It happened again. We had another crazy winter that alternated between heavy snowfall, record-breaking warmth, and icy cold temperatures, which is once again causing us to question how we define winter weather in New England.
It’s seeming like we’ll never again have those long stretches of sub-freezing temperatures that allow our ponds and lakes to freeze solid and give everyone the opportunity to lace up their ice skates and slide across the ice. When I was a kid, everyone knew how to skate because pond skating was so readily available in just about every neighborhood. But now, fewer people skate because it’s so inconvenient to learn and practice. Our ponds seldom freeze thick enough anymore to withstand the weight of a neighborhood full of skaters.
Our increasingly erratic winter temperatures have not just made pond skating in Rhode Island a thing of the past. It’s also confounding the natural world.
I saw numerous reports of crocuses blooming in mid-February when the temperatures hit the 60s for several days in a row. Trees and shrubs in several places started to bud as well. And then they all had to go dormant again when the cold temperatures returned.
Early-blooming spring flowers and shrubs are used to the variability of the New England weather, though, so they aren’t likely to be harmed by their efforts to make an appearance weeks before they should. But the energy they wasted trying to grow and bloom in February may mean they don’t have the energy to try again at a more appropriate time. And as a result, our usual springtime colors may not be as bright or abundant this year. And that seems to be happening more and more often.
It’s not just the vegetation that’s getting an early workout from the unusual swings in winter temperatures, however. Some animals are likely struggling, too.
Wood frogs have the remarkable ability to freeze nearly solid during the winter and then thaw themselves out as spring approaches. They’re the earliest active amphibian in our area, typically arriving in local ponds in mid- to late-March to breed. To me, they’re the surest sign of spring we have left.
But when spring-like temperatures arrive for a few days in February, the frogs are triggered to thaw themselves out. And when they realize they’ve jumped the gun, they have to refreeze. The more often they do that, the less likely they will emerge unscathed once winter is truly over. And these days they find themselves thawing and refreezing several times each year, which wreaks havoc with their physiology.
The situation is similar for two other local amphibians that migrate to local breeding ponds in late March – spring peepers and spotted salamanders. I swear I heard a peeper calling in February, which doesn’t bode well for the little guy. They’re struggling to detect when the time is right to emerge from their winter hibernation. As are woodchucks and skunks, chipmunks and garter snakes, and a whole host of other creatures.
And let’s not forget the migratory birds, many of which must make an educated guess about the weather hundreds or thousands of miles away to decide when to begin their long flights. And if they arrive too early or too late for the emergence of their preferred insect food, then their breeding season may be a bust.
Hopefully most of these creatures will figure out our new normal for winter and spring weather before it’s too late. I just wish the same could be true of pond skating.
This story first appeared in The Independent on March 19, 2022
Friday, March 25, 2022
Monday, February 14, 2022
This winter, let’s try not to get too mad at the bird feeder thieves
If you devote much attention to feeding the birds that visit your yard, it’s highly likely that you’re not a fan of squirrels. The little buggers always seem to hog the feeders, keep our favorite birds away, and consume way more than their share of seed. I’ve concluded that about a third of my bird feeding budget is consumed by the gray squirrels in my backyard, with a little help from chipmunks and an occasional red squirrel.
As much as I claim that I’m not bothered by the innumerable small rodents eating from my feeders — and, in fact, I even tell people that I enjoy watching their antics — it’s not as true as I’d like it to be. More often than not, I want to run out the door and chase the squirrels away whenever I see them. But I don’t. At least not very often.
Nonetheless, they’re intriguing animals. They seem to thrive in our cold and snowy winters and
prosper, whether I keep my feeders full or not. And when we have a good year for acorns, as we have the last two or three years, they thrive even more.
Gray squirrels obviously don’t hibernate. They’re out there raiding the feeders all winter long. Even in neighborhoods where no one maintains bird feeders in the winter, the squirrels are still abundant and healthy. That’s because they can stay warm by relying on their fat reserves and by eating the scattered mass of acorns and other seeds they’ve stored during the fall.
At night, they retreat to leafy nests in tree holes and elsewhere in the forest to sleep. When the weather is especially nasty, they may gather in those nests —called dreys — in groups of two or three or four to keep each other warm.
I can usually count on seeing six or seven gray squirrels eating the sunflower seeds in my bird feeders every day in winter. I call one of them white ears, because it has bright white fur on the back of its ears. It’s so bold that it doesn’t stray far from the feeders when I go out to refill them. And it doesn’t seem to be bothered by my cats whining from the kitchen window whenever it’s nearby. It’s hard not to admire the little fella.
