The Kellogg Columns

There is no better way to introduce myself than to tell the story of how Helen Bates has been a role model and mentor for me since I was a young man. It was thirty years ago this summer that I was first drawn "into the field" by the small feathered creatures we know as songbirds. It was not long before the column by the "bird lady" in the Sunday Republican was a must read. Later that winter I appeared in a Helen Bates piece as "a young man in Northampton" who had found a Phoebe wintering in a gravel pit. By the next September I had moved back to my home town of Southwick and phone conversations with Helen became regular.

Birding is a solitary passion for quite a number of people, but Helen is not one of them. She drew me into a community of people who shared an interest that for some was casual and others consuming. Helen was in charge of Field Trips and Records for the Allen Bird Club of Springfield and led many of the field trips herself, but was always looking for "new blood" for the club. She took this intense, bearded, six-footer under her wing and prepared me to fledge into birding maturity. She began sharing her tasks with me and for ten years we worked together, she recorded sightings and I organized field trips. During much of that time she was also the "Western Voice of Audubon" until she also passed that task to me. Our interests were always the same, although our approach occasionally differed.

Of course her prize pupil learned a lot from her in the field. Helen may have looked like a sweet gentle bird watcher, but she was a tough and determined trooper who did not flinch from rain, snow, and a myriad of other obstacles. She wanted to "find the birds," and she was daunted only by her natural sense of courtesy and concern for both the birds and for other people.

But Helen was more than a teacher and leader. She served as an inspiration for a whole generation of those who admire the "birds of the air." Inspire is the right word, because it literally means "giving the breath of life," which is what we receive when we encounter a bird, whether it is a rare one found afield, or a common yard bird glimpsed through the kitchen window. There is a jolt of joy in our minds as we see the color, hear the song, or marvel at the energy of birds. This is the final thing Helen and I share, a sense that the natural world is a spiritual creation given to us to enjoy, care for, and recreate.

The recreation is the transforming of the experience of nature into words. Perhaps it is only the few words of excitement we say to a companion at the moment. More profoundly it is when we share the story with those who have missed the moment, or when we express concern if that experience is threatened, or even as the feeling of happiness is expressed in an unrelated act or word of kindness. Then the wonder and the essential value of wild nature is expanded to reach to the farthest corners of everyday living. Such riches overflow from Helen's voice and pen, and I can only hope to pass on as much as I have received from her.

Recently I was on Mt. Tekoa with friends, and we were enjoying the spectacle of migrating hawks. There were not many, so our greatest thrill was a Red-tailed Hawk, which was simply soaring around, waiting for colder weather to start its migration. For some reason it took an interest in us and swung past over our rocky lookout only thirty feet over our heads. Then it circled back for a second and even a third pass. It was a pale individual, but with heavy, darks streaks on the middle of its underbelly, striking in its beauty. The shadow of its silent passage fell on us and bound our little group together in a moment of harmony that lasted through the long, sultry afternoon. Three times was a charm. For me and many others, Helen Bates will always be a charm.

Most wild birds are very elusive, but some are especially so, and not always for the same reason. I have been leading walks at the Stebbins Refuge in Longmeadow during September. As often happens, many of the birds we search for elude us. The northern forest songbirds that come from the tropics to breed start returning back in late summer and stop in New England to rest and feed, working through the trees in mixed flocks. If you happen upon one of these flocks you think that the birds are everywhere and can enjoy the sight of a pack of busy warblers as they glean small worms from the leaves. But sometimes you have to wander long before you hit such a "wave," and then the woods seem empty.

The night before the 13th the wind had switched from strong southwest to light north, which usually prompts a night-time southward migration. That morning we hit our only wave of the month, more than fifty individual birds all in one group of trees. There were nearly half as many watchers that morning, and we were able to pick and choose which bit of movement we tracked down. The more skilled observers called out the names of the birds and where they were in the trees. Others either tried to find those identified or found another bird that was in the open and perhaps unknown. Blackpoll, magnolia, and black-throated green warbler and red-eyed vireo were most often called out. In the fall many of these birds have lost their bright breeding plumage and are dressed in different, drabber garb.

