The Kellogg Columns

There is something about the deep forest at night that can fill the heart with dread. In the full light of day a walk in the woods can be a pleasant adventure, but if twilight comes and you are still far from home, the mood can change. Then a monster could lurk beneath each towering tree.

The fairy tales about children lost in the woods are too innumerable for this fearful response not to be deep and primitive. It prevents us from experiencing one of the greatest pleasures of the forest. So instead of giving in to the fear, pause and listen to the creatures who do live in the wood.

Would you like to see the elves dance in the clearings, or hear them sing in clear ethereal voices? Then a walk in the forest at twilight is just the thing. Almost all birds are quieter in the heat of the afternoon. For some species, the urge to sing returns in the evening, and they become the elves of the forest.

The most elfin of all is the thrush. It sits still on a branch near the forest floor as the last light of day filters down through the trees. It could be a dead stub or leaf without motion on a windless evening, until its bill opens just a bit and the throat begins to bulge and undulate. Hush and listen. The magical thrush is tuning up.

Then you hear the song that soothes even the monster's heart. Of the three thrushes that live in our local forests, which voice is the fairest of all? Is it the veery, with its downward spiraling tones, as if singing from the bottom of a deep well? The veery is an abundant woodland bird, and you can hear several at once. They prefer the damper areas, where moss and heavy underbrush grow beneath the trees.

In the drier deciduous groves of tall oaks and maples the wood thrush chimes in with its offering, a song so sweet and clear that the heart feels safe, filled with a "drowsy numbness," as the poet says. It begins with a tinkling sound, like the light jangling of keys, or the tiny bells that call the monks to evensong. Then resounds a robust eee-ooo-lay, truly laying down a breathless moment that leads to another chorus, over and over in the fading light.

From the higher ground where evergreens grow comes the most haunting sound of all, the long opening note of the hermit thrush. It stretches out in steady strength, then begins to wander up and down the scale, always clear and pure, finally fading into the shadows.

Who can judge which is fairest? We only know that with such song filling the woods, there is no room for monsters, imagined or real. The trees are like the pillars of a cathedral, reaching high into the sky to arch their arms in praise. Beneath their arms we hear the enchanting voice of evensong. The notes rise beyond the stars to the dome of heaven, and fall deep into the recesses of the earth.

When night finally falls, the thrushes fall quiet as well, but the song still echoes in the ear. Why do the thrushes sing so in the evening? Do the fireflies that now shine in the dark know the secret? They are like the eyes of invisible dancing elves, moving in rhythm to the music that only they can still hear. It is the music of mating.

The winking of male fireflies is alluring to the female and so is the song of the thrush. Whether flickers of light or songs in the night, all this is done so that bonds will be made and life will go on. When we hear the evensong of the thrushes, it brings us in communion with the pulse of life, and we feel as immortal as the elves.

As the earth turns and carries our little bit of ground to the sun once more, the thrushes sing again to bid farewell to sleep. First to sing is the robin, a thrush that shuns the deep woods and prefers the edges and more open areas. His full-throated warble is plain and steady and seems to go on forever. He brings his hymn through the bedroom window, and we recall the evensong of elves.

It was time to harvest the hay. Most of the fields around town were already cut, some as much as six weeks earlier. This field behind my house had to wait until the bobolinks had fledged and could escape the mowing machine. I had not heard their cheery song for two weeks. Had they left the field entirely?

The meadowlarks rose from the grass at the first pass and circled round to a distant part of the field, but the mowing machine followed relentlessly. The meadowlark is an early nester and the young were fully grown by now. Soon there was the hollow little chip note of the bobolink overhead, and a group of them flew past, all dull females or young birds. They had made it!

Back and forth the birds flew, six meadowlarks and at least a dozen bobolinks, including two adult males in their sporty black suits with yellow caps and white wing patches. The female and young bobolinks had a buffy orange underside with striped heads, streaked brown backs and short, ragged tails. They stood tall among the fallen grass, gleaning the bugs that were exposed by the mowing.

