A Berkshire Kayak Trip with Waxwings and Flycatchers

Some rivers pass through brought flat plains, where they tend to meander, flowing gently from side to side in tight but gently rounded curves. Our Connecticut River mostly runs through worn hills, and is unable to tear through the hard bedrock banks. Instead of veering, it mostly sets a straight course for the sea.

The Housatonic River in Berkshire County travels through some flatter countryside, rather surprising since we think of 'The Berkshires' as a hilly area. Long stretches of this river are settled in broad, flat valleys with fertile, flood-placed soils. In some places, such as the town of Lenox, the river can be described as, in the poet's words, "five miles meandering with a mazy motion."

We put our canoes and kayaks into this meander the other day and paddled slowly downstream, quickly lost in a jungle of sedges and willows. When the taller trees gave way to grasses and low bushes to our east, October Mountain loomed above us, wild and green with the lush look of summer. For hours we were alone with no sound of cars or sight of habitation.

Several great blue herons rose their ponderous way from the marshy ponds alongside the river, where we often took side trips away from the main current. We found no green herons or bitterns, perhaps because the frogs seemed few as well, and only a handful of ducks. Instead of algae and insects, which the paddling ducks covet, there were mats of floating weeds choking the water, probably one of the invasive plants from Asia.

The flying food was plentiful, and there were birds enough to feast on them. The farmland meadows where we first launched had eastern kingbirds patrolling the treetops, one of the tyrant flycatchers that favor river valleys. Once or twice, we found a family of wood pewees, descended from the nearby hillside forest after nesting to enjoy the river's insect life.

The flycatcher most often seen was either the willow or the alder flycatcher. These are two look alike species, told apart only by clear differences in their short, buzzy song. Now the nearly grown young have left the nest and the sire helps to feed them rather than serenade them. Around nearly every curve these flycatchers perch, and there is some lively discussion as to how many we had seen when the trip was done.

We would stop our boats beneath the steep banks or arching branches and study these flycatchers. Though unsure of their exact identity, we admired them as they launched out from bare stems and caught winged meals over and over again. No matter whether we saw twenty or fifty of these little tyrants, their numbers paled in comparison to the most numerous and kingly catcher of them all. The species we saw most was not even in the flycatcher family, but the berry eating cedar waxwing.

The waxwing is best known for gathering in large flocks from late fall to early spring and descending on fruit bearing trees to strip them of their bounty. But here in high summer they change their ways, becoming efficient catchers of flies, lying in wait at branch's edge to raid the passing bugs.

If your ears are good enough, the high lisp of their calls creates a constant din, like a faint treble no longer in the background, but clear and dominant when no other sound intrudes. They are larger than most flycatchers, and you can also tell them by their crest, or by their fast fluttering wingbeat that results in a hesitating flight, almost like a hover.

After a while you stop raising your glasses to get a closer look, especially since it is molting time, and their dress is faded and worn, not the rich yellows and tans of fresh new plumage. The young birds are very plain, with smudges up and down their chests, the waxwing version of the spots or streaks that mark the immature of so many species.

How many waxwings we saw was only a guess, but there were hundreds, and they eventually faded into the recesses of our minds, unmentionable hindrances to our search for the rarer species. That included even the abundant red-eyed vireo, a few of which occasionally warbled from hidden recesses, the last concert of a spring long passed.