Bombay Hook, Deleware

Bombay Hook is only 10-15 minutes away from the house we are staying in, so we were happy about that. As we pulled into the parking lot, the first thing we noticed was we had to pay a fee, but we didn’t know that we had to put the money in an envelope. We had put twenty dollars straight into the box, and then we realized that we had to put it into an envelope provided first, so we put another twenty dollars in. After we left the parking lot, we drove down a gravel road, and after a thousand or so feet, we drove around a corner and passed a small man-made “pool” called Raymond Pool, and then we drove past another man-made “pool” called Shearness Pool. We saw literally thousands of Snow Geese, and every time we looked up we saw lots of V’s, with hundreds of Snow Geese in each V. This morning, before we went birding, we went jogging down to Shearness Pool and back. It was 27o, and it actually felt good on my burning cheeks. Later tonight, as we were driving to Fowler Beach to see owls, we saw lots of what looked like snow, but then we realized that it was thousands of Snow Geese on the grass, hunkering down for the night. Every time we looked up, there were lots of V’s. We saw 3 or 4 Northern Harriers flying around, we might have seen one owl flying, but we aren’t sure. Besides the thousands of Snow Geese, we were also able to add several new species to our E-bird life list, including the Carolina Chickadee, Golden Crowned Kinglet, Snow Goose, Green Winged Teal, Northern Mockingbird, Northern Harrier, Turkey Vulture and more.

This Snow Goose was trying to catch up with the rest of the flock.

Notice the bright blue secondary feathers on this Blue Jay.

This Eastern Bluebird was eating from the Holly Bush.

The Eastern Bluebird was startled by something.

Cape Cod December 2020

 

Dec 12 - Dec 14

After we drove onto Cape Cod the day we arrived in Massachusetts, We drove through Wareham. We saw a few Canada Geese swimming in the pond.  We got a Christmas tree as soon as we woke up on Saturday morning, the  day after we arrived in Massachusetts.

The first Canada Geese we saw in Warehem this year.

After we picked up the Christmas tree, we drove to Santuit Pond, and it was frozen over. A few hours later, we went to Ryder Conservation Land entrance one, as we call it. It was a deciduous  forest, with lots of holy trees mixed in. Most of the Robins we saw were eating the Holly berries. The next day, we went to another spot on the Ryder Conservation Land.  It was a deciduous  forest, with lots of holy trees mixed in, just like the other spot because it was the same general area.

Yesterday morning, we went jogging on the meadow path behind the Cape Cod Airfield. There were Sumac branches, with lots of little nibblers darting about. We possibly saw some  Cedar Waxwings.  It was a deciduous  forest, with lots of holy trees mixed in. 

Dec 15 -17

The bog we live on is a cranberry bog, and there are these isthmuses that enable us to cross the bog without having to walk all the way around. In the fall, the bog is flooded so the farmers can harvest the berries. In the winter, it is blood red. In between the bogs,there are clumps of trees. Attached below is a picture of one of the bogs. It was right around freezing for a few days, but then the temperature suddenly  plummeted and it snowed. It was a lot colder, and I could barely walk it was so cold. What made it worse was that the wind was blowing at least forty miles per hour. Even though it was so cold, we still saw a few birds out and about, such as fifteen Blue Jays puffed up and hunkered down in a clump of trees. Another species we saw was more than 200 Turdus migratorius flying across the bog. We saw about twenty mallards and a Great Blue Heron in a little pond on the side of one of the bogs. A few minutes later, we spotted about fifteen other mallards and an American Wigeon in a small canal about 10 feet wide near an isthmus. There are other canals that link the bogs together. The american Wigeon was mixed in with the mallards. We were surprised, and at first we thought it was a hybrid mallard, or an immature mallard. Then we spotted it’s white bill and racing stripe over the top of his crown and knew it was a Wigeon. 

The American Wigeon is the duck in the front.

My mom and my sister playing in the winter wonderland bog.

