Bobwhites & waterbirds

Eileen Schwinn came over this morning to see if we could refind the Bobwhites and almost immediately we heard a loud three-parted "let's all stay together" (or "watch out there's trouble") call and then soft whistling sounds coming from the dense vegetation between the woods and the marsh. Eventually two young birds emerged from the brush, moving in front of us and then disappearing into the woods approximately where the loud commands were coming from. Presumably those stern calls come from the adult bird (mamma one assumes); the other birds were clearly young 'uns all.

Out in the marsh, there was something moving in the Spartina making soft chippering sounds (not unlike what I heard a week or so ago). Whatever it was came right to the edge of the main channel, only a few feet from where we were standing. We were teetering on the very edge of marshability -- one step further and we might have been up to our necks in man-eating (or woman-eating) muck. Eileen caught a glimpse of a streaky back suggesting that it was a marsh bird of a certain size but we couldn't move even an inch forward to investigate this intriguing presence or try to flush it out. All the rails have streaky backs of course; the odds were on Clapper Rail. We waited patiently but, unlike the Bobwhites, it did not emerge.

Other birds of the morning: Yellow-crowned Night-Heron, Green Heron and Spotted Sandpiper on the edge of the pond, Royal Terns on the creek, a small flock of Purple Martins plus Barn and Tree Swallows moving overhead. The Yellow-crowned Night-Heron and the Green are 'upland' herons in the sense that they breed in isolated pairs on this side of the bay (the other egrets and herons breed on islands in the bay or don't breed in these parts at all). The swallows and martins are already headed south, the vanguard of the big flocks yet to come.

An amusing sight: as we were watching from the dock at the edge of the property, a first- or second-summer Great Black-backed Gull landed with a crab on the Aldrich Boat Yard dock just opposite. A second, similar-looking bird came in right after it, calling loudly. The first gull let the second gull land at the edge of the dock and walk towards it and its succulent prize. But as soon as Gull #2 got within beak length of Gull #1, the latter dropped the crab on the dock just long enough to lunge at the new arrival, knocking it off the dock into the water. Gull #1 then retrieved its delicate Catch of the Day morsel to enjoy in peaceful solitude while Gull #2 swam a certain sulky distance away before turning and watching to see if there might be leftovers.

Eric Salzman