The Kellogg Columns

A few weeks ago I wondered if those hordes of pine siskins, the dark gypsies of the North, would stay in New England for the winter. Would they move on to milder pastures, more fruitful cone bearing trees to be precise? We are still not certain, but the reports are getting fewer, and the siskins that visited my yard certainly did not stay.

Those dozen or so clinging to my feeders at the end of October did so for only a couple of days. One or two showed up for a week thereafter, then nothing. The trees are deserted, the fires are cold, and there is no merry music to be heard from the groves. Do not despair, there is more than one gypsy on the wind.

After all, we have our very own home-grown variety, the goldfinch. They are still bouncing around from feeder to treetop, chuckling to themselves. Perhaps they are thankful that their pushy cousins have moved on. Whenever the pine siskins come to a feeding station, they seem to dominate.

The goldfinches better not celebrate too early, because there is a third small gypsy finch from even farther north than the siskin, and it is even pushier. This is the common redpoll, the bright gypsy, as white as the siskin is gray, which is to say, white only in its base color. The redpoll has dark streaking much like the siskin, but those streaks are laid upon a very frosty background.

Flocks of redpolls were reported as early as mid-November in New England, but mostly in the wild, not from feeders, and most often near the coast. Three weeks ago, our club was searching the birch groves of the Daniel Webster Wildlife Sanctuary in Marshfield and encountered redpolls.

Only a few miles from the coast, the vast pastures of the sanctuary are a favorite haunt of several rare long-eared owls, which usually roost by day in a large birch grove. We found no owls that day, but a flock of eighty or more redpolls was clustered at the top of a birch tree loaded with catkins. The tiny finches clung to the twigs and pried the seeds out, muttering their thanks as the ate their fill.

In their Arctic home, they feed on shrubby birches, knocking the seed to the ground, then consuming them there. They have an extra holding tank in their necks to get them through the storms and darkness of the Arctic winter. Seeds are stored undigested in this second pocket, then spit up and consumed as needed in the protection of a dense evergreen shrub or tree. It is another amazing adaptation of the bright gypsy.

These flocks are in constant motion, some birds flushing and circling while others remain still. At some unknown prompt, the whole crowd bursts into the air, chipping and chattering as they go. Then they returned in a swarm to alight again. It was difficult to study these busy birds against the gray sky, so I was pleased when a single bird showed up at my feeder the other day. This bird was heavily streaked on the belly and on the entire upper parts from head to tail, as a common redpoll should be.

It was similar but also unlike the two redpolls seen a couple of weeks ago in West Springfield. Friends had called one morning to report two birds at their feeder, but these were unstreaked on the rump and nearly so on the belly. They were hoary redpolls, the brightest of all gypsies, with a name that bespeaks both their frosty aspect and their homeland. It took keen eyes and experience to realize these were a once in a lifetime yard bird.

I was fortunate enough to see this pair before they left later in the day. In thirty years I had seen the hoary redpoll only four other times, always before in company with hordes of common redpolls. There may be no one else in New England that ever had hoary redpolls alone at their feeder. Common redpolls invade the Northeast about every other year, but usually such invasions occur later in January or February. Such an early arrival indicates a serious food shortage in the Arctic. There is no telling where these flocks will end up in their never-ending search for seeds.

I must confess that as a youngster I wanted to find and see mammals. Read on and find out why I became a birder instead. The trouble was, the only mammals that showed themselves were cats and dogs and cows. The wild ones I dreamed about hid from view.

A call from a friend the other day has prompted this confession. He reported two new "birds" at his feeder. One was the common redpoll, that northern gypsy that is showing up at a number of bird feeders in our area. The other was visiting his feeder at night. In the higher country where he lives, flying squirrels inhabit the deeper forest, and three were using his feeders.

