You Can Be a Naturalist Today

By Fred Bouchard

So there we were sitting on the side deck well after six of a June evening, sipping chablis with wine pals Jim and Debbie, grinning over Elon/Donny antics, when in an eye-blink along the driveway, I caught a form flitting through the long-past lilacs. I put down my glass and craned. “What th–?”

“What is it?”

“A female hummingbird…”

“Where!”

“No wayy.”

The gray mite amid grayish spent blooms was darting back and forth for—a sip of nectar? A late blossom? A leaf to doze under?

Everyone got a quick peek at her, and in 15 seconds she was long gone, past the rosy weigala. Refills all around. My first thought: “I’d finally set up the hummer feeder out back three days ago—nary a nibble. Hunh.”

In a heartbeat, a pair of sunset-lit Great Blue Herons leisurely flapped overhead, aimed for Little or Blair Pond.

Some of nature’s most memorable moments are neither the plotted ones, nor the dazzlers, but the out-of-the-blue serendipity, whether hither or yonder.

And setting up in your surroundings for quality observations at your leisure can be a key factor, especially as we age and become usually less inclined towards random mobilizing.

Our backyard garden proves a better perch than the porch, especially in the warmer months. Eating sandwiches while contemplating the still-unvisited hummingbird feeder and the local band of Rock Pigeons hanging out by our neighbor’s chimney, we remarked on a rash of dragonfly activity around the stand of veteran peonies, volunteer mint patch, annuals raised bed, and new-budded blue Joe Pye weed. In a moment, a 12-Spotted Skimmer, a brown female, zoomed onto a dried, last-year’s bloom of Buddleia and hung on for dear life, immobile and unflappable, for a full five minutes. A very close inspection showed she was not ovipositing. As usual, a camera was nowhere handy.

My bird bud Drew Wheelan writes from Block Island: “Watching the kiddos on Mother’s Day 5/11, [we saw] a lot of migrant activity in the backyard of The Darius [Hotel] and added Wilson’s, Bay-breasted, and Tennessee Warblers to the yard list just drinking coffee. Incredibly, as friends and I were chatting about how cool birding is, a Mississippi Kite flew over! Four new yard birds in one morning!”

Coolness points for birding include: flexibility, portability, and universality…

E-bird, the universal database and tracking tool for birdwatchers worldwide, asks members to label sightings submitted in one of four categories: Traveling, Stationary, Historical, and Incidental. The last is explained thus: Birding is not your primary purpose: you notice some birds while doing something else and want to record them quickly.

That “something else” covers a wide range of commonplace (usually outdoor) activities.

Driving: Highway driving can become a bit of a bore failing a quality soundtrack, but having an alert birder on board, preferably riding shotgun, not behind the wheel,  can up the game substantially beyond playing games with license plates. Mallard mothers leading a parade of chicks, blithely oblivious Canada Geese, vest-busting tom Wild Turkeys—all offer amusing diversions (or enraging obstructions) to the urban commuter. Driving on Route 2, say, especially when backlit or in crisp, sunny weather, affords long-shot chances at spotting majestic fly-overs. Eagles, Red-tails, and Ravens soar wonderfully, of course. But there’s an extra adrenalin zip in seeing a Pileated Woodpecker zoom across the road, rather than having to hunt one down in deep forests by pursuing its hatchet-blow hammering.

Other really neat observations spied from the car west of Worcester include a cavorting pair of Tiger Swallowtails, a bee-lining Great Horned Owl at dusk, a proudly perched Northern Shrike.

Oh yeah, don’t forget the roadkills. Sometimes hard to untangle visually are the dead squirrel, opossum, raccoon, Red Fox, and that olfactory favorite: Striped Skunk.

Fishing: An enduring childhood memory was fishing with my dad, Larry, and Uncle Armand for scup and tautog off the rocky shore of Anawan Cliffs near Jamestown, Rhode Island. I dimly recall being impressed by the animated aura of gulls and cormorants, whales and dolphins. 

Gardening: Butterflies are stars in the mix, seasonally. Not to mention curious insects – and the dreaded Pr[a/e]ying Mantis. Yard rabbits, now reluctantly considered  neighbors, or ADU tenants,  may leave half-concealed den holes, or in our case, leap repeatedly four feet into a raised annuals box. The nerve!

Having a nearby neighbor as a beekeeper ups the ante on buzzing activity, and assures a general increase in apian aeronautics.

Whale Watching/Deep Sea Fishing: Since seabirds and whales both follow the fishing schools, the three pursuits are marvelously complementary.

Rugby: it’s become a new craze among Belmont High students, and we attend a few matches. Backlit by the afternoon sun, the home stands face the new school complex and a bit of Claypit Pond to the right. Watching the boys’ squad get pummeled by BC High in May was made a tad more tolerable after sighting a juvenile Bald Eagle chased by a couple of irate (or mischievous) crows.

Baseball: Fenway Park in season provides a famed and frequented public stage for devotees of The National Pastime and Naturalists’ Passing Time gawking at all manner of wildlife. Homo sapiens subspecies rule the roost (bleacher blowhards, popcorn hawkers, serial wavers) but avifauna make their cameos: Mourning Doves exploring the bullpens, Rock Pigeons ransacking the Bud Patio for fries, Eurasian Starlings teetering on Pesky’s Pole, grackles mobbing an intrusive Red-tailed Hawk. Night games’ floodlights still attract bugs and the Common Nighthawks that hunt them. Here’s my E-bird report from a June sojourn: ebird.org/checklist/S246816446

Natural encounters may also encroach indoors, whereby they’re largely considered unpleasant, if not outright rude and invasive: the squirrel down the chimney, a misadventurous starling, bathroom arachnids, kitchenette cockroaches, the gutter-drilling flicker, filthy flies, or any manner of buzzing, winged insects, perhaps armed and dangerous.

Shawn Carey, my birdwatching pal and active shooter of photos for this column, looked out his office window and “simply noticed” a pair of Peregrine Falcons raising their young. So he created this brief video: bit.ly/Carey-Falcon

My point is, wherever you go, keep your eye peeled. You never know what might come your way, even earn you an Instagram following. As the late poet Mary Oliver succinctly put it in her mandatory directive “Instructions for living a life:”

Pay attention.

Be astonished.

Tell about it.

Fred Bouchard is a Belmont resident.