If it has seemed quiet on this blog since last June, well, that’s my mistake — I migrated to a full website at BirdsDowntown.com last year and, in the midst of a whole lot of projects and web work, forgot to set up a redirect.
The birding opportunities continue to amaze me here in the Paper City, so I hope you’ll check in regularly at the new(ish) site.
(c) Greg Saulmon 2013
The three chicks at the downtown Red-tailed Hawk nest have been very active the past few days, engaging in vigorous “jump flapping” and even taking little hop-flights around the nesting platform.
It’s hard to believe, but they’ll be ready to fly any day now.
This year, Holyoke’s downtown Red-tailed Hawks built their nest directly under a building’s security light. (c) Greg Saulmon
The latest issue of Audubon Magazine includes a short piece about research on the impact of city lights on urban birds.
The research, which involved blackbirds, was performed by scientists working with Jesko Partecke, a researcher with Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Ornithology. The institute has posted its own summary of the research here.
In a nutshell: For ten months, the researchers exposed blackbirds to a constant light intensity at night. Birds exposed to light had gonads that grew a month earlier than birds who slept in the dark. The birds with night lights also had testosterone levels that rose earlier, and they began singing around one hour earlier each day. At the end of the breeding season, they molted earlier.
“All of this indicates that, from a seasonal perspective, the animals are ready to breed earlier,” Partecke writes in the Max Planck Institute summary. “These findings are clear evidence that the artificial light we find in towns and cities can dramatically change the seasonal organisation of wild animals.”
Lead researcher Davide Dominoni told Audubon that one implication is troubling: urban birds that breed and lay eggs too early might not be able to find adequate food supplies for their offspring.
The research makes me wonder about the implications for this year’s brood of Red-tailed Hawks. As shown in the photo above, the adults built their nest this year directly under a building security light that stays on all night.
Will that somehow impact the development of this year’s brood? Or, is the nesting season too short to have an impact? And: Is it possible that the adults deliberately chose a well-lit location as an additional measure of security against potential predators?
I had a brief moment of panic when I went to check on the Red-tailed Hawks today and found no birds on the nest.
Had I totally mis-judged when the chicks might fledge?
No, it turns out. The brood, and one of their parents, had just moved over to a shady spot on the platform where they’ve made their home this year:
(c) Greg Saulmon 2013
The chicks’ flight feathers are coming in, but their heads are still pretty downy, making me think they’re a little bit younger than last year’s brood at this time. The little hawks fledged on June 4 in 2012.
Here’s another recent shot of the brood:
(c) Greg Saulmon 2013
After finding a pair of young Mourning Doves holed up in a tree cavity in Pulaski Park two days in a row, I returned today to find them gone.
Luckily, though, an American Redstart was flitting around in another nearby tree, and it ended up leading me to the two young doves and an adult:
(c) Greg Saulmon 2013
(c) Greg Saulmon 2013
On a short walk through Pulaski Park this morning I spotted my first-ever American Redstart. It was hanging out way up in a tree, so I only managed a few photos that were just good enough for a positive ID. When I made a return trip this afternoon, though, two more were flitting about near the train tracks behind the VFW post.
They don’t sit still for very long, so they’re difficult little birds to photograph. The dappled sunlight at the edge of the woods made getting a good exposure tricky, too, but the shot above and the two below are a few of the frames I managed to capture.
(c) Greg Saulmon 2013
(c) Greg Saulmon 2013
A few yards from the Redstarts, I almost walked right past this little guy, which I think is a juvenile Mourning Dove:
(c) Greg Saulmon 2013
After observing for a few minutes to see if an adult returned, a sibling popped up:
(c) Greg Saulmon 2013
Also in the park today was this Northern Parula. When I shot the photo below, the sky was extremely overcast and it was very hard to make out colors or field marks. The bird was very high in a tree, and all I could see were splashes of yellow and gray. I thought I was looking at one of the many Yellow-rumped Warblers I’ve seen in the park recently, until I got home and took a closer look.
(c) Greg Saulmon 2013
Adding to the first-I’ve-seen-in-Holyoke streak was this Common Yellowthroat:
(c) Greg Saulmon 2013
And this female Scarlet Tanager:
(c) Greg Saulmon 2013
To round out what felt like a productive day of birding in the city, I think I found a White-breasted Nuthatch nest in the park:
(c) Greg Saulmon 2013
Two nuthatches were making frequent trips to this hole, bringing smalls insects and other morsels with each visit.
Today’s sightings bode well for Mass Audubon’s Bird-a-thon 2013, which I’ll be participating in next weekend. A tradition marking its 30th year, Bird-a-thon is a fundraiser that sees teams across the state attempting to log as many species as possible over the course of a weekend.