The meadowlarks were larger with an even shorter tail, the adults showing bright yellow chests with a black necklace hung in a sharp vee. When they flew, they gave off a long buzzy rattle of alarm, their short wings beating stiffly. Once from a nearby tree, the sweet clear notes of their song came falling down on the field.

Their home was being mauled severely, but they did not mind at all now. This was a breakfast bonanza with hundreds of helpless bugs there for the picking. Other birds joined in the banquet. The kingbird came down from the sky and plucked his fill, chasing a crow around for good measure. The crows and starlings were the first to settle down to eat, walking with stately mean through the field.

The mowing also stirred up smaller insects that flew above the field, so barn and bank swallows were swooping by, hardly hesitating in the relentless pursuit of food on the wing. Round the field they went, never stopping to rest, although they would undoubtedly leave for their nests nearby to feed young.

When news of the imminent mowing came, the first job was to check and remove the tree swallow boxes. All had been used and the families were gone. The successful boxes were a mess of solid droppings, but one had dead bodies and two others only nests that had not produced young.

One box in the smaller field down the road had four almost fully grown bluebirds and had to be moved ten feet to the very edge. After the mowing the male arrived to feed the young and removed a white fecal sac when he departed. Bluebirds are excellent housekeepers.

Another box in the main field had a bluebird sitting on eggs. When the machine had passed, a new pole was placed in the cut section and this box was carefully transferred, so that nothing was left in the way on the next pass. The sitting bird never flew, and the couple accepted the move gracefully.

The most fascinating and unique gleaner of the field was the mockingbird. The bird would spread its wings out completely, showing the white patches, then bring them in, hop a few feet, and repeat the process. Sometimes it would bend to pick up a bug and after a half dozen or more of these actions, flew to the neighbor's yard, where it visited the nest hidden in a yew bush. This is what herons do when feeding in shallow water, shading the feeding area from the bright sun with their wings so the prey can be more easily seen.

As the sun set behind the hill above the valley the birds were still at it in the field, but there were many more, for nearby families had heard the news. I settled down in the hammock to enjoy the sounds and sights of man and beast living together in harmony. There need not be ignorance and mayhem. The great horned owl called his approval from the nearby forest. Suddenly he appeared, sailing slowly across the field. He was eager to find a few mice that might be exposed by the mowing.

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Science places all living organisms in groups. Humans and birds are part of a phylum whose name is chordata, because all in the group have an internal skeleton rod. The next grouping is called the class, and the class to which birds belong is aves. Within aves are two dozen "orders," and within orders are "families," which number about 160. Then comes the species, which is a distinctly different organism whose individuals do not normally interbreed with the individuals of other species.

One of the larger families of birds is the "tyrannidae," or tyrant flycatchers. They are the lowest (oldest) family in the order of passeriformes or perching birds. They are named tyrants because they are generally pugnacious, often chasing and harassing other birds. They feed from an open perch, sallying out to catch insects in flight and returning to their perch.

This is a family found only in the Americas and numbers over 400 different species, most present only in the tropics and subtropics. Over 30 species are found in the United States, but there are only nine flycatchers that breed in New England. One of the distinguishing marks of the flycatcher family is that most have a poorly developed singing apparatus. Many share a simple two note call that is usually harsh and buzzy. But there are exceptions.

Two weeks ago a group of us was walking through the wilds of Plainfield, deep in the Berkshires. Our leader brought us to an old pond surrounded by small alder trees and other wetland bushes and grasses. Here was the domain of one of the tyrants, the alder flycatcher.

The male gave his little song a few times. The traditional transcription is wee-bee-yo, but I agree with the lady who long ago taught me that it sounds just like "three beer." It is a gravelly voice, but gentle enough to distinguish it from the explosive, spluttery song of its twin species, the willow flycatcher.

