Birds of Great Neck in Ipswich, Salem and Boston

On the 15th June 2018 I attended a lovely reunion of my cousins in Kelsey's Bar in Baltimore, and it was a lovely way to end my visit to Baltimore, where at least three sisters and one brother and a niece of my great grandfather emigrated from Ireland in the mid-1800s. 

That night I took an Amtrak train from Baltimore to Boston in Massachusetts, and I splurged on a taxi to Ipswich as I had to get to another family reunion of a different set of cousins related to my great grandmother in Ipswich the next day. So I didn't get any chance to do any birdwatching on 15th and 16th June 2018, but I got to meet lots of my cousins and family and they were all lovely and really nice and I got such a welcome in both Baltimore and Ipswich. Because so many Irish people emigrated to the USA in the 1800s, I probably have more cousins in the USA than even Ireland and the UK put together.

I was staying with my Ipswich cousins in Great Neck in Ipswich, and the next morning on 17th June 2018 I had great views of the back garden of the house I was staying in and the Ipswich river estuary and the Crane Estate, and this is some of the best birdwatching habitat in the USA with over 300 possible species of birds visiting this area. 

The first bird I saw in the garden in Ipswich hopping around the lawn was a female American Robin and these birds move and behave like the European Blackbird.  The first new bird I saw was a Song Sparrow (Melospiza melodia) sitting on a flagpole in the garden, and during my stay in Ipswich I saw a lot of these little sparrows from trees and bushes and they are great little singers.  

They have a speckled breast often with a big blob in the middle of the chest and they are a rich brown colour and they are just joyful.

The next bird that appeared was a Common Grackle that also hopped around the lawn like the ones back in the town park in Dundalk, Baltimore and they are a lovely iridescent bird with blue shining off their shiny black feathers on their heads and necks, and pale eyes. 

And then a rabbit appeared feeding on the grass and clover in the garden, a furry lawnmower, and who needs robot lawnmowers when they have these inhabitants?  It was an Eastern Cottontail Rabbit (Sylvilagus floridanus) and although these rabbits are a New World rabbit, they are not native to the New England region, which includes Massachusetts, and they are an introduced species and they now compete with the much rarer and native New England Cottontail Rabbit (Sylvilagus transitionalis).

And then another new bird species for me appeared and four Brown-headed Cowbirds (Molothrus ater) flew in to look for food on the lawn like a small flock of Starlings would.  Brown-headed Cowbirds are chunky birds, about the size of a European Starling with a heavier build.  And they have dark brown, almost black bodies with shiny, iridescent brown heads and thick, finch-like bills and they are quite curious birds and one flew up to the chimney above me to inspect me and my spotting scope set up on the balcony, and here are three of them on the bare branches of a bush.

Since they hung around the garden in a group, feeding like European Starlings and appearing quite sociable, I was surprised to find out that like cuckoos, they are a brood parasite and lay their eggs in other birds' nests to be raised by other birds.  A hen can lay up to 40 eggs in a season so they can be quite detrimental to other birds.  Suburban gardens and agriculture suit them and they were once a restricted species but have spread to become widespread around the US.

A male House Finch appeared in a tree and this one was so red, I almost thought it was a male Northern Cardinal when I spotted it with my eye, before getting my binoculars on it.

There was a female House Finch sitting on a nest in a terracotta flower pot on the house terrace below, and she was present throughout the family reunion party the day before. I wondered if the male House Finch could be her partner.

Here is a photo of a hen House Finch on a tree and the most likely confusion species is Purple Finch (Carpodacus purpureus) and female House and Purple finches look very similar, but the male Purple Finch does not have brown streaks on its belly, unlike the House Finch. Sadly I did not see any Purple Finches on this trip to the USA.

The next bird to appear was a male European House Sparrow and I had also seen these in New York and Baltimore, so these are definitely widespread on the Eastern side of the USA.  They seem to be doing better in the USA than where I live in Dublin, Ireland and I will be lucky to see any during the winter BWI Garden Bird Survey that I do in Dublin from December to February. 

I then turned my scope to the more distant Ipswich River Estuary and the Crane estate, and I could see a gull which looked most like to be a Herring Gull or Ringed-bill Gull and there was a Great Egret (Ardea alba egretta) and I could see the yellow bill in my scope.

And I could also see a flock of seven adult Canada Geese (Branta canadensis) on the other side of the estuary near the Crane estate.  

Back in the garden a flock of colourful American Goldfinches flew from bush to bush, and then I spotted another small bird briefly on a bare leafed branch and it was an Eastern Phoebe (Sayornis phoebe) and this is a type of flycatcher, and they pump or wag their tail which is long with a double-rounded end.

Later on in the day, I went for a walk with my cousins down to Pavilion Beach and on the way I saw Northern Mockingbird and Northern Cardinal sitting on wires.  Out at sea at Pavilion Beach I could see a Herring Gull swimming and then we started to walk towards Clarke Pond where there were more Canada Geese, and there were adults and juveniles swimming in the pond.

On the way back to the house, I saw a Mourning Dove on a wire and more Song Sparrows singing.  Back at my cousin's house when I looked out on the back garden again I saw a Gray Catbird (Dumetella carolinensis) and this is about the same size as a Common Grackle and it is pale grey with a black cap and a dark eye, and it appeared to be a shy, nervous bird staying close to the hedge and cover and not venturing to hop around the open lawn like a grackle.

The next day 18th June 2018, my Ipswich cousins took me on a day trip to see Salem, the famous town where witches were burnt at the stake.  We first took the Salem ferry to Boston where we went for lunch in a lovely restaurant called the Barking Crab where they serve very nice lobster, crab and clams and fresh seafood washed down with great beer.  Around two hundred years ago, lobster used to be prison food and the food of the poor, and was the staple food of prisoners in island prisons, in Boston and elsewhere around the US coast. 

On the ferry ride between Salem and Boston and back, we passed by Double-crested Cormorants, Great Black-backed Gulls and Herring Gulls flying, swimming at sea and sitting on large, rock islands.  

Back at Salem I saw Common Eider ducks (Somoteria mollissima) with chicks swimming around floating pallets in the water and they are always a nice bird to see. 

We then walked around Salem, taking in the history of the town and its old timber framed houses, and it is a lovely picturesque town steeped in history about trade as well as its dark history about its treatment of women accused of witchcraft.