The Kellogg Columns

Some birds are quite easy to see, such as doves, swallows, and crows. They feed in the open and are very much birds of the air. Others stay in the heavy foliage of treetops, like orioles and many warblers. Some are well hidden in the marshes, like rails and female red-winged blackbirds. If it were not for feeders, the hardest of all to see might be the sparrow family.

Most of these highly evolved seed eating birds have left the air and the treetops and returned close to the ground to feed and live. That is why you must spread seed on or near the ground if you want to attract them to your feeders. In the wild, sparrows stay hidden in the tall grasses or dense shrubbery, venturing out only in spring to sing briefly from an exposed perch.

There are fifteen different species of sparrows that nest in southern New England, and several of them are quite uncommon, found only in extensive grasslands, a rare habitat here. The sparrow with the most restricted home of all might be the vesper sparrow. It likes scrubby, sparse grass interspersed with plenty of just plain dirt. it is found in areas of intensive agriculture, such as the floodplains of Northampton and Hadley, where vegetables are grown, or the highland potato farms of Worthington and Plainfield.

One other place where the soil is disturbed and bare ground results, is the sand pit. There is a very large one in Southwick where vesper sparrows have lived for a number of years. About twenty members of the Allen Bird Club visited this spot last week to find this uncommon, unfindable bird.

Around the edges of the pit, or where the valuable sand had been removed, sparse, low vegetation has returned - grasses, weeds, and scattered trees. We waited along the access road to the pit, and heard the male vesper sparrow sing, perched sometimes on a brush pile, sometimes on a sign, once on a piece of heavy earth moving equipment, and even in some of the low trees.

If it was not singing, this bird would be invisible, crouched on the bare dirt among the weeds and shrubs, the brown striping perfectly blended. You would have to walk slowly back and forth, hoping to startle the bird, and flush it into the open in a nearby bush, showing off the special white of its outer tail feathers. It would scold you with a sharp chirp before plunging back into the grasses and scurrying out of sight.

Unfortunately, the morning sun was behind this singer, so some of us climbed the hill to get more than just a silhouette. Of course, he spooked at our approach, and we had to wait before he got comfortable, and resumed his duties at one of the singing perches. Then we could see the narrow eye ring and the delicate breast streaks without a central black spot. When we returned there was a surprise waiting for us.

Several of the group had stayed behind, because another bird was singing on the other side of the road, and all of us were unsure of the identity of the singer. Even Rudd Stone in his mid-eighties and walking slowly, but still with a sharp ear and a perfect memory from a lifetime of studying birds, could be heard muttering. "What is that bird?"

Two of the most eager and expert of the group, disdaining a better look at the vesper sparrow, were keen enough to try to get a look at this mystery singer. The song was a warble of notes, rising and falling in an unpredictable pattern, something like a house finch, but lacking the distinctive hoarse notes that are always present in that common bird's song.

One of the two finally got a good look at the bird before it ceased singing and flew off, not to be re-found that morning despite more searching. It was a blue grosbeak, not called a sparrow, but still within the family. It is a species common in the southern United States, but rarely north of New Jersey, and never before found in western Massachusetts in the month of June. Next week we will learn more about perhaps the most secretive sparrow of all, the blue grosbeak.

Not all sparrows are little brown jobs (LBJs). Many of them share the brown back and lighter undersides that make them look similar to each other and give rise to this nickname. If you allow the seed from your feeder to fall on the ground, or spread it there, you might be challenged to identify the various kinds of sparrows that come to eat.

This time of year, the most likely such visitor is not a sparrow at all, although it has been given the name. The house sparrow is a weaver finch, an abundant bird of Europe and Asia that invaded America over a hundred years ago. It is an aggressive species that will oust bluebirds and tree swallows from nesting boxes, sparing no effort even to pecking their rival to death. A true American patriot would not allow a house sparrow to nest in the yard long. This black-bibbed interloper would be repelled the minute it showed.