A much smaller group of watchers walked the same trail in vain three days later, but three of us persisted after the walk officially ended. My two companions were enticed by my intent to find a rare Connecticut warbler in the hedgerows along the large open field. Two Song Sparrows showed briefly, and then one of my companions said, "Oh, there's one with lots of yellow." Most small warblers have some yellow on them, so this was the color we look for. She tried to explain where the bird was as she peered through her binoculars, trying to get a good look as it flitted in and out of the leaves, but it disappeared before she could. It probably was a common yellowthroat (which really is plentiful), but it might have been the rare warbler we coveted. There is a sequel to this story, which I will tell in another column.

Afterward we drove down Pondside Road and stopped at various spots to view the ducks in the marshes. One bird in particular we wanted to see, the rare moorhen (once known as a gallinule) that had been present in one of the ponds for a couple of weeks. We stopped and peered through the hedgerow separating the road from the ponds. I had stopped here to look about six times in the last two weeks, seeing the bird only twice. My companions had not seen the bird at all.

The moorhen is more common to our west, north and south, but in Massachusetts only a few usually try to breed somewhere in Berkshire County each year. This individual probably wandered into our valley after hatching in the northern marshes of New York or Vermont. It hung around an old wood duck box, sometimes swimming nearby in the open, sometimes lurking half hidden at the edge of the emergent buttonbush, and sometimes presumably well-hidden deep in those bushes. Once it was standing on the box, showing off its enormous toes, which it uses to seemingly "walk on water." I even saw it actually fly down from that perch, the only time I have ever seen that rare event.

This time the bird was hidden and I had to leave. I admonished the others to be patient, for it may come out at any time. Later they told me my car was still visible down the road when the bird did indeed appear from the bushes. Patience is often the best strategy, a tough lesson for someone with a restless nature. These creatures can be elusive in many different ways.

Some birds are more "of the air" than others. Those falcons I mentioned last week are almost always seen in the air. Some, like that mystery warbler from the week before, are usually skulking in the brush. By the way, I returned to the refuge in Longmeadow a few days after we missed that warbler and spent two hours scouring the weedy edges. Finally I went down a narrow trail heavy with small saplings, brush, and tall weeds. Suddenly a bird popped up and perched low in a bush in plain sight, not ten feet away. It had a gray throat and head, complete white eye ring and a fully yellowed belly. It was a Connecticut warbler. How can you be so lucky? A friend of mine finds one every fall at Arcadia Sanctuary in Northampton, including one a week earlier, and I have been envious for years when my searches were in vain.

The best skulkers are the family of birds known as sparrows. It is an interesting family even if they all seem to look alike. Some people call them LBJs, or "little brown jobs." You will be reading about them a lot in this column during the coming weeks because they all share one quality that makes them very interesting to those who feed birds. They eat seeds.

Without that ability, come October they would be gone far to the south with all the other insect eating birds. How then would we be able to entice them to our back yard to brighten up a cold day? Each autumn the back yard can become a source of the exotic, as sparrows from the far north arrive to sample the fare we offer.

There are thirteen species of native sparrows that are present in our region sometime during the year, ten of which will visit feeders in the fall. Their favorite food is white millet, which is fairly inexpensive and can be bought in fifty-pound bulk. Spread up to a quart evenly on each ground feeding area every day. Never put this or the standard mixed seed in any kind of enclosed feeder unless it has a large tray where the birds may alight and stand easily. Sparrows feed upright on the ground where they have a stable footing. They rarely cling to perches as they feed. The small sunflower chips are also good to spread lightly on the ground each day. Then the cardinals, close relatives of the sparrows, will also come in to eat. Sunflower or thistle are the only seeds that should go in an enclosed feeder where the birds must cling.

In the summer I only spread the chips, but come fall the millet is added, and look what comes to my yard. This week up to eleven white-crowned sparrows were picking up seeds as fast as they could, now chasing each other around, now spooked into the nearby bush. Also sneaking in for a bite were chipping sparrows, song sparrows, and a few white-throated sparrows. For cover near the feeding area you need a deciduous bush that grows thick and dense or perhaps an untidy brush pile. You may not get these species if you live in the city or a well-groomed suburb. Perfect lawns and well weeded flower beds are as sterile and unwelcoming to these wild sparrows as city pavement is. Letting some grass grow long and go to seed in late summer, or allowing weeds to flourish along the edges are more likely to attract sparrows to your yard. Those who want to see rare sparrows seek out croplands or large gardens still overgrown with weeds before the owner plows them under.

