fungi of north andover

Carter Fields

Next door neighbor's walk

Ward Reservation

a rainy day at the heron rookery

I took a walk along the Carter Fields Trail, one of the Essex County Greenbelt trails, this morning.  Everywhere there were signs of spring and remnants of winter. The transition seems so gradual this year.

North Andover Heron Rookery

The great blue heron rookery on the North Andover/Boxford line was quietly busy with herons attending to their nests. I watched for a long time as light rain fell, redwinged blackbirds called, spring peepers and American toads sang. Once the leaf blowers and other landscaping equipment in the nearby residential neighborhood stopped, it was so quiet that I heard a chipping sparrow walking around on the leaf litter before I saw it. The quork of a raven sounded in the distance and some mallards quacked overhead.

Ghost of Winter

The herons were pretty quiet until one of them landed on a nest and starting making the barking call.  A flock of redwinged blackbirds mobbed a heron as it was doing that slow stately walk they do when fishing. I've seen redwinged blackbirds mob great blues before, but usually when the heron is in flight. These guys gathered on a snag in the wetland and all went after the heron at once. It all took place just above the water.

Great Blue Herons on the Nests

Common grackles chased each other and chased the redwinged blackbirds. A black-capped chickadee flipped itself over on a branch. American robins descended in a group and started singing up a storm.

Common Grackles

The rain felt soft and not terribly cold. Maybe I was just in the mood for it.  Along the trail, I could hear running water, more chickadees, more redwinged blackbirds, wood frogs, and rain hitting the forest floor.

Nests

Every once in awhile the rain let up and the forest got this moist pink glow from the tree buds.

Sign of Spring -- Skunk Cabbage

As I headed back home,  an eastern bluebird flew across the road in front of me. A gray and rainy day can also be beautiful.

white-faced ibis

Looked at Facebook when I woke up yesterday morning and saw a photo of an ibis posted by Parker River National Wildlife Refuge. I didn't click on it to see it full size. The caption didn't say anything about species, so I assumed it was just a normal glossy ibis. Besides that, I was already on a mission for the day, having received email from Istvan that he hadn't received the Mac G4 power supply I sent him.  The numbers I was typing in to the postal service web site kept getting errors, so I went to the post office and got info from them on how to trace international packages. Finally tracked it down -- it's still in Hungarian customs. So much for the cloud solving everything. Sometimes you need to get a piece of hardware from point A to point B through customs. Anyway, by the time I was done with the power supply mission, it was mid-afternoon. For some reason I was looking at Facebook again and clicked on the ibis picture. At full size, I could see that it was a white-faced ibis.

I threw camera and binoculars in the car and drove up to the refuge. Sure enough, there was a white-faced ibis at the north end of the salt pannes.  It had attracted a fair number of birders. I watched it for a long time. It was quite active, catching fish and what looked like a crab. It really seemed to be eating up a storm. I kept hoping it would come closer to the road so I could get a decent picture -- the blogosphere has high standards for photos nowadays.


White-faced Ibis

 The first round of birders left.  A couple of women from New Hampshire arrived. They too were wishing it would come closer for a photo op.  They asked if I'd seen a white-faced ibis on the refuge before. Yup, I'd seen one in 2007 with a flock of glossy ibis.

I was wishing for a really long lens or a digiscoping setup because there were multiple photo opportunities in the vicinity of the ibis. A greater and a lesser yellowlegs were foraging near each other for convenient size comparison. A killdeer was posing with its reflection  in the water. (If you view the ibis photo full size you might be able to pick out the killdeer.)

Wild Turkey

Continuing south, I encountered  redwinged blackbirds, double crested cormorants, and tons of American robins. At the Pines Trail, I saw my first two northern flickers of the season. They were foraging on the ground surrounded by American robins, common grackles, American robins, and a northern mockingbird. I looked up towards the osprey platform and spotted a lone wild turkey on the dike.

Eastern Coyote

I parked at lot 5 and walked the boardwalk to platform that overlooks the beach. On the way, I spotted an eastern coyote. Said coyote spotted me too. I could see it watching me.

From the platform, I saw a big flock of funky looking long-tailed ducks diving in the surf and a line of 50 migrating double crested cormorants. I stared out over the Atlantic Ocean until I was thoroughly cold and windburned. On the way back to the gate, I saw a great egret and some more yellowlegs.

Great Egret

Yellowlegs