One Warbler Wave and the Elusive Gallinule

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.