Susan B. Whiting
Wow, I can’t remember such a colorful fall. The bright birds may have gone south, but the vegetation is filling in for the missing hues. The riot of color is incredible: golden yellow of sassafras, duller yellow tinged with brown of the horsechestnuts, purpley-red of sumacs, reds of swamp maples and Virginia creeper and mottled browns, greens and yellows of our oaks. Throw into the mix the greens of pitch and white pine and cedars (really junipers) and we have a spectacular array of colors.
Fall storms can raise havoc in harbors as well as on land. The winds of these tempests can bring back birds that have tried to migrate south. This is a treat for birders, but for the birds, not so great. Imagine flying hard to get as far as the Carolinas or Florida just to be blown back from whence you came.
It is the changing of the guard so to speak. The double-crested cormorants are joining up in long skeins and moving south. The greater cormorants are arriving from the north. When the two species of cormorants are sitting on the same rock, it is obvious which is which. The greater is greater — weighing almost twice as much as the double-crested and having a wing span of 11 inches more than its cousin. Standing upright, the greater cormorant is three inches taller than the double-crested and has a heavier bill.
It all started with a déjà vu birding experience by Whit Manter. He was returning from a trip off-Island on Sunday, October 4. As he drove out to his house on Tisbury Great Pond, he spotted a bird which he recognized as a rare visitor. The reason Whit was able to identify the bird quickly is that he spotted the same spe cies, a Say’s phoebe, six years before in almost the exact location!
Several of the women in my aerobics class queried me about their loss of hummingbirds. Yes, unfortunately it is the time that the tiniest of our avian buddies move on. It always amazes me that a minuscule creature, a little short of four inches in size and weighing less than one-eighth of an ounce, can migrate from the Vineyard all the way to Mexico and points south.
Bird identification puzzles, as with all mysteries, are great fun to work on and, best of all, to solve. Tuesday Pete Gilmore, Lanny McDowell and I were birding around the flower gardens at the Farm Institute in Katama. We watched several Savannah sparrows perched on the fences surrounding the garden, when suddenly another larger “sparrow” landed.