Journal of a Sabbatical

May 16, 2000

in search of little yellow things

Today's Bird Sightings:
Mt. Auburn Cemetery
2 black and white warblers
4 gray catbirds
1 veery
1 scarlet tanager
1 blackburnian warbler
1 magnolia warbler
1 pine warbler
4 yellow-rumped warblers
1 herring gull
2 purple finches
3 mallards
2 American redstarts
1 cardinal
1 red-tailed hawk being chased by
1 American crow
1 chipping sparrow
many common grackles
Canada geese
starlings
American robins

Herptile Sightings:
1 bullfrog
1 eastern painted turtle

Today's Reading: Uttermost Part of the Earth by E. Lucas Bridges

Today's Starting Pitcher:
Tim Wakefield

It's getting near the end of the spring warbler migration and Ned has been wanting to witness it at Mt. Auburn Cemetery where his mother is buried, so we made kind of a little post-Mother's Day pilgrimage in search of the little yellow things. Mt. Auburn is a popular birding destination. A little background reading might help set the scene for readers unfamiliar with the phenomenon that is Mt. Auburn. A slew of famous people are buried there.

Warblers are not my strongest bird family. Get me out there with birds of the sea and shore (and ducks - that goes without saying) and I'll hold my own with anybody. Not so with warblers.

We reviewed the book over lunch at Caffe Paradiso in Harvard Square and got to Mt. A. in the early afternoon.

I haven't been to Mount Auburn in years - since college I think. This is practically a new experience for me.

Ned is trying to recreate an experience he had birding with his mother there when he was 9. Let's see, he's a year older than I am, so that would make it 1959. He remembers sitting in a dell in 1959 looking at warblers. I don't think these will be the same warblers.

After a few false starts including a grove full of starlings and nothing else, we did find the dell he remembered. And it was full of warblers. Not bad for the middle of the day shortly past the peak of the migration.

The weather was gorgeous. I heard my first bullfrog of the season. There was even a dawn redwood, my favorite tree. And a painted turtle. First turtle of the season.

If we'd practiced our bird ID skills with the Virtual Birder trip to Mount Auburn, we probably would have a longer list. We heard birds we couldn't find. But it was a successful tribute to Ned's mother.

As we were leaving, gardeners were mowing right over Mrs. C.'s grave with weedwhackers - polishing the stone.

Postscript: Check out the Owl Research Institute site. The home page has a photo of Mrs. C. holding a hawk and the "about us" page has a photo of the Nancy Claflin memorial cabin (and as Ned points out, the Ned Claflin siding on the Nancy Claflin memorial cabin). Oh, and read this if you want to know what the Owl Research Institute has to do with Ned's mother.