Soon the bird appeared on the tops of small bare alder branches. It was dark gray on top with a suffusion of olive, wings and tail darker with dull white markings, undersides lighter with a hint of yellow. There was a light eye ring visible. This describes all of the five "empidonax" flycatchers of our area, which are so similar they have a grouping of their own. They are subtly beautiful birds, even if little tyrants. As if to prove it, the bird suddenly leaped into frantic action, uttering a loud, harsh note and chasing a second bird back and forth.

Two weeks later we heard and saw exactly the same call and chasing, but this was in the understory of tall trees. This different flycatcher species was slightly larger and darker, with duller wing marks and no eye ring. It was the eastern wood pewee. We had been hearing his sweet, plaintive song filling the shadows as we walked the trail. The clear, soft, drawn-out whistle of peee-a-weee was pretty good for a family of "songless" birds.

High overhead we saw the bird land on a bare, dead branch, and we realized it was on the edge of its nest. The nest was built cleverly in a cleft that matched the lichen decorating the outer surface of the structure. The camouflage was perfect except for the moving heads that stretched over the edge, showing yellow gapes in hope of food from the parent.

The alder flycatcher has a twin species, the willow flycatcher, and the ranges overlap, with the willow ranging more to the south and the alder residing mostly farther north. These two together are called a "superspecies." They are so alike that they were once considered one species, but the different songs and the discovery that they did not interbreed led to their being split into two.

The eastern wood pewee is also one half of a superspecies. It has an identical twin with a different song called the western wood pewee, and as the names suggest, their range is divided east-west instead of south-north. These two pairs are a snapshot of evolution at work. Each species has evolved to a point of separation, but there is no apparent visual difference between them.

Seeing the differences between organisms is a complex and fascinating challenge for the curious observer of nature.

It is a special place that draws us to visit at some deepest level. Here, where the land meets the sea, life itself began on earth and it still thrives. Perhaps most people would say they vacation at the shore to escape their normal routines. However, some visit there because they seek out that special place, to experience the richness of life.

It is certainly rich in bird life. In winter, birders visit the coast when few others do. I wrote about the four alcid species that we saw on the Massachusetts shore last winter. There is one more alcid so rare we did not see it, but it is probably the most appealing of all.

The Atlantic puffin adorns shirts and walls because of its extraordinary bill, which gives the bird a comical appearance. Many years ago I visited Machias Seal Island in far eastern Maine, the only place where you could find this bird at that time. One captain in one small boat took a few people out each day in summer to see the breeding colony.

Now over fifty people take a large boat out from Bar Harbor, Maine to an island farther south called Petit Manan. Here the puffin has been reintroduced, and is now one of several species using the island to raise young.

An island is a little like the earth itself, a sanctuary floating in the midst of an endless indifferent cosmos. Most of the ocean harbors little or no living organisms. It is only where the land rises up to meet the sea that creatures abound, from the tiny plankton and krill that feed on the nutrients created by turbulent currents, to the enormous whales that feed on the krill.

The birds need the land where the young can be born, and the surrounding waters where they find food to feed them. It is the dry land and the shallow sea around it that together make the island of life.

As our boat approached, hundreds of white terns flew back and forth, the incoming birds carrying fresh caught fish in their bills, the outgoing ones using those empty bills to call out their victory cry. The raspy screams from several thousand common and Arctic terns filled the air as we searched the water for floating puffins.

They swam quietly in pairs or groups scattered off the rocky shore, sometimes quite close to the boat as the captain maneuvered around to keep from drifting onto the rocks. Occasionally they would take flight, their stubby wings beating furiously. The huge, flat bills should have borne them head first into the sea, but they carried them proudly aloft.

These bills, grooved with red and yellow stripes, are used mostly for courtship. The black back, cap and throat frame a large white cheek patch with a black eye set in the center, giving puffins the clownish appearance that makes them so attractive. Just before the breeding season they grow this bill just for the "look." Afterward the horny material wears off and the bill is much smaller and all black.

