One More Bird Post

Expert birder also noted that there were a lot of Red-breasted Nuthatches around this year. Easton potentially has two nuthatches. Anyone who has a bird feeder has seen a White-breasted Nuthatch.

The name nuthatch comes from their habit of storing nuts and big bugs under bark or in tree cavities for winter food. At a feeder the White-breasted Nuthatch will zoom in, grab a seed, and zoom off unlike chickadees or titmice that often stay and crack the seed on the feeder. The long beak and big head of this sparrow-sized bird allows it to look for bugs under tree bark. It's interesting how birds divide up a tree's bugs. Woodpeckers drill into a tree, Brown Creepers crawl up a tree and nuthatches crawl down a tree upside down. Mainiacs call the Nuthatches "ass up a tree" birds. Easton probably has a full load of White-breasted Nuthatches with each patch of fairly mature deciduous woods with its own pair who seem to mate for life. I'm still studying mixed flocks of birds and the White-breasted Nuthatch often joins up with chickadees and titmice. It seems though that when the mixed flock moves out of the nuthatch's territory, the nuthatch stays behind waiting for the next group to arrive. Thus, you'll always see more chickadees and titmice at your feeder with just two nuthatches unless two territories overlap.

White-breasted Nuthatches are pretty common throughout the US wherever there are deciduous trees. The Red-breasted Nuthatch prefers coniferous forests and Massachusetts is at the southern edge of its range. Global warming is moving ranges of birds like this further north so there are probably fewer resident Red-breasted Nuthatches here than a hundred years ago. Birds from further north migrate to our balmy climes so the best time to see them is winter when they are also somewhat less selective about what tree they sit on. I recently saw my first Red-breasted at the Governor Ames Estate on a maple tree although I'm sure it was the large pines, spruces, and hemlocks that first attracted him there.

These birds are smaller than their white-breasted counterparts, smaller than a sparrow. They have the same ass up a tree gleaning style although their beaks are proportionally smaller. It's an active little bird that never seems to sit still. Not a great singer it seems even more limited to a tinny version of the nuthatch "Yank" call. Both nuthatches nest in tree cavities. The White-breasted smears ants and other insects with chemical defenses around the outside of the cavity in an oak, beech, or maple to deter squirrels. The Red-breasted smears pitch around their cavity nest for the same purpose.

Despite their tiny size nuthatches really get around. The White-breasted is genetically similar to a related species in the Himalayas. The tiny Red-breasted is almost identical to the Corsican nuthatch.
Some European historian should explain to the other birds just how much damage tiny Corsicans can do.

Bird News

Kevin Ryan of Bay Road is without doubt the best birder in Easton. He has traveled the world on birding vacations so when he gives you a hint of what is around town you pay attention. He suggested at the beginning of November that I should watch the goldfinches and house finches at my feeder for the appearance of Pine Siskins. This has proven to  be a little more tricky than I had hoped. Here is a Pine Siskin.

OK, except for the hard to see yellow stripe on the wing, this would be what birders call an LBJ-little brown job-a category that includes lots of sparrows and other birds. The good news is the only sparrows visiting my feeders right now are easily identifiable House Sparrows. Unfortunately from an ID perspective I also have House Finches. Here's a lady house finch.

I hate to say this to a lady, but the easiest way to distinguish the two birds is that the finch has a big schnozz. Also, the lady finch in comparison is a plus size averaging an inch bigger and almost a quarter of an ounce heavier (a big deal in the bird world), but relative size is hard to determine in the field unless the two birds are sitting next to each other. The Siskin has a more more V-shaped tail while the Finch has a squarer one, but I've been doing a lot of feeder watching looking for that skinny beak. There are an estimated 22 million Pine Siskins in Canada, the USA, and Mexico so my day is coming!

The beaks of these finches reminds me of my favorite nature book 1994's The Beak of the Finch by Jonathan Weiner which traces examples of evolution in action. The title comes from a multiple decade experiment on one of the smaller Galapagos Islands. The finches in the Galapagos were one of the key finds that led Darwin to his great theory. This particular island switches between desert and lush vegetation with the changes in El Niño. A couple of scientists have been capturing, measuring, and banding all the finches on the island for many, many years. As the vegetation changes with the climate birds with bigger or smaller beaks are favored. If the island ever became permanently dry or permanently wet one beak size would become extinct and a new species would have evolved. That's also the story of the finch and the siskin who came from the same family and share a common ancestor. Both birds can eat small seeds like nyger (we generally call it thistle seed), but the House Finch can also chow down on bigger seeds like sunflower that would give the Pine Siskin some trouble.

