Sometimes It's Better to Look Down When Birding (Long)

[PAUL ROBERTS]

My wife Julie and I have traveled to Plum Island very early 3 to 4 days a week this month hoping to see good passerine or hawk flights. The weather has been awful forcoastal hawk flights and we found the passerine flights "disappointing" on all but two days. There were a variety of warblers, but the migratory avian biomass was definitely less than we had expected given the weather and the date.

     Incredibly, on two of those "slow" days our highlights turned out to be once-in-a-lifetime experiences with small mammals because we were looking down instead of up.

     On one of the earlier slow days we met someone who said he had just seen 40-50 mice running around in the leaf litter just off the boardwalk in Hellcat. I was pretty confident we would find a nest of Meadow Voles, so walked quickly but didn't see anything. We walked back and noticed the leaf litter alive with small mammals running like drops of butter on a hot griddle. Tiny mammals – shrews – running in, out, under and over the leaf litter, like they had overdosed on ritalin. They reminded me specifically of a ride I used to take in amusement parks, "The Wild Mouse," which was something like a small roller coaster but instead of plunging down and up dramatically, shot left and right quickly and sharply in random fashion. But they weren't mice, they were northern short-tailed shrews, supposedly the most abundant small mammal in much of the northeast, which I can't recall ever seeing on the island before. They are indeed tiny. I foolishly tried to photograph them but they were so quick it was impossible to focus on any single shrew, and they moved far quicker than I could follow with my camera. (It took me a week before the light dawned that I should have just video'd a spot which likely would have had at least several shrews running through.) It was impossible to count them, but I estimated conservatively 15-20 were still there running wild in an area less than 10' X 10'.  Totally individually, one and 20 seconds later another shrew would race through the leaf litter, up the same tree root to the trunk and, around the base of the trunk, and down a root disappearing under the boardwalk." Suddenly, they were all gone. They normally have 6-8 young per litter and have only 2-3 litters a year, so these 15-50 shrews were not one family. I had never seen anything like this with mammals; only a case of several million Jerusalem crickets moving like molten lava across high desert. This was clearly the most exciting sighting all day, and when I told MaryMargaret Halsey she said she had seen something like this in another part of Hellcat the week previous with maybe 100 shrews! I eventually found three other people who had encountered similar scenes in Hellcat over the past two weeks.

     I researched the small mammal literature regarding this behavior but found NOTHING. I then contacted David Brown, the best wild mammal and tracking guy I know. He had never seen or read of shrews engaged in this behavior, but he had two possible explanations. He said shrews are nearly blind, relying on an acute sense of smell, and he thought it likely that all the males in "the area" had smelled a female shrew in estrus and followed their noses!  The second, less likely, theory was that since they eat a lot of fungi, they had possibly gotten into some hallucinogenic goodies? Most of the short-tailed shrews I've seen have been solitary dead ones who died of heart failure in a sudden cold snap. Never had I seen a scene like "shrews gone wild."

     Julie and I went to walk in the old pines not expecting or seeing many birds. As we were about to finish the walk, I saw an American Woodcock on the trail one footfall away. It exploded into the air, flying about six feet behind me and landing awkwardly, slapping the air futilely with its wings before it walked into the grass. Obviously, it wanted to distract me., I looked ahead of me and saw three tiny adorable woodcock chicks absolutely frozen in place on the edge of the sandy trail., totally exposed except for a blade of grass across a beak or forehead. They didn't move a feather, didn't pip a squeak. I quickly took several photos and we walked silently past the innate puffballs. I quickly shot a few photos of their backs, which looked  like Navajo sand paintings, and walked on, not looking back to see when they would race away. If I had not been looking down....

     This past Wednesday Julie and I were again disappointed with the limited numbers of warblers. We walked out the old blind trail in Hellcat, looking for a reported Wilson's Warbler or hopefully a Swamp Sparrow in high breeding plumage.  

Nada. At the lookout someone spotted a Muskrat slowly swimming toward us and disappearing beneath us. Suddenly I saw two small beady eyes staring through a break in the cattails. A Mink!  I was able to actually get a few quick photos before it disappeared slinking underneath us as well. Suddenly, the mink exploded out of the weeds running like a bat out of hell. I've never seen a mustelid move so quickly, its body distorted with incredibly rapid short, strides and sharp-angled turns. The explanation was soon evident. A large muskrat shot like a heat-seeking missile after the mink, and then all we saw was vegetation jostled gently by the breeze. Wow. The last scene must have been all of several picoseconds. Dave Brown informed me the muskrats are a prime prey of minks, and it was likely that the mink had tried to raid the muskrat's nest with young. What a day I thought.

    We then went looking for a Canada Warbler. We walked the dune side of Hellcat and heard a Canada had been seen nearby. Julie relaxed while I worked for only my second Canada of the spring. I had three incredibly brief views, heavily obscured by vegetation. But then a woman nearby spotted something moving on the small islands in the swamp. A Meadow Vole! At the beginning of the morning I was excited because I had seen a Meadow Vole run across the Hellcat Parking Lot while I was on foot; not driving. I had maybe two seconds to enjoy it, but I don't usually see Meadow Voles on foot. Here was a Meadow Vole foraging slowly, working along fragile isthmuses to islands in the water, foraging on the little islands. I was able to photograph the vole IN THE OPEN. The best views I've ever had in my life. Previously my best views were of voles running in their well-worn troughs or tunnels in the grass, heavily obscured by the sheaths of vegetation. One year I had discovered a Meadow Vole/Deer Mouse condo, where I could go stand silently for an hour and watch beady vole eyes peering out of their burrow entrances, looking for the Red-tailed Hawks and Roughlegs that had guided me to Vole City. I got lots of "head shot in burrow" photos, but no full-length body shots in the open. They are too quick. Too nervous. Too threatened from the air above. Any slow voles have already been eaten by a hawk. Meadow Voles are probably the second most abundant small wild mammal in the area, and the favorite food of many raptors.

If I had not been looking down...... Just to be sure of the species ID, I sent the photos to Dave Brown. He said there are four voles/bog lemmings in the area that look very similar and are best differentiated by dentition. Since I have never performed prophylaxis on any vole or southern bog lemming, I will be content with Dave's thought that it was likely a Meadow Vole.

     I've had some great views of several warbler species this year, especially Cape Mays and Chestnut-sided, but never did I expect that the highlights of my spring would be two ubiquitous small mammals and a frightened mink! And three adorable Woodcock chicks. The benefits of looking down instead of up.                 

 

Best,

Paul

  

Paul M. Roberts
Medford, MA 
phaw...@comcast.net