One sparrow that will please you is denied the name. The most coveted feeder bird of all is a sparrow, the cardinal. There is no mistaking this bird, at least the male with his bright red coat, black mask and proud crest. He is a redcoat we have welcomed to our New England countryside, not marching from the east after crossing the ocean, but flying from the sunny south.

There is another sparrow that inhabits the southland that is also working its way toward us as the cardinal did forty years ago. This bird also lacks the sparrow name, but shares the same wonderful seed crunching bill of the cardinal. It is called the blue grosbeak, and the male is as striking in his blue coat and black mask as the cardinal is in his red and black.

Unlike the cardinal, the blue grosbeak migrates during cold weather to Mexico and beyond. Some of these migrating birds take a wrong tack each fall and end up on the New England coast. Every year in October, birders travel to Cape Cod to see migrant sparrows, and the blue grosbeak is especially searched for among the brushy fields of the outer cape and islands. Usually, it is a brown immature male, the dull color which shows its kinship to the other sparrows.

In spring, a few migrants overshoot their mark and end up on our coast again, far from the hedgerows of Maryland and Virginia. Sometimes we even find them in western Massachusetts. This species has been found fourteen times here in Spring in the last sixty years, but these birds do not stay, returning back south in a few days when no mate answers the call.

But the bluecoat is coming as the redcoat once did, and this pioneer was first found in Southwick two weeks ago. A first-year male was discovered singing from the small trees of a sand pit, acting as if a mate was expected to hear and be enraptured at any moment. This has happened countless times as eager young birds push north from Virginia and settle in new territory, where the older dominant males are only a memory.

Now the blue grosbeak is well established in southeastern New York, and three summers ago a pair even nested twenty miles away in Windsor, Connecticut. So our first ever June bridegroom presents himself each day at the tops of various trees in the pit and invites a bride to join him in the brushy depths.

If he were mated, the singing would not be so vigorous, and the pair would both be hiding as sparrows always do, on the ground under the low, thick canopy of leaves. One group of birders visiting this enthusiastic young singer, found an adult pair of blue grosbeaks in one part of this huge area, but these two have since kept hidden, tending to their nest.

This immature male sings from a dozen favorite perches and most searchers are content to enjoy an easy look at him, with the two blotches of blue on his chest. Eventually we will all enjoy this pioneering species, perhaps even coming to our feeders alongside its cardinal cousin. Then they will have to share the glory of being not little brown jobs, but the patriotic sparrows, one red and one blue.

We do not look for evening grosbeaks at our feeders anymore. People still ask me once in a while why there are no more noisy, greedy flocks of these beautiful finches coming to overwhelm the feeding station. I have a photograph of a flock of thirty or more settled on a platform in the back yard, the yellow dress of the males showing brightly against the shining snow.

We lament this absence with mixed feelings, for the seed can be costly if these tame birds come all day and all winter to have their fill of sunflower. You might ask why this talk of winter feeding here in the deepest part of summer, when young birds are finally on the wing and evening comes late and its dark departs early?

Evening grosbeaks were originally a western bird in North America, first found in upper Michigan and not recorded in Massachusetts at all until 1890. Since then until about 1975, flocks of grosbeaks winged their way east during most winters, sometimes in huge numbers. However, a few of these birds liked our green hills when spring came, and did not return to the west.

Birders like to visit these hilly places in the summer to find birds that do not nest in the valleys where most of us live. A few years ago one such valley dweller decided to move to the hills and bought a large farm in Plainfield, now grown to a spruce-fir-maple forest. The bird club visits her every July and walks the trails past the ponds and through the deep woods and back to the old farmhouse that has been restored to new beauty.

On the way we enjoyed the typical species of the New England forest, magnolia and blackburnian warblers, sapsuckers and hummingbirds, hermit thrushes and scarlet tanagers, nearly sixty species in all. There even was a sharp-shinned hawk pursued by a brave songbird trying to protect its young from this rare, bird-eating raptor.

