Belle Isle Bird List July 1 2007

2007.07.01
Belle Isle Marsh
5:45 - 11:45 am dst
Soheil Zendeh
High tide: 12:50 pm dst
Sky: sunny, puffy clouds
Temperature: 65° - 75°F (16° - 21°C)
Wind: calm early, then nw 5 - 10 mph (8 - 16 kph)
Visibility: excellent
Tide: low - high

Notes;

There were at least three highlights today:

GASTRONOMICAL: I found the mulberries from the tree at the approach to the Sireen Reinstein Boardwalk to be in a heavenly state of ripeness. I spent a long time eating them, sharing the bounty with robins and who knows what else.

This is the peak of the mulberry season. Every year I try to find trees that are ripe at the right time (that is, when I'm there) and whose fruit is reachable. Along the Minuteman Bikepath, which I use to commute to work,
there are at least 10 mulberries, with their guts spilled out on the pavement below. But they are mostly too high for me to reach.

Last year, at the beginning of the bikepath I found a white mulberry with its fruit hanging low. White mulberries are what I'm used to from Iran, where they grow large and juicy. At this tree I ran into a Ukrainian woman
who was also enjoying the fruit. We ended up swapping old-country stories about gorging on mulberries and other fruit.

That was June and early July of last year. By the end of July that white mulberry had been cut down! Who knows why. The folks who maintain the bikepath know nothing about mulberries, I suppose. The saddest part for me
was that white mulberries are so very rare in these parts. The red ones, though somewhat tarter and more flavorful, never seem to achieve the juiciness of the white. My assumption is that the leaves of either variety
is good for feeding your silkworms.

Anyway, this is the week to go fatten up on mulberries at that tree at Belle Isle Park. I attach a photo of a handful pf the fruit.

ORNITHOLOGICAL: As some of you know, MassAudubon has kicked off a 4 year Breeding Bird Atlas project, this being year one. Massachusetts is divided into approx. 1000 quads, with the aim of finding as many nesting birds as
possible within each quad. My assigned quads are Lynn3, which includes most of Belle Isle and off to the east into Winthrop, as well as Boston12, which includes Chelsea and Everett. The line between the two quads cuts across Suffolk Downs. Rosie's Pond and the Oasis are both in Boston 12.

I have been running over to Belle Isle and looking for evidence of nesting birds every chance I get since mid-May. Right now many baby birds are out and about, getting fed by adults, so that's an easy way to establish nesting. I remembered that last year my wife and I went over to Belle Isle on a rainy Sunday afternoon in July and found a young Virginia Rail running around the puddles in the Park paths. And the year before Jason Sidel (I think) had reported 2 young VIRA in the muskrat pool (on the right as you walk out toward the Boardwalk) at dusk one day late in June. So this year I decided I had better check the muskrat pool early or late in the day. Today, I got there at 5:45 am, and immediately picked out a juvenile VIRA across the pond at the edge of the reeds. After it disappeared, another danced across the mudflat briefly.

That was certainly the ornithological highlight of the day, but at Belle Isle I also found Common Grackles feeding young; young Redwings in bunches; Baltimore Oriole young waiting around for their parents to feed them, giving
the Greater Yellowlegs call from a tree; and later, a Yellow Warbler carrying food. The Ospreys, alas, still seem to have no young.

A few miles northwest of Belle Isle is Rumney Marsh and the big capped off landfill which now goes by the fancy name Bear Creek Wildlife Sanctuary. As it turns out, it has been engineered really well and attracts large numbers
of nesting grassland birds, so scarce elsewhere in New England. I met Linda Pivacek, Geoff Wood, Karsten Hartel and Davis Noble at 7 am and we did a grassland species breeding bird survey there. I only stayed a couple of
hours, in order to get back to covering Lynn3 (Bear Creek is in Lynn2). In that time, walking about the ankle-to-knee deep grass, we got to see dozens of nesting Savannah Sparrows, 2 dozen Bobolinks, an American Kestrel pair, and several Ospreys, one of which have possession of the Oak Island Osprey platform. They have one half-grown young in the nest. The remaining Ospreys need a place to nest.

ODONTOLOGICAL: I don't have a lot to say about the dragonflies. They're just getting going for the summer. The one I photographed allowed me to stand 18 inches away and take dozens of photos. Its wingspan is at least 4 inches. Linda Pivacek identified it for me as 12-spotted Skimmer.

The birds (29 species):

American Black Duck    4
Mallard    1
Ring-necked Pheasant    2
Snowy Egret    1
Osprey    2 (on nest)
Virginia Rail    2 (young)
Killdeer    1
Herring Gull    3
Common Tern    2 (territorial display--attacked me!)
Rock Pigeon    2
Mourning Dove    15
Chimney Swift    2
Willow Flycatcher    1
Warbling Vireo    1
Tree Swallow    4
Barn Swallow    4
American Robin    30
Gray Catbird    3
Northern Mockingbird    1
European Starling    30
Cedar Waxwing    2 (territorial chasing)
Yellow Warbler    1 (carrying food)
Common Yellowthroat    1
Song Sparrow    2
Red-winged Blackbird    60 (many young)
Common Grackle    15 (feeding young)
Brown-headed Cowbird    1 (very young bird, flew well)
Baltimore Oriole    6 (many young)
American Goldfinch    2

Soheil Zendeh
42 Baker Ave
Lexington, MA 02421
home phone 781-863-2392
cell phone 617-763-5637
office phone 617-528-4013