There were young birds hidden in the clefts of boulders on the shore, waiting to be fed. When they are big enough, they will scramble out of the burrow in the dead of night and make their way clumsily to the sea. If they make a mistake and move farther inland, the gulls would devour them as they cowered in the open at daybreak.

Just ahead there was a part of the island that rose steeply from the water, and atop the ledge were a handful of razorbills. They also had similar thick bills, but the larger bodies and black heads made them appear more menacing than humorous. Also black were the small guillemots that were everywhere swimming and floating. They have small sharp bills, but bright white wing patches as their courting card.

After a bit, we stood off shore and motored out to sea. About twenty miles out more birds began to appear, and the whales that went with them. Both are here because hidden beneath the surface is another uprising island where life abounds due to the meeting of cold and warm currents. The hump-backed whales were just below the surface and the shearwaters were gliding just above it.

Next week a story about these ocean-going birds that "shear" the water.

The sea was glassy calm, but not flat. It was as if some great beast was breathing gently and its torso rose and fell in slow undulations. It had been like this once before on the Stellwagen Bank whale watch.

I could picture in my mind that day, when the birds sat on the sea and the whales lolled lazily. Perhaps it would be like that again, so I stood at the rail, waiting for the island to rise on the horizon. Of course, it would not rise. It was beneath the waves, but you would know it was there.

We perched up front, almost oblivious to the patter of the naturalist from the marine coastal center. She was trying to keep nearly a hundred folks from going to sleep in the sultry sun, while the swaying vessel carried us over the empty depths. The only life here was a stray gull or tern, in fast transit between the islands of life.

We were going as fast as we could, engines pounding and wake roiling, but it was too slow. Finally, we saw a small dark flutter, far out on the surface. The wait was over and we all focused on this first sign, like Noah waiting for the dove to return. The flood waters were subsiding, and the land rose somewhere down there beneath us, closer and closer.

This was Stellwagen Bank off the coast of Massachusetts, where powerful ocean currents smashed against the rising floor and a great mixing of muck and water gave rise to nutrients. Here the chain of life began, and built up in stages through plankton and squid and fish to marvelous swimming mammals and airborne beings.

The first of these was a tiny petrel, all black with a bright white rump patch. The long wings fluttered and bore the bird unsteadily over the water. You would barely notice the brief hesitation as the head stooped to pick something from the surface. Occasionally it would seem to walk on the water, feet dangling and paddling.

The bird is hardly a rock upon which to build anything, but it was named for the disciple Peter, who dared not set his feet down on the water, lest he sink. Instead, like this bird, he dangled them just above the surface, until fear overcame him and he fell. The petrel will not sink, even though he flies like this above the water for hours on end.

These petrels were flying all around us now, and ahead on the water were larger seabirds, marking the very place the captain sought. The whales and the birds fed together. Suddenly one bird came out of the distance toward us, with ponderous beats and smooth glides. Our optics focused on it, speeding past on long, broad wings, set in a seemingly endless glide that kept it just above the surface. Was it an albatross? No, a close cousin; it was a shearwater.

If the wind blows, which it almost always does here on the open ocean, these birds can glide all day with scarcely a flap. They bank their wings and veer one way and then another in unceasing search. Then they earn their name, each wing like a stiff blade seeming to cut the tops of whitecaps. The best they dare do is shear the mist.

Now the wind was so light most of the birds waited on the water, reluctant to flee the plowing bow of the boat. Most of them were the greater shearwater, but there were quite a few sooty shearwaters too. They were here just to live in the North Atlantic summer, resting from the labors of parenting. These two species breed during our cold months on islands of the southern and eastern Atlantic Ocean.

When close birds finally decided to take off, they beat their great wings slowly and paddled across the surface on fast feet. They left a trail of little eddies in their wake on the smooth sea. We watched each new group of birds closely, picking out a few of the smaller manx shearwaters, and even two large Cory's shearwaters.

