Birds can be social or solitary, showy or stealth, and short-tailed or long. There are an abundance of birds at Minute Man National Historical Park and the surrounding area – over 100 species of birds reside or pass through the Park throughout the year.
The annual Christmas Bird Count, hosted by Mass Audubon and now in its 120th year, includes inventorying birds in the Minute Man National Historical Park. On Sunday, December 29, 2019 several groups of citizen scientists began in the pre-dawn hours by searching the woods for owls. As the sun inched above the horizon, vocal birds including the very social male Carolina Wrens filled the forest with their “teakettle” call.
Birders moved across the landscape throughout the day, listening, looking through binoculars, counting, and celebrating as new species were spotted in both predictable and surprising places. Showy birds including the red-bellied woodpecker and blue jay were abundant, while cedar wax-wings were observed in lower numbers than previous years.
In the New Year, the park invites citizen scientists to continue to observe, record, and protect the abundance of species and their habitats in Minute Man NHP. For more information on upcoming birding programs, contact Margie Coffin Brown at [email protected].
By Margie Coffin Brown, Integrated Resources Program Manager/Historical Landscape Architect
Photos by Christine Van Dyke