Now squirrels are usually the ultimate nemesis of those who feed birds. Those gray or black oversized rodents with the bushy tail are always raiding the feeders and making a general nuisance of themselves. The way a gray squirrel can leap through the air to alight on a forbidden feeder makes them almost beings of the air. With its gliding powers, nothing can keep a flying squirrel from a feeder.

Once I checked out a bird house set up on a tree in the woods by knocking gently. I will never forget the huge round eyes of the flying squirrel that popped out and stared at me from six inches away. The eyes are so large because this mammal, like most wild ones, is nocturnal. No wonder it is so hard to find them.

Besides squirrels, the other mammal at my feeders is the domestic cat. They get chased away back to my neighbors where they belong, but it is hard to blame them for their wild instinct to hunt. I prefer birds now because they do not hide themselves from view, and you cannot blame my instinct to protect them.

Although the hordes of sparrows that once covered the feeding ground have moved on farther south, plenty of wintering birds are left. However, the bare ground affords food for them in the wild, so they come in only occasionally. The tree sparrows seem to be the most common this year at my feeders.

They are the small brown sparrows with the ace spot on their chest instead of streaking. This is the number one winter sparrow in my book. At odd times throughout the day, they will come to the feeding ground, where their pale brown colors will blend in perfectly with the earthy dirt.

They even migrate properly, being a breeder of the northern tundra that comes south to visit us in large numbers when snow covers their summer range. The first ones arrive around the end of October, when all the sparrows are moving. They do not leave until the end of March.

They shun the woods, as one would expect of a tundra bird, but are often found in shrubby swamps. It is a mystery why they ever received the name of tree sparrow. As the winter daylight grows dim, a large flock will sit and sing out their sweet chorus of tinkling notes. The first time I heard this chorus I thought it might be the elves.

The tiny bell sounds lured me through the forest to a hidden swamp where a hundred birds or more filled the air with magic sound. Elves would be the ultimate mammals of the dark, enchanted forest, but these sparrows were more than enchanting. They were visible and real.

You can walk through a field of weeds that a kind and easygoing gardener might leave, not suspecting a thing until the one step brings you too close. Then the tree sparrows will flush from their hidden recesses and alight farther away, perhaps perched on a tall weed, or gone down again as if never there. If the weedy field is large, then they will eventually congregate in flocks of two or three hundred as the snows deepen.

The other day I happened on a flock of tree sparrows mixed with juncos. They flushed up from the roadside where grass is left to grow long and go to seed. They retreated to the cover of a nearby bush and perched in the open, showing off their rusty caps. That is why I settled on birds. They like protection, but not invisibility.

Last spring you read here about the common gulls of New England. You met the standard seagull, properly named the herring gull and its two cousins, the larger great black-backed gull and the smaller ring-billed gull. It is time to re-introduce them and learn more, as was promised in that earlier column.

The shopping season is an appropriate time because there is no more avid mall shopper than the gull. Even the smallest parking lot has its resident few, gliding overhead, perched on light poles, or gathered on that hardest and smoothest of beaches, the asphalt pavement.

On a recent visit to the local mall the gulls were on parade in one corner of the lot. Most were standing alert and expectant, but a few crouched down, eyes closed and dozing. If an errant car came close, they would all spring into the air and circle, returning quickly to their places, screaming at the intrusion.

All these birds spend much time at the local landfills still in operation, gleaning unintended handouts from our excess. They even deign to visit the river or lake occasionally, paying homage to their ancient roots. Perhaps the most interesting hangout of all is the playing fields of UMass in Hadley and Amherst. It is as if those fields were built to attract them.

They have come, to sit and rest upon the green expanse, sometimes a thousand or more. The small ring-billed gulls are pasture lovers anyway, adept at finding bugs and worms among the blades, like giant white starlings. However, they do not feed here. Instead, they rest and roost, and perhaps they play.

The word had spread that rare gulls were here among the common, so I visited those fields the other day. Other searchers were there as well, all trying to decipher the intricate plumages and varied sizes of gulls.