Once again I have a problem since the seed mix I use in my general feeder includes unshelled sunflower as well as the shelled variety. It's a basic principle of ecology that everyone would rather eat potato chips on the couch instead of driving to a restaurant to eat lettuce. In other words all animals try to achieve the highest food value they can with the least effort. This means most birds regardless of beaks will eventually figure out they can get more calories, more easily by eating big chunks of unshelled sunflower rather than tediously shelling tiny nyger seeds. Not all birds, I watched a traditionalist Goldfinch spend fifeteen minutes shelling nyger yesterday while his buddies ate the sunflower.

Well time for lunch. Tomorrow a more successful outcome from one of Mr. Ryan's tips. Do you know your nuthatches?

A History Mystery and Destination Shopping

Blog time this week has been devoted to some background historical research. The Historical Society is putting together a new collection of self-guided walking tours for the area around the old railroad station. One of the tours deals with the workers at the shovel company and is tentatively called "The American Dream Factory Tour." The underlying idea is that the shovel shop provided the jobs that allowed the workers to live the American Dream. That concept comes from anecdotal evidence found in the survey forms of North Easton houses done by the Historical Commission, but what if that is skewed by looking at the history of houses instead of people?

Rather than create a database of the 500 or so workers here in the 1880s and 1890s, I decided to track the workers who were listed in the 1850 census. Instead of dozens of Andersons and Johnsons, I'm looking at the Yankees who helped Old Oliver start the company and the new influx of Irish immigrants who were a trial to native census takers-Ahearn becomes Ahan and Patrick O'Hara becomes Patric O. Hara. The questions to be answered are: Did the workers in the 1850 and 1855 censuses stay in Easton? Did the immigrants become citizens here? Did they start families? And finally were they able to buy houses here? While you are fighting through the crowds on Black Friday, I'll be finishing phase one of the study.

About that Black Friday thing. Why not skip the whole thing and visit the new indoor Farmers Market at Simpson Springs?  The market continues to grow and this week several new vendors will bring chowder and jewelry to the eclectic mix. I'm a regular at the market buying the fabulous fish from Jordan's Fish Market and my weekly loaf from Bridgewater Bakery, but I've also picked up Christmas presents from Running Brook Winery and Omega Olive Oil and Vinegar. Last week I added a wonderful made-to-order bouquet of flowers. This transaction was the soul of local markets. I set my price, picked the main flowers, and then the shop keeper designed a beautiful bouquet. She'll even fill up a vase or container that you bring from home. The surprise of my bouquet, which is still going strong next to me as I write, is an ornamental kale flower that looks like a big white rose. Then there is cheese, chocolate, honey products, pickles, preserves, spices and cosmetics. Skip the Dunkin's and buy some fresh roasted coffee and home baked scones while you shop! See you at the market from 10-2 on Saturdays. Oh, and don't miss the new flavored club sodas from Simpson Springs: Lemon-lime, pink grapefruit, and cranberry.

Collations

The Easton Historical Society dedicated a flagpole in honor of long time member Ken Martin on Saturday. Ken was a veteran of the SeaBees who served in Vietnam in 1968 and 1969. He brought his skills home to have a long career with the tree department. Ken helped out the Historical Society in a variety of ways in particular with a biannual bottle drive that raised over $10,000 for the Society. Ken is definitely missed.

 

After the ceremony the program said we would have a collation. “What’s a collation?” the person sitting next to me asked. Having been through two wars-the Revolution and the Civil as a living history reenactor  I knew it meant refreshments, but I had no idea where the word came from. Turns out we can thank a saint.

The story starts with John Cassian who lived from about 360-435 A. D..  This was so long ago that no one knows whether he came from present day Bulgaria, Romania, or France. Cassian was very devout and like lots of men of his age he went to the desert to better talk to God. As a young man he spent time hermiting around Bethleham, but finding it too crowded, he headed for the desert near Scete in Egypt. Unfortunately, other religious folks beat him to it, and Cassian spent about 15 years moving among the small groups of hermits that were coalescing into the first monasteries. Eventually he wrote a book called Conferences with the Hermits of Scete.

At any rate, poor Cassian lived in a time when there seemed to be a new heresy every day. His choice was Semipelagianism, but that need not detain us here because Cassian avoided burning at the stake because his position didn’t become officially heretical until a hundred years after his death. However, Cassian left the desert to avoid getting caught up in a completely different heresy. Arriving in Constantinople he got a job with the Patriarch of Constantinople who hadn’t yet broken with the Pope in Rome to found the Greek Orthodox Church. The Big P had broken with the Emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire, however and sent Cassian to Rome to ask the Pope for help.

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While in Rome Cassian told the Pope about how all those Egyptian hermits were banding together into monasteries. What the Pope did about the Patriarch I have no idea, but he asked Cassian to start a monastery, one of the first in Europe, in the city of Marseilles. This Cassian did about 415. He spent the last twenty years of his life there and his Conferences and another book called the Institutions became the rule book for early monastic life.