We also came upon a family of evening grosbeaks. We had heard the shrill cry somewhere in the treetops and eventually a male came into good view with two or three others lurking back in the thick boughs. This onetime winter visitor is now a rare year-round resident of the hill towns. Only there do they bring their young to the summer feeder, then flock together in larger groups in winter to monopolize the sunflower.

They did not come to the tiny feeder at the farmhouse where a dozen of us snacked on the porch. Instead, we watched a different grosbeak munching away with little fear. This was the rose-breasted grosbeak, which is really a sparrow and now comes to feeders throughout the region when they first arrive from the south in May, and sometimes all summer. Meanwhile the evening grosbeaks that used to visit from the west have discovered the South and Midwest, where there are enough feeders to keep them fed and content before they ever reach the east coast.

The name of this bird is of some interest, for it might very well be rooted in error. 'Evening' is one meaning of its Latin name, vespertinus, but it can also mean the west, where the sun sets in the evening. If it had been named for its original range, then western grosbeak would have been appropriate, but evening was used for the English name because it was first heard singing late in the day. We now know that the bird sings and calls all day long and retires to its roost before dusk as most species do.

Its other Latin name is unique and also very appropriate. Coccothraustes means 'shatterer of kernels,' and indeed their thick strong bills perform this task with ease. The evening grosbeak is a highly evolved species, holding a special place as the last and therefore youngest native American species on the scientific checklist of birds. The list begins with our oldest, earliest evolved species, the loon.

From deep diving fish to large hard seeds, birds have evolved to take advantage of every possible kind of food, and they have moved about the entire earth to find such food.

There is an exotic flavor to Vermont. Perhaps it is the moonlight over the mountainside chalets with the snow falling and the fires rising. Perhaps it is the ice cream, made from the milk of hard-working cows grazing in the valleys encircled by those green mountains. Perhaps it is the very name of the state, which is French for green mountain.

It was more wet than exotic when we were there twice in the last month. The first time the clouds lowered as we rose through the hills, and then let down a deluge while we ate our dinner. It was over as dusk approached, but the attendant still looked at us with disbelief as we paid the stiff toll to go up the road to the summit of Mt. Equinox.

"You won't see anything," he said, and he was right, even though he meant the scenery and we were going for a look at the rarest nesting bird in New England, the Bicknell's thrush. The fog grew thicker as we climbed up the hairpins and steep ascents, but we could still see the alpine scrub of spruce and fir as we approached the summit.

We almost missed seeing the huge building that suddenly loomed out of the soup and nearly hit us head on in the parking lot at the top. We wandered over the summit with the wind whipping the trees and most birds safely tucked into the thick brush for the night.

We were hoping to hear the evening song of this exotic thrush and see him perched at the top of one of those evergreens as he sang his farewell to daylight. Scientists are studying the few thousand remaining pairs that nest only on the higher mountains of the northeast. The most we saw or heard were a few yellow-rumped warblers and dark-eyed juncos trilling above the sound of the trees in the wind.

A few weeks later, we returned to another nearby mountain, Stratton. There, the gondola lifts you quietly over the snowless trails where only the ghosts of skiers were making their mad dash down the slopes. It was noon, and the thrush would have none of us except for its brief whining call uttered from deep within the thick growth at the trail's edge.

We were happy about that rather than downcast, because this was only a scouting trip for a bird club excursion scheduled for next summer and the weather was much better than the forecast had been. Tremendous downpours the night before had flooded rivers and washed out roads, but the sky was now clearing over the lovely hills.

At the top of the mountain a bird was trilling loudly and we assumed it was a junco, but sitting in a small tree and singing mightily was the smallest sparrow in New England. Not exotic at all, but plain and common, the chipping sparrow is also fond of nesting in the evergreen plantings around houses throughout the continent.

Just the day before as the rain had begun, we found many chipping sparrows at an overgrown Christmas tree farm in Russell. They chased each other through the wet grass and across the gravel road, stopping to sing briefly at the tops of low trees.

Young birds had just left their nests and were showing off their streaked breasts. Quite a few of the many sparrow species lose this streaking as adults, but still revert to the typical family marking as juveniles. I admire the little 'chippy' in my own yard as he comes to the summer seed I spread on the ground, whether young and streaked, or adult and streakless.

