Bird Monitoring at Select Cranberry Bog Restoration Sites in Southeastern Massachusetts

Over the last few weeks, Alan and Lisa have continued to conduct bird surveys visiting Mill Brook Bogs, Foothills Preserve, Pinnacle Bogs, South Meadow Reserve, and Holmes Bog. Nesting season is fully underway and on each visit, we've recorded a variety of energetically calling fledglings competing for their frantic parent's attention.

Foothills Preserve
Landscape, Red-winged Blackbird, Eastern Bluebird

Pinnacle Bogs
Green Heron

Holmes Bog

Lisa was happy to have four Manomet banding interns, who were curious about the surveys and the restoration work Living Observatory is documenting, accompanying her on the survey to Holmes Bog. Below, Lauren diBiccari, Sarah Duff, Josephine Tagestad, and Emilia Skogen scan the wetlands for wildlife. We had three nice highlights during this visit: a mother Wood Duck putting on quite a distraction show to draw our attention away from her four tiny ducklings, 14 young Tree Swallows sitting on a wire, wings fluttering whenever an adult brought food, and a Yellow-billed Cuckoo, a species that has been particularly hard to find this year due to a scarcity of its favorite food - tent caterpillars.