All this effort got Cassian official sainthood in the Eastern Orthodox Church with the bummer Saint’s Day of February 29^th. In the West he was never officially canonized, but drew a better Saint’s Day, July 23. You can visit his head and right hand at the church of St. Victor in Marseilles, the descendent church of his original monastery.

So when do we eat? Or at least what has this got to do with collations?  Well, about 50 years after Cassian’s death, St Benedict came along. Benedict picked up on Cassian’s  monastery idea and founded the Benedictine order. He wrote the Rules of St. Benedict that still govern his order, the Cisterians, and the Trappists.

Benedict decreed that on fast days his monks could eat two small meals (Robin Hood’s Friar Tuck was a Benedictine and over the centuries the definition of “small” changed). Cassian fanboy that he was, Benedict also decreed that a reading from Cassian’s Conferences should precede the light meals. The Latin title of the Conferences is Collationes partum in secetica eremo, hence the word collation. Believe it or not it is also the origin of the Polish word for supper-kolacja. “And now you know the rest of the story.”

Go and See the King

There is a Belted Kingfisher visiting the Governor Ames Estate. Kingfishers are in decline across their range, but they are by no means rare. I usually see one or two a year (compare that to 10 zillion English sparrows). Casual walkers have been mistaking the King for a Blue Jay, but the King's blue is bluer and his enormous beak and noisy chatter is distinctive. I'm saying he because the bird looks like the fellow above. Girl Belted Kingfishers have two belts across their chest, one a thin red one, the other blue.

Pete Dunne in his Essential Field Guide Companion calls the Kingfisher the Aqua Kestrel because this bird flies over ponds or hovers 20 or 30 feet over water before diving headfirst like a Kestrel into the water to catch little fish.

I've seen the bird at the new Trustees of Reservation's property for about two weeks, but I've yet to see him make a dive. He's been fishing both Shovel Shop Pond and the little pond on the opposite side of the mansion. Both ponds are loaded with little fish so I'm a little concerned we might be hosting a juvenile who doesn't know the ropes.

If he is a juvenile, he has had an interesting life already. His parents had mated for life and had worked for up to two weeks to dig a tunnel into a riverbank.  Most Kingfisher tunnels go up inside the bank. If a flood occurs the chicks have a chance to survive in the air pocket in the upward part of the tunnel. After Mom lays her eggs in the tunnel, the pair take turns incubating them. Dad gets the day shift while Mom gets to keep the eggs warm and sleep at night. This lovely scene of domesticity does not extend to housekeeping; Kingfishers don't clean their nests like many other birds. Things get worse when the babies hatch because they are fed regurgitated partly digested fish. Leftovers are not refrigerated so the tunnel must get really smelly. Not a problem for the birds who have a very poor sense of smell. Once the fledglings emerge from the tunnel they go to fishing school. Mom and Dad drop dead fish on the water until Junior gets the idea of diving for dinner.

The Kingfisher at Ames is making a lot of noise that sounds nothing like a Blue Jay. It has been described as a "scratchy chattering rattle." Kingfishers can become pretty tame around people often fishing in golf course ponds, but they are very territorial. Our Kingfisher is making noise when people come within a hundred feet. Because of their territoriality, Kingfishers are reluctant migraters. With global warming you might see Massachusetts birds throughout the year with winter birds defending holes in the ice.

Let me know if you see this guy make a splash!

Four More Years

Yes, not slipping over the fiscal edge in January is job one for our poor deadlocked democracy, but we can't afford four more years of yammering over health care, social issues, and economics. It's the environment, stupid! How many Super Storm Sandy's do you need before you believe we have messed up our world? The science for human induced climate change and general environmental degradation is overwhelming yet the party of angry white men and fat cats continue to obstruct change for their oil company masters while the party of everybody else panders to the self-interested needs of its multiple constituents.

This is the last four years where my selfish generation can do something to ease the burden of debt on our children and grandchildren, but it may also be the last four years where we can do something to stop catastrophic climate change. A truly progressive administration would realize that environmental issues are at the core of everything from improving public health (and cutting health care costs) to diplomacy-how can the emerging countries like China, India, and Brazil achieve lifestyles like ours without destroying the world? Answer: they can't. It would be wonderful if Mr. Obama would provide some leadership on these issues while the Republicans sort themselves out and see if they can cough up the hairball of men like Rush Limbaugh and Karl Rove. Sadly, I doubt both Mr. Obama's vision and the Republican's commitment to change a losing formula.

"A plague on both your houses" Shakespeare said referring to the Capulets and Montagues, but he could just as well have been talking about the House of Representatives and the Senate. With climate change the plague is likely to be Dengue Fever.

