Re: Massachusetts...
Harry Fisher (fish8553@dpnet.net)
Wed, 07 Oct 1998 08:24:25 -0400
BlkVulture@aol.com wrote:
> Hello folks,
>
> Granted this has nothing to do with birding in this area, nor is it
> particularly impressive, but I found it interesting nonetheless.
>
> While in Lynn, Massachusetts (north of Boston, 8 miles, coastal) for my
> grandfather's (wonderful naturalist) funeral, I managed very little birding.
> What I did manage was to go to the beach. Like I alluded, there was nothing
> wholly impressive. What struck me was how much of a difference it is being on
> the coast. I know. This is quite obvious, and perhaps it is because I never
> appreciated the coast while I lived on it as much as I do now, that i find it
> remarkable.
>
> That said, what I did see was interesting enough. Several thousand (maybe 4
> or 5) white-winged scoters floating in the calm waters off of Lynn Beach.
> Mixed in were a few surf and black scoters as well. Peregrine falcons were
> constant. They all came in off the water. which is open ocean, no land east.
> I would pick them up in a scope, perhaps a mile or so out, and they would
> reach shore, and circle for a few minutes, then continue south. One came in
> ripping over the water, no more than three feet from the surface, only to land
> on Nahant Beach, and remain there until after I left. Peregrines are
> seemingly always overhead. Bonaparte's gulls were in in pretty good numbers,
> maybe a thousand overall, and a few hundred sitting on the beach allowing me
> to walk through them expecting to find a black-headed gull. No luck.
> Ringers, herring and black-backeds as well. No terns. Great Cormorants in
> small numbers, DC Cormorants still appearing in large strings flying overhead.
> A constant flight of Canada Geese. Big formations, some with a few hundred
> birds. Sanderlings running along the surf line, and a turnstone here or there.
> In the vegetation at the edges of the beach were a handful of savannah
> sparrows.
>
> If there were loons around, I missed them. I was lucky to get the time I did
> to look for any birds, and thus did not get to some of the more productive
> spots that would have yielded many more species of waterfowl. E.g. Plum
> Island, Rockport, Gloucester, or Winthrop. I also had no opportunity to look
> for passerines, or any other land birds, so I only got the conspicuous ones.
> I did see several red-tails and a few red-shouldered hawks.
>
> On Monday, the 5th of October, as I watched the birds become too dark to see
> as the sun set, I was treated to the most impressive moonrise that I can
> remember. There is a small spit of land that juts into the ocean, forming the
> northern boundary that offers some shelter to Lynn Beach. The harvest moon
> appeared, blazing orange, and slowly climbed into the deep blue, but darkening
> sky. Above it, Jupiter, with four moons visible in both my 10 X bins, and
> quite clear in my 30 X scope. Lynn is a blue collar city, with a population
> of about 75-80,000 people. Yet somehow, with the surf gently lapping Red
> Rock, and a light wind, I was unable to hear any man-made noise that was not
> my own. It was very easy to imagine the same scene centuries earlier. I
> suppose there would have been more birds.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Todd Day
> Jeffersonton, VA
> BlkVulture @AOL.com
Todd:
My sympathies regarding your grandfather. Thanks for a really neat report, and
for sharing your reflections from a beautiful moment so well described I could see
in in my minds eye.
Leslie Fisher
North East MD