Birding in Massachusetts: Plum Island

After spending the bare minimum amount of time required for a professor of American history to tour the seemingly endless collection of historic sites in the greater Boston area (which turned out to be five days for us, still not nearly long enough for Eric), we headed north to resume our birding adventure, sights set on the rugged and alluring coast of Maine.  But first, we stopped to spend the morning at one of Massachusetts' great birding sites: Plum Island.  

Follow along with us as we bird our way through New England!


The renowned Parker River National Wildlife Refuge occupies most of the Plum Island, and during spring migration this is one of the places to be in Massachusetts.  By the time I arrived, in mid-June, the birding had slowed down somewhat - but I still scraped up over fifty species in the very short four or five hours I was able to spend there.  

Male Purple Martin


The first highlight of the day came as we pulled into the parking lot, just past the entrance gate, and found ourselves face to face with a thriving Purple Martin colony - a pleasant surprise that hadn't even been on my radar!  As secondary cavity nesters (meaning they don't create their own nest cavities, as woodpeckers do), martins rely on ready-made cavities for nesting.  And in the eastern United States, that means man-made structures.  

Man-made martin houses, shaped to mimic the natural, hollow gourds that native people have hung up for martins for centuries.

The history of the martins' relationship with humans stretches back perhaps thousands of years, when native people began hanging up hollowed gourds for the birds to nest in.  The practice became so prevalent that eastern populations of Purple Martins have undergone a complete behavioral shift, moving away from natural cavities to depend entirely on man-made structures for nesting.  (The phenomenon of a whole species or population shifting their behavior to depend entirely on man-made structures is actually pretty unusual in the avian world, but has also occurred in the case of the Chimney Swift, which formerly nested in large hollow trees and now nests in, you guessed it, chimneys.)  

At Parker River NWR and across the eastern U.S., white plastic gourd-shaped martin houses, hung close together and clustered around poles, mimic the natural gourds once offered by native people.  And the martins seem pretty pleased with this arrangement.

Male Purple Marin, outside his "gourd"


Previously, I had only seen Purple Martins once before, in Arizona where they nest in saguaros, utilizing cavities created by woodpeckers.  If you live in appropriate habitat within the range of Purple Martins (east of the Rockies or in the Pacific Northwest), consider inviting these beautiful insect-eating songbirds into your neighborhood by installing martin housing.  Visit the Purple Martin Conservation Association to learn more!

Purple Martin houses

After reluctantly leaving the martin colony, we headed down the road through the wildlife refuge, stopping at a few spots along the way to wander the trails and look for birds.  

Eastern Kingbird


Parker River NWR protects saltmarsh, maritime forest, and sandy beach and dune habitats, each habitat holding its own assemblage of avian treasures.  The saltmarsh and surrounding grassy uplands held Saltmarsh Sparrows, Eastern Kingbirds and, most exciting for me, Bobolinks!  (My first Bobolink: sounds like a children's book?)  The forest is where to look for migrating and breeding passerines, and the beach is home to terns and Piping Plovers, which breed here.  (Sections of the beach are closed during the nesting season to protect these birds.)

Grackles are rather less picky... and hang out around the main parking lot.


Additionally, salt pannes provide habitat for a large number of shorebirds during winter and migration.  In June, while most self-respecting shorebirds are breeding far to the north, there were just a few Semi-palmated Sandpipers hanging around - but even these are exciting for a birder from the West, and I was able to study a few individuals thoroughly.

Semipalmated Sandpiper


Time does a strange thing for me while birding: it passes extremely quickly!!  An hour flies by in what feels like a matter of minutes, and all too soon the morning is spent.  As the temperature rose, the birds along the Hellcat interpretive trail fell silent.  Only this cooperative Blue Jay and those incorrigible singers, the Red-eyed Vireos, stuck around to entertain us!

But perhaps my best bird of the day was still yet to come... 

Blue Jay


Before leaving the refuge, we paid one last visit to a marshy area of dense phragmites and were rewarded with incredible looks at two Least Bitterns in flight!  Flying across the dyke in front of us, they hung in the wind with labored wingbeats, their slight bodies drifting even closer on a gust.  I was completely in awe over the sight of these secretive birds in flight, and struck by the sheer beauty of the colors and patterns on the male's wings.  Because I'm not always that quick on the draw with the camera, I didn't get a photo, and this drawing doesn't do the bird justice.  But here it is anyway.

Least Bittern in flight.  Colored pencil.


Because bitterns will be bitterns, as soon as these birds landed, they ducked inside a thick stand of vegetation, never to be seen again.  The photo below is all I got: the back end of a Least Bittern, disappearing into the phragmites.  Can you spot it?

The back end of a Least Bittern... quickly scrambling back into hiding deep in the phragmites.


Next stop as we continued north: Maine's coastal saltmarshes!

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