I am less bothered by the chipmunks that are also regulars at my feeder, partly because they aren’t visible for much of the winter. They spend most of the cold months sleeping in their burrows, feeding on the seeds they’ve stored there, and only occasionally emerging to scavenge from the spilled seeds during warm spells. Chipmunks are adorable as they fill their gigantic cheeks with seeds each fall, running back and forth from the feeders to their burrows to cache their loot. The cuteness factor, and their diminutive size, makes it difficult to hate chipmunks, even though they, too, are bird seed thieves.
My favorite of the mammalian visitors to my feeders are the flying squirrels. Occasionally when I turn on my back porch light before going to bed, the light will illuminate the antics of the flying squirrels as they soar from tree to tree and grab a seed or two. If I could see them more easily, I’d be happy to supply even more seeds to keep them around more often.
Despite the cost of bird seed, I can’t help but be pleased that I’ve created a somewhat safe environment for my neighborhood feeder thieves. Even the squirrels.
This article first appeared in The Independent on February 12, 2022.
As much as I claim that I’m not bothered by the innumerable small rodents eating from my feeders — and, in fact, I even tell people that I enjoy watching their antics — it’s not as true as I’d like it to be. More often than not, I want to run out the door and chase the squirrels away whenever I see them. But I don’t. At least not very often.
Nonetheless, they’re intriguing animals. They seem to thrive in our cold and snowy winters and
 |
| Red Squirrel (Todd McLeish) |
Gray squirrels obviously don’t hibernate. They’re out there raiding the feeders all winter long. Even in neighborhoods where no one maintains bird feeders in the winter, the squirrels are still abundant and healthy. That’s because they can stay warm by relying on their fat reserves and by eating the scattered mass of acorns and other seeds they’ve stored during the fall.
At night, they retreat to leafy nests in tree holes and elsewhere in the forest to sleep. When the weather is especially nasty, they may gather in those nests —called dreys — in groups of two or three or four to keep each other warm.
I can usually count on seeing six or seven gray squirrels eating the sunflower seeds in my bird feeders every day in winter. I call one of them white ears, because it has bright white fur on the back of its ears. It’s so bold that it doesn’t stray far from the feeders when I go out to refill them. And it doesn’t seem to be bothered by my cats whining from the kitchen window whenever it’s nearby. It’s hard not to admire the little fella.
I am less bothered by the chipmunks that are also regulars at my feeder, partly because they aren’t visible for much of the winter. They spend most of the cold months sleeping in their burrows, feeding on the seeds they’ve stored there, and only occasionally emerging to scavenge from the spilled seeds during warm spells. Chipmunks are adorable as they fill their gigantic cheeks with seeds each fall, running back and forth from the feeders to their burrows to cache their loot. The cuteness factor, and their diminutive size, makes it difficult to hate chipmunks, even though they, too, are bird seed thieves.
My favorite of the mammalian visitors to my feeders are the flying squirrels. Occasionally when I turn on my back porch light before going to bed, the light will illuminate the antics of the flying squirrels as they soar from tree to tree and grab a seed or two. If I could see them more easily, I’d be happy to supply even more seeds to keep them around more often.
Despite the cost of bird seed, I can’t help but be pleased that I’ve created a somewhat safe environment for my neighborhood feeder thieves. Even the squirrels.
This article first appeared in The Independent on February 12, 2022.
Friday, January 21, 2022
Rare birds keep finding their way to the Ocean State
Southern New England has been a hotbed of unusual bird sightings in the last couple years, with oddities showing up far off course from where they should be. Strangely enough, a handful of different species have turned up in our area when they should be 5,000 miles away in Siberia.2
The latest was last month’s appearance of a Steller’s sea eagle on the Taunton River in Dighton, Massachusetts. The massive bird — similar to our bald eagle, but much larger, with a white tail but no white head — should have been on the coast of eastern Russia, Korea or Japan. But one lone individual has been wandering North America for a few months, appearing in Texas and Nova Scotia before stopping off just across the Rhode Island border for a day or two.
It’s not the only one. A University of Rhode Island student stumbled upon a sharp-tailed sandpiper in Galilee in November, a bird that breeds in Siberia and winters in Australia. And a brown booby — a bird that should have been in the Caribbean — was observed on Fox Island in Narragansett Bay last fall. How these birds got to Rhode Island is anybody’s guess.
The summer of 2020 had three more shorebirds from Eurasia making brief appearances in South County – a red necked stint, a little stint, and a Terek sandpiper. None had been seen on the East Coast
more than a handful of times before, and it’s unlikely that any of them found their way back to their native range and reconnected with other members of their species.
