Sunday, April 6, 2025

April 6, 2025: Spring Visitors are Arriving

If there are any bird watchers following the Red Hill Tracking Station, you know it detected its first bird of the year on March 15th:  a Northern Saw-whet Owl. 

Northern Saw-whet Owl  (Photo from Cornell Lab or Ornithology)

I've never seen one of these small owls, and probably never will as they are nocturnal and seldom seen.  But they are resident in New Hampshire year round, and they have a call that sounds like a truck backing up which they give in the evening from January through May, so maybe I'll hear one some evening.  

Like many owls, the female incubates the eggs and cares for the young for the first couple of weeks while the male hunts for the entire family.  But then the female abandons the nest, leaving the remaining care up to the male.  The male does a fine job of providing for the family, but he isn't interested in house-keeping. Though the female keeps a clean nesting site while she is resident, the male does no such thing.  According to the Cornell website "By the time the young owls leave the nest, 10 days to 2 weeks later, the nest cavity has a thick layer of feces, pellets, and rotting prey parts."  

The migration patterns of this owl are not well known, which is why researchers started Project Owlnet to learn more.  The detections from the Red Hill Tracking Station will be very helpful to the research.  You can read more about the Northern saw-whet owl here.  You can also see what other birds have been detected passing near the fire tower on Red Hill here, and there's always a link in the header at the top of this blog.  

A couple of early spring birds I did see this week were a Song Sparrow and a huge flock of Common Grackles making a loud racket in the tops of the trees.

A Song Sparrow gleans spilled seeds under the feeder.
A Common Grackle, May, 2021.

While some birds arrive, and there are growing expanses of open water at the inlet from Dolloff Brook and at the dam, there's still enough ice in the lake that the loons may hold off a bit longer.  Areas of lake that open up on warm days often freeze up again during a cold night.


And as the lake level rises and falls, ice sheets are left hanging in space, fastened to flooded shrubs along the shoreline.



Hermit Thrushes may arrive any time now, and the Broad-winged hawks should be close behind them, so keep your eye out for them.  And if you see a loon, either in the lake or flying overhead, please let me know - it shouldn't be too much longer now even though some days I do question that.


Keep the faith!