rarity

What's the rarest bird you've ever seen?

The question has been on my mind since I read the July 8 Boston Globe article on how birding brings couples together. It's evidently been on other minds since then too, because Steve Grinley's Words on Birds column in the Daily News of Newburyport yesterday tackles the rarity question. Steve picks it up from the same angle that's been bugging me: Is it rare in the whole world? North America? Massachusetts? Merrimack River Plastic Penguins aside, a King Penguin would be alarmingly rare in Massachusetts but common on South Georgia. So what is is rare?

Rarity is relative. I guess that doesn't take away from the question's usefulness as a pickup line. After all, I might prefer someone who answered "rare relative to what?" than "orange-breasted falcon" whereas Peter Alden (see Globe story mentioned above) clearly prefers the orange-breasted falcon answer. I wish the story mentioned where the attractive woman had seen the orange-breasted falcon. If it was at Great Meadows, that would be rare indeed.

So what's the rarest bird I've seen? In the world? I'm still not sure. How many great bustards are left in the world? The European population of the Great Bustard is estimated to be between 35,600 and 38,500. The species is regarded as being in decline, maybe doomed. But that's practically a common bird compared to the piping plover, which numbers very roughly around 3190 in the Atlantic Coast population. I'm not counting the inland PIPL population because I don't have numbers at my finger tips but I'm sure even if you added that in the total would still be in the thousands, not the tens of thousands. I saw the Western Reef Heron when it showed up in Portsmouth, NH a couple years ago and it was only the 3rd North American record. How many Western Reef Herons are in the world? What about all the endemic finch species I saw in the Galapagos? Is one of them my rarest bird?

I could spend all day and most of next week researching the population statistics of every bird I have ever seen and their relative rarity in their own habatits and still not have a really good answer. All I know is how my heart soared out on the Hungarian puszta when I saw my first Great Bustard and how privileged I feel whenever I see a piping plover on the beach at Parker River National Wildlife Refuge during a Saturday plover warden shift.

Volunteer Opportunity at Parker River

A Volunteer Opportunity is available at
Parker River National Wildlife Refuge!




Position Description:

Parker River NWR offers free interpretive programs to the public (primarily but not limited to children ages 3-15) covering a large variety of subjects relative to the local ecosystem and its inhabitants. We also offer several environmental education programs to schools and other organizations in the area at no charge. We are currently trying to expand our program and want your help. As a volunteer you would begin by aiding our rangers in leading these groups and then progress on to running some independently! This is a great opportunity to become more knowledgeable about your local ecosystem and help the community. All training is free and extensive. Those volunteers with more experience will be encouraged to help develop curriculum for and run future programs. No commitment is too small so please help us develop and grow this community-enriching program!

Preferred Volunteer Qualities:

- Experience working with people.
- Enthusiasm and a passion for the environment
- Good communication skills
- Flexibility
- Any knowledge of natural science or our local ecosystems a plus

To express interest or request more information, please contact:

Mary Carpenter
Park Ranger – Visitor Services Specialist
Parker River National Wildlife Refuge
978-465-5753
Or e-mail us at FW5RW_PRNWR@fws.gov
Please put “Volunteer Opportunity” in the subject line.

bird baths in the road and other anomalies

Coffee of the Day: Kenya AA. Nice deep flavor.
Bird of the Day: unidentified species of plastic penguin.
Invisi-bird Status: no update posted in the box since 6/18. Number actually seen by me: zero.
Strange wrack item of the day: tie between television and roses.

Everything is topsy turvy today: It's Friday and I'm South. Penguins are floating down the Merrimack on an ice floe and there's a television in the wrack. Strange daze indeed.



The south boundary is just north of Lot 7 right now. Despite the outdated note in the lockbox saying that Lot 7 was not open and plover wardens should hoof it from the Sandy Point lot, I ascertained that Lot 7 was indeed open and the reserved plover warden spot was there. And it's not raining, though when I arrived it was very very dark. It lightened later when the sun peeked through the clouds looking blindingly white and strange. After awhile we even got blue sky.

The first thing I saw when I got to the beach was a big old Magnavox television. I walked over and looked at it, shaking my head in bewilderment. Many people who arrived via the Lot 7 boardwalk had the same reaction. I can barely imagine where that washed up from.

There's not much bird activity and not much human activity for most of the morning. Human activity picked up as the tide was going out and I found myself wearing a trail to the water line to intercept people who didn't see the sign. I kept moving my chair closer to the water line but that left a gap behind me, so I just kept walking back and forth. Most of the visitors were nice and cooperative. One family even came over to ask what piping plovers look like, where they nest, etc., so I got to do my schtick. One couple in full hiking gear came barreling towards the boundary and were very surprised when I told them the beach was closed for nesting. They were quite disappointed. I'd been pointing other people looking for a long walk toward Sandy Point and told them about the trail that goes up over Bar Head but these two were not interested. They wanted to know where else they could hike on the beach and all I could suggest was to hike north from Lot 1 -- not exactly a wilderness hike.

Bird activity stayed pretty quiet on the beach. There were a few eastern kingbirds catching flies in the wrack and a couple of Bonaparte's gulls. That was about it except for some very distant sanderlings and cormorants.

