Looking Out from Central Massachusetts

Manomet & Plymouth ~ Saturday, 12/10

2011-12-11T19:20:00.001-05:00

This past Saturday we decided to take a trip to Plymouth, partly to look for some of the recent rarities (Western Kingbird and Chats) and partly to just spend an enjoyable day birding before the onslaught of the Christmas bird counts.

We decided to work from south to north, so our first stop was Great Herring Pond to see if the large flocks of coot were still there...we still had several hundred, including one quite close eating vegetation from the bottom on the lake.

After thoroughly checking the pond we moved up 3A towards Manomet. This is a road we've rarely taken, especially south of Manomet, so it was interesting to stop at new areas. Right near the entrance to Ellisville Harbor State Park we found these 3 strange-looking goats. And of course Mark made me stop and take pictures. He would like nothing more than to live somewhere where he could have a goat!

It was rather quiet at Manomet Point. We had Great Cormorants, White-winged and Black Scoters, a couple of loons, some Common Eiders and only one seal out on the rocks. Not even Goldeneye were around, and certainly no alcids.

However, our major reason for stopping in Manomet was to look for landbirds. We didn't see much at the point, so we decided to head back along the road after checking Mass Bird for the location where the kingbird had been seem. We pulled into a little dirt pulloff near the entrance to Holmes Farm and checked the thickets near the car. We had lots of White-throated Sparrows, Cardinals and Yellow-rumped Warblers. And there were two Caroline Wren singing across the field. But no sign of Chat or the kingbird.

We did have a new mushroom pushing up through the leaf litter....a tribute to just how warm it's been lately. I don't think I've ever noticed fungi in December!

After a few minutes, we noticed 3 birders coming down the long road from the barn at the top of the rise and realized one was Erik Nielsen. We've haven't Erik in ages, so it was quite nice to catch up....and he had seen the Western Kingbird earlier, but it had flown off after being seconds away from being breakfast for a Sharpie! Erik told us we could drive up to the barn and park, so that's what we did and began searching every treetop and bush for the bird.

After about 15 minutes Erik spotted the bird flying back in on the far side of the hill to the east. So for the next 20 minutes or so, Erik and I inched closer to the bird to try to get some close photographs. I was at a far greater disadvantage than Erik, since he was using a small camera to digiscope the bird. Other than having to lugged the scope around, this is the first time I was really intrigued with digiscope photography.

At one point the kingbird flew down and caught something to eat literally 15 feet from where I was standing, but he didn't stay long enough for me to focus...so I had to settle for a shot of him perched on one of the bluebird boxes.

He then flew into the thickets that were down in the lowest part of the field, and we all heard him calling pretty consistently. This was extremely interesting, because I know I've never had a Western Kingbird in Massachusetts who had done that before.

Pretty actively hunting for food, the kingbird put up again, this time on a post at the far end of that low spot and both Erik and I were able to get great shots. Eventually I went back to where Mark was waiting by the car and after chatting a bit with George and Judy Gove, we decided it was time to head up to Plymouth. All in all a very satisfying time spent with this Western Kingbird.

We made all our usual stops, including near Plymouth Rock and the Mayflower, but things seemed a bit quiet....at least as far as ducks were concerned.

At Plymouth Beach we had a nice mixed flock of about 60 Dunlin and Sanderlings.

But these were the only shorebirds we had....no lingering December surprises.

In the parking lot near the breakwater (where the Ivory Gull had been seen a few years back) we had this nice 2nd winter Iceland Gull. He posed quite nicely for my camera, until someone pulled up in a car and began feeding the gulls. I'm actually quite surprised at the number of people who enjoy throwing bread out for the gulls. This was the second person we saw in about 15 minutes -- these most be some of the best-fed gulls in the area.

When we got to the Nelson Street Playground, we noticed what a nice job they've done upgrading the parking lot and walking paths in the area. There were large numbers of Black Ducks in this area, but again, not much else in the way of ducks.