A few months later, a common cuckoo was found in Johnston, and it was anything but common. The European species had only been observed in North America two or three times before.
All of these sightings generated tremendous enthusiasm among the birdwatching community, not just here in Rhode Island but all over the eastern U.S. and beyond. I talked to a birder from Indiana who drove through the night to see the sharp-tailed sandpiper, and as I joined 100 other birders searching – unsuccessfully – for the sea eagle, I noticed cars from a dozen states at a park where the bird had been observed the day before.
While these super-rarities attract widespread attention, they aren’t the only unusual birds that keen-eyed observers have been finding. At least once a month, another out-of-range bird is discovered in the Ocean State. Some are species that don’t belong here but that seem to show up every year or two, like the pink-footed goose from Europe, the painted bunting from Florida, and the dickcissel from the Plains States. Others, like the western tanager seen in Westerly beginning last month, are species seen only once a decade or so.
Why do these birds go so far astray? There are lots of possible explanations. Maybe their internal compass is off kilter and instead of flying south for a couple thousand miles, they fly east instead. This is probably the case with some juvenile birds making their first migratory flights. Or maybe they get blown off course by a storm or land on a ship that carried them to the ship’s destination. Or perhaps they joined up with a flock of a different species and followed them to their wintering grounds.
We’ll never know how most of these birds got to the wrong place. Sadly, most probably don’t survive long in these new environs. But it sure does get local birders – and even non-birders – excited to track down these rarities.
I wonder what unexpected birds will show up in Rhode Island in 2022.
This article first appeared in The Independent on January 15, 2022.
Monday, January 10, 2022
Scientists, shellfishermen seek strategies to sustain dwindling bay scallop populations
In the Great Salt Pond on Block Island, native bay scallops are thriving like nowhere else in Rhode Island. Scientists from The Nature Conservancy survey the 673-acre tidal harbor every autumn and have recorded hundreds of scallops each year, despite as many as 50 recreational shellfishermen harvesting scallops from the pond each November and December.
The same cannot be said of the rest of the Ocean State’s waters, however, where bay scallops are few and far between.
On Block Island, Diandra Verbeyst leads a three-person team of Nature Conservancy scuba divers and snorkelers who monitor 12 sites around the Great Salt Pond. They have counted an average of 225 scallops annually since 2016, up from just 44 observed by previous observers in 2007, the first year of monitoring.
“There are slight rises and falls from year to year, but the population is pretty stable,” Verbeyst
said. “Based on the 12 sites we monitor, the population is indicating that there is spawning happening each year, and there is recruitment to the population.”
In addition to scallop data, Verbeyst and her team also collect information on water quality and other environmental conditions during their surveys.
“The scallops are an indication that the ecosystem is healthy and doing well, and for me, that’s fascinating in itself,” she said. “No matter where you are in the pond, there’s a good chance you’ll see a scallop.”
Bay scallops are bivalve mollusks with 30-40 bright blue eyes that live in shallow bays and estuaries up and down the East Coast, preferring habitats where eelgrass is abundant. They are short-lived animals — most don’t live more than two years — and are significantly smaller than sea scallops, which are found farther offshore and are harvested by the millions by New Bedford, Mass.-based fishermen.
Chris Littlefield, a Nature Conservancy coastal projects director and former part-time shellfisherman on Block Island, recalled collecting scallops as a child in the Great Salt Pond 50 years ago, and he has been gathering them in small numbers for his family’s consumption ever since. He said the scallop population received a boost in 2010, when immature scallops grown at the Milford Laboratory of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration were dispersed into the pond in a project funded by the Natural Resources Conservation Service.
“That project broke through some kind of threshold,” Littlefield said. “Scallops weren’t as abundant before that, and they used to be confined to certain key locations and that was it. But now they’re more abundant and more people are finding them and harvesting them.”
Unlike Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard, and a few locations on Cape Cod and Long Island, where regular seeding of immature bay scallops has resulted in thriving commercial fisheries, Rhode Island has a tiny commercial fishery for bay scallops — fewer than three fishermen participate — and the fishery is not sustainable.
Anna Gerber-Williams, principal marine biologist for the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management’s Division of Marine Fisheries, just completed the first year of a three-year effort to assess the state’s bay scallop population. She is focused primarily on the salt ponds in South County, especially Point Judith Pond and Ninigret Pond, which historically had healthy bay scallop populations.
