The fifth annual Nantucket Birding Weekend this past weekend was a great success. Despite unseasonably cold temperatures, better suited to mid-December, and raging northerly winds, a good time was had by all, and the birding was very good.
A rather impressive flight of kinglets, small green birds that are our smallest birds after hummingbirds, were seemingly everywhere. Both ruby-crowned and golden-crowned kinglets were well seen by all the participants. Most were thrilled with the best views of these minute birds they had ever had.
Nothing earth shaking was seen for rarities, but enough moderately rare birds like blue grosbeak, indigo bunting, lark sparrow, Lincoln’s sparrow, western sandpiper and common nighthawk were all well received. There were major movements of nocturnal migrants on October 16 and 17, which makes things exciting, as new birds were present in the same place each day. There was lots of migration going on.
One of the best things about doing the Birding weekend at this time in October is the bird migration that is going on, from small song birds to seas ducks to loons and grebes - everything is on the move. Most exciting are the falcons including peregrine falcons, merlins and American kestrels. With all the leaders and birders out on a steady diet of great field trips, falcons were seen on every trip.
Highlights from just before noon on October 17th included 2 young peregrine falcons, loosely traveling together, that repeatedly attacked a belted kingfisher at the first bridge on Madaket Road. The birds had the hapless kingfisher trapped and would stoop down on it and just as they were about to strike it with their talons the kingfisher would dive straight into and under the water while the falcons went shooting by above.
This scary game went on for several minutes with the falcons finally moving on without the tasty kingfisher. Certainly the kingfisher has had better days, but it was lucky these 2 immature birds were such inept hunters. An adult falcon would have made short work of the immature kingfisher. At any rate, this was just one encounter that birders had, and on the afternoon Bluff Walk a dozen peregrines put on quite a show and delighted all lucky enough to be on hand to see it.
The tree swallows were massing all over and something on the order of 20 to 30 thousand individual birds were seen island-wide. Often the birds were in dense flocks and the scene was impressive. A few barn swallows and a lone bank swallow were the only other swallows detected amongst all the tree swallows.
Lastly, the scenery, the incredible sky with an array of ominous clouds and all the birders enthusiasm made this Nantucket Birding Weekend another memorable event and many attendees who have been to most or all of the festivals claim this was the best one yet. Hope to see you there next October!
