Buffet in Gravel

Today, Thanksgiving, is a traditional time to enjoy a good meal. For me this year it's also been an occasion to ponder the variety of birds at Halibut Point that search for sustenance in the gravel.

Swamp Sparrow with cedar berry

Sometimes it's fairly obvious that the bird has found something edible that fell from a tree, like this Swamp Sparrow foraging at the base of a cedar.*

Pine Siskin

In other cases a photograph helps to reveal the bird's interest. The tiny fruit of Staghorn Sumacs occupies the attention of this Pine Siskin. **

Chipping Sparrow

Often times the bird is not harvesting something that grew directly on that spot, but seeds blown from adjacent areas that handily are trapped in the coarse gravel and remain more visible than if they had fallen into vegetative duff.

Savannah Sparrow

Scratching and searching these apparently lifeless places can be worth the risk of exposure to danger.

Fox Sparrow

Often times the foraging birds stay within the protection of a shadow.

Hermit Thrush

Many of them depend on camouflage to minimize their visibility.

Blue Jay

Somehow Blue Jays don't seem to worry about being seen, or heard. This one may be swallowing gravel to aid digestion in its crop. Or it may have found a morsel for its omnivorous diet.

Dark-eyed Junco pair

The gravelly margins of paths and roads in the Park make scrabbley habitat for pioneering weeds and the birds that feed on them.

Snow Buntings

Even the ones that come in flocks have to respect each other's resource boundaries.

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*  Our local cedar trees get their popular name from their fragrant, durable, colorful heartwood. Botanically speaking they are junipers, Juniperus virginiana. Their fruits that appear to be berries are actually fleshy cones containing seeds.

Cedar Waxwing with cedar berry

**  Flower panicles of the native Staghorn Sumac produce crimson fruit in clusters at the top of  the shrubs, where they are eaten by many birds in late summer and fall. The small fruit are drupes with stony pits surrounded by sugary flesh, like cherries, plums and peaches.

Robin with sumac berry

Birding the Parking Lot

Most of us arrive at Halibut Point State Park with our minds in forward gear to get out into its varied niches for enjoyment of the natural and quarry landscape. Bird watchers know there's a chance of seeing almost anything along the shoreline, uplands, or ponds.

Yellow-rumped Warbler, shade tree, utility line

By ironic experience many of us have learned not to overlook possibilities around the parking lot itself. The other day after I'd searched and vigiled all the usually productive spots in dim and blustery weather with scarcely a sighting of avian beings, it wasn't until back near the car that I was gratified. The birds evidently had enough sense to stick to this sheltered terrain.

With birds, practical matters come first. They go where the food is. Now that all those tall "weeds" in the traffic islands are going to seed, opportunities abound for seeing unexpected species close at hand. It pays to arrive camera-ready, sharp-eyed, and open-minded.

Field Sparrow on the pavement

With birds, practical matters come first. They go where the food is. Now that all those tall "weeds" in the traffic islands are going to seed, opportunities abound for seeing unexpected species close at hand. It pays to arrive camera-ready, sharp-eyed, and open-minded.

Red-bellied Woodpecker on utility pole

Sometimes birds actually take advantage of man-made features, like this woodpecker caching future meals in a utility pole.

Magnolia Warbler in ash tree

Trees in and around the parking lot are advantageous not only to the birds but to photographers who have good sight lines and access sometimes 360˚ around their subject.

Crow bullying Cooper's Hawk

Open fields of view also favor birds of prey. The top of this dead pine tree is a desirable perch for a crow that resents rival occupation by a juvenile hawk.

The Cooper's Hawk displaced

The hawk had to give up its promontory for a vigil site closer to the ground where it was undeterred by unmanned vehicles.

Scarlet Tanager male in eclipse plumage

On arrival it pays for visitors to scan the trees and brush line surrounding the parking lot. In fact you might spend time birding here as worthwhile as anywhere else. Sometimes, driving by when I don't have time for a proper meander, I make a cameo stop hoping for a chance encounter and grateful for a contact moment with the fringes of wilderness.

Almost anything could overfly this arena, perhaps taking a short cut across the peninsula between the Ipswich Bay and Massachusetts Bay. I'm almost sure I once saw a Glossy Ibis in the sky. One day the Merlin app reported hearing Whimbrels overhead. An acquaintance got his best-ever look at a secretive Black-billed Cuckoo when it jumped out of the deep canopy to forage on the lawn.

The parking lot sits at the intersection of several diverse habitats. It is surrounded by pasture land grown up into woods with an abundance of food-bearing plants. The meadow sits across the street, a couple of small wetlands nearby. There are bird feeders in the neighborhood.

Cedar Waxwings

Even when it's not a destination in itself the parking lot facilitates both people and creatures in orienting for the possibilities of the day.

Autumn Delights

These images represent the sorts of pleasures to the eye available at every walk in the Halibut Point State Park.

Pond Edge

Stag

Poison Ivy

Queen Anne's Lace

Blackpoll Warbler

Cherry leaves, Burdock seeds

New England Asters, Orange Sulphur

House Wren, Staghorn Sumac

Migrating Brant

The Gannet's Plunge Dive

 

Locking onto target

Gannets patrol the ocean high above the surface looking for fish to strike. Their excellent vision searches the horizon for signs of other birds and marine mammals on the hunt.

From soaring to diving

After spotting possible prey Gannets swiftly shift from soaring or flapping to dropping toward the water.

A winged missile

Gravity and aerodynamic skill take them to the target within a couple of seconds.

Wings folding in

Their three-foot long wings, no longer supporting lift, tuck in to reduce air resistance for the dive.

Bird becoming arrow

The Gannet uses its wings as guidance fins during the plummet toward unsuspecting fish.

The perfect conversion

Nearing the water it becomes lethally ballistic at speeds up to 60 miles per hour.

Entry

Air sacs within its special bone structures absorb the surface impact. The bird's nostrils are located protectively inside the beak.

The minimal splash

The minimal splash is a tribute to the bird's streamlined plunge. Below the surface it instantly pursues the fish by leg and wing propulsion, sometimes to considerable depths. 

Gannet with a mackerel

The Gannet swallows smaller prey before returning to the surface. Larger fish like this mackerel it has to manage at the surface, where gulls may be waiting to steal the prize.

Pursued by gull

After these maneuvers the Gannet gets itself back up into the air where it spends its days repeatedly performing one of nature's stunning routines. It comes to land only at nesting time on remote coastal sites.