It takes three to four years of the scrounging life for a gull to achieve the familiar dark and white pattern. The young bird goes through stages of chocolate brown as well as checkered black and white before the finished product appears. We were searching for two all-white gulls and one medium sized black-backed gull.

This day a hundred or more birds rested in groups upon the trodden grass and mud, and if we got too close to one of the packs, it would rise as one into the air, circling and gaining height until they became the true wild masters of the air they are. They rose in a swarming kettle of birds, suddenly small and flashing in the light of the sun, higher and higher past the tallest building and into the upper heavens.

I had to tear my gaze from the dizzying scene, like Icarus perhaps, afraid to see them plunge to earth when the sun melted their wings. Not too long ago there was a modern fable on the best seller list called Jonathan Livingston Seagull. It was a slight little story about a young gull that tried to fly higher than any other. We like to use our wild creatures to illustrate moral lessons. Here the moral was perseverance, for eventually we found the birds we were looking for.

The Iceland gull was easy. Two first winter birds, dusky white from their black bill to the tips of their wings, were among the many common ones, all of whom sported black wing tips. For the next one we had to wait, chatting and enjoying the bright sun and brisk air. The birds dropped from the air unannounced, and when we turned our gaze back, there was a huge bright white second winter glaucous gull glaring out like a beacon.

The third bird was the hardest, but finally we noticed a second winter lesser black-backed gull, mid-sized between the herring and ring-billed gulls it accompanied. We picked out the special marks of plumage, bill size and color that gave the bird away and were satisfied.

These are all gulls that breed in the Arctic, and a few of the young wander south to us in the winter, searching for that place in the sun, before they can challenge their elders on the more favored wintering grounds. What fitter place than these playing grounds, where they learn more than to shop and squabble over food.

We are at the end of ten years, a hundred years, and a thousand years. The cycle of one single year is important to life, but is there some special significance to reaching a thousand of them? Almost certainly not, except it takes a lot to impress us these days, and we do need to recognize the importance of the end of each and every year.

The natural year ends here in the northern hemisphere on December 21, the time of the winter solstice. Our most important celebrations of the year come at this time only because the days are short, the sun is low, and natural life is cold and dormant. The solstice is the limit of that cold, when the sun stops it flight away from us and the miracle of its return is cause for awe and joy.

Sometimes we get carried away with these celebrations. In the 19th century our frontier forefathers indulged in the "side hunt," forming teams of shooters to go out into the still rural countryside and bag as many small birds and animals as they could. The count of dead game in the bag would then determine the winner of this contest.

A hundred years ago a man named Frank Chapman celebrated by asking friends to venture out in the field on Christmas Day, 1900 to just count birds rather than shoot and count them. The Allen Bird Club of Springfield held such a count last Saturday, as it has done every year since early in the century.

Within a 15-mile diameter circle, a party of counters has a certain section to census. My section has been the eastern and southern part of Agawam for the last thirty years. Would you like to come along to celebrate the 100th annual Christmas count?

There are a few night-loving birders who start their census at 12 midnight, but I was at the first stop at 4:00 a.m. If you play a recording of a screech owl, you will get a response if there is one in the neighborhood, and there were two such replies out of 12 attempts until dawn. At one place, a great horned owl called on its own.

The finest part of the day is dawn, and from a hilltop in Agawam the entire skyline of Springfield with a backdrop of the Wilbraham mountains was visible. A cloud bank rested above the hills and was tinted everywhere with reds and pinks. A red-tailed hawk sat in a tree and a northern harrier flew into view, both scanning the ground below for food.

This first walk, through woods and fields, took three hours and produced 27 more species of birds. You can probably guess at many of the them, the common woodpeckers, chickadees, jays, finches, and sparrows. These are regular species in the wintry New England landscape, and are present almost anywhere you may walk.