We do not see these birds very often or so well. It was another rare day to remember, when the ocean rested and granted gifts to those who ventured out upon her waves.

Some gypsies have settled in my yard and the squire doesn't seem to care. If you had read the two stories that appeared in the Union News last week, you would have learned a lot about the gypsy goldfinches and the squire hummingbird. However, you would not know why these nicknames are appropriate.

August is a busy month at the nectar feeders. In early summer the male ruby-throated hummingbird comes only occasionally, and any females come hardly at all. The local male is the lord of the manor, and I call him the squire. No wandering males trespass on his property without a challenge. The females he welcomes, but not at the feeder itself. He sends them back to their duties at the nest, which he never even visits.

When full summer comes, squire hummingbird has his hands full, chasing away one intruder after another from the feeders. At first he gives them the full display, performing an aerial act designed to intimidate. When the intruder perches nearby, the squire rises to a height above them, then descends quickly and up again in a swinging arc, buzzing loudly with his wings. This usually does the trick and he is left in peace and possession.

Later this fails to work and there is a steady parade of adult females, young, and other adult males that make a foray at the feeders. Usually he sits on a dead twig in a nearby tree and waits, dashing out when a mere peasant approaches the feeder. Most of the time the visitor gives way, fleeing before the squire's assertion of his rights.

Sometimes the newcomer has pretensions of its own and there is a stand off. Then the fact there are five feeders spread on all sides of the house leads to an uneasy sharing. Now there are several different individuals sipping nectar from all the feeders. There seems to be a constant chasing and buzzing in the yard as the squire and his unwanted guests sort things out from dawn to dusk.

How different it is for the finches. Forty or more birds are all taking their turns peaceably at the niger and sunflower seed feeders. The finch is the gypsy of the songbird world because it never seems to settle down in one place and always travels in groups. We have three finches in New England in spring and summer, the purple finch, the house finch, and the goldfinch.

The purple finch is very uncommon in the valley, living mostly in the evergreen forests of the higher hills. The house finch breeds abundantly in the suburbs, often in wreaths and in flower pots on porches, and has now brought its young to the feeders.

The goldfinch is just starting to breed now. The female builds the nest in the tall weeds and bushes of open areas. Most of the 20-30 goldfinches at the feeders at any one time are male. The bright, yellow and black male almost never incubates. The females wear the drab, greenish colored coat that hides them so well as they go to, and sit on, their nest.

He seems the epitome of the carefree gypsy; eating, drinking, and making merry with his pals. These little birds move about the yard in chaotic abandon seemingly all day long. They visit one feeder after another, singing their soft musical notes. Occasionally one bursts into full song, a long series of louder notes, filled with exuberance if not melody. Each bird sits and munches on seeds until displaced by another impatient for its spot.

Are they part of many nesting pairs that reside for miles around in the surrounding countryside? Do they all fly off to their distant mates to feed them some of this easy meal? If they have graced your yard, enjoy them while you can, for in a month or two they may have all moved their gay wagons to another manor.

It would be hard to choose between the gypsy and the squire, as different as they are. The goldfinch is generous and merry because seeds are plentiful in the wild or at the feeders. The squire is intense and combative because nectar is always hard to find and extract. Either will pay handsomely for your handout with an entertaining show.

Deep in your bones you probably know the bad news already, but you don't want to hear it, not just yet. For those who watch birds, the signs first appeared in the middle of July. Spring has its harbingers, the robin and the bluebird. The earliest and ominous message of autumn is brought by the sandpiper.

The sandpiper conjures up memories of summer fun at the beach under warm blue skies. You stroll barefoot on the sand and feel the wavelets tickling your toes. There in front of you a little flock of birds runs before the reaching wave, as if afraid their tiny feet would be knocked from under them.

They are not afraid of the waves, which actually bring the sand dwelling insects to the surface, a meal for this voracious sandpiper. The name of those fast footed birds on the beach is actually sanderling, one of the many species of the family of shorebirds, more properly called waders.