   

December 19 - 20

  Yesterday, Saturday the 19th, we drove to a familiar place, Turtle Back Drive, the road next to our house, not the rental house we are staying in for two weeks. We walked down the road a little more, and then it turned into a gravel road. Partway through the gravel road, we turned down a gravel hill and at the bottom, we entered the bog path that our house sits on. The bog was snowy, so it was harder to walk. We saw mostly Turdus Migratorious, but we noticed a flicker and a Downy Woodpecker as well. On the bog, we saw a Red Shouldered Hawk flying back and forth across bog road. After we walked around the bog, we headed down to the lake where we parked. At the lake, we spotted  4 Common Mergansers, 5 Mallards, approximately 30 Canada Geese flying overhead, and we saw about 12 Gulls flying around.

The Red Shouldered Hawk flying around the bog.

Later in the day, we went back to the lake, and near the herring run, we saw an Eastern Phoebe flying around.

This morning at Ashumet Holly Wildlife Sanctuary in Falmouth, the first thing we saw was a sign on the entrance gate it read: In order to protect wildlife, please, no vehicles, bicycles,dogs, horses, hunting, collecting, dumping, alcohol or fires. I was kind of disappointed because I like collecting things like Holly leaves. As we walked on, we saw some frozen ponds. Not long after we entered the sanctuary, we saw some nibblers flitting about, and when one stopped for a minute, we were able to tell that it was a thrush. When we got back home, we looked him up and realized it was a Hermit Thrush, a new life list species for us on e-bird. There were five. We saw a frozen lake, but the ice was pretty thin. As we entered the parking lot on our way back, we saw two male and female Northern Cardinals, as shown below. After we got back, we saw a Cardinal and a Bluejay in our yard.

A BRIGHT RED Northern Cardinal in our yard.

Notice the stunning blue feathers on this Blue Jay.

The male Cardinal we saw flying after the female.

Dec 21 - 24

The Elusive Blue Jay.

Today, we visited Long Pasture, dubbed Hermy Beach by us because of all the hermit crabs. When we normally go, we go in the summer. The first habitat we were in was mixed wetlands, which then turned into a mixed forest, which winded down to the beach. We saw 5 American Goldfinches at a feeder by the welcome center, along with a few Northern Cardinals and around 7 House Finches. There was also an elusive Blue Jay in the branches of a few trees.   We have been going on bog outings since we have levied in Massachusetts, and this winter we also went on a few bog outings. We have been riding our bikes around the bog since we moved to Massachusetts , and today was the first time I rode my mom’s bike around the bog. We saw two Mute Swans on a pond in the bog, and about fourteen Buffel Heads in the pond as well. The Mute Swans were probably the Mute Swans we first saw when we moved to Massachusetts in 2013.                                                               

A Goldfinch in a tree, about to fly down to the feeder.

            

The Red Tailed Hawk flying up to a tree.

December 27 

This morning, I woke up, ate a quick breakfast of cereal, and then went jogging with my dad at Ryder Conservation Land Entrance Two, as I call it.  We went jogging on a side trail that paralleled the main trail, and my mom and my sister walked on the main trail. As we were walking back to the car, we most likely heard an Eastern Phoebe calling. Then we saw it fly across the path, and that is when we thought it was a Phoebe. This was also the end of the Cape Cod Edition. Stay tuned for a future blog post from our drive to Deleware, then further down the East Coast to Florida.  And as always, visit birds and turtles to see more pictures.

A Christmas Eve Cardinal!

When we got back to our house, I immediately checked the bird feeders. One of the feeders is hanging from a thick tree branch by the side of our house. The feeder was on the ground. It had dirt all over it. The rope looked like it had been either ripped by the tornado in Yarmouth or chewed by a squirrel or chipmunk. The second feeder which is a tray feeder was just empty. There was no damage. The next morning, my mom, dad, sister and grandpa went to eat breakfast at this small cafe about 5 minutes away. After that we went to the hardware store and bought a new bird feeder, seeds, screws, pulleys and ropes.  After lunch my grandpa and I went into our garage. We took out the rope and pulleys we had just bought and looped the rope through the bottom pulley with one wheel and the top pulley with two wheels. Then we drilled holes into the roof of the bird feeder and threaded weed wacker twine through it and then drilled the screws in. Then we used a lighter to burn the rope together after it was looped through the pulleys. 

After we hung up the birdfeeder, it didn’t take long for the birds to find the seeds. One day I was playing in the playroom by the birdfeeder when I heard a strange noise like  whiiiip, whiiiip, whiiiip! I looked out the window and saw… two flickers that were bobbing up and down next to the birdbath that looked like they were mating and making the noise. A few minutes later a Blue Jay flew in screeching and flying fast. He spread out his wings to slow himself down. But when he landed, he lost his balance and dangled upside down with only his claws holding onto the feeder. He was a juvenile. He pumped his wings to get a firm hold on the feeder again.  The pictures on the photo gallery section shows just some of the great backyard birding from this summer on Cape Cod.