Shortly before the end of my shift, I was so frustrated with the lack of rope and signage that I commenced building a Steve Mangione style stick fence. As I walked along the wrack line looking for suitable sticks I started to find white roses in the wrack. I started to wonder if they had been part of some kind of memorial service for the missing boater from the latest north jetty tragedy. I don't know. I suppose there could be lots of reasons people throw cultivated white roses into the sea or the Merrimack. As I'm writing this, I just checked the Daily News again and discovered that there's an update on the story now that the boat has been recovered.




Enough digression about the jetty of death. Back to birds.

The most interesting bird activity of the day was all on the drive back to the Gatehouse from Lot 7. The dirt road is full of puddles. Each puddle seemed to be functioning as a bird bath, with a different species in each puddle: gray catbird, eastern kingbird, brown thrasher, common grackle, American goldfinch, American robin, several species of sparrow. All in the middle of the road. Oh, and suicidal mourning doves too -- although they didn't seem to be bathing, just hanging out in the middle of the road. It was quite a show. Needless to say it took me a long time to get back to the Gatehouse.

On the way back into town, I stopped to photograph the penguins who have been hanging out on an ice floe in the Merrimack. Earlier this morning, the ice floe was visible and they were not so deep in the grass. They kind of remind me of when I visited the Falklands and saw penguins marching across a grassy slope down to the water. Except of course, these rare Merrimack River penguins are made of plastic.

science journalism 101

This story from the Scituate section of boston.com shows how little people know about the piping plover -- even the people who are supposed to be protecting them. In general, piping plovers nest on the beach, not in the dunes. The preferred nesting habitat is between the wrack line and foredune near dunes that are sparsely vegetated. Putting symbolic fencing around the dunes without knowing where the nests are does little good. The places that have successfully hatched nests and fledged young put up the symbolic fencing around the nests, not just marking off some area where they hope they will nest.

This situation could be avoided: "If someone accidentally steps on a nest that is not between the makeshift fence and the dune because the birds have laid eggs outside the boundary, Jones shrugs and says so be it, although he slowly walks the beach trying to avoid nests and eggs."
If he's out there looking for nests, why can't he put the string fences around the nests?

Reporting like this perpetuates the dangerous (to the plovers) myth that piping plovers nest, live, and feed on the dunes. This leads to sad situations like what happened on Wells beach in Maine last year. A well-meaning rescuer placed a piping plover chick in the dune grass where it was unable to get food. It died.

I wish the Boston Globe could be a little more responsible in science journalism and get their facts straight. I wish someone could explain plover protection to the Scituate conservation people. How 'bout Mass Audubon lending a hand?

Sorry if I'm ranting. I get upset over stuff like this too easily.

some fog in coastal areas

Coffee of the Day: Kenya AA. Very rich and smooth.
Bird of the Day: piping plover.
Invisi-bird Status: No update since last week. Number actually seen by me: 1. But I think I heard 2 (on the other hand, maybe bird #1 was ventriloquizing).

It was bright and sunny at my house this morning. There wasn't a cloud in the sky. I was puzzled by the forecast on the radio predicting pop-up showers and some fog in coastal areas. It was not until I got to Amesbury that I saw clouds. By Salisbury (the next town) I could see I was headed into a dark gray wall of clouds. As I crossed the Merrimack River on the drawbridge into Newburyport, I could barely see the boats in the harbor. On the beach I could barely see the fishermen at the water line from the boardwalk. Yup, we're having some fog.

Three willets flew over calling pill-will-willet as a I got out of the car. As I walked down the boardwalk to the beach I heard willets, purple martins, song sparrows, yellow warblers, least terns, wait a sec, they're all coming from the same bush. Least terns definitely do not hang out in bushes. Sure enough, there's a brown thrasher doing a marathon impression of just about every bird on the refuge.

The first bird I saw on the beach was one of my invisi-birds. A piping plover flew over my head and landed at the water line where it did its best impression of an insane windup toy turning in every direction. Whatever it was eating, there was plenty of it all over the place. I heard another peep-lo call that sounded like it was coming from just above the wrack line but I never saw the other bird. Eventually, my plover companion flew back to somewhere between the wrack line and the dune and quieted down. The wind had picked up something fierce and the fog was closing in.

There were a fair number of visitors despite the fog. The most common question was "when is the sun going to come out". Man, I wish I knew. The fog played tag with us -- starting to recede, then closing in with a vengeance. One guy said the last time he'd been on the island was 50 years ago. It's a lot different now. Then again, it's different from last week. The beach changes every day. Somebody asked about the whale remains that were uncovered a couple of summers ago. "Under the sand beneath your feet," I replied. Then I got to give my barrier island circulation of sand speech in addition to my piping plover life cycle speech.

One guy came striding down the beach from the north showing no signs of turning back at the boundary. I intercepted him and tried the "are there any questions I can answer for you?" approach first. No response. I switched to the "The beach is closed from here south." He stares thru me and asks "Why?". "Nesting piping plovers. They're endangered and they nest right on the beach." Fortunately, he headed back north. Strange encounter.

The radio functioned just fine for the whole shift and I handed it off to my relief. It's nice when the radios are fully charged.