Spring 2013

The blogger returns and to help him, here is a visitor for the new season, freshly arrived from other climes. This magnificent Osprey, most likely a female, given the size, was here last night and again this morning. We have had such visitors in past years and while they are not nesting here so far, this is a favorite fishing hole. The tidal waters below team with everything from sunfish to perch and bass, along with summertime ocean-based species.

 Right now, we are expecting the first alewives (Alosa pseudoharengus) to appear on their annual migration to fresh water from the deep ocean. 

Happily, after much effort, a new fish ladder – the first on the Carll’s River, in the delta of which this pond exists -- is operating just in time.  Work crews finished the job in March using a grant from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.  

My small part in it was to watch over several years for returning alewives. It paid off in 2010 and 2011 when we documented that they are arriving here, trying to get past a dam and waterfall to the left of the ladder area and attempting to breed. That information was incorporated in the grant application by scientist Brian Kelder of Seatuck Environmental Association, with whom I worked on the survey. We will formally declare the ladder open at a news conference on April 18, just ahead of celebrations marking Earth Day in the US.

 Other spring arrivals include Grackles, Robins and Redwing Blackbirds and a pair of Black-crowned Night Herons. They accompany winter holdovers:  A pair of Cardinals, a lone Great Blue Heron, multiple House Sparrows, White-throated Sparrows, Mourning Doves, Chickadees and Juncos. The latter seem to have departed in the past few days, along with visiting Mergansers – both Hooded and Common, the last of which was seen this morning.

Flocks of Canada Geese, various seagulls, crows and Starlings are year-round regulars.

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