The white-crowned sparrows come from far away, breeding in the northern continent from Quebec to Alaska. In fall a strong cold front with northwest winds will bring many of them to New England, but almost all will continue farther south as winter approaches. They are much more abundant in the Mississippi Valley and the far west. The adults are the most handsome of sparrows, their underparts a glossy, smooth gray topped by contrasting black and white crown stripes. Those stripes are dull reddish-brown and gray on the immature, and the overall color is browner.

Either version is a treat to watch in the yard on an early October day, bright or gray.

What was that? Yes, there it is again, outside my window at four in the morning, "calling my name." When you lie awake in the middle of the night, thinking troubled thoughts, it is comforting to imagine that a singing owl is calling your name. Birds don't only sing in the spring. They have to practice sometime. It takes more than raw talent to attract and bond with a mate and warn off competitors. For some species there is a more immediate purpose as well, establishing a winter-feeding boundary with a neighbor. Food can be hard to find in the cold and snow.

On these warm days in fall the Mockingbird is warming up his chords in the back yard. He definitely needs to hoard a food supply of berry bushes to last him until spring, when he regales us with a full-fledged song. The sparrows that come to the feeder often sing their "whisper song" early on frosty mornings, a soft serenade at first light. It is a gentle version of the full spring song, as if the bird is reminiscing about lost love.

On this night the owl sends forth a whistling tremolo in two versions, one low and even pitched, the other higher and descending. For some reason this song gave the bird the name screech owl, but it is more like a forlorn wail than a screech. The sweet notes are hardly enough to strike terror in the heart. There is an owl that screeches, the barn owl, but you have to go south and west to find that species.

The screech owl is small and either gray or red, with tufts on its head which are not the ears. They like to eat mice, but they will take a small bird whose night roost is not well hidden. This accounts for the turnabout when a flock of songbirds scolds and bothers a roosting owl during the daylight. If you can imitate the owl song, small birds will often come close to check you out.

It was the second time this owl was heard calling recently. The first time was during the full moon a couple of weeks earlier. Then it was loud and persistent, prompting me to rise and step outside. There the bright moon was hovering well above the ridge and the hayfield behind the house was shimmering with soft light. The song still filled the air - but wait a minute - what was that? I listened carefully. Ah, there it was again, from the woods beyond the field the deep and truly menacing boom of the great horned owl. Now there was a bird to strike fear, a big bird, voracious and skilled at hunting. A bird that could capture and devour the screech owl.

He was not alone. There was the higher pitched call of his lady friend, starting her notes before the male finished his, and trailing off after he was done. It was a bonding duet, anticipating the full mating process that starts in December. This is a predator that knows how to find food in winter and so can begin to nest then. They don't build their own nest, however. Usually they borrow or steal a hawk nest. Sometimes they borrow the nest of a great blue heron, where they can be found sitting in February above an open marsh with eggs or small young. By the time the ice melts and the heron returns from the south, the owl has enticed its full sized young to the deeper woods.

The screech owl nests in a tree cavity, or a box that is erected at the edge of a field. Last winter one sunned himself for several days in the entrance to the nesting box near the house. Your best chance of seeing this adorable owl in daylight is to find one like this in a southward facing tree hole. You have to look carefully, because the gray feathers are great camouflage against the bark, the red feathers less so. Those sleepy yellow eyes may give the bird away if you get close enough to rouse it and receive its gaze.

Listen and look and you may find - the owl calling your name or staring you down.

"Where are they, show me?" The note of urgency in their voices was familiar. It is always there when I mention seeing this bird, no matter how experienced my companions are. No one wants to miss seeing a bluebird. The image of the male when it first comes into view is always startling - and beautiful. The color of the back and head is so deep and rich that no sky could ever match it. Each experience etches a memory on the mind that always needs to be repeated.

"Are there any bluebirds around? I haven't seen one in years." This used to be the most frequent comment from a person who first discovered that I was a bird man. Happily the bluebird statement lately has been, " I saw one in my backyard the other day." The question that came to me by mail recently was unusual, however. The writer said that she was traveling through the Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs when she "saw the most beautiful blue birds. The color was, as I remember it, like the blue birds we used to see around here years ago." It was a fresh variation of that old question.