In mid-July we left Cape Cod for ten days and went to Florida to see my cousins and grandma.  On the photo gallery of the Cape Cod and Florida section of birdsandturtles you will see some of the pictures I took from our three main birding destinations.

Our first day in Florida, we went to the venice jetty with my uncle and one of my grandpas. Near the end of the jetty, There was a snowy egret walking around and searching for some dead bait fish that were dropped but not squished. As we were walking back to our car, we saw a man cast his fishing line and instead of catching a fish he accidently caught a pelican. He felt terrible about catching the pelican and reeled the pelican in close enough so he could cut the line and he did. “Oh, it will just fall off,” he said.

A few days later, before I had summer swim camp with two of my cousins, I went to the venice rookery with my family.  It is a pond with some trees and a nice habitat for birds and fish. There were older people bird watching. We saw a few dead fish, a family of Whistling Ducks, A black Crowned Night Heron, an elusive Blue Jay, and two or three Anhingas. The Black Crowned Night Heron was perched on a log overlooking the shore of the pond. Luckily we didn’t see any alligators.

Our third to last day in Florida, my family plus my cousin Danny, who is 9, drove about 45 minutes away to Lido Key to see the rare Black Skimmers. There is a colony of Skimmers that nest all along the beach. Also while we were at the beach, I captured some great pictures not only of the Skimmers but of Brown Pelicans also. The skimmers are called Skimmers because they skim the water with their lower mandible because it is longer so they fly low and skim the water and catch their tasty little fish and crustaceans. 

Birding at Bass rock

After a 45 minute train ride from Edinburgh to North Berwick in scotland, we walked to the Scottish Seabird Center. At the center, we had to get in line fast to get tickets or we would have to wait for the next boat trip to Bass Rock. We did get tickets but after that we had to get good seats on the boat or we would have to stand up to take pictures and not stay in our seats.  Once we got to our first stop, not Bass Rock but a small little island with a lot of puffins. Most of them were in the water but some of them were inside there burrows with the chicks. Puffins do make nests but not on top of the ground.  The puffins were amazing. They dig burrows underground and lay there eggs there instead of above ground. We circled the island once and then we headed to Bass Rock.

Atlantic Puffin just taking off.

On our way to Bass rock,we knew when we were getting close because thousands of Gannets started to fly over our heads.  When we first saw Bass Rock from far away, it looked white because there were so many Gannets close together. When we got closer, Bass rock looked white but now we could see the Gannets up close. We got super close. Now instead of just a few Gannets flying over our heads,  there were thousands. There were so many, the sky was white! Most of the Gannets were on Bass Rock. The Gannets were so loud, it sounded like I was behind a fighter jet about to take off. I was super excited. Sadly, the chicks have only a few days to learn how to swim and dive or they will starve because soon after they hatch, the parents will stop catching fish for the chick. There were some Gannets mating with each other. I did not stop clicking the shutter on my camera until we were
speeding off back to the seabird center. My fingers were so tired, I thought they would fall off!

 Close up of a Northern Gannet's six-foot wing span.

I loved the trip because the Gannets are so big and it seemed as if you could almost touch them. They were so close.

Birding at Ribble Reserve

We just completed our first trip of the summer of 2019.

It turned out it was going to be way more different then we first planned it to be.

We went to the UK and did some great birding. 

Our first reserve was Hesketh Outmarsh at Ribbles Reserve in England and our destination was Bass Rock in Scotland.

 Ribbles Reserve was wet and green with fresh air and birds everywhere, and I immediately knew we were somewhere much more lush than barren Saudi Arabia. On our right side was farmland.  The farmlands were basically fields of soil with rows and rows of green plants and vegetables. On our left side was mud and there were pools of water scattered about. The air was cold, damp and moist. Eurasian Skylarks would fly up out of the grass and hover up to about 60 feet up in the air and stay there for about 4 minutes and then hover down tweeting incessantly.  It was like being in the Amazon Rain Forest because it was moist, misty, and damp. My mom and I walked down to one of the marshes and saw a few birds such as: 4 common Shelducks, 2 Pied Avocets, and 2 Eurasian Oystercatchers. 