We did have a nice flock of Brant, including at least two birds wearing silver bands on both legs. I'm trying to see if I can match the bands to anything I can find regarding recent branding of Atlantic Brant.

After spending time scouring the area for any unusual ducks, and scoping out the tip of Plymouth Beach for Snowy Owl, we decided to run up 3A and check Spooner Pond where we had Redhead a few years ago.

Again, with so much open water things weren't concentrated in any one spot, so we had no real rarities in the pond. We did have this beautiful male Hooded Merganser rather close, and a handful of Coot, including one who kept chasing all the others. Of course, there were almost 30 Mallards close by and a few Gadwall way in the back.

A family of Mute Swans came right over to be fed and I was able to get really close shots (looking down) on the adult swans. It isn't until you get a close-up of the face pattern that you realize what strange-looking things these guys are.

Before heading back to Worcester, we decided to make one more stop -- Jenney's Pond. Sure enough the "resident" Lesser Black-backed Gull was still hanging around. I think Mark said someone is trying to trace how long this bird has been seen here.

There's no doubt that if this is the same bird, he's definitely become a fixture....usually perching on the bridge railing. I wish someone had banded this bird when it first showed up.

We had a few Hooded Mergs, the usual Mallards and joke ducks. But we also had several Gadwall at the wilder end of the pond, including this female who came quite close.

Followed by this male Gadwall in absolutely beautiful plumage.

All in all it was a beautiful trip to the area, as it can be at this time of the year, so we headed back to Worcester grateful for another wonderful day birding in Massachusetts.

Enjoy....Sheila

Class Trips from the Fall

2011-12-01T05:23:00.001-05:00

This blog represents four different trips we took as part of Mark's birding class at Mass Audubon at Broad Meadow Brook in Worcester. The class was focused on fall migration and, like many birding trips, sometimes you hit good days and sometimes not-so-good days. But it's always fun to be out birding and showing folks new places that they can go back to on their own. There were two inland trips and two to the coast (not the north shore though.....)

Our first trip was to Quabbin in late September, followed by doing a "Big Sit" at Gooseberry Neck on 10/9, then Wachusett Reservoir on 10/16 and finally a beautiful trip to the outer Cape on 10/22. So here are some of the highlights....and lowlights.

Our trip to Quabbin on September 25th was definitely a mixed bag. The weather was overcast and cool and the reservoir had very little to show except its usual stunning scenery. Of course the faux coyote in front of the Administration Building gave everyone pause...for about a nano second. I have yet to hear of any success stories where fake coyotes or owls keep the birds away. Of course our friend Dale Monett did tell us a story about a father sending his 7-year old son down to check on the animal thinking it might be hurt or something. I think that guy could be a definite contender for the "stupidest parent of the year" award.

You know it's a slow day when you start taking pictures of interesting car decals...Cthulhu is a fictional character created by H. P. Lovecraft in the 1920's and has become a central figure in many of Lovecraft's stories. Of course, this is my first Cthulhu decal so it was rather unique.

Interestingly, the same car had a decal from the Pioneer Valley Roller Derby -- the first roller derby association in the country to have both a men's and women's team!

Since things were very quiet at Quabbin we ended up taking people to the East Meadows in Northampton, hoping to find late Golden Plover or other shorebirds.

However, chickens were the closest we could come.

And this mockingbird was braving both the windy weather and.....

the Peregrine Falcon who was obviously keeping everything in hiding. Traveling back to Quabbin to pick up cars, we came across a roost of Turkey Vultures hanging out on the roof of an business right along Rt. 9. Interest, but not quite enough to make the day a resounding success. Oh well, maybe our next trip will be better.

Two weeks later we took the class to Gooseberry Neck in Westport to do a "big sit". It was fantastic. The concepts is to set up a 17-foot diameter circle from which you count any specie of bird you see or hear during a 24-hour period. Now since this was a class trip we decided to limit out "sit" to morning only.

We started before dawn and actually have 7-8 species moving through in the early light....some of which were on the bushes right in the parking lot.

While we waited for the class to arrive, I could to enjoy one of those absolutely gorgeous sunrises you get in the early fall in Massachusetts.