Look for the black pencil-line through the eye of the adult with a bright eyestripe above and a chestnut brown cap. Listen for the song which gives the bird its name, a rapid series of chips on a single pitch. If you hear it in the yard, think of the many wilderness places or mountaintops where the bird also sings.

You may never see or hear a Bicknell's thrush, but the bold and friendly sparrow that nests alongside the thrush will bring that exotic flavor to your very doorstep.

Rarely have we had such a prolonged pluvial Spring and Summer. With so much rain it is hard to believe that the swallows were able to find enough food for their young. However, as the weather warmed, the insect life became abundant, and the birds probably benefited from the wetness. Ten of the nesting boxes I placed in the fields were occupied by tree swallows, and eight of them successfully fledged young.

Birds that nest on the ground perhaps were not so fortunate, especially if they build in low areas. Twice this summer we have happened upon baby spotted sandpipers searching for food in unlikely places. It was a treat to see the downy young with their fluffy feathers and miniature bodies on long legs. Were they there because the usual foraging areas were flooded?

Like ducks, sandpipers are precocial, the young able to move around and search for food themselves within a few minutes of hatching. You can observe them feeding on their own, but landbird species are altricial, remaining helpless in the nest to be fed by their parents until they are full sized. These spotted sandpipers lacked the breast spots of an adult, but boasted two large stripes on their head and back which the adults lack.

Sandpipers are so called shorebirds, but most members of this very large family do not nest near the ocean. They raise their young on the vast expanse of the Arctic tundra, which is rich with insect life during the short warm season there. In those 4-6 weeks of late June and July millions of shorebirds lay and incubate their eggs on the open ground. Only a few shorebird species nest farther south away from this Arctic larder.

There is a second large grouping of shorebirds called plovers, and they get their name from the Latin, 'pluvia,' which means rain. We still have the little used English word, 'pluvial,' meaning rainy, which I used in my opening sentence. It is not clear why they were given this rain name. Perhaps it is because during overland migration a rainstorm will cause the migrating flocks to come to ground in populated places before they reach the tidal flats and beaches.

One of the few shorebirds that nests in New England away from the coast, and in fact spends most of its life inland, is a plover called the killdeer. The odd name for this plover comes from their loud ringing two note call. They lay their eggs on the open ground after scraping out a slight depression among a masking pile of pebbles. They are fond of pastures, large lawns, and cultivated fields, where such a pebbly place may be found.

It is amazing that the eggs ever escape crushing by the grazing livestock or some machinery, but disaster happens only once in a while. If the nest site is threatened, the adults will go into a wild distraction display, feigning an injured wing and calling plaintively to lead the threat away. At least the machine operator will be made aware of the nest's presence, even if he is unable to avoid it.

The killdeer is among our earliest arrivals in March, and they are quick to lay eggs, so that before the field is even first plowed the fluffy young are scurrying around. They sometimes are found nesting in the sparsely grassed lots around industrial or commercial buildings. Then the young might be seen visiting the puddles of the nearby parking lot.

I saw them recently near the Holyoke Mall, standing still on the pavement like lost robins. The parents were nearby, alert and ready to call out if you approached too closely. The juvenile killdeer has a single black band across its throat that shows off the white belly and pale brown back. The adults have two such bands. The spotted sandpiper and the killdeer are two resourceful birds that do well even during a very pluvial nesting season.

A hundred years ago, the friendly killdeer and many of the Arctic nesting shorebirds were endangered due to market hunting, but almost all of them have come back strong with protection.

There were two eggs in the box, both nearly intact with fluid still inside despite the leakage from slight cracks. The shattered remains of a third egg lay nearby. The best efforts of the pair of kestrel falcons had failed this year, perhaps because of the scarcity of grasshoppers due to the cool rains.

Many things can go wrong to thwart the drive for new life, and then the fleeting fertility will be wasted. However, this pair had produced young the previous three years. Last year at this same time there were four young falcons alive and alert in an alternate nest box.

