Belmont’s Brumal Birds Will Soon Abound

 Environment, Newsletter, November/December 2024  Comments Off on Belmont’s Brumal Birds Will Soon Abound
Oct 282024
 
Belmont’s Brumal Birds Will Soon Abound

By Fred Bouchard. Photographs by Shawn Carey. We’ve changed tactics for getting familiar with our bird buddies of the brumal (pre-vernal, i.e., winter) season. We’ll pair like with like—woodpeckers, raptors, songsters, and feeder favorites. For more information, research any species by visiting ebird.org.   Downy Woodpecker / Red-bellied Woodpecker Woodies are mostly non-migratory. While flickers and sapsuckers head South, the rest abide with us—quite vocally—year-round; in leafless months we get to see them better. Of the five remaining, three mainly stay in forested areas: the mid-sized Hairy, the majestic Pileated (“Woody”) and the rare Red-headed Woodpeckers. Our likelier winter peckers [READ MORE]

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Autumn Avians Brighten Belmont

 Newsletter  Comments Off on Autumn Avians Brighten Belmont
Aug 232024
 
Autumn Avians Brighten Belmont

By Fred Bouchard This is a selective survey of Belmont birds that you might observe in Belmont from October through December, or even into winter as our climate warms. Four arbitrarily selected environments highlight our tour: two of the town’s “birdier” (and, coincidentally, more visited) locales, Rock Meadow and Clay Pit Pond, Belmont Backyards, and Little Pond. Rock Meadow: American Goldfinch, Northern Cardinal These familiar endearing species share the common trait of sexual dimorphism: gals and guys don’t dress alike! Male goldfinches’ plumage shouts “yellow and black!” in the breeding season, when their conical seed-searching bills turn gray to pink, [READ MORE]

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Belmont Boasts Bounteous Birds

 Environment, July/August 2024, Newsletter  Comments Off on Belmont Boasts Bounteous Birds
Jun 252024
 
Belmont Boasts Bounteous Birds

By Fred Bouchard Most of us try to cozy up to Mother Nature now that we’re increasingly climate-conscious, especially during longer days and presumably carefree hours of summer. Whether you’re in the garden, open spaces, or on woodsy walks, our home town offers a variety of eco-friendly locales to commune with Ma Nature’s little winged ambassadors. I offer four likely places, each hosting two not-obvious, strictly seasonal denizens that you might readily identify with your attentive ear and sharpened eye. We go from high altitude to low, and throw in an easily overlooked hotspot in nearby Cambridge. A good guide [READ MORE]

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Local Activists Testify to Limit Rat Poisons

 Environment, July/August 2023, Newsletter  Comments Off on Local Activists Testify to Limit Rat Poisons
Jun 302023
 
Local Activists Testify to Limit Rat Poisons

By Allison V. Lenk The morning we arrived to rally in front of the State House, we noticed two hawks circling the Boston Common. People excitedly pointed out when one of the hawks landed on the weathervane atop the Golden Dome of the State House. We optimistically decided it was a sign that the day’s testimony would make a positive difference in the cause to limit the use of second generation anticoagulant rodenticides (SGARs) which not only kill their intended target, but also sicken or kill birds of prey, other wildlife, pets, and even threaten the health of children. (See [READ MORE]

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Invasive Plants Can Harm Local Birds

 Environment, May/June 2023, Newsletter, Plants  Comments Off on Invasive Plants Can Harm Local Birds
Apr 262023
 
Invasive Plants Can Harm Local Birds

By Meg Muckenhoupt May is the peak of spring migration season in Massachusetts, and thousands of birds are landing in Belmont. (You can even get radar reports on which birds are arriving overnight on birdcast.info.) But what will these birds do when they get here? Will they find the resources they need to survive, raise young, and embark on fall migrations next September? The answer may depend on what’s growing around Belmont—and a lot of what’s growing around Belmont is invasive plants. Plants change birds’ lives North American birds evolved with native plants. Most bird-lovers know that different types of [READ MORE]

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If You Just Sit Still

 May/June 2023  Comments Off on If You Just Sit Still
Apr 262023
 
If You Just Sit Still

By David Morris When I was young, I had an uncle who was attuned to nature. He was an artist, a hunter, a forager, and truly fascinating to an eight-year-old. Recently, after a frustrating morning trying to see some wildlife, I remembered his words. He’d said, “You need to remember that you are part of nature, too. You need to find a nice spot and just sit still. Don’t wait for when it’s time to move, but just enjoy the looking, the listening, and the sitting still. After a while, once you start to seem like one of them, the [READ MORE]

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Rodent Poisons Sicken and Kill Birds of Prey

 Newsletter, November-December 2021  Comments Off on Rodent Poisons Sicken and Kill Birds of Prey
Nov 012021
 
Rodent Poisons Sicken and Kill Birds of Prey

Study finds 100% of tested red-tailed hawks at Tufts clinic exposed to rodenticides By Angela Nelson This article originally appeared in the September 16, 2020 issue of Tufts Now, and is reprinted with permission.  Maureen Murray, director of Tufts Wildlife Clinic and clinical associate professor at Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine, has been studying rodenticide exposure in birds of prey for over a decade. Exposure to rodenticides occurs when people use these chemicals to kill unwanted pests. Mice and rats, or possibly other animals, eat the poison, and then the birds eat the poisoned prey.  Murray has witnessed a steady [READ MORE]

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Events September 2021

 BCF Events, September 2021  Comments Off on Events September 2021
Aug 232021
 
Events September 2021

By Meg Muckenhoupt The only constant in life is change, according to Heraclitus, the Greek philosopher who strolled through Ephesus in the late sixth century B.C.E. The Greek letter most commonly used to represent change is delta, which is also the title of the variant of the coronavirus that is more contagious than previous versions and has persuaded the town of Belmont to mandate indoor masking.  So, instead of posting a page of fall walks, fundraising galas, hands-on classes, film screenings, talks, and volunteer opportunities, the Belmont Citizens Forum Newsletter’s event listings once again offer the thin milk of online [READ MORE]

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Belmont Roots November 2020

 Environment, Newsletter, November 2020  Comments Off on Belmont Roots November 2020
Nov 082020
 
Belmont Roots November 2020

Now is the winter of our discontent. We’ve watched all the videos of past events at the Belmont Historical Society and the Charles River Watershed Association. It’s getting cold, but it may be time to get outside. Nature is a balm when screens separate you from the world. If you’ve walked all of the Western Greenway and Lone Tree Hill, consider trying the ACROSS Lexington Challenge. Walk all 12 ACROSS Lexington trails—more than 35 miles!—record the dates, and submit your record to get a certificate and get added to the “baggers” list. Many spellcheck algorithms replace “COVID-19,” the virus, with [READ MORE]

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