These birds do a lot of wading, so the shore is a natural place for them to be, but their greatest asset is their wings. There is no group of birds that flies so fast and far and with such astounding endurance and agility. When you see them on the beach in July, they are not on their breeding grounds at all. They have already left behind the Arctic tundra and their young of the year. They are on the way to southern shores.

They arrived in the Arctic only 6-8 short weeks ago, found their old nesting territory, courted, mated, laid and hatched the eggs, watched over the small young for a while, then left them to start the long trip back. When these adult birds arrive at our shores, they are the heralds of autumn.

If you look down on the northern hemisphere from space, you see vast land masses and very little ocean. This is the tundra of Asia and America, where millions of waders find a vast open landscape, rich with insect life during the brief summer. There is enough for them and their just hatched young to feed on and fatten.

Eons ago this family of birds once lived only on tropical shores, but space was limited there and new birds could find no place to nest. They wandered north when the sun did and found new country for breeding, then those who retreated back from the cold and survived were able to repeat the process. It was the beginning of migration.

Eventually the vast bonanza of the Arctic summer was found, and now millions of waders of many shapes and sizes migrate the thousands of miles from there to the tropics every year. Because of that, the power of flight is their greatest asset. They have long narrow wings that bear the small but plump bodies through the air with ease, speed, and agility.

They stick together, often hundreds in a single flock, and as you watch, you can only marvel at the way the whole flock twists and turns as one, all spaced scant inches apart, but never touching even so much as a feather of another bird. Exactly how they do this is still a mystery, but researchers suspect some kind of magnetic sending and sensing ability keeps each bird instantly informed of the location, speed, and direction of their immediate neighbors in the flock.

The most abundant waders are the small sandpipers, all barely larger than a sparrow, and known informally under the name "peeps." The sanderling is one of the larger peeps, but it is rather specialized in liking the outer beaches. Most of the wading birds find much richer sources of food in the estuary, the shallow mud flats that are formed behind the protection of the barrier beach and dune system.

As the tide begins to fall they fly from resting places in the higher dunes and grasses, searching for the first appearance of mud, where insect and small invertebrate life flourishes in the shallows. When it appears, they land as one, spreading out evenly to pick and probe at the mud with their bills. They march as they fly, with cooperative precision and efficient effort, like an invading army.

There are many stories to tell of the sandpiper army, and you will read some here in the coming weeks.

At the close of last week's column, I alluded to the sandpipers as an invading army. This idea came from a friend, who was describing how a bird he had seen walked swiftly and stiffly across the ground. "They walked with a military step," he said. It was enough to clinch the identification he sought.

Every summer birders travel to favored shoreline spots to find the sandpiper army that sweeps through New England on its way from the Arctic to the tropics. We avoid the myriad of vacationers by finding the special places only the sandpipers go.

On Cape Cod, one of these places would be South Beach in Chatham. Several weeks ago a group of us hired a small boat to ferry us three miles south from Outermost Harbor, and drop us on the deserted barrier beach there. It was high tide, and many waders were resting on the higher flats out of reach of the water.

You would not know they were there until you set up your telescope and scanned a suspicious looking mass of lighter color. Then you would see a closely packed group of hundreds of small sandpipers, all standing erect on one leg, heads and bills tucked under their wings in silent mediation. Did they have thoughts of their impending invasion of the flats, or were their minds as blank as raw recruits?

If you approached too close to this standing formation, the heads would come out and the other leg would come down from its secret place. The one eye visible on the side of the head would be alert to danger, and the mass would begin to move as one, scurrying away across the sand. If alarmed enough, the feathered arms would spring into motion and bear them all far down the strand with a gentle note of complaint.

We stayed far enough away and tried to identify the varying kinds as they slept, the semipalmated, the least, or the white-rumped sandpiper. A bird would suddenly raise its head to preen a bit, keeping those precious flight feathers in shape. These "peeps" were by far the most numerous, but there were larger waders as well, the plovers, dowitchers, knots, and sanderlings; the yellowlegs, willets, and godwits.