Perhaps surprising to some, but not unexpected to the winter walker, were the thirty or so robins found brightening the trees with their red breasts. When disturbed they chuck their loud protesting call note and flick their tails in defiance. "Don't interrupt when we are dining on rose hips and sumac seeds," they seem to say.

There was a lingering flicker in residence and one of the northern shrikes that are visiting from the North this winter, but the usual bluebirds did not appear. Instead, a Carolina wren belted out his full ringing song from across the field, more merry than a carol sung by a choir. Later, on the other side of the fields, streams of blackbirds flew overhead, delayed in their southward migration by the snowless ground.

Later in the day, the run along the river brought several ducks and gulls. Along the stream next to Riverside Park, a kingfisher rattled his alarm from a perch on an overhanging branch. At a brushy spot near the river, a swarm of nearly a hundred cedar waxwings sat on a bare tree in the open. Clad in their gaudy wine and yellow colors, they shone like ornaments on a holiday tree.

What better way to celebrate the holy day that marks the end of a year. A day that in the midst of winter forecasts its end and reminds us of the resiliency of life.

The Christmas Count is a census of birds done around the end of each year by birders throughout the continent. The first one, 99 years ago, was conducted on Christmas Day, but hardly any are done on that day now. The National Audubon Society allows a three-weekend window in which to do the census, so an enthusiastic field birder can participate in more than one count.

Last week you heard about the Springfield area count held on Saturday, December 18. Here in western Massachusetts, counts were made in the Athol and Williamstown area that day as well. The next day, on Sunday, two more were done in the Northampton and Pittsfield area.

The Northampton area count has by far the most participants, and not only because it has the largest concentration of people interested in outdoor recreation and birds. The mix of wildlife habitats in central Hampshire County happens to be the richest and most varied in the entire region.

The rarest species of the record high 91 recorded on the Northampton area count was a spotted towhee. Many people are familiar with the eastern towhee, which sometimes comes to feeders in spring and fall. These feeder visitors are likely migrating birds, dropping in to unfamiliar territory and taking food wherever they can.

The eastern towhee breeds widely in our region, but only in oak scrub lands or in heavily cut oak forests, where trees are small and the underbrush is thick. They are very like sparrows in their appearance and behavior, staying on or close to the ground where they rummage among the leaves searching for seeds and insects.

Not long ago, the ornithologists who study these things lumped the two species of towhees into one and called it the rufous-sided towhee. Twenty years later, they reconsidered and split them apart again. Further research revealed that they hardly ever interbred in the narrow regions where they both occur, one of the tests of determining whether two similar species are actually separate.

The spotted towhee is present only in the western continent from southern Canada to Central America. The eastern towhee is restricted to the East from the Atlantic coast to the Great Plains. When cold weather comes, the towhee, like most sparrows, retreats from the northern part of its range, seeking areas with less snow cover. Only a handful are found in New England in the winter.

On the morning of Christmas Eve, a few of us went to Hadley and found the place where the spotted towhee was found. Two to three hours of searching the brushy embankments near the Connecticut River proved fruitless. This towhee stayed hidden.

On the Sunday after Christmas, the Westfield area count was held. Late in the morning, my party of three counters was checking out a birdy section of brush along a large meadow behind some houses. After much enticing with alarm sounds and owl calls, an eastern towhee suddenly appeared.

It sat quietly in a bush for two minutes, then dived back down into hiding. We were excited by this rare winter sight despite the fact it had only one white spot on its wings. It lacked the heavy white smudges on its back that would have made it the even rarer spotted species.

The towhee is one of the few sparrow-type birds in which the sexes are dimorphic, with the males and females having distinctly different plumage. This was a male with a jet-black hood and upper back. The female would have been dark brown in this area. The belly is pure white, but the sides are rufous like the color of a robin's breast. It is a strikingly handsome bird.