“We manage and regulate the bay scallop harvest, but besides Block Island, we haven’t had an actual assessment of what the population looks like in Rhode Island,” Gerber-Williams said. “We know it’s pretty low, and we know the actual commercial harvest numbers are very low. But we don’t have anything to base our management on. The hope is that this project can turn into more long-term monitoring, similar to what’s done on Block Island, and maybe lead to restoration efforts.”
Based on her first year of surveys, Gerber-Williams said there are self-sustaining populations of bay scallops in Point Judith Pond, and their abundance can fluctuate significantly from year to year.
“Scallops are very habitat dependent,” she said. “The habitat in the salt ponds is very patchy, and those patches are very small.”
Unlike clams, which bury themselves in the sand, bay scallops sit on the seafloor and can swim around by rapidly opening and closing their shell, making them difficult to track and count. Gerber-Williams said they are threatened by several varieties of crabs, which can easily crush the scallops’ shells with their claws.
“Part of the scallop’s strategy is to hide from the crabs in the eelgrass,” she said. “When they’re younger, they attach themselves to eelgrass blades to keep themselves above the bottom and out of reach of predators.”
Dan Torre at Aquidneck Island Oyster Co. experimented this year with growing bay scallops in cages in the Sakonnet River off Portsmouth. He bought scallop seed from area hatcheries last July, and they are approaching marketable size now. He has contracted with one local restaurant to buy his experimental crop, with hopes of scaling up the operation next year.
“I believe there’s a market, but it’s a niche market,” he said. “Normally with sea scallops, you sell just the shelled adductor muscle, but with bay scallops you sell the whole animal. The shelf life isn’t the longest, but it seems like there are a bunch of restaurants that are eager to try them.”
In an effort to figure out how best to restore wild bay scallop populations in the region, the Rhode Island Commercial Fisheries Research Foundation is collaborating with The Nature Conservancy to synthesize what is known about the history of the bay scallop population and fishery in Point Judith Pond.
According to Dave Bethoney, the foundation’s executive director, it will be combined with information about scallop fisheries in Massachusetts and Long Island, N.Y., as a first step to developing a restoration plan.
“How to make them sustainable is the real puzzle,” Bethoney said. “Even successful efforts on Long Island are based on a seeding plan — getting scallops every year from aquaculture facilities to replenish them. They have successful populations, but they’re not self-sustaining. I don’t know how we change that.”
Gerber-Williams agreed.
“In my opinion, the way to boost populations here and keep them at a level that’s sustainable for a good fishery in Rhode Island, we would have to have a seeding program similar to what they have in Long Island and Martha’s Vineyard,” she said. “Every year they put out thousands of baby bay scallops. They seed their salt ponds every single year to keep a decent fishery going.
“So the next step for us would be to do that kind of seeding program in Rhode Island. We’re in the process of creating a restoration plan for various species of shellfish in Rhode Island, and my hope is that bay scallops are a part of that.”
This article first appeared on EcoRI.org on January 6, 2022.
The same cannot be said of the rest of the Ocean State’s waters, however, where bay scallops are few and far between.
On Block Island, Diandra Verbeyst leads a three-person team of Nature Conservancy scuba divers and snorkelers who monitor 12 sites around the Great Salt Pond. They have counted an average of 225 scallops annually since 2016, up from just 44 observed by previous observers in 2007, the first year of monitoring.
“There are slight rises and falls from year to year, but the population is pretty stable,” Verbeyst
In addition to scallop data, Verbeyst and her team also collect information on water quality and other environmental conditions during their surveys.
“The scallops are an indication that the ecosystem is healthy and doing well, and for me, that’s fascinating in itself,” she said. “No matter where you are in the pond, there’s a good chance you’ll see a scallop.”
Bay scallops are bivalve mollusks with 30-40 bright blue eyes that live in shallow bays and estuaries up and down the East Coast, preferring habitats where eelgrass is abundant. They are short-lived animals — most don’t live more than two years — and are significantly smaller than sea scallops, which are found farther offshore and are harvested by the millions by New Bedford, Mass.-based fishermen.
Chris Littlefield, a Nature Conservancy coastal projects director and former part-time shellfisherman on Block Island, recalled collecting scallops as a child in the Great Salt Pond 50 years ago, and he has been gathering them in small numbers for his family’s consumption ever since. He said the scallop population received a boost in 2010, when immature scallops grown at the Milford Laboratory of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration were dispersed into the pond in a project funded by the Natural Resources Conservation Service.
“That project broke through some kind of threshold,” Littlefield said. “Scallops weren’t as abundant before that, and they used to be confined to certain key locations and that was it. But now they’re more abundant and more people are finding them and harvesting them.”