The Market Moves Indoors

The outdoor market "officially" ended last Tuesday when no vendor showed up in the wake of the hurricane. The new indoor market opened Saturday at Simpson Springs on Route 138. If you don't know where Simpson Springs is, you probably should. It's in the running for the oldest continuously operating business in Easton, and it would have won hands down if the Indians who discovered the spring about 10,000 years ago had plastic bottles to sell the water in. The pure water from Simpson Springs is the gift of the glacier which created an underground river as it melted away. The river bottom became a snake shaped ridge of sand that the spring flows from. After thousands of years of native use, the settlers arrived and began to use the spring. The first English child in Easton was born on Simpson Springs property. For many decades the spring water was channeled through a wooden pipe and available to all. Residents who used the spring water enjoyed better health then their neighbors who relied on shallow wells built to close to privies so the water enjoyed a great reputation. Enter capitalism. Owners began to sell the water after the Civil War and in the early 1880s they began to make "tonic." Today they are the oldest bottling company still operating in America and the single source of the least expensive spring water as well. Just bring your gallon jugs and show up with quarters for the water machine. Who knows, you may be drinking from a spring that once served King Philip-or his great, great, great, etc. grandparents.

The folks who showed up with their jugs and empty tonic bottles certainly got a surprise on Saturday because the new market opened at 10. Over the next few weeks all the summer favorites will be there except for tiny Second Nature Farm that only does a CSA at their farm in winter. Langwater's two vendors, Jordan's, the area's best seafood company, and A Bread Company are also there. A great Saturday breakfast can be had with a scone from A Bread Company and a cup of coffee from the market's official coffee roasters. There are two chocolate candy people, two cheese vendors, a pickle salesman, and a vendor who sells olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Coupled with old favorites Oakdale Farms, Running Brook Wines, Lawton's farm beef, and Bridgewater Baking Company's sourdoughs, you have a supermarket where all your food needs can be had by supporting local companies. Oh, I should also mention two cosmetics companies!

Here's a first Farmer's Market recipe. Take a salmon fillet from Jordan's. Add a little ordinary olive oil or PAM in a small heavy frying pan. Heat to medium. Add salt and pepper to the fish and place it meat side down for about 4 minutes. Turn it over and increase heat a little to finish cooking. While it is cooking take two tablespoons of Omega Olive Oil's blood orange infused olive oil and mix it with a tablespoon of their Honey-Ginger Balsamic Vinegar. About a minute before you finish cooking, pour the oil and vinegar over the salmon. Plate the salmon and pour the pan sauce over it. Great salmon flavor with subtle hints of orange and ginger!

Tomorrow a recipe for Lawton Farms short ribs, Running Brook wine, and Oakdale Farms potatoes.

Now, here's my concern. I'll be buying my seafood weekly from Jordan's and bread and vegetables weekly as well, but I just bought a quart of pickles that will last me for weeks. We need customers that are regulars, but we also need an influx of new people weekly to help the specialty salesmen along. Come to the market and tell your friends! Oh, and bring a jug!

Meet Bert Munro

Just a short note today between answering robocalls about Bert Munro who has something to say to the diminished people of America today.  Bert Munro or at least the version of Bert that comes through in Anthony Hopkins brilliant portrayal in "The World's Fastest Indian" is a lovable old rascal from New Zealand.

The Hockomock Film Club viewed Munro's story last night based on a member's recommendation. I had never heard of this 2005 film, but what a film it is. When we meet Munro it is 1963 and he is a 67 year-old eccentric who lives in a shack with bits of homemade parts for his 1920 Indian motorcycle. His dream is to take his antique to the Bonneville Salt Flats and set the land speed record for his size engine. Hopkins brilliant acting takes us inside the life of an old man with young man's dreams. His health is falling apart, he's living on his pension and barely gotten by. The little boy next door still believes that he can achieve his goal, but his neighbors, who love this genuine person, have their doubts. Two scenes early in the film sum this up: we see Munro sending the little boy home to borrow his mom's carving knife so he can cut the tread off second hand tires, and we later see the Indian which really can go like a bat out of hell in a straight line lose a race with a local motorcycle gang because Munro can't take a turn during the race.

What happens next is how Bert finally makes it to America and his trip from LA to Utah. It's Don Quixote and Crocodile Dundee in an America that still valued authenticity. It's Huckleberry Finn as an old man with the highway as the Mississippi. It's an America that was still capable of reacting to a slightly daft dreamer with (mostly) kindness and gentleness. It's also hilarious as well as profound. You're kept on the edge of your seat worrying about whether poverty and heart and prostate problems will keep Munro from realizing his dream. The film ends both as you might expect and as a total surpirse. Hopkins should have won an Academy Award. He considers this his best performance, and he is well supported by the wonderful cast and the excellent cinematography. Rent this film.