The only other story about this count period is that the numbers of regular wintering birds found is very low. One reason might be that some birds are dispersed and scattered away from the usual feeding areas due to the mild and snowless winter. However, there are definitely fewer golden-crowned kinglets and red-breasted nuthatches. Also, of the northern finches that passed through earlier in the fall, only the common redpoll has remained, though in small numbers.

I will try for that other spotted towhee again, but even if it remains hidden, this year-end season will be known as the time of the towhee.

If that round number on the calendar does not make this a memorable winter, then the amazing weather certainly will. We have only really begun, but so far the bare ground and balmy air have made it easier for migrating wildlife to stay and survive in our region.

One group of animals that benefits is waterfowl. Chief of these is the Canada goose, which has become a permanent mainstay of our rivers, lakes, and fields. In lines and vees, they range back and forth low in the skies almost all day long, usually honking as they go. Every large lawn or cut over corn field provides delectable grass and cobs to fill their bottomless gullets.

Reservoirs and golf courses have begun to use ingenious methods to keep them away, from noisemakers to border collies. Even on water bodies that are not drinking water, they can be a nuisance. Their numbers help to keep parts of a lake open, so they freeze unevenly and make ice safety more unpredictable.

Many other ducks take advantage of this artificially open water and linger longer before fleeing to the warmer coastline ponds and river harbors. There were very few ducks on Lake Congamond this year during the usually busy autumn migration season, but cold weather to our north finally drove some southward.

That recent cold snap froze one side of the lake, but on the other hundreds of feathered bodies paddled around in the open water or sat on the edge of the ice. Besides the noisy geese, there are the usual gulls, resting from their scavenging at malls and dumps.

There are many mallards, both green headed males and all-brown females, floating and quacking in tight packs. There are quite a few of the wilder black ducks as well. On the Christmas Count in the Springfield area, the counter who covers Forest Park complained about how few of these ducks were at the feeding pool there. Only a long bitter cold spell will force them into this artificial impoundment.

Now they are still finding respite from their feeding labors in the fields at plenty of open ponds and streams. At Congamond they follow the little American coot around, waiting for this hard-working diver to bring up a long weed from the bottom of the lake. Then they grab one end and begin to gobble this succulent salad before the coot can consume it all.

The coot may look and act like a duck, but it is a member of the marsh-loving rail family. It is a prolific species, extremely abundant in winter all through the South. I remember a visit to Lake Okeechobee in Florida, when tens of thousands of these black water birds covered the lake's huge surface. Here a flock of a hundred is impressive enough on our small northern ponds.

This year about twenty coots are still enjoying the open water of Lake Congamond, doing their diving trick, which other rails cannot do. They move about the surface in mime-like stutters and starts and turn on a dime. They surge forward, necks nodding, then duck down and suddenly disappear beneath the water. Shortly, they pop up from the hidden depths.

They are unlike the true diving ducks, which are deliberate in their dives, almost jumping from the surface before they cleave it cleanly, heading for the bottom and staying longer. A few of these divers are present at the Congamond watering hole, ring-necked ducks, greater and lesser scaups, bufflehead, and hooded and common mergansers.

The coots are extremely agile and aggressive, especially toward one another. They flash the bright white bills and foreheads, and chase each other around in endless displays. They are strong swimmers with lobed feet, which have claws they use in attack and defense against each other.

During warmer weather they utter an astounding variety of grunts, chuckles, quacks and chortles. They often hide among the plants where they nest, and the noise lends an additional air of mystery to the marsh.

In cold weather they are at home with the larger ducks and geese in the open water and none disturb them despite their diminutive size. This bird is one tough old coot, spurning the cold and ice, and surviving however it can.

A friend showed me a photo yesterday, and I could hardly believe my eyes. He had told me a week before about a bird that had been caught in a chimney and rescued. I assumed it was a chimney swift or some other small songbird trying to find a nesting cavity. Sometimes you don't think of the pertinent questions that would set you straight, but the photo said it all.