As everyone started to arrive and set up we outlined the perimeter of the circle and the rules we needed to follow to qualify as an official Big Sit.

Arriving so early we were surprised to find the parking lot full of fishermen, some of whom had been there all night! It seems that there were stripers running.

We had good numbers of Song Sparrow, White-crowneds and even a Dickcissel seen or hear from within the circle.

And, of course, the Yellow-rumped Warblers were still putting through. And we had at least 1 Orange-crowned.

An Eastern Phoebe was still making the most of insects in the dunes.

And Monarchs were definitely migrating. It was a little frustrating to be confined to the circle, since we usually walk out to the end, and that's where you often find some unusual birds in the more remote areas.

Probably one of the more numerous species were the Golden-crowned Kinglets. These little guys kept passing right through the parking lot and working the bushes right in front of us. Then they just seemed to head inland.

All in all, it was a fun day. There were 206 circles (196 in the US and 10 international) that participated in this year's Big Sit (organized by Bird Watcher's Digest http://www.birdwatchersdigest.com/bwdsite/connect/bigsit/index.php) and the results were really exciting. We tied for 8th place overall and tied for 7th in the US -- beating out the other Massachusetts teams with 80 species......not bad for a first try and only a half day at that!

Our next class trip was a local one to Wachusett Res....and we picked that since it was a cold, windy day and we figured there wouldn't be much migration taking place along the coast with gale-force winds.

Unfortunately, there wasn't much going on inland either.

Ducks on the reservoir were rather scare and when checking a side marsh on Rt. 62 we came across these two domestic ducks using a kid's swimming pool instead of the marsh....very sad state. Although I'm sure the folks who live there are delighted since they obviously put the pools out for the ducks.

We also checked the Waushacums. We had a few Ruddy Ducks, a handful of Mallards, and DC Cormorants and Common Mergs...but not much else. At The Quag near West Waushacum we had this late Solitary Sandpiper. We got excited thinking it might be a European sandpiper...but it was just a late juvi.

On River Road we had this late Clouded Sulphur feeding on whatever little flowers it could still find. We also had a nice Sharp-shinned Hawk migrating over and a few other raptors, but the day was rather on the quiet side.

Our last class trip was to the Outer Cape and it was anything but quiet.

We met at the Head of the Meadow beach at dawn and immediately noticed the numbers of Gannets offshore.

While it was a chilly October day, we had some nice looks at the show right off shore.

Not only were there more Gannets than you could count, we also had a good showing of Greater Shearwaters and even a Cory's. And the jaeger show wasn't bad either.

Some of the Gannets were far out, but others were moving rather close to shore....

and we had the pleasure of watching them dive for their breakfast and then take off again.

You could look in any direction out to sea and find Gannets moving in all directions.

Some dove right in front of us...and there was a good mixture of adult and immature birds as well.

Of course we had nice lines of White-winged, Black and Surf Scoters, along with Eider and Long-tailed Duck moving back and forth....so it was a great day to be at the coast.

We had both Common and Forster's terns and they were the ones being plagued by the Parasitic Jaegers.

Throughout all the hoopla this Gray Seal just leisurely swam by...probably relieved that it was getting too cold for the sharks that seemed to haunt them all summer.

We took the class up to High Head since that's often a good place (especially during the Christmas Count) to find some lingering birds.

But things seemed a bit slow on the land bird side. And this poor American Lady seemed to be on her last legs as she tried to catch a few rays of sun.

At Herring Cove the Gannet show continued...but much farther out. We did have more terns and, therefore, more jaegers. Unfortunately I was never able to get any good shots close enough to include in this blog.

I think the windy weather was keeping the crowds down, so this little Sandering had most of the beach to himself.

We did make a try for the Brown Booby at MacMillan Wharf, but the bird was present when we were there. And since it's still being reported I think we'll have to try again. Although we did have this Peregrine Falcon perched on the Provincetown Tower...and he never moved the entire time we were there.

