The Wrack

The Wells Reserve Visitor Center has kept a wildlife sightings log for at least a decade. While updating the form today (it's now labeled Nature Observations), I pulled out the stack of sheets that have accumulated since May 1996. Birds dominate visitors' sightings, though deer, weasel, garter snake, otter, praying mantis, mosquito, and other animals found their way in, too. How reliable are those bi…

Quantity over quality?

I've made checkmarks on a copy of "99 Common Birds," our brochure listing the most expected species at the Wells Reserve, and although my Reserve bird list for 2006 contains 106 species, I only got 80 of the 99 "common" ones. While I saw some tricky species? Snow Goose, Tricolored Heron, Laughing Gull, Fish Crow, Field Sparrow  I missed some that point to holes in my coverage and make me wonder if I simpl…

Hundreds of swallows coursed over Laudholm Beach today, swarming to the dunes and back in a mass oblivious to an onlooker. They were mostly Tree Swallows, with a few Barns and fewer Banks/Rough-wingeds mixed in. …

That was the bird of the day! A woodland hawk hunting for breakfast found its course suddenly interrupted by the woven nylon of our bird bander's mist net. It was a Coopers Hawk, just a few months old, and with its 285 mm wing chord proved to be a female.…

Too hot to move. That's what the birds must be thinking. The banders had the nets up soon after 5:30, by which time it was already over 80 degrees. Six hours later, they closed them down, having completed the requisite duration. By then it was 95.Just three birds in those six hours, all hatch-year captives? two Black-and-white Warblers and an American Robin.Three. That's the banders' lowes…

The intrepid banders caught 14 birds today; it has been a consistently modest summer for the nets so far... June 7 rainout June 14 16 birds June 21 15 birds June 28 15 birds July 5 14 birds Eight more weeks to go& it's always a …

Several Least Terns were over the Webhannet marsh today, scanning for fish in the pools and salt-marsh pannes below and diving to snag them when the moment was right. Before long they will be gathering on Laudholm Beach and elsewhere along the Maine coast to begin their breeding season.…

Bobolinks were back in force at the Wells Reserve today. Their song might be the craziest in the region? it's so much fun to hear them bubbling with enthusiasm! Today, at least four sang from fields near the main campus, sharing the space with Eastern Meadowlarks.It's fortunate that the reserve's Resource Advisory Committee created a grassland management plan several years ago, recognizing the value o…

Rain or shine meant rain. Not so much rain, perhaps, as drizzle, but the Forest Learning Shelter provided good cover for a meeting place and starting point for a half-hour walk.Cool, damp, breezy weather kept bird activity to a minimum; no migratory burst in evidence, though a couple of "new" warblers have arrived and the morning list held 20-plus species.…