It took two people to hold this big gray and white bird, all smudged in soot. It must have filled the flue, like a disheveled Santa losing his magic slippery skin in a narrow chimney. The red head with a fluff of feathers streaming behind looked like a Christmas cap.

"You didn't say this was a duck," I exclaimed! It was not just any duck, but a female common merganser, a big diver, a denizen of large rivers and lakes, and nearly the size of a loon. In summer, this merganser will couple off and retire to the upper reaches of large rivers to raise a family, but during the colder months, it can be found on the Connecticut River.

There they congregate at favored fishing spots, usually in small groups, all riding the current and launching their huge body below to pursue and capture the fastest fish. The powerful webs on their feet and the thin, long bill with serrated tooth-like projections, make it a veritable shark in the water, deadly to the fastest, most slippery fish.

Last week the Connecticut River was swollen as never before at this time of year, nearly in spring flood stage. There were fewer mergansers than usual, but still they were there. Both sexes have white underparts, but the males have jet black heads setting off the bright orange bill. The females are dusky gray above with a reddish head.

What was this bird doing in a chimney? Often it nests in large tree cavities, but this was not a likely home to raise a family. There is something about a wild animal in trouble that turns the heart. Some can shrug it off and realize that life in the wild is often ugly and always dangerous. Others go into extreme rescue mode.

This happened recently with an even bigger water bird, the brown pelican of Pequot Pond, who got handouts of fish and the name Pete. When word got out, Pete also got front page news and a prompt rescue.

When the birding community first heard about this pelican, we wondered if it was a common merganser. The merganser often hauls itself onto shores, docks, and ice, standing tall and upright to preen and digest. More than once a quick distant look has fooled an inexperienced observer into thinking that it might be a pelican. Almost everyone has visited Florida, and there the brown pelican is a common sight, panhandling on the piers of southern harbors.

Pete was not a mistake. He was a genuine wayward waif, a young bird that was truly lost and in need of a helping hand. First things first, of course. See the bird and get it on your state life list. Then let the technicians lure it into a barrel with trout and bring it to the vet for a check-up.

The merganser dives from the surface, but the brown pelican dives into ocean waters from the wing, from high above the water. It is a treat to see this performance, as the huge wings fold up and the ponderous bill becomes a mighty broad sword aimed at the depths. A pelican with one eye like Pete cannot see those fish and will be forever dependent on others to survive.

It is only the lost ones that become famous. There is something special about the sojourner, and hospitality is a virtue that has long been prized. The valley's other lost waif, Rufie the hummingbird, is back for her fourth winter season in an artificial tropical oasis. Some may think it is time for her to make her own way in the world, but let her have her full flight. She pays her way as an inspiration to us all.

At one time or another all living things get disabled or lost in some way. Then those who are able, help as they can.

There are many species of birds living in our region that most people never see. Then there are some that they might see once, and wonder. "Is this a rare bird in my yard?" If they know someone who is a bird person or birder, they will call and ask the question. How does one answer this question?

The pileated woodpecker is often the species at issue, because it is large and obvious, and sometimes comes to a suburban yard. Normally it stays in the deeper woods, which provide enough ant-infested trees and dead snags for food and nesting sites. This woodpecker is as large as a crow and a single bird or pair needs plenty of these trees to keep it alive.

There is enough mature forest in our area to make this woodpecker a resident, but not enough to make it as common as a chickadee. However, it is not a rare species. A rare species would be one that is truly out of place or time. It is common somewhere else or at some other season, but not here and now. The pileated woodpecker is as common here the year round as it is anywhere.

The brown pelican or the spotted towhee, which have both been found in our area this winter, are examples of rare birds. They are extremely rare, species seen here once in a lifetime, and normally present only far to our south and west respectively. There are many other species that are rare, but regular. They are seen in most years by someone who goes into the field often to search for birds, but never more than a few times each year.

