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Boreal Birds of the Boston Area (view list)
Boston may be famous for its spider web of roads but when you look at the bird life in the area you see a web that extends far beyond Massachusetts. Of the 300 or so regularly-occurring bird species in the Boston area, more than 30% (95 species) have breeding ranges that lie wholly or largely within the boreal forest of Canada.
The Horned Grebes bobbing in the waves off of Winthrop Beach or Wollaston Beach starting in October may have just arrived after a 3000-mile journey from breeding grounds in northern Manitoba or Saskatchewan. Likewise, the Common Goldeneye, a small duck familiar to duck hunters as the "whistler" for the sound of its whistling wings in flight, relies on the boreal forest to provide the tree cavities inside of which it lays its 7-10 eggs but during the winter feeds on shellfish in the bays and coves along the Atlantic coast. The annual Greater Boston area Christmas Bird Count regularly tallies 200-1000 Common Goldeneyes on the mid-December survey.
Other boreal breeding species use the habitats of the Boston area only for a short time in fall and spring migration. In fact, at least 40 of the 95 boreal breeding species that occur in the Boston area spend the winter in Central or South America or the Caribbean! The most amazing migration is that of the Blackpoll Warbler, a species in which an estimated 65% of the total population breeds within Canada's boreal forest. Migrating Blackpoll Warblers move south and east from their Canadian breeding grounds from August to early October then make an audacious leap off the continent to fly directly from New England and the Maritimes to northeastern South America--a flight that will take many days and will leave the birds exhausted and emaciated upon arrival. The species is one of the most abundant fall migrant warblers in the Boston area as they attempt to fatten up before leaving on their marathon flight.
