Robert A. Culbert
This week’s most exciting sightings are Sally Anderson’s reports of pine siskins on Nov. 4 and 8 and common redpolls observed in Aquinnah on Nov. 12. To have these northern finches around this early, and widespread across Massachusetts, means that they may be relatively common this winter. These finches only migrate this far south when food is scarce in their northern forest homelands. Last winter the seeds they eat were abundant, yet the birds were virtually absent in New England.
You never get a second chance to make a first impression. This old truism is making things difficult for the recently discovered native populations of Phragmites, also known as common reed or phrag.
The phrag we all love to hate is an invasive tall grass that is becoming the dominant plant along the upper edges of our salt marshes, growing so thickly that it crowds out any other plants, including cattails, sedges, wild flowers, and woody shrubs.