Unlike Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard, and a few locations on Cape Cod and Long Island, where regular seeding of immature bay scallops has resulted in thriving commercial fisheries, Rhode Island has a tiny commercial fishery for bay scallops — fewer than three fishermen participate — and the fishery is not sustainable.
Anna Gerber-Williams, principal marine biologist for the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management’s Division of Marine Fisheries, just completed the first year of a three-year effort to assess the state’s bay scallop population. She is focused primarily on the salt ponds in South County, especially Point Judith Pond and Ninigret Pond, which historically had healthy bay scallop populations.
“We manage and regulate the bay scallop harvest, but besides Block Island, we haven’t had an actual assessment of what the population looks like in Rhode Island,” Gerber-Williams said. “We know it’s pretty low, and we know the actual commercial harvest numbers are very low. But we don’t have anything to base our management on. The hope is that this project can turn into more long-term monitoring, similar to what’s done on Block Island, and maybe lead to restoration efforts.”
Based on her first year of surveys, Gerber-Williams said there are self-sustaining populations of bay scallops in Point Judith Pond, and their abundance can fluctuate significantly from year to year.
“Scallops are very habitat dependent,” she said. “The habitat in the salt ponds is very patchy, and those patches are very small.”
Unlike clams, which bury themselves in the sand, bay scallops sit on the seafloor and can swim around by rapidly opening and closing their shell, making them difficult to track and count. Gerber-Williams said they are threatened by several varieties of crabs, which can easily crush the scallops’ shells with their claws.
“Part of the scallop’s strategy is to hide from the crabs in the eelgrass,” she said. “When they’re younger, they attach themselves to eelgrass blades to keep themselves above the bottom and out of reach of predators.”
Dan Torre at Aquidneck Island Oyster Co. experimented this year with growing bay scallops in cages in the Sakonnet River off Portsmouth. He bought scallop seed from area hatcheries last July, and they are approaching marketable size now. He has contracted with one local restaurant to buy his experimental crop, with hopes of scaling up the operation next year.
“I believe there’s a market, but it’s a niche market,” he said. “Normally with sea scallops, you sell just the shelled adductor muscle, but with bay scallops you sell the whole animal. The shelf life isn’t the longest, but it seems like there are a bunch of restaurants that are eager to try them.”
In an effort to figure out how best to restore wild bay scallop populations in the region, the Rhode Island Commercial Fisheries Research Foundation is collaborating with The Nature Conservancy to synthesize what is known about the history of the bay scallop population and fishery in Point Judith Pond.
According to Dave Bethoney, the foundation’s executive director, it will be combined with information about scallop fisheries in Massachusetts and Long Island, N.Y., as a first step to developing a restoration plan.
“How to make them sustainable is the real puzzle,” Bethoney said. “Even successful efforts on Long Island are based on a seeding plan — getting scallops every year from aquaculture facilities to replenish them. They have successful populations, but they’re not self-sustaining. I don’t know how we change that.”
Gerber-Williams agreed.
“In my opinion, the way to boost populations here and keep them at a level that’s sustainable for a good fishery in Rhode Island, we would have to have a seeding program similar to what they have in Long Island and Martha’s Vineyard,” she said. “Every year they put out thousands of baby bay scallops. They seed their salt ponds every single year to keep a decent fishery going.
“So the next step for us would be to do that kind of seeding program in Rhode Island. We’re in the process of creating a restoration plan for various species of shellfish in Rhode Island, and my hope is that bay scallops are a part of that.”
This article first appeared on EcoRI.org on January 6, 2022.
Thursday, December 23, 2021
Finding the Six Birds of Christmas
‘Tis the season for Christmas carols, and every time I hear the classic Twelve Days of Christmas, it has me wanting to go on a birdwatching adventure.
The song features six birds, and while most aren’t native to Rhode Island – the song originated in England, after all – that doesn’t mean that they’re difficult to find nearby. At least some of them.
Let’s start with the easy ones.
You’ll have little trouble finding seven swans a-swimming in the winter months around here. Just stop by any of the larger ponds or calm coves, like Easton’s Pond in Newport, Trustom Pond in South Kingstown, St. Mary’s Pond in Portsmouth, or Apponaug Cove in Warwick. Almost all of the swans you see will be mute swans, a European species introduced to New England in the late 19th century. But there’s a slim chance you may stumble upon a native tundra swan as it migrates through to the Mid-Atlantic States. They look very similar.