The full common name of the species we know is eastern bluebird, but there is a western counterpart that shares the same rich color, although perhaps even a shade deeper with a tinge of purple in it. The letter writer had probably seen a western bluebird, although it could have been another cousin that is also resident out west, the mountain bluebird. The color of this third species is more truly sky blue, similar to the color of the tail of the eastern bluebird. The tail is the only part fully blue on the female eastern bluebird. She has a dusky gray back with only a hint of blue tinge.

The habits of the bluebird help to make it special, and October is a good month to see them, often in large numbers. In spring they are paired, with the male extremely aggressive toward other males. But in fall the bluebird displays the gentle, easy disposition for which it is admired. They are not fearful of people, and up to fifty or more birds will join together in a feeding flock and astound they eye as they feed openly. Many birds have spectacular colors, but the bluebird shows it off by sitting quietly on a low perch, searching the ground beneath for the beetles and grasshoppers it relishes. When it spots a meal, it settles quietly down like a falling leaf, grabbing its prize and returning back to the limb or post to resume the search.

They have gathered together now for the short trip south and they are in no hurry. Most of the brightly colored birds are tropical and need to quickly push on to complete their long journey. The bluebird is hardy and resourceful, able to find enough insect life with its rather unique hunting methods. Only when snow covers the hard ground do many of them move farther south to Virginia or the Carolinas. But some even stay the entire winter, surviving on berries, crabapples and rose hips.

The bluebird is a member of the thrush family, all medium sized ground feeding birds, the best known being the American robin. The robin is also hardy and gathers in flocks to feed either in fields or woods during the late fall on its way farther south. Yet another member of the family is the hermit thrush, an exclusively deep woods bird that also travels and feeds in loose flocks, belying its name. If you walk a forest trail in the fall you might flush several of these from the ground into a nearby low bush.

But if you drive along a country road with fields and pastures in October, eventually you will run across a flock of bluebirds. They will not fly in tight groups together like starlings or waxwings, but are loosely associated, following one or two at a time from telephone wire to low limb to fence post. When you find them, listen for the mellow two note call, usually given in flight. It has a plaintive, friendly quality, a bit mournful, and quite distinct from any other bird.

You will always be eager to spot this touch of blue among the gold.

If you have been watching your backyard feeder lately, perhaps you have noticed some changes. One caller mentioned that his birds had "disappeared." If this happens to you, remember that birds do move around, even the jays and chickadees we think are with us all the time. It may not be the same individuals you see.

Three weeks ago the white-crowned sparrows were at my feeder. This last week a Lincoln's sparrow visited, but now they are mostly gone, replaced by a crew of juncos and white-throated sparrows, and soon tree sparrows will also arrive from the north. If you want to attract and keep these birds at your feeder, do not wait until the snow flies. Start feeding right now when they are moving through. Later they will have found their wintering grounds somewhere else, and will not move again until early spring.

This movement of birds also is important to the active birder who seeks out species that do not normally come to feeders or yards. On two weekends in October members of the bird club traveled to Cape Cod, where many of these migrating birds end up. At a favored location in the town of Truro we studied hoards of sparrows, all having moved from their northern interior breeding grounds as they do every fall. But we were looking especially for the one or two birds of some species that breed farther west or south, and are off course in their migration, coming east and north instead of going farther south to the tropics with all the others of their kind. We were looking for a species "out of its range," the geographical area where it normally is present.

Our first visit was in early October, when a dozen of us waited patiently for sparrows to pause in their feeding. Eventually they would rise from the ground, where the thick weeds hide them, and perch at the tops, or on low wires or tomato cages, or in nearby bushes. This farmer/gardener was wise enough to let the weeds stand through the fall and winter so the birds could consume the seeds. Only then did he plow the stalks under for mulch and so had fewer new weeds in the spring that he had to eliminate.

After a short while a different bird popped up, a sparrow-like bird, but larger and paler, with a thicker bill and a patch of yellow on its breast. It was a dickcissel, a species closely related to the cardinal, and whose breeding range is in the mid-west. The dickcissel is fairly hardy, being a seed eater, and sometimes one may end up at a feeder all winter.

We were also looking for a blue grosbeak at that place, which we did not find. It is also a member of the cardinal family and is present in the warm months throughout the southern United States. Instead we saw several indigo buntings, which do breed in the northeast, look virtually the same, but are much smaller.