Last year’s winning team, from the Drumlin Farm sanctuary, logged an impressive 236 species in 24 hours.
My polling place is conveniently located right near the edge of Pulaski Park, so I took a quick spin through the park after I voted today in the primary for the special U.S. Senate election. Here are a few shots of Yellow-rumped Warblers; I saw about 6 or 7 today:
(c) Greg Saulmon 2013
I had the day off, which basically led to an all-out birding bender in downtown Holyoke.
The Black-throated Green Warbler above, which I spotted in Pulaski Park a little after 7 a.m., was one of many highlights. I took walks through the park in both the morning and afternoon, and saw a good variety of birds.
There were Black-and-white Warblers in the park both early in the morning and at mid-afternoon. This one was hanging around in a back corner of the park near VFW Post 351:
(c) Greg Saulmon 2013
(c) Greg Saulmon 2013
(c) Greg Saulmon 2013
There were several Yellow-rumped Warblers in the woods between the park and the river:
(c) Greg Saulmon 2013
A White-breasted Nuthatch was munching on spiders and other goodies:
(c) Greg Saulmon 2013
(c) Greg Saulmon 2013
(c) Greg Saulmon 2013
I was hoping to spot some of the Savannah Sparrows that I found in the park the other day, and this White-throated Sparrow almost tricked me — until I got close enough for a good look:
(c) Greg Saulmon 2013
There have been several Northern Cardinals in the park on my last few visits:
(c) Greg Saulmon 2013
And, today, there were quite a few Chipping Sparrows. This one was part of a small flock outside the VFW:
(c) Greg Saulmon 2013
Elsewhere in the city, Canada Geese were hanging around Slim Shad Point:
(c) Greg Saulmon 2013
(c) Greg Saulmon 2013
There were House Finches in Heritage State Park:
(c) Greg Saulmon 2013
More Chipping Sparrows at a brownfield site that’s being cleaned up on Appleton Street:
(c) Greg Saulmon 2013
The male American Kestrel found a meal near the Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center:
(c) Greg Saulmon 2013
(c) Greg Saulmon 2013
I spotted this Common Grackle near the old Parsons Paper Mill on Sargeant Street:
(c) Greg Saulmon 2013
And, this female Downy Woodpecker was foraging in a vacant lot on Lyman Street:
(c) Greg Saulmon 2013
Here’s my full list from Pulaski Park today:
I found a single Northern rough-winged Swallow perching on a wire over the canal near Dwight and Front streets this morning.
Last year, I first observed swallows in the city on April 15, but it seems likely that they were here several days before that. Looking at last year’s posts, it appears I didn’t manage to do much birding for a full week leading up to that first swallow sighting.
Another thing to look forward to, based on last year’s posts: I logged a sighting of several Cedar Waxwings on April 23. I’m looking forward to finding them in Holyoke again soon.
Below, a few shots from this morning’s observation:
(c) Greg Saulmon 2013
(c) Greg Saulmon 2013
(c) Greg Saulmon 2013
Most successful birding excursions begin with a plan to seek out the right habitat for the bird you’re hoping to see.
While you find plenty of surprises in the world of urban birding, and certain species turn up in all sorts of places where you wouldn’t expect them, thinking about habitat is just as important as it is when you’re birding in more traditional settings.
The area shown in the photo above, which is flanked by Canal and Water streets in Holyoke, offers a case in point. Though I’ve driven by it plenty of times, I’d never thought to go birding there — until I drove by last week and noticed it was a marshy spot, wedged between two large industrial tracts, that had a healthy population of cattails at one end and plenty of short trees and underbrush throughout. I’d seen reports of Red-winged Blackbirds returning to plenty of other places in western Massachusetts, and seeing the cattails made me think: “Huh, I bet you can find them here, too.”
During a recent visit, it didn’t take too long to get confirmation: I found the blackbird at right immediately upon arriving at the little swath of this drained canal bed where the cattails stand.
It’s a promising spot. Within a short period of time here, I found a number of Song Sparrows, a pair of Northern Cardinals, a Northern Mockingbird, and a few mid-molt American Goldfinches. I expect to find even more species here as the vegetation fills in and more insects hatch.
As the spring migration looms, I’ve been thinking a lot about the parts of the city I may have been overlooking so far. And I’ve been thinking about how building my awareness of different habitats — even on extremely small scales, in the form of pocket parks and tiny urban gardens — can yield an ever more interesting array of sightings in Holyoke.
Below, photos of a few of the birds I found in this section of the city: 
The Birds Downtown 