Outdoors: How a flicker of hope changed world of birdwatching

If there’s one species that changed the American world of birds, it’s the yellow-shafted flicker. As recently as the 1920s, birdwatching was largely done with shotguns rather than binoculars. Afterward, the flash of the flicker had an influence that no one could have ever expected.

Typically, on a Sunday just a century ago, birders during May or September migrations would inquisitively shoot what they saw move high up in the canopy — and identify it by trying to key it out in their hands. Often the colorful warblers, thrushes, orioles, tanagers, grosbeaks and flycatchers found themselves stuffed in glassed cases, some of which are still occasionally found for sale in antique stores today. Roger Tory Peterson changed all that and would be nominated for two Nobel Prizes for his efforts.

My wildlife mentor, Peterson was himself fatefully influenced by his junior high school teacher, Miss Hornbeck, who instilled an interest in birds in him. One day many years ago at his birthplace in Jamestown, New York, Peterson shared with me his life-altering experience that he had with a flicker when he was still a child.

Flickers are colorful, terrestrial woodpeckers that forage mainly on ants, which they find primarily on the ground, often on our lawns. The young Peterson saw one at the base of a tree and approached it within touching distance. When he reached out to touch it, the flicker magically exploded in flight, revealing stunning flashes of yellow under its wings and on its tail that dazzled him and etched in his mind an unforgettable beauty that he would spend a lifetime trying to totally capture in his studies and paintings of all the rest of the birds of North America.

Peterson would paint a thoroughly detailed field guide to all our birds and innovatively have arrows point to field marks that would readily identify a species from another that looked similar. There would never again be a need to shoot a bird to know its identity.

At our Lyme disease research station this past weekend, I couldn’t help but think of Peterson’s experience and impact as we banded, examined and released a spectacular flicker female, which had chosen our research site at the Auburn Sportsman’s Club for her nesting territory. She dazzled us all.

Watching nature isn’t always Disney-enjoyable, though. Sometimes it can be downright painful. Nature has no morality and shows no favor for “good” over “bad” — terms that exist only in human vocabulary.

Observing a bluebird nest box had provided a month of entertainment and drama for my wife Helen and me in our backyard. A gentle and colorful pair had put long hours into making their nest, gathering hundreds of pine needles, and arranging them ever so perfectly. We had bought a thousand live mealworms online to attract and feed them. All was going perfectly until last Wednesday.

While our cherry trees were still in full bloom, a little house wren arrived, sitting tamely on another nest box we had erected in our upper garden. He sang brilliantly, like all male house wrens. Their bubbly notes are among the most musical in all our bird world. As we sat not 20 yards from him, we were overjoyed by his vocal entertainment. That performance would prove tragic the next day.

To our horror, the very next morning, the little house wren aggressively evicted the gentle bluebirds and brought sticks into the nest, covering over the hundreds of soft pine needles. House wren nests are made of hundreds of little sticks — hard like their dominating attitudes towards other cavity nesters. Many a bluebird egg or chick has been fatally stabbed by their sharp little bills.

As I listened to the little house wren’s song this morning, it had lost some of its beauty and seemed powerfully assertive. All who try to help bluebirds thrive with nest boxes will experience this conflict and territoriality. It makes the successful nest box efforts of J.J. White, the bluebird’s godfather in Massachusetts, all the more remarkable.

Bird walk on Thursday

Nick Paulson will be leading a free Forbush Bird Club trip at the Westboro Wildlife Management Area on Thursday morning. Birders will meet at the Lake Chauncy gate at the end of the ballfields off Lyman Street in Westboro. Email grendelpgill@yahoo.com to register.

Plenty to catch, release

Thankfully, the fishing is picking up fast. Squid are still hitting off Cotuit, scup will be showing up soon, and delicious black sea bass will be right behind them.

Word is out that stripers to our south are finishing their spawning — and beginning to head north. With 30-50-pounders being reported exiting the Chesapeake and the Delaware, Hudson River spawners are sure to follow soon. You can bet that when the Canal warms to 55 degrees, lots of rods there will be doubled over as big fish enter their short cut to their summer feeding grounds. Hopefully, more and more striper lovers will catch and release the biggest most valuable spawners to further enrich us in future years.

Not around here

Along with our stripers, the cicadas are coming. But not here. When Massachusetts experiences their phenomenal emergence from 17 years in the ground, the incredible drama of 2025 will occur mainly in southeastern Massachusetts. From the Canal up through about Marshfield, sounds from treetops will drown out the birds beginning as soon as ground temperatures then get to 64 degrees.

Butterfly front

Already, lepidopterists are seeing spring azures, tiger swallowtails, cabbage whites and clouded sulphurs. Our monarchs, which wintered in Mexico, are on their way. It will take a few more months — at least 3 generations of them — to finally get here — if they can find enough milkweed along the way. Each generation progresses farther north, lays its eggs — and dies. Big agriculture with its mega-herbicide use has wiped out much of the milkweed habitat along the way north. If you want to help monarchs, plant milkweed wherever you can.

Watching the toms

I’ve been trying to observe male turkeys strutting during their breeding season. On rainy days, their activity is reduced largely to feeding in their displaying fields. Opening their feathers and puffing themselves out then would get them wet and cold. Nevertheless, I still observed aggressive males circling other males, trying to establish dominance over them — even when there wasn’t a single female in sight.

Need our forests

Thanks to Clark University’s research, the unnecessary and ill-advised loss of huge areas of Massachusetts forest to solar panels has been brought to light. How can we support this destruction when rooftops of commercial buildings, schools and homes, parking lots, and center strips of highways are not being utilized?

Government incentives for solar panels shouldn’t go to deforestation projects. And where forest landowners can’t pay their bills, we need to recognize their importance and provide further tax incentives to keep the land from being developed.

—Contact Mark Blazis at markblazissafaris@gmail.com.