Late night at Baxter Park Silver moon, bird storm offer unexpected bonus

I’d like to tell you about our Birdathon on Memorial Day, but I’ll preface it with what happened over the weekend at Baxter State Park.

Our hiking group had reserved the bunkhouse at South Branch Pond for the holiday weekend, and members had gone up early Saturday morning to take advantage of the beautiful weather forecast for that day. I left later, as I had a seminar to attend, and didn’t arrive until late afternoon.

I regretted that I had missed most of the day, but that night and the next day more than compensated me for it.

A late-night trip to the outhouse, which I usually dislike and avoid as much as humanly possible, revealed a side of Baxter that I had never experienced before.

The night was brilliant. The rising full moon had cast the landscape in charcoal and pewter and turned the pond into molten silver. Too captivated to return to bed, I walked through the campground listening to the birds, which also seemed to find the bright spring moon impossible to resist.

A barred owl called continuously from the woods across the pond’s outlet stream. Overlaying this baritone were the insect-like “peents” of two American woodcocks. I thought each was determined to outdo the other, for as one took to the air for its elaborate spiral flight, the second followed. I could hear their squeaky, high-pitched whistles as they whirred around and came tumbling back to earth. One of them apparently landed in the shadows right ahead of me, giving me a good start when it suddenly let loose with a fervent “peent!” I was actually close enough to hear a peculiar, indrawn grunt that preceded the vocalization.

Amidst this activity I heard the plaintive calling of a spotted sandpiper – “peet-weet, peet-weet” – as it flushed from the pond’s edge. This in turn seemed to arouse one of the resident white-throated sparrows, which sang its full-bodied whistle of “oh, Sam Peabody, Peabody, Peabody.”

I stayed up for a while, listening to the nocturnal chorus. I knew the weather was not looking good for the next day, and I figured I had better take advantage of the clear night before being socked in by rain and no birds.

Again, how wrong I was.

The next day rained warblers as well as some of the wet stuff. There were so many of them around at times that I only needed to adjust the focus wheel of my binoculars to see several without turning my head. Black-throated blue, magnolia, Canada, chestnut-sided, American redstart, yellow-rumped, and Blackburnian warblers foraged low in the tree stand. Several red-eyed vireos, a flock of evening grosbeaks, and an indigo bunting made an appearance.

Usually, most of these songbirds forage higher up in trees, making it almost impossible to see them. The winds were so strong, though, that I guessed hunting for insects was easier closer to ground level. They also seemed to be using the bunkhouse as a windbreak, for they remained close to it most of the time.

Sometimes, they were too close. As I sat on the porch with my mug of tea, a black-throated blue warbler smashed into the screened window beside me and fell to the deck, stunned. Luckily, it was not injured and recovered quickly to fly away.

Next week, I’ll tell you about the Birdathon; but for now, I’d like to remember the magic of a silver moon and a bird storm.

Chris Corio, a volunteer at Fields Pond Nature Center in Holden, can be reached at fieldspond@juno.com