On the way off the Cape we checked the stump dump in Easton but it was pretty dead so we decided to stop at the Marston Mill's Airport on Rt. 149 to see if we could find the Western Kingbird which had been reported...but alas we couldn't find much there either.

We headed off the Cape and cheered ourselves up by remembering the awesome show at Head of the Meadow where we started and just what a beautiful, late fall day we had.

Enjoy....Sheila

Great Sparrow Show - Westport 11/26

2011-11-29T05:23:00.001-05:00

It's been a while, so I'm starting with the most recent birding trip first...partly to prove to myself that I can still do a timely blog about our birding adventures!

This past Sunday we headed to Westport and after a scary, foggy ride down we were glad to see that the fog was starting to clear when we hit Gooseberry Neck. The above shot is looking back at Horseneck Beach just as the fog was lifting and then suddenly you could see all the way back to Acoaxet.

We hoped that this was going to provide a great outfall of land birds; however, we were somewhat disappointed when we had more Red-throated Loons from the parking lot than Yellow-rumped Warblers!

We did have a handful of Yellow-rumps still hanging tight as I walked out the road to the tower...

and the 4 or 5 Song Sparrows I saw proved to be the most interesting sparrow (at least so far!)

We had lots of action out on the water, including good numbers of both loons, Pied-billed Grebes and all 3 species of scoter. Surprisingly we had a few Gannets feeding close and a number of Razorbills sitting on the water.

Leaving the causeway we got good looks at both female (above) and male Surf Scoters.

Once the fog totally cleared, it seemed like it was going to be a gorgeous day as well...not bad for the last November weekend.

The road right along the shore of Westport Town Beach still seemed to be under repair (although definitely passable) and we wondered whether it was still from the hurricane or if the October snowstorm and nor'easter had done additional damage.

We had Black Ducks in all the ponds, including good numbers at Allen's Pond and the usual Mute Swans were in residence.

A Northern Harrier put on a nice show at Allen's Pond as she wafted back and forth across the marsh looking for a Sunday morning morsel.

I'm not sure whether it was the mildness of the month, the wet fall or what, but the Usnea seemed particularly healthy covering all the tree branches, especially along the waterways. It almost looked like it could turn into the longer-hanging Spanish moss.

Driving back up Rt. 88 we had our first lingering Great Egrets in the marshes across from the beach entrance. It was an amazingly-high tide and we even started looking for Clapper Rail (not).

At the rotary right before the bridge we stopped to get overviews of Westport Harbor and had a late Forster's Tern and double-digit counts of Bonepart's Gulls.

We also had a close views of Common Eider and Common Loon in this area.

Right across the the Back Eddy Restaurant is a little road that runs alongside some great brushy areas and it was here that we hoped to find more land birds. There were good numbers of Carolina Wren we heard singing in various thickets all morning, but it was here that a pair put in a great appearance in response to my screech owl whistle. And along with the wrens we started to see good numbers of sparrows flying across the street and into thickets behind some docks that had been hauled out and stacked for the winter.

Within minutes we spotted a number of Field and Tree Sparrows and what looked like a Clay-colored ducked into the bushes behind the docks. We waited patiently and pretty soon all the sparrows came out to feed on the ground in front of the docks and I was able to get some good shots.

Both Mark and I were excited, because it's been a while since we "found" our own Clay-colored....and surprises are always nice. The shot below of the Clay-colored with both a Field and a Tree Sparrow was a great comparison.

Even though they are all Spizellas you can really see the size difference, with the Clay-colored looking so much trimmer and overall petite as compared to the Tree.

We had about 15-20 minutes to study the bird and make note of all the field marks...really an exciting find.

I was ready to head home after that since we had such a good morning, but Mark convinced me to take the detour and check things out in Acoaxet. We had both cormorants on the rocks off the point near Richmond Pond.

You get a nice look at the white belly of this Great Cormorant as he flaps his wings on the rock alongside some Common Eider.

And just further down the rock we had a small group of Harlequin Ducks, popping in and out of the relatively calm water.