Six geese should also be easy, though they won’t be a-laying. Even seeing 600 won’t be a problem. Canada geese have become a nuisance in some parks, golf courses and turf fields, and winter is when they are at their most abundant in Rhode Island. Look for them at the same places as the swans, though also check the Slocum turf fields, the corn fields near Trustom Pond, Newport Country Club and Fort Adams State Park. And note that several other species of goose can also be found in Rhode Island in winter, including snow goose, brant and occasionally cackling goose, white-fronted goose and pink-footed goose.
Although most birds sing primarily during the breeding season in spring and summer, finding four calling birds in December should be a breeze. Since the lyrics don’t mention a particular species, you could count any number of species that make noise in winter, like chickadees, titmice, nuthatches and sparrows. But note that the original lyrics to the song referred to four “colly” birds, which is believed to be an archaic reference to the European blackbird. In that case, you’re out of luck without a plane ticket.
Three French hens are another story. It likely refers to Faverolles chickens, a French breed now primarily found in poultry exhibitions, though perhaps any domesticated chicken will do the trick in a pinch. Or better yet, search for wild chicken relatives, like wild turkeys, which can be found just about everywhere these days. Pheasants fit the bill, too, though the only place to find them in Rhode Island is Block Island.
While there are plenty of mourning doves that come to bird feeders, finding two turtle doves will be especially difficult. Your best bet would be finding a Eurasian collared dove, a member of the turtle dove family that has been expanding around the country but hasn’t quite made it to Rhode Island in any numbers. If you happen to be traveling to Florida for the holidays, you’ll find them perching on utility wires throughout suburbia.
Finding a partridge will also be challenging. No native partridges visit Rhode Island, but a few local game farms raise two species, gray partridges and chukars, to release for hunters. Occasionally a few escape and wander the area. A friend in North Smithfield had a chukar visiting his yard almost daily for a few weeks in September and October.
But finding one in a pear tree is next to impossible.
This article first appeared in the Newport Daily News on December 20, 2021.
The song features six birds, and while most aren’t native to Rhode Island – the song originated in England, after all – that doesn’t mean that they’re difficult to find nearby. At least some of them.
Let’s start with the easy ones.
You’ll have little trouble finding seven swans a-swimming in the winter months around here. Just stop by any of the larger ponds or calm coves, like Easton’s Pond in Newport, Trustom Pond in South Kingstown, St. Mary’s Pond in Portsmouth, or Apponaug Cove in Warwick. Almost all of the swans you see will be mute swans, a European species introduced to New England in the late 19th century. But there’s a slim chance you may stumble upon a native tundra swan as it migrates through to the Mid-Atlantic States. They look very similar.
Six geese should also be easy, though they won’t be a-laying. Even seeing 600 won’t be a problem. Canada geese have become a nuisance in some parks, golf courses and turf fields, and winter is when they are at their most abundant in Rhode Island. Look for them at the same places as the swans, though also check the Slocum turf fields, the corn fields near Trustom Pond, Newport Country Club and Fort Adams State Park. And note that several other species of goose can also be found in Rhode Island in winter, including snow goose, brant and occasionally cackling goose, white-fronted goose and pink-footed goose.
Although most birds sing primarily during the breeding season in spring and summer, finding four calling birds in December should be a breeze. Since the lyrics don’t mention a particular species, you could count any number of species that make noise in winter, like chickadees, titmice, nuthatches and sparrows. But note that the original lyrics to the song referred to four “colly” birds, which is believed to be an archaic reference to the European blackbird. In that case, you’re out of luck without a plane ticket.
Three French hens are another story. It likely refers to Faverolles chickens, a French breed now primarily found in poultry exhibitions, though perhaps any domesticated chicken will do the trick in a pinch. Or better yet, search for wild chicken relatives, like wild turkeys, which can be found just about everywhere these days. Pheasants fit the bill, too, though the only place to find them in Rhode Island is Block Island.
While there are plenty of mourning doves that come to bird feeders, finding two turtle doves will be especially difficult. Your best bet would be finding a Eurasian collared dove, a member of the turtle dove family that has been expanding around the country but hasn’t quite made it to Rhode Island in any numbers. If you happen to be traveling to Florida for the holidays, you’ll find them perching on utility wires throughout suburbia.
Finding a partridge will also be challenging. No native partridges visit Rhode Island, but a few local game farms raise two species, gray partridges and chukars, to release for hunters. Occasionally a few escape and wander the area. A friend in North Smithfield had a chukar visiting his yard almost daily for a few weeks in September and October.
But finding one in a pear tree is next to impossible.
This article first appeared in the Newport Daily News on December 20, 2021.