Three weeks later four of us were back for another attempt. Our chances were better, because on the 15th there was a large "fallout" of blue grosbeaks all along the shoreline of New England and Nova Scotia. Instead of one or two at a favored location, up to10 or15 were found with a few hours searching in many places. A storm had probably picked up these birds just as they were migrating along the Carolina coast, brought them north over the ocean on strong winds and landed them here.

This time we spotted our quarry quickly, but it was not a blue male in breeding plumage. Instead it was bird in fall plumage, a yellowish-tan bird with two dull wing bars and a bit of blue showing when the wings were spread. It sat quietly on the weed tops, snatching seeds right from the stems, flipping its tail sideways every once in a while. A rare sight for New England birders.

In fall when birds move around anything can happen, even a hummingbird that summers in Alaska can show up in the Connecticut Valley. An update on that adventure next week.

The call came from the headquarters of the Massachusetts Audubon Society in Lincoln. Someone in the Connecticut Valley had called them to report an unusual sighting of a bird. This happens once in a while. More often one of the nearby sanctuaries is called, Laughing Brook or Arcadia, and they call me. A homeowner had a hummingbird coming to her feeder. It looked different than the usual hummers, the last of which had disappeared from her yard three weeks earlier, in late September. I called her and arranged to come see the bird.

A small, shy woman answered the bell. "Are you from the Audubon Society?" she asked with a soft, hesitant voice. She welcomed me in, and my eyes looked immediately out the back windows and onto a backyard scene full of plants and bird feeders. She showed me a picture in her guide and how the spread tail matched what she was able to see on her bird. She was obviously a careful and patient observer - a good sign. Suddenly the bird appeared and sat on a perch, all too briefly, but enough to confirm that this was not a Ruby-throated Hummingbird.

If you thought this is the beginning of the story of "Rufie," the hummingbird that first appeared at an Agawam feeder in October of 1996, you are misled. This bird was named "Angel," and it was cared for by a woman in Holyoke until Christmas day, 1992. On that very cold morning, it did not come to feed on the warm nectar that was put in place every day before dawn. No one knows what happened, but it likely perished rather than moved on to some warmer clime.

Last week I told about individuals of some species that move east from their western breeding range rather than south to the tropics, and end up on the east coast, lost and often doomed. The Rufous Hummingbird is one of those species. It nests from coastal Alaska to inland Idaho, then heads south to Mexico for the cold months. I have seen them at feeders in Arizona, where they arrive in late July. There they terrorize each other and the dozen other hummingbird species present, caught up in the frenzy of trying to protect a precious food supply.

The fate of Rufie is almost unique, but there are many individual birds of a variety of species who provide excitement to northeast birders every fall and winter. Rufie was not even the first to spend the winter in an eastern greenhouse. A woman in New York state hosted a hummingbird several years ago and wrote a book about it.

Angel was the first Rufous Hummingbird to be found in our region, but since then, in 1995, two different individuals visited feeders in Northampton and Orange from mid-September to mid-October. This is just in our area. Now that nectar feeders are so popular, there are birds being found throughout the northeast. Only a few days ago a male Rufous Hummingbird arrived at a feeder in Londonderry, New Hampshire.

Rufie has spent the last two winters in a Northampton greenhouse, after being rescued from her yard of choice in Agawam. Last winter she was banded, so there would be no doubt about her identity if she returned again. Some did doubt, believe it or not. Rufie arrived in Agawam very early this year, in fact in mid-August. Now she has the 2000-mile route down pat and wastes no time.

Well, perhaps a different individual isn't too far-fetched, for guess what? Three weeks ago another Rufous Hummingbird showed up in the same yard in Holyoke where Angel resided in 1992. It was not Angel, and the bird only stayed for five days, but there it was! If you have a yard attractive with fall flowers and a freshly filled nectar feeder, a wandering hummingbird could grace your neighborhood even in October or November.

Rufie's Northampton host will soon capture his greenhouse guest and keep her nourished and content through the winter. One wonders how a second bird might fare in that small home. In fact it is possible that Rufie might be raising young who inherit her directional instincts, and she may someday have to share her home with one of her offspring. We human parents think we have it tough when our grown children move back home.

