, so that’s always good.  It didn’t seem to mind our presence too much.   As we skulked around the dell we got a chance to see a turtle swimming around in the scum.  It’s always amazing how many frogs I heard splashing into the water as I approach as well.  I rarely see more than one or two, but judging by the racket they make when jumping back into the pond there must be close to 25 at any time on whatever side of the dell I happen to be on.  I guess that’s how the heron stays well fed. 

                Wendy noticed something that she seems to think is wild strawberries.  I have no idea what they are, but if she wanted to eat one I wouldn’t stop her. She passed.  I’ll put a picture in here, maybe someone can identify them.  Not sure what they are honestly, they look like small round strawberries.  I’ll see if they last the summer and ripen up more, then maybe I’ll try one.   It looks kind of like one of those red physio balls people use at the gym, but with spikes on it.  Actually the more I look at the picture that looks nothing like a strawberry. I’m definitely not eating one of them at any point.  I’ll let Wendy try one and see if she gets violently ill.  If not I guess I’ll have a bite of one.  

                We were also tailed at length by a male cardinal who was singing quite boisterously.  Cardinals will return to singing between broods of young, before they lay their next clutch of eggs.  I have seen some cardinal families trawling around the Cemetery the last time I came up here, I’m sure there are others that I have not seen yet as well.   This particular male was quite exuberant; I got some ‘action-shots’ of him flying away from us that came out kind of well.  I cannot wait until they start filling up the feeder again this autumn by the lakes; I was just learning how to use the camera this past winter; this time around I’ll be able to get some great midflight shots I hope.  Here’s the Cardinal: 

While I’m at it, here’s a picture of the turtle we saw in the dell as well.  You can see the scum that has started to coat the surface of the pond.  I’m sure someone out there is interested in turtles and can tell the difference between the species.  I could probably look up what kind this one is as well; I’ll take a guess and say painted until I look later.   Turtles are by far the easiest thing I photograph outside of plants; not too many lightning fast movements from these guys.  

Towards the end of the trip I got a ton of great pictures of a catbird that was hanging around the dell as well; perched on the Dell Path sign.  These are probably some of the clearest shots I’ve gotten with the camera.  I won’t be able to post them full-size in this document, but when I post them to the blog (birdinginboston.blogspot.com) clicking on them will bring up a full-sized picture.

Front View

 

Rounding out the trip we went around to where the owls used to have a nest; they’re gone but I wanted to see the area since Orioles frequent it, and Towhees on occasion.  As we stood there the sun came out and I noticed some birds flitting around that looked odd.  I scoped them with my binoculars and realized they were Purple Finches.   They used to be so common when I was a small child, but over the years they have come to Massachusetts with increasing irregularity.  Apparently at this point they’re considered an irruptive species.  When things up in Canada get particularly hairy for a winter there are species that will move further south and ‘erupt’ into more southern areas than you would usually see them.  What is interesting though is that this is the middle of June, so clearly these ones live here.  I only managed to get one picture before my camera battery died, but Wendy got several apparently.  Here’s my one Purple Finch photo; I had seen one last autumn and I recall saying that I was worried the winter was going to be hellacious.  Then we had the worst January ever for snow.  Fortunately it’s a bit warm for that now. So here’s the 2^nd Purple Finch I’ve seen in the last decade.  Wish I had gotten a better picture, but like I said I only had one before the camera died.

edit: On further inspection, this is a house finch.  Oh well, still a nice bird