The northern shrike or Lapland longspur are examples of such rare but regular species. They are both much more common to our north and west, nesting on the Canadian tundra and spending the cold months in the unforested country of southern Canada and the northern United States.

They are seen often enough to place them in the list of about 250 species that occur regularly in western Massachusetts. In the calendar year 1999, I was able to find only 216 of these regular species in the four western counties of Massachusetts. In 31 years of searching, the most I have ever located in a year was 240 species.

In every case, what makes a species rare and what makes them a challenge to find, is migration. Birds have an instinctual drive to move long distances in response to seasonal change and the availability of food, and this means some of them will move off course. Even more will move a bit too much or too little.

The two examples of the shrike and the longspur are birds that migrate south in the cold months and have come farther south and east than most other shrikes and longspurs. Only 50 of the 98 species that are regularly found here in the three winter months are within their normal winter range. Of these fifty species, twenty are sedentary, they do not migrate at all. That leaves only thirty species for whom we are a migratory destination in winter.

That means forty-eight species are here by mistake or forced by dire necessity. Of these, fifteen should be farther north, twenty-seven ought to be farther south, and six should have retired to our coastlines. These numbers do not include species that are extremely rare in winter.

In the winter season of 1999-2000 I have observed 77 species since December first, the same as I saw in the entire winter of 1998-99. My most ever is 91, and my goal some year is to reach 100. Perhaps the year 2000 will be the year.

Speaking of this special year, on January first I started my year list, and when darkness came on that day I had 23 species. During a trip to Hadley the next day I added thirteen more, including the spotted towhee. It was the first time I had ever seen this species in Massachusetts, my 373rd state life bird. Two days later the brown pelican made it 374 species observed in Massachusetts. It is a good start to a special year.

Last week the topic was how to know whether a bird is rare. One way is to ask someone, but there are books that can tell you as well. Studying a book in the warmth and comfort of our office or living room is a good option when the weather turns truly wintry and the wind chill is thirty below.

When someone calls to ask about a bird, often they have already looked through the field guide and picked out a species. Two recent calls have been about hawks at the feeder. Sometimes the caller is upset with the "marauder,” but this one was thrilled to have a hawk ripping apart a pigeon just outside the window.

Excited as she was, she still was concerned that the bird might go after a chickadee or cardinal as well. It certainly might, but no hawk can ever clean out your feeder birds, or even come close. The most it can do is catch a few of the young, or old, or less wary ones.

The caller consulted the book and considered peregrine, but wisely decided first on a sharp-shinned hawk, and then, due to the larger size, on a Cooper's hawk. It was an adult bird with a gray back and much red horizontal barring on the chest. A first-year feeder hawk would have dark vertical streaks on the chest.

There used to be only one book to use as a field guide, Peterson's "A Field Guide to the Birds." A paper copy is in my car along with three other field guides that are used now for occasional reference. My favorite is the "Field Guide to the Birds of North America" by the National Geographic Society. Also, there is the “Stokes Field Guide to the Birds," "The Golden Guide to Birds of North America," and a new entry.

This recent new field guide is "All the Birds of North America." It is the only one that significantly changes the order in which the species are presented. The first four present them in the A.O.U. (American Ornithological Union) order. This is traditional, but does have some disadvantages.

This standard organization is based on scientific studies, which place a species in the order in which it is believed they evolved into their present form, oldest to newest. It automatically groups most similar species together, because they have a recent common ancestor, and have not diverged much in form or appearance.

Not all species with similar appearances, habitats or habits are grouped together, however. The new book attempts to remedy that, by placing species together that share the same feeding habits and are the same size. It may prove to be a more useful guide for beginning birders, but it is a too radical departure from the old system to become a standard.

Most useful might be the brief discussions of the common behaviors of various groupings of birds that make them similar to each other and different from other groupings. Sometimes the other guides do not deal enough with the typical behavior of the bird.