The resting army was only the reserves. Already the scouts were marching on the flats where water met sand in the shallows of the estuary. Here on the protected side of the dunes away from the surf, huge mud flats lurked just beneath the calmer waters, and the waders were beginning their operations to overwhelm this territory. As the tide began to fall, the reserves rose as one and hurried out to join the attack, covering the flats.

With calm efficiency the different birds divided the task, the larger ones braving the deepest water, their heads bobbing and sweeping at the surface as long bills probed the mud beneath, extracting the wormy and crabby creatures living in the tidal zone. The medium sized birds patrolled the shallowest eddies, shorter bills picking at the receding pools. The small peeps spread across the wet mud, sometimes moving quickly from place to place, sometimes wandering about in seemingly aimless circles.

The same thing was happening at every estuary up and down the east coast. Three weeks later we watched them on the north shore at the mouth of the Merrimac River. They flew in tight flocks from their staging areas in the short grasses, weaving back and forth in dazzling drill, eager to descend when the muddy ground was first exposed.

We are always hoping to find a rare species among the mix of birds, but we are kept busy telling the difference between the least and the semipalmated sandpiper, the greater and lesser yellowlegs, the dowitcher and the Hudsonian godwit. Even for the experienced observer it is tricky, and for the beginner this family is a blur of legs and bills and body sizes. Most of them are camouflaged in shades of gray and brown, like the mud and water they inhabit.

Did you know we have estuaries right here in Hampden County? Next week learn about them and the battalions of waders that sometimes invade our peaceful backwater.

The wading birds that we find on beaches, estuaries, and mud flats on the coast in summer seem like marching armies because they walk so distinctly stiff and band together in such disciplined ranks. Like all armies, they fly, rest, and feed together for survival rather than glory. Their survival is precarious, since they are dependent on the food available between the high and low tides. They are creatures of the tide.

Tides are actions of the ocean, so it would seem that one must seek the waders there. However, these birds must pass over the land between the tundra and the coast, and sometimes they are stopped by weather on the way. When the rains broke our local drought on Saturday, August 14, they also brought some sandpipers to our "shores."

The Connecticut River is our local shore, and though we are far beyond the reach of ocean tides, the level of the river varies often enough to create mini mud flats at various places along its banks. A large shallow area next to an island on the river three miles south of Springfield is often exposed by low water, and waders find a place to rest and feed when interrupted on their journey to the coast.

A friend called that Saturday morning to tell of many waders on this "sandbar," including one that was rare for this area, a red knot. Although several of us rushed there to find the bird, it had already moved on. However, the visit was not in vain. Over a dozen of the beach-loving sanderlings were still present, mixed in with a flock of over 200 semipalmated and least sandpipers.

You can almost always find a few least sandpipers on this sandbar starting in mid-July. They are the smallest of the 'peeps,' or sparrow sized waders, and they prefer the driest parts of the mud flat to feed. This allows them to stop more often on the overland flight, since the drier flats are fairly common inland.

Also present then and regularly are a few of the slightly larger spotted and solitary sandpipers. They are not part of any vast army, because they nest nearby, and travel alone or in very small groups. Finally there were two plovers, one that breeds in pastures and bare wasteland around here, and one that is part of the tundra contingent. These are the killdeer and the semipalmated plover. The plovers are excellent practitioners of the military step. Like robins, they stop and check the ground around them, then scurry double time for a few feet and stop again.

The one species "not" there was the red knot. Birds are like the tides that the waders depend on, you must catch them before they turn. Shakespeare's Julius Caesar noted that "There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune." The tide turned even on a great general of armies like Caesar, and he missed his fortune, as we missed the bird.

