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New England Seabirds | Wandering Birder | Wandering North America | Newburyport, MA   Newburyport, MA May 2004 Wilson's Phlaropes at the south end of the Salt Pannes. May 2004 This is the first May I have been home since I retired two years ago. My new truck camper is ready to go. It needs a shake down run. The Newburyport/ Plum Island area has been one of my favorite birding spots since I moved to New England in 1983. What better way to start this three year journey than with a month in Newburyport. Camping at Salisbury State Beach I am spending the month of May in the Massachusetts State Park and Campground at Salisbury just across the river from Newburyport and very close to Plum Island. The campground opens in the middle of April. May is a quiet month with only about half of the sites with electricity filled during the week. Weekends are another story so if you want to stay all month, you better make reservations far in advance. You can do this over the internet or by phone. It cost $20 a night with water and electricity at the site. This is slightly more expensive because I am not a Massachusetts resident. Tent sites are cheaper and more plentiful even on weekends. Camp Site A 31 My rig "The Albatross" on my site with my bicycle parked in front. The nearby bath house is heated and provides hot showers and flush toilets. My camp site produced some birds: White-crowed Sparrow, Black-throated Green , Common Yellow-throat Warblers, and Song Sparrow I tried placing a hummingbird feeder in the tree to the left, but it disappeared almost immediately. I was not the only birder taking advantage of this campground. A birding class from Vermont and several individual birders were here during the month. The Grove at Salisbury Beach If you bird the Newburyport area in winter you certainly know about "The Grove at Salisbury". Off season there is no admission charge to the almost deserted Salisbury State Reservation. Birders search the grove for wintering owls and the campground for Longspurs, Crossbills and winter finches. I recall seeing Sawwhet Owl and Long-eared Owl here. Snowy Owls can be spotted in the salt marsh behind the grove and across the road by the ball field is good for Great Horned Owls. In May the Salisbury Reservation starts charging for entry. They seem to always charge on weekends and toward the end of the month every day. The charge is a steep $7 per car. Massachusetts residents who are 62 or older can get a free pass and younger people can buy a pass. Alternatively you can come early in the morning and hope they havn't started charging. The grove is a small copse of Pine and deciduous trees bordered on one side by the campground and on the other by salt marsh. At the far end a line of deciduous trees and shrubs extends down to the boat ramp. Migrating birds have few choices of where to go and when the wind is just right, the grove can be full of warblers. Some mornings I found nothing but resident birds here: Yellow-shafted Flicker nesting in a dead tree, Northern Orioles, Yellow Warblers and Common Yellow-throats, Song Sparrow. View of the grove from the boat ramp. Early in May a birder reported flushing a Barn Owl from the grove. Doug Chickering and Lois Cooper started things off when they found a Sawwhet Owl here one Sunday morning and stopped by the site to tell me. The owl was gone by the next morning. Turkey Hill Road The Golden-winged Warbler singing its Blue-winged song was again seen early in the month at the intersection of Turkey Hill and Road. I was lucky to see it on May. I went back the next day and several days after with no success. Pike's Bridge Road produced the usual Blue-winged Warblers and Blue-gray Gnatcatchers. The number of Bobolinks in the meadow seemed to be reduced from past years. Changes In the two years I have been gone there has been a flury of building along Turkey Hill Road. I was shocked to see this "trophy home" going up on a rather small lot. It certainly is not compatible with the rest of the neighborhood. Plum Island A Great Horned Owl had a nest in the Pines Trail. With a scope were able to get my 4 year old granddaughter Carolyn to see the baby birds. After a storm in early May the babies fledged and were seen roosting in various trees. Doug Chickering was the first to see this nest and due to protective fencing put up by the refuge many birders and photographers enjoyed these birds. The Pine Trail also produced White-eyed Vireo and Black-billed Cuckoos along with a decent collection of warblers. There are many more Bobolinks on the refuge then I remember from years past. A good place to watch them is from the parking lot at the Pines Trail. This one was photographed from the platform on the far side of the Pines Trail. The Bobolink is one of my favorite birds.