People ask me how I became interested in birds and I might tell that story sometime, but not yet. That interest did not develop when I was young, partly because there was no model or mentor to guide me. However, there is a strong memory from my early childhood of sitting on my father's lap as he slowly turned the pages of a slim picture book. I can still feel the sense of anticipation as I called out the name of each bird.... jay, robin, chickadee. Finally he turned a page and I would loudly proclaim the name of my favorite bird in the book..... "GRACKLE. "

Who can deny that the grackle is a striking picture, dark, majestic, with flashing colors and a piercing eye. This bird looks and acts the wicked prince, a darth vader dressed in black with a crown of glossy purple and blue. In early summer we see this bird prancing slowly about the lawn with stately gait, not hopping and stopping like a robin. The long, broad tail stretches behind, set at a cocky angle, a message to all who approach, "Don't mess with me!"

Now it is late fall and we do not see them parading around the lawn, one or two or three at a time. In fact, if you have paid attention, you know that we do not see them at all after mid-summer. They and their cousins, the red-winged blackbird, virtually disappear about that time and may not be seen here again until early spring. Where does such an abundant bird go?

We certainly see a similar looking bird, the starling, which is not a blackbird at all, but more closely related to the thrushes. The starling is a flocking species, and the flocks slowly coalesce through the summer, until by fall many hundreds can be gathered together, moving like a winged storm of leaves through the fields and yards, perched in long rows on wires or on a bare tree like ripe fruit.

The grackles do the same, sometimes on an even larger scale. Their flocks can number in the many thousands, and they roost and feed together at such widely scattered locations, that most of us never see them. In late summer or early fall, you may look up before dusk and notice a swarming stream of birds moving across the high sky, and you will be shocked to find how long it will take for them to pass. Such a huge assemblage is heading toward a roosting area for the night, probably to a large heavy stand of evergreens in a forest.

In November more modest flocks of grackles and blackbirds are often encountered, and this year they seem to be more prominent than usual. Almost daily the raucous clamor of these birds has been heard in my neighborhood. These are groups from farther north, stopping on the way to southern wintering ranges.

One day recently I happened upon a flock that covered the grasses and fields of a farmyard and several adjoining house yards. There were several hundred, about evenly composed of grackles and red-winged blackbirds with a few cowbirds and starlings thrown in. They pecked at the ground as they walked about, closely packed within inches of each other. Every few seconds a group would rise from the "back" end of the flock, fly low over the pack and land on the "front" side to resume their search for seed.

Ornithologists are not certain what mode of communication is used that allows these flocking birds to move as one without a leader, although they believe the birds possess some form of magnetic sending and receiving capability. However they do it, their movement is a display that dazzles the senses, ours as well as that of any hunting hawk who is unable to pick out and capture the one bird that would make a meal.

I admired and studied these birds as they moved across the road and around my car, noting the different kinds and plumages, hoping in vain that one of those rare ones from the west, a yellow-headed blackbird or brewer's blackbird, might catch my eye. But our grackle is true royalty, and is always worth a closer look.

Habits of mind are hard to break. We know something is different and we are curious to find out why or how, but we just can't seem to break through the old formula and actually see what is happening. For example, people ask, "Why are the geese migrating north now? Why are flocks moving over my house every day? Why are geese in the field or on the pond down the street?" The old idea that geese migrate high overhead in long vees, honking melodiously, is the only pattern we have in our heads.

The first thing to get straight is they are not "Canadian" geese. True, those geese that still migrate over us do indeed nest in northern Canada, but these birds spend their winters near the southern coast of the United States from Maryland to Florida, so they should be considered "North American." The correct name for this bird is Canada goose, a species that is widespread over the continent and is divided into twelve "races" which vary only in size, subtle coloration, and migratory habits. In the midwest and west some races have always bred within the borders of the United States and have not needed to make a long migration to reach open water during the winter.

When Fish and Wildlife agencies in New England decided it would be nice to have more geese for sportsmen to hunt during the New England winter, they naturally turned their eyes on those races of the Canada goose that were more "sedentary", lacking the impulse to migrate great distances. Thus midwest geese were trapped and brought here, released into the wild to nest in our beaver ponds and linger along our rivers and coasts well into the cold season. Agency officials might have reconsidered this plan if they had anticipated what would happen.

I remember the pair that first nested on an old ice pond on my property twenty years ago. It was a delight to see a parent bird nestled in a bed of down on a tiny island as the mate swam serenely nearby, standing guard. The yellow goslings were a bundle of fluff, tied to their parents by invisible strings. A mystery was why they never stayed around the pond after fledging. The parents soon took them on a long journey overland, and I even happened upon the little family once far from any water. Where were they going?