This year, a different pair of kestrels has been present in some extensive hay fields a mile away. It is likely that one of them is an offspring from this pair's previous three clutches. Three miles away in a huge gravel pit, another pair has resided all spring and summer.

The American kestrel is a rare hawk in New England now, and to have three nesting pairs in one town is unusual. It is likely a testament to the value of providing nesting boxes as well as the deep drive of these creatures to reproduce. There are fields and grasshoppers enough, but there are no larger dead trees to provide nest sites.

The modern taste of homeowners, farmers, and road crews is to cut all trees that betray a hint of decay. Trees are meant to be pretty, they feel, existing only to please the human eye. Leafless branches and trunks are ugly and must be removed from view.

The other day a cutting crew came down our street and three vehicles and six workers attacked several dead elms across the street. It took all day, but the stately snags were hacked into many pieces and pushed up in a pile, not exactly pretty. Once they would have been carted away and burned, but at least we have learned that kind of husbandry is unwise.

Now that we have mastered so many of nature's secrets, we tend to over manage. It is thinking born of our own long and difficult legacy of needing to survive in the wild. Sometimes it has taken enormously obvious bad results to convince us to abandon the need to tame nature.

Fifty years ago we sprayed whatever chemical came out of the test tube and promised to eliminate inconvenient insects. Then we discovered the hawks were gone and the songbirds following after them into oblivion. Are we ignoring the slower effects of more subtle acting substances we still use to make our own lives easier and richer?

This past weekend, I watched two young ospreys practice their flying in the middle of Nauset Marsh on Cape Cod. During the decade of the 1950s these fish-eating hawks of southern New England were wiped out by pesticides, but now they have flourished among us again. It was fun to watch the full-grown young raise and stretch their wings, waving those mighty pinions at the world.

One would launch off the platform and beat the hundred feet to an adult sitting quietly on a nearby perch. Then, in time honored fashion, the bird would buzz its parent, who would raise its head and flutter its own wings in seeming disgust. Then back to the nest the bird would fly, to alight and beat those wings again.

They were the impatient ones, ready to savor the world as well as the many fish that awaited in the sea. It appears to be a good year for small bait fish as well as copepods, the small crustaceans that form the basis of the food chain in coastal waters. The osprey is only one of many species that benefit from a healthy and fertile ocean.

You can see the osprey here on the Connecticut River patrolling the deeper water for fish to dive for, or bathing in the shallows off a sandbar. Usually, a bird born the previous summer will not return to its birthing region the next year, instead sampling the fare of other waters. Eventually we hope a pair of these young ospreys will decide to nest close by, just as the kestrels and eagles and peregrines have done.

Henry David Thoreau wrote that one should "Beware all enterprises that require new clothes." That admonition has always appealed to me because new clothes also meant formal and uncomfortable clothes. Now comfort and casual are what sells new attire, and Saint Henry's words have lost their bite.

Although you may not believe that clothes define the man, feathers certainly do define the bird. Modern fabrics still cannot match the feather as the perfect adornment. However, even feathers do eventually wear out and must be replaced once or twice a year.

When the breeding season is over, all birds have a respite from the labors of nesting or migration. This is when the new feathers grow, pushing the old worn ones aside to loosen and fall like leaves from a tree. This amazing process is called molting.

For most songbirds this happens gradually over several weeks and in a certain sequence that allows the bird to keep mostly feathered and flying at all times. This new plumage is complete by late summer or early fall and often the colors of the new feathers are different and duller than the old ones. These dull colors are retained through most of the next 6-8 months and are called the 'basic' plumage.

As the edges of the feathers wear, brighter colors are revealed in the males of many songbirds, and in spring we and the females get to be dazzled by the splendor of the male breeding colors, boringly called the 'alternate' plumage. Those bright feathers are usually not new ones at all, but just an alternate, worn appearance of old feathers.

