SCOPING OUT NEW SITES AND SCENES (9/04/03)

Yep! Although most of us are still shaking our heads over the unusual months we just weathered, and are perhaps wondering whether hurricanes lie ahead,.it’s that time of year when our lives change in many subtle ways with the approach of fall. We start attending club and business meetings that were suspended over the summer. Our summer house guests have departed, and soon our summering birds will do likewise.

Gone until next April will be the orioles, hummingbirds, swallows and others that made the summer season stand out. Fall migrants arrive as they continue their journey from more northerly areas to the south, our first being a male rose-breasted grosbeak. We’re watching for waves of warblers, as they, too, leave their breeding areas for those where they’ll winter.

One of the best ways to watch migration in motion is to join other birdwatchers on outings to the best sites. Here’s what the Cape Cod Bird Club is offering for September:

Tuesday, Sept 2: 11 AM Matt Bailey of the Mass Audubon Coastal Waterbird program will lead a Shorebird Trip at Long Pasture, Barnstable. 362-7475. To Long Pasture from Rte 6, take Exit 7 (Willow St); go North on Willow until it intersects with Rte 6A. Turn left onto 6A, go about a mile and look for Harbor Point Restaurant sign on right. Turn right on there on to Bone Hill Rd; after two tight curves, when you can see water ahead, look for driveway on left. (#345 with wooden gate). Pull into driveway and drive to building.

Saturday, Sept 6, 8:30 AM: Coast Guard Beach, Eastham. Shorebirds in Nauset Marsh, views over the ocean, and osprey in residence. Park at the Coast Guard Station Building at the end of Doane Rd. Leader: Mark Tuttle, 362-3015

Monday, Sept 8, 8 AM: Eastham, Fort Hill. Meet in the lower parking lot and we will look for field birds as well as the birds of the marsh at one of the Cape's most spectacular views. Leader: Ginie Page 349-6810 or vgpage@juno.com

Friday, Sept 12, 7:30 AM: Crowes Pasture, E. Dennis. Meet on the dirt road by the Quivet Neck Cemetery. Take School St. from 6A, then make the first right onto South St; follow to the cemetery. Be prepared to walk about 3 miles. Leaders: Michael Dettrey and Diane Silverstein 508-398-9484 or birder526 @aol.com

Thursday, Sept 18, 8 AM: Bourne, Pocasset and Falmouth. Meet at Gray Gables Food Market (with a Dunkin Donuts inside), along the shore road in Bourne. We will visit several places including the Falmouth Sewage Beds. We may see or hear 60 or 70 species. Each stop has some walking. Leader: Stauffer Miller 362-3384 or Stauffer@seepub.com

Tuesday, Sept 23, 8 AM: E. Sandwich Game Farm. We will be looking for migrants and residents. Meet at Amari's Restaurant parking lot on 6A near Sandy Neck Road. Leader: Dick Jurkowski 428-8494 or kingfisher229@earthlink.net

Wednesday, Sept 24 , 8:30 AM: Harwich Area. Meet at the Harwich Community Gardens on Sisson Rd. We will bird the gardens then move on to the South Harwich marshes. Leaders: Nancy Reider 398-8296 & Ruth Connaughton 432-1580

You don’t need a reservation to join any of the walks, which are free, but leaders do appreciate a call or email in advance.

You can also do vicarious birdwatching at the Museum of Natural History in Brewster with the Cape Cod Bird Club, whose programs are free and open to the public. Meetings start at 7:30. Here are the speakers for September and October:

Sept 8: Don Scott: "Natural Wonders of the Falkland Islands, South Georgia Island and the Antarctica Peninsula"

Oct 13: Lindsey Brown: "Backyard Wonders of New England"

For up-to-date information on the Bird Club and its activities, either become a member of the club and receive the bimonthly newsletter or check out the club’s website at: www.massbird.org/CCBC for additions or changes.

Although most of us remain quite happy to watch and tally our own backyard birds all year round or to visit various other sites on the Cape, occasionally it is enjoyable to seek out a different setting all together. Don’t be reluctant to cross the bridge to the mainland. Only a very little planning can take you to new and interesting sites where the birds are quite different. Think of taking 2-day vacations to the "other Massachusetts,” where perhaps you have never been.

This is especially easy now that we have the recently-published "Bird Finding Guide to Western Massachusetts." That, in combination with a guide to restaurants and hotels, will take you to many destinations where the birding is good and amenities abound. This new guide, produced through a collaboration of fifty-two local birders, is an indispensable resource for locating birds from the marshes of western Worcester County to the peaks of the Berkshires. It features stunning original illustrations by Andrew Finch Magee and bar charts showing the seasonality of each species.

In addition to well-known birding locations such as the 56,000-acre Quabbin Reservoir area just 85 miles from Boston and the boreal forest of 3,491-foot Mount Greylock in the far northwest corner of the state, the guide's 83 site accounts and 85 maps cover dozens of lesser known but equally productive and beautiful places. Whether you are a beginning birder or an expert, whether you choose casual walks, strenuous hikes, birding from your car, or backwater canoeing, think of quick getaways to the fields and ponds of High Ridge in Gardner or to the winter bird specialties of Royalston, the eagles at Quabbin, rails in Brimfield, marsh wrens and bitterns in the Brookfields and breeding ravens at Barre Falls! You’ll come home as refreshed as though you had hopped on a plane and flown to a wholly new region!

Please send your comments and anecdotes about birds to me in care of the Cape Cod Times, 319 Main Street, Hyannis, MA 02601 or, if you use email, to emiller@seepub.com. I regret that because of an overwhelming amount of mail, I cannot respond to each of you personally. However, I have added a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) section to the web page with my current and past bird columns, now found at http://home.comcast.net/~elliemiller/index.html. If you can’t find the answer to your question there, try Bird Watcher’s Digest at 1-800-879-2478 or check out their FAQ at www.birdwatchersdigest.com.