The only red knots ever found before in our region were also on this sandbar, single birds in August of 1982 and again in 1985. Such scarcity proves how tenacious this species is in returning to only a few places every summer along the east coast, all at shoreline estuaries. On our bird club trip to South Beach in Chatham we saw several hundred of these rotund waders with reddish chests, a vestige of their rich rusty breeding plumage. Most of them are on their way to Argentina for our winter, although a few remain along our continental coast from Virginia to Texas.

Some say the knot got its name from another leader of armies, King Canute (Knut) of Denmark. King Canute was said to have become disgusted with the way his courtiers fawned upon him, making him a royal god. So he walked out upon the ocean sands at low tide, and then commanded the waters to stay, like Moses in the Red Sea. He got wet of course and proved his point.

The word "tide" comes from an old English word for "divide," and it originally also meant "time." To divide earth from sea and night from day is to be the author of creation and time itself. The time or the tide waits for no creature. Neither do the waders wait for us.

"I hate fall warblers!" We hadn't even gotten out of the parking lot and the prospect of trying to identify adolescent songbirds was already daunting. Young people have trouble with their own identities, but young birds are a problem for watchers and birders.

Most of the species that are permanent residents of eastern North America have relatively drab coloration. They wear variations of brown and gray or black and white. Two clear exceptions are the male cardinal and male goldfinch. However, the young birds of these two are like the females, a dull orange-brown and a plain inconspicuous olive green.

The males of almost all tropical species generally show their southern heritage, bearing the bright hues that betray their exotic origin. There is no mistaking the bright orange and black of the Baltimore oriole, or the red, black and white of the American redstart. Females and young birds are another story. If you look in the field guides, there is a page dedicated to "confusing fall warblers." It is not just the warblers who can confuse.

I often get calls about the strange streaked, or yellow, or green bird in the yard or at the feeder. One that is "not in the book," or looks like a species that is not supposed to be in New England. There is no way to talk a caller out of the stripe-headed tanager or great kiskadee, species that are virtually impossible in New England. Likely the bird is an immature rose-breasted grosbeak, heavily streaked with a buffy breast.

Birds that are hard to identify are invariably females or young birds of common species in plumages that do not appear in some field guides. There simply is not room to depict all the many variations. The birder who complained about the fall warblers was experienced. On that trip alone several of us were embarrassed by not being able to identify the birds we were seeing.

In some cases you have to unlearn what you know about spring breeding plumage, and learn a whole new bird. The chestnut-sided warbler loses its chestnut side and yellow cap and gains a green cap. The magnolia warbler loses its black mask, black breast band, and white wing bars. The immature bay-breasted warbler loses the bay cap and breast. The blackpoll loses all its black and gains a suffusion of olive and yellow. In the fall a half dozen different warblers all share a dark back and a yellowish, streaked underside. Only subtle differences remain, all undetectable without a long clear look.

How often do you get such a look? In fall the foliage is lush and the birds lurk half hidden in the bushes or high trees, flitting from leaf to leaf with amazing speed, and generally acting like they know we are watching, taunting us with half views of back ends. Usually there are small groups of birds of mixed species. "I see an eye ring." "My bird has a streak over the eye, not an eye ring." 'Where is your bird?" "It's in that tangle right in front of me." Sure! "There are six tangles in front of me."

Fall warblers are certainly a challenge, but the rewards are worth the effort. Sometimes a tree is alive with movement, with 20-30 individuals flitting from twig to twig. You eventually do get clear satisfying views, and you can distinguish the immature blackpoll, magnolia, blackburnian or Cape May warbler. Such a mixed flock of migrants can appear anywhere, even in a suburban back yard. So keep an eye out.

If you can't be sure of the identity of a bird, even with a good look, the best advice is to let it go. If a bird persists at a feeder or in a yard more than a day, and it looks exactly like an exotic species not occurring in New England, contact someone who is a bird club member or interested in birds immediately. However, it can't be just almost a match, it has to be exact. If not, then it is probably one of those common immatures designed to confuse.

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