Ducks are different, for twice a year most of them go through 'synchronous molts,' which means most of their old feathers are lost at once, rendering them unable to fly. Fortunately, they can still swim, and spend the two or three weeks of plucked vulnerability hidden in the dense marsh vegetation.

After breeding, both male and female ducks don nearly the same dull colors the female wears year-round. It is called the 'eclipse' plumage, because the beauty of the male's breeding dress is completely lost until a second molt several months later.

For those who want to identify the ducks they see, this eclipse plumage can be difficult, especially for the largest family of paddling ducks (Latin anas). The anas family of ducks are closely related, and all species take on a similar mottled or blotchy body image when in eclipse.

Here in New England, the most common and familiar anas duck is the mallard, but there are six species that occur every year. Worldwide, there are dozens of members of the anas family, and one of them is named after a region of southern Switzerland, the garganey.

Though abundant in Europe and Asia, the garganey is very rare on this continent. There were only three sightings in Massachusetts until one was reported recently on Plum Island at the Parker River National Wildlife Refuge in Newburyport.

As nine members of the Allen Bird Club made a special trip to view this rare duck, we debated whether we could easily distinguish it from other dabblers, since it was in eclipse plumage. It had completed its molt and could fly, so we also had to be concerned about whether it would wander to another inaccessible part of the huge marshlands.

It could even leave as it had come at any moment, perhaps from Europe by way of Iceland and on to who knew where. The garganey has a strong instinct for migration, traveling the long route between the breeding grounds of central Eurasia and the wintering areas in Africa and southern Asia.

The garganey was grazing the surface of the shallow pools for insects and seeds with a dozen or more black ducks and gadwalls. It was no problem noting the special features of the bird's plumage, the dark head cap, the line through the eye, the white throat, the overall paleness, and the gray wing patch when it stretched and preened those new feathers.

This bird was thought to be a male, and we could only imagine the bold white teardrop shaped eyebrow and the reddish face that once adorned him as he raised a family somewhere in the vast continent on the other side of the wide Atlantic.

‍

Most birders like to keep some track of the birds they see. Usually, it is a list with dates and places. I once wrote the names and numbers of my first neighborhood sightings down in a ledger in pencil. There is still a stack of these ledger books recording not only the encounters with birds, but my growing knowledge of their movements.

How interested you are in recording the birds you see is a clear indication of how active a birder you will become. Some people will start and end with a simple list of birds they see in their yard each day or year. For others this endeavor will become an official lifetime yardlist, and will be only one of many such totals.

The first time you see a species in your yard, it becomes a life yardbird. A friend quizzed a group of us the other day about such a bird, which he heard briefly in his wooded neighborhood. After quite a few hints it turned out to be a bluebird, which is expected at any house surrounded by fields, but hard to find in the woods.

Helen Bates always kept a list of birds seen in her yard every day, written down as they were seen. There is something special about a hand-written journal that you can leaf through years after, comparing how things change from month to month or year to year.

I was surprised the other day to find my first ever northern waterthrush in the yard. About the same time a friend reported a Canada warbler in the bushes of her suburban backyard. Both of these species are the wildest of birds, found respectively in bogs and swamps, or the thickest part of a heavily wooded mountainside.

A concerned homeowner called about a great blue heron taking up residence in her yard, far from any pond or river. It was not feeding, huddled quietly in a hidden corner. It did not fly away when approached closely, and was clearly injured or sick.

The heron is not the ideal yard guest. It stands as tall as a man and at the end of a long, striking neck is a huge heavy bill that could injure seriously. If a healthy one comes into the yard with a pond and raids the goldfish, you can either admire its statuesque beauty from a distance, or chase it away.

I just heard the dreaded voice of the great blue heron early on a foggy morning as it flew behind the house. The deep throaty croak is like no other noise, more menacing than growls or screams. If you did not know what it was, you would be a little wary of what creature might suddenly appear out of the fog.

More often you may hear the higher pitched call of the green heron, a bird you will likely only notice as it flies over the house. This bird is the size of a crow, more compact than the ponderous, gangly great blue, and is much less alien looking. It beats straight and true from one hidden pond to another, the terror of tadpoles.