In order to answer that, you need to know what geese eat. Ponds supply very little food for them unless there are shallows with emergent or underwater vegetation, and forests provide barely any food at all. Geese prefer succulent grasses and grains, such as provided by lawns and fields, for instance. If there is little of this kind of vegetation at the nest site, the parents have to bring the goslings on foot to a suitable forage area.

When the young can fly, then the birds congregate in flocks and find a body of water on which to roost nightly, and a feeding ground on which to graze. At this time of year we can see the flocks standing by the tens or hundreds in a meadow or corn field, ripping at the stubble or gobbling up the scattered kernels. It is an impressive sight, all those graceful bodies and necks filling the field like living statuary. Only the few alert sentinels, eyeing the straying dog or intruding human, warn of the impending takeoff of these hardy air beasts. Off they go, and back and forth they fly between field and pond, the two poles of their existence, honking their hearts out.

In this manner they transfer nutrients from the field to the pond, or just spread those nutrients on the field. They are not easy to hunt when they are comfortable on ponds and fields near houses. They are big, not particularly fearful, but extremely watchful and cautious. They have found safety in our back yards, tame birds instead of game birds. How, then, do we control the population so the goose and its waste does not foul our reservoirs and golf courses?

No one really has the answer to that question fully, but in the meantime we can still enjoy the wild and truly beautiful call of our North American goose and their graceful presence in our midst.

Like any other pastime, birding has a few tools of the trade. One of them is the telescope, which is essential if you wish to get a clear look at water birds. Most of us concentrate on the songbirds in our yards when we first take up this hobby. All those ducks and sandpipers in the first half of the field guide seem less interesting. While leafing through the guide many years ago, I decided to ignore the ducks. Now I often depart before dawn with my telescope for a day long trip to the coast just to study them. It turns out that ducks are as varied and fascinating in their habits and appearances as landbirds.

Many of them nest in the forests and on the tundra of Canada and Alaska, and their flight line on the way from there to the wintering range on the Atlantic coast passes over us. They fly past us at night, but a few miscalculate the distance or the weather and find themselves tired and short of their target when morning comes. If there is a large lake near you, this is the time to visit, hoping to view these birds close-up.

The Congamond Lakes in Southwick are not used much by people this time of year despite being ringed with homes and cottages. Even the fishermen are few, especially on a weekday. In November and December on a cold early morning the steam rises from the surface as the water cools and obscures whatever may be swimming there.

Recently the middle of the largest pond was dotted with over a hundred dark forms, barely visible in the mist. Over half of them were black ducks, the true wild native duck of the northeast United States. Unlike their close cousins, the mallard, they are usually wary of man, especially these individuals, who had arrived here overnight from their wilderness homes in the northern forests. With them were over thirty tiny green-winged teals, also a duck of wild wooded marshes.

The next day it was cloudy, the pond was clear, the black ducks and teal were gone. In their place were two ducks that had flown a much greater distance. Both were sea ducks, one a white-winged scoter arrived from western Canada or Alaska, and the other an oldsquaw from north-central Canada. They were together, close to the shore and could not make a starker contrast. The scoter was a female, large and almost all black except for two pale smudges around and behind the eye, and the white wing patch that gives the species its name. It was the oldsquaw that intrigued me more, because I have always been partial to this spiffy little duck with the weird name.

The oldsquaw was also a female in winter plumage, the whitest individual I had ever seen. Though small, it was close and loomed large in the telescope, every feather groomed and placed to perfection. You have not seen the colors of a duck until you see one close up. Then even black and white take on a hue that can catch your breath. She was aware of my presence and was paddling furiously out to the middle of the lake, unwilling to take to the air just yet. The scoter was in her wake, and after reaching the center of the lake the oldsquaw suddenly did take wing and flew low over the surface and around the point out of sight, never to be seen again. The scoter remained and stayed in this corner of the lake for at least a week longer, rather unusual for this ocean loving species.

On two recent bird club trips to the coast we had seen the oldsquaw. At Plymouth beach several in their winter white were found beyond the surf along with hundreds of dark scoters. On another trip to Rhode Island we saw a male still in dark summer plumage so far out we thought at first it was a scoter. Only the best telescope at high power could show the details well enough.

Next week I will talk more about the oldsquaw, how it is by far the most abundant winter duck in Massachusetts waters, and how it got its odd name.