Pied Avocet wading and looking for aquatic insects.

After our observations at Hesketh Outmarsh, we took a short drive to the mud flats by the sea and the ecosystem had changed significantly. 

Once again there were skylarks, but this time they sounded like they were coming from every direction. It sounded like a symphony of tweeting occasionally imitating a Barn Swallow or a Green Plover and we estimated there were about 55 Sky Larks. My mom was super excited. She kept saying how many and how loud they were. The scenery had changed a lot. Now it was muddy flats with nothing but mud until the shore. There the mud was almost like quick sand. In Manchester my sister and I got wellies, and I was waiting for an opportunity to wear them. When I was out exploring on the shoreline, it was a good thing I had them because I got stuck in mud and could not get out. My dad did not have any wellies, but he yelled instructions at me like he always does to get out. Finally I did and I carefully walked back to safe ground. On our walk back we saw more Skylarks and my mom was still just as excited as she was at the beginning of the walk!

Eurasian Skylark hovering overhead.

My boots were so caked with mud that I had to stomp like a soldier back to our car.

Please stay tuned for my next post about our visit to Bass Rock in Scotland!

Abu Dhabi Falcon Hospital and Birding

Our guide, Hassan, started with a discussion where we learned there are three species of falcons at the hospital. They are Gyrfalcon, (Falco rusticolus,) the Peregrine Falcon,( Falco peregrinus,) and the  Saker Falcon,(Falco cherrug).

In the second room, all the falcons had hoods on because if they did not, they would attack each other and injure and maybe try to or fight each other.

The next thing we did was split up into two groups and the other group went to a different table and my group watched the veterinarian/doctor anesthetize the falcon to clip its' talons. He anesthetized the falcon by putting the falcons' head into a large plastic tube the right size for it is head. Then, after he clipped it is talons, he showed us all of the falcons' feathers, its' ear, its'mouth and a radio transmitter in case falcon escapes.  After he took the falcons' head out of the tube, it started to wake up after about 10-15 minutes.

Another thing we did in that room, was were some of the other people and I got to hold a falcon and my sister got to too. The falcon weighed about 1 kg. We were Wearing gloves just for handling birds of prey. The falcon wasn't interested in looking at the camera  but it did for about 1/2 a second. When my sister was holding the falcon with help from my mom, The falcon suddenly tried to fly away.
For more information about my falcon hospital adventure, visit my bird travels section.

Me holding a Peregrine Falcon 

Another adventure I had in Abu-Dhabi, was in Eastern Mangroves National Park.

During our trip to the incredible Eastern Mangroves Abu Dhabi, we went on two different boat rides. One was at 7:30 am. And the other one was at 4:30 pm. on two different days.Some of the birds we saw on our first trip at 7:30 am. was a Common Kingfisher, one Gray Heron, and three Red Wattled Lapwings. On our second trip we saw two Purple Sunbirds, three Striated Herons and A pair of Egyptian Geese. The boat was a 75 horsepower outboard pontoon boat and it was quiet boat just right for watching birds.

Flamingos on mud flats eating brine shrimp.

Raptor Counts, Batumi Georgia August 18th and 19th

Batumi Raptor Count

Our day began with a short but steep hike to watch point one.  It was difficult to find the trail and we asked a local lady for help and she pointed in the general direction we needed to go.  When we arrived at the monitoring station I saw several people standing and looking through binoculars, and there were also about five spotting scopes set up.  The hike to the second watch point was about a half an hour longer than day one and it provided great views of the Black Sea and surrounding areas.

We saw a couple of raptors at a distance but we were about ten days early for the major migration.  The main thing I learned was that each person is assigned a different sector, for example, west 1, west 2, west 3 and  east 1,2,3 and so on.  To make sure they identified the sex and species correctly, an observer would call out the region and species for example, "east 1 honey buzzard adult male."  Then the other observers would check and confirm the identification.

We also learned that the raptors migrate from Russia all the way to Africa without eating.  The area we were in is a "bottleneck" between the Black Sea and Caucus Mountains and in the height of the migration they count tens of thousands of raptors per day.  Please look at the Batumi Raptor Count website to learn more about it.