Another strange yardbird you might see hanging about is a homing pigeon. These are not wild birds, but lost from some fancier's flock. Often hundreds of these doves are kept in huge coops and then transported afar and released, to see how well they live up to their name. A bird that does not home in is probably not missed or wanted, so the best thing to do is ignore such a waif.

The yardbird that is most welcome of all is the wild one that becomes domestic right before your eyes. Someday you may catch a robin as it enters a low tree or bush over and over again. The new nest may be open to your prying eyes, and you can watch the care and precision with which it is finished.

The eggs will be laid one by one, shiningly perfect. The bird will snuggle and sit, the very picture of patience. The young will peck and struggle and squirm from their tiny prison, and then lie still like balls of down and fluff. The parent will approach and mouths will gape wide enough to swallow the world. Yes, the wild yardbird is something worth watching, and then entering into your list.

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.

As summer slips away, one of the first nesting birds of New England to begin its southward journey is the common nighthawk. This bird is not a member of the hawk family that preys on small animals, but it does 'hawk' its food. The word hawk is descended from the same old Anglo Saxon word that the verb 'have' comes from, and means to seize or grasp.

All the hawks seize their prey with their powerful feet, but the nighthawk has very weak feet and grasps its food with its mouth while flying, an amazing feat if you think about it. Its bill is very small, but its mouth is enormous, hinged well back under its ears and opening wide to sweep insects in as it flies through the air.

If you are out in the back yard in the evening, you know that mosquitoes are most active then, as are many insects. This is when the nighthawk makes its big move, flocks of them taking to the air and gorging on winged ants and any other flying morsel they encounter.

There is a group of birds (the order macrochires) that share this attribute of poorly developed feet, and the nighthawk is a member of a family within this group whose English name is odd indeed, goatsucker. The goatsuckers all have large mouths and got their name from a silly legend that they steal the milk of mother goats at night. Perhaps the legend arose because their mouths open wide enough to suckle, and they sometimes swirl around a herd of livestock, hawking the insects disturbed by the animals' hooves.

The larger group of birds also shares something else. The scientific name for the order, macrochires, means large hands, and the outer wings of the nighthawk are the hands of a master flyer. You can watch them now in the late summer evening, especially when it is calm and warm, filling the sky sometimes by the hundreds, showing off these marvelous hands.

The bird's primary color is a finely barred black and pale gray, but as if to draw attention to those special wings, the nighthawk boasts a broad streak of white on the wrist, only halfway down the wing. This patch of white divides the long arms from the even longer hands, and those arms and hands do such daring feats that devils or aviators would envy.

On a steady course, the wing beat is deep and loose, but the nighthawk can turn on a gnat with a side slip and a flutter, tracking down an elusive bug. It will glide for a few seconds, descending gently, then rise up swiftly with several stiff beats.

Hundreds can circle over a field for an hour or more, swooping their big bodies in flawless precision around and between each other, until the onlooker is amazed and slightly dazed. The millions of flying ants are diminished, and when the sun sets and the air cools, the nighthawks rise into the heights and set a straight course for the equator and beyond.

With them might be the sporty speedsters of this clan of big handed birds, the chimney swifts, faster even than a falcon in a dive. The swifts are no bigger than the hand of a nighthawk, but they maneuver with equal ease, turning, gliding and accelerating like a Porsche on a mountain road.

The hands of a swift are nearly as large as its body, which is shaped like a tiny torpedo. When night finally falls, a flock of swifts will make one last circle over a small city, then free fall one after another like bombers on a suicide strafe. Only they know what happens when they disappear into the towering maw of a chimney, but in the dawn they are shot out, escaping unhurt to greet the day and cruise the skies.

Would you like to know the one other member of this order of super handed birds that fills our summer skies with acrobatic feats? It is none other than the ruby-throated hummingbird, as big as the hand of a swift, yet whose powers of flight need volumes to properly portray. Watch for all the magical macrochires, now on their way to our southern sister continent.