Wednesday, December 22, 2021
Scientists assessing how waterfowl interacts with aquaculture facilities
As aquaculture operations expand in Narragansett Bay and Rhode Island’s salt ponds, questions have arisen about how ducks and geese are affected by the facilities. To begin to answer these questions, a University of Rhode Island doctoral student is tracking the movements of local waterfowl.
“There haven’t been any Rhode Island studies yet, but studies on the Pacific Coast have found issues with diving ducks getting tangled up in netting used by aquaculture, and birds that have been deterred from areas that might otherwise be good habitat because of the activities of aquaculture operations,” said Tori Mezebish, a native of Maryland who is collaborating on the project with URI
Professors Peter Paton and Scott McWilliams and officials from the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management.
She noted that previous studies have also observed sea ducks like eiders and scoters, which feed on shellfish, preying on oysters and other shellfish being grown by aquaculturists.
“There’s also been some positive associations, like ducks and geese eating some of the aquatic vegetation that accumulates on the cages,” Mezebish said. “It’s a mixed bag of how the birds might interact with aquaculture.”
Last winter, Mezebish attached transmitters to 30 black ducks and 30 brant, a species of goose that lives in salt water. This winter she will deploy an additional 30 transmitters on common goldeneyes, a diving duck. All three species are common during winter in Narragansett Bay, the salt ponds, and adjacent salt marshes.
Most of the brant have returned from their breeding grounds in the Arctic, and several of them spend every day with dozens of other brant on the lawn at Colt State Park in Bristol. Others are spending most of their time in the Upper Bay and Providence River. The black ducks are just beginning to return to the area from Maine and southern Canada, and the early arrivals have been tracked to the salt ponds and the Galilee area.
Mezebish is tracking the movements of each bird using a GPS unit on their transmitters to see how much time they spend near aquaculture facilities. She is also observing the birds in the field to validate the GPS data and see what the birds are doing around the shellfish farms.
“The goal is to understand what is important to these species outside of the aquaculture facilities,” she said. “Maybe brant need shallow areas with submerged vegetation, so that may not be the best place to put an aquaculture lease.”
In addition to Mezebish’s study, URI postdoctoral researcher Martina Müller is conducting land-based surveys throughout the year to see what other kinds of birds may be interacting with the aquaculture facilities.
“Ultimately we want to provide recommendations about the good and not so good places for aquaculture leases to be placed,” said Mezebish, who became interested in waterfowl research as an intern at the Pawtuxet Wildlife Research Center in Maryland, where she hand-reared ducklings used in the center’s research activities.
When the project is complete, Mezebish hopes to use the study as a springboard to study related questions about other conflicts and interactions between waterfowl and humans.
“There haven’t been any Rhode Island studies yet, but studies on the Pacific Coast have found issues with diving ducks getting tangled up in netting used by aquaculture, and birds that have been deterred from areas that might otherwise be good habitat because of the activities of aquaculture operations,” said Tori Mezebish, a native of Maryland who is collaborating on the project with URI
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| Tori Mezebish with black duck |
She noted that previous studies have also observed sea ducks like eiders and scoters, which feed on shellfish, preying on oysters and other shellfish being grown by aquaculturists.
“There’s also been some positive associations, like ducks and geese eating some of the aquatic vegetation that accumulates on the cages,” Mezebish said. “It’s a mixed bag of how the birds might interact with aquaculture.”
Last winter, Mezebish attached transmitters to 30 black ducks and 30 brant, a species of goose that lives in salt water. This winter she will deploy an additional 30 transmitters on common goldeneyes, a diving duck. All three species are common during winter in Narragansett Bay, the salt ponds, and adjacent salt marshes.
Most of the brant have returned from their breeding grounds in the Arctic, and several of them spend every day with dozens of other brant on the lawn at Colt State Park in Bristol. Others are spending most of their time in the Upper Bay and Providence River. The black ducks are just beginning to return to the area from Maine and southern Canada, and the early arrivals have been tracked to the salt ponds and the Galilee area.
Mezebish is tracking the movements of each bird using a GPS unit on their transmitters to see how much time they spend near aquaculture facilities. She is also observing the birds in the field to validate the GPS data and see what the birds are doing around the shellfish farms.
“The goal is to understand what is important to these species outside of the aquaculture facilities,” she said. “Maybe brant need shallow areas with submerged vegetation, so that may not be the best place to put an aquaculture lease.”
In addition to Mezebish’s study, URI postdoctoral researcher Martina Müller is conducting land-based surveys throughout the year to see what other kinds of birds may be interacting with the aquaculture facilities.