Whichever field guide you use, be sure you don't just look at the drawings or photos of the bird, although that is where to start. The maps will show the range of the bird at different seasons, and the text will usually give you at least some idea of the type of habitat the bird prefers and how it behaves.

You may be satisfied with one guide to have near your window as you watch the birds at your feeder or in your yard. If you want to know more or see more than that, then you must join your local bird club. The Allen Bird Club of Springfield meets on the first Monday of each month from October to May, and publishes a booklet listing all the field trips, which are open to everyone.

There are also magazines you can subscribe to. "Bird Observer of Massachusetts" is the bimonthly magazine about birds in our state, and on a continental level there is "Birding," the publication of the American Birding Association. Other magazines are "Bird Watcher's Digest," "Birder's World," and "Wildbird." There are certainly plenty of resources available to learn about birds and birding.

Last weekend bird club members embarked on a two-day tour of coastal Rhode Island. Both birds and birders go to the shore for a winter getaway, and usually the weather is harsh. However, in between the days of wind or snow or biting cold, there still is a day when the breeze lightens and the sun shines warmly on the face, foretelling spring.

The first day was clear, but the cold northerlies sliced deep, so you had to bundle up. The second day was one of those gentle interludes, when the sea was calm and you could scan for ducks with head bare and ears uncovered. The stage was set for a real treat.

East of Newport, there is a thumb of land still connected to the mainland by a narrow spit of sand dunes and beaches. It is unclaimed by the wealthy descendants of the 19th-century barons. All people are welcome to visit this refuge of rock and moor named Sachuest.

At one of the beaches, gulls are scattered on the deserted sands, and just offshore amid the floes of ice are goldeneye and bufflehead ducks. Striding swiftly across the wet beach are the well-named sanderlings, small white wading birds that poke their bills into the myriad grains to find hidden bits of edibles.

Farther down the shore, the sand gives way to small stones and then to the rising cliffs of granite that form Sachuest. There you might pick out a ruddy turnstone, a wader distinctly marked with a black breast band and a splash of rust. They look much like scurrying piebald stones, and are a prelude to the feature attraction.

From the top of the fifty-acre hill of stone, you can bask in the bright reflection of the sun off a calm endless sea. Small islands of ledge are just off the shore, and rafts of ducks are rolling gently on the shallow waves around them, all diving to glean the fish and mussels that lurked beneath, the largess of Sachuest.

This day there are several hundred scoters and scaups and eiders, a smattering of massive loons and even groups of tiny grebes. The stage is set, the play is about to begin. It is time for the stars to stride forward front and center, the harlequins of Sachuest.

They are not great in stature, but they have the presence to command. They appear all dark in the distance, but you can see the varicolored tights they wear. There are streaks of white on back and crown and neck and sides, patches of white on cheek and face, and then the rich rusty chestnut of the sides and tail.

No Italian actor can match this startling pattern, and the harlequin dress is not the only link these birds have to ancient mimes. The harlequin duck is the English name for this species, but its Latin name is Histrionicus histrionicus. They do put on a show that seems histrionic, but their feelings are not feigned.

Several males chase a single female over the gentle waters, surging and straining to show off their speed and power. "Am I not beautiful and strong?" they seem to say. "Am I not stronger than this puny rival, who flees before my snapping bill?" His voice is hoarse and squeaky-low. It reaches the ears through the windless air, and even the higher pitch of the female's shriek is clear.

He needs to prove his swimming power, for just two months from now these ducks will be fighting the spring torrents that fall from the highland lakes and snow packs of Labrador. There the duck must dive to find the caddis flies that cling to rocks in the raging current. Here at courting time the male must be truly histrionic in his promises.

The show continues with more sedate diving to find and rip the weld that holds snails and barnacles to the underwater rocks. Keep your eyes on the empty surface and suddenly the compact bodies pop from the depths like corks. It is an entrance worthy of the most histrionic harlequin, and one you will want to see every winter. Sachuest provides drama as well as refuge.