“Ultimately we want to provide recommendations about the good and not so good places for aquaculture leases to be placed,” said Mezebish, who became interested in waterfowl research as an intern at the Pawtuxet Wildlife Research Center in Maryland, where she hand-reared ducklings used in the center’s research activities.
When the project is complete, Mezebish hopes to use the study as a springboard to study related questions about other conflicts and interactions between waterfowl and humans.
Tuesday, December 14, 2021
Grad student investigating distribution of one of Rhode Island's rarest turtles
Wood turtles are among the rarest turtles in Rhode Island, and yet little is known about where they can be found in the state and what conservation strategies may boost their populations. A University of Rhode Island graduate student is taking the first steps in addressing those questions by surveying the state to identify local populations of the turtle and the habitat they require from season to season.
“There has never been a statewide survey of wood turtles in Rhode Island before, and before we can protect them, we have to figure out where they are,” said Chloe Johnson, a native of Atlanta,
Georgia, who is in her second year of studying the turtles as part of her master’s degree.
Wood turtles, which have been proposed for inclusion on the federal endangered species list, are found from Virginia to southern Canada and west to Minnesota. Sporting orange patches on their neck and legs, they spend time in slow-moving rivers and streams as well as in terrestrial environments like forests, croplands and pastures. They nest in open sandy areas.
Working in collaboration with URI Associate Professor Nancy Karraker and Scott Buchanan at the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management, Johnson conducted upland surveys during the summer of 2021 in hopes of finding nesting turtles, and she scoured rivers and streams in fall and spring. So far, she has identified 13 locations where the turtles have been documented. But finding the turtles has been harder than she expected.
“I’ve done more than 70 surveys and found fewer than 15 wood turtles,” she said. “They’re much more difficult to find than I anticipated. In the summer I went three weeks without seeing one. It’s hard, but when you find one it’s so much more rewarding.”
In the upcoming field season, when Johnson finds a wood turtle, she will attach a GPS data logger on its shell so she can track its movements.
“We want to know where the turtles go at night. Are they in fields or forests or streams?” she said. “How often do they cross roads? We’ve seen and heard from a lot of people that they’re seen crossing roads. Maybe we can find potential hotspots of road mortality.”
According to Johnson, wood turtles are threatened by habitat loss and fragmentation from the construction of roadways, houses and other human-based development. Their streams are also being negatively impacted by these developments. In addition, their bright coloration makes them popular in the pet trade and a prime target for wildlife traffickers.
“They’re endangered range-wide,” said Johnson, “but compared to surveys in Virginia, they’re much harder to find here in Rhode Island.”
The URI student anticipates completing her wood turtle research by next fall, when she hopes to have located previously unidentified breeding areas that state wildlife officials can include in future management and conservation plans.
“There has never been a statewide survey of wood turtles in Rhode Island before, and before we can protect them, we have to figure out where they are,” said Chloe Johnson, a native of Atlanta,
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| Chloe Johnson with wood turtle |
Wood turtles, which have been proposed for inclusion on the federal endangered species list, are found from Virginia to southern Canada and west to Minnesota. Sporting orange patches on their neck and legs, they spend time in slow-moving rivers and streams as well as in terrestrial environments like forests, croplands and pastures. They nest in open sandy areas.
Working in collaboration with URI Associate Professor Nancy Karraker and Scott Buchanan at the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management, Johnson conducted upland surveys during the summer of 2021 in hopes of finding nesting turtles, and she scoured rivers and streams in fall and spring. So far, she has identified 13 locations where the turtles have been documented. But finding the turtles has been harder than she expected.
“I’ve done more than 70 surveys and found fewer than 15 wood turtles,” she said. “They’re much more difficult to find than I anticipated. In the summer I went three weeks without seeing one. It’s hard, but when you find one it’s so much more rewarding.”
In the upcoming field season, when Johnson finds a wood turtle, she will attach a GPS data logger on its shell so she can track its movements.
“We want to know where the turtles go at night. Are they in fields or forests or streams?” she said. “How often do they cross roads? We’ve seen and heard from a lot of people that they’re seen crossing roads. Maybe we can find potential hotspots of road mortality.”
According to Johnson, wood turtles are threatened by habitat loss and fragmentation from the construction of roadways, houses and other human-based development. Their streams are also being negatively impacted by these developments. In addition, their bright coloration makes them popular in the pet trade and a prime target for wildlife traffickers.
“They’re endangered range-wide,” said Johnson, “but compared to surveys in Virginia, they’re much harder to find here in Rhode Island.”
The URI student anticipates completing her wood turtle research by next fall, when she hopes to have located previously unidentified breeding areas that state wildlife officials can include in future management and conservation plans.
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