Even closer we had this non-breeding plumaged male just sailing along.

In the little pondlet along the shore road we still had Painted Turtles! It's not often that you see Harlequin Duck and Painted Turtle on the same trip!!!

In Cockeast Pond we had a nice show of Greater Scaup, along with a handful of Ruddy Ducks.

And again, the Carolina Wrens seemed to think it was spring!

We had a nice Red-shouldered Hawk near the herring run and definitely felt like we were somewhere in early spring rather than getting ready to think about Christmas Bird Counts.

As we left Acoaxet and headed back home, I was particularly delighted to see that the "fork in the road" sculpture had been reinstalled. Earlier this summer we saw it gone and wondered whether it had been taken down or stolen. I was glad to see it back in place....since it always makes me smile.

We got back to Worcester about 3, having spent an absolutely perfect day in the field.

Enjoy.....Sheila

Checking Westport & Acoaxet after Irene

2011-09-15T07:22:00.000-04:00

A week after Hurricane Irene had finished with the MA coast we ventured down to the Westport area to see how things were recovering. We had seen the photos on the news and having been there about 36 hours earlier we didn't know what we would find. Traveling down Rt. 88 from 195 things seemed pretty normal....I saw more trees down in Worcester.

We first stopped at the boat launch just over the bridge and everything was calm and placid. I got these great shots of a Green Heron just about 25 feet off the seawall. They must have bred nearby since we've had a pair on and off several times this summer.

This Double-crested Cormorant was also in the same area, only he slipped off the rock into the water fairly quickly, while the heron just seemed to freeze and let me get off a ton of shots....he never even flew off.

Unfortunately, the causeway to Gooseberry Neck was still closed from the hurricane. We spoke with a DCR guy and he seemed to think that the town still needed to check out the final road conditions but thought it would be open later that weekend. I did walk about to the end of the fencing about a third of the way along the causeway and got these Surf Scoters (there were actually 4) just hanging off the rocks on the north side of the causeway. We've occasionally had a summering scoter in this area, but I was surprised to find 4!

While I was doing that, Mark scanned the open ocean for lingering rarities blown up in Irene....no luck. Along Horseneck Beach we had small groups of shorebirds (mostly Sanderlings) feeding in the substantial rack line that the storm surge must have created. We were unable to drive along the short road by the Westport Town Beach, since there were still work crews in the area so that road was still closed. We did go back up Rt. 88 and cross over Drift Road to get to the eastern end of the shore road (near Allen's Pond). Again, not much out on the ocean, although we did have a nice group of Forster's Terns feeding over the marshes beyond Allen's Pond.

We decided to back track and make our way over to Acoaxet....we were especially interested in seeing how the little pond by Gray's Grist Mill had survived the storm given that we had found the Red-bellied Turtle a week earlier. (Pond was there; turtle was not.)

But first we had to stop and photograph this little kid (fairly new-born judging from drying umbilical cord still attached) jumping from rock to rock in a small pasture right along Adamsville Road.

No we all know I love miniature horses, but it's goats that Mark goes gaga for (and pigs). I do admit that this little guys was pretty adorable with those long flopping ears. They actually looked like they were made from a jersey material!

Our real excitement, though, was finding that "our" Zabulon Skipper had survived Irene. It seemed a little worse for wear, but that could be it's getting old....Mark reminded me these guys don't really have a long life span to begin with.

Still it was nice to see him flying around and feeding and knowing that he must have ridden out a hurricane along the coast just amazed me.

Nothing special out on the ocean from this side of the Westport River either. Although it's definitely the Forster's Terns that are putting on a show.

We had well over 20 of these birds for the day.

We headed back to Worcester early afternoon, having spent a good morning checking on fall migration (which was pretty non-existent in terms of land birds) and the results of Hurricane Irene. Much like the people in this area, I think the wildlife is used to living along the coast and they know how to ride out a hurricane.

We'll be heading back to this area in a few weeks with Mark's birding class....nice to know everything will be accessible by then.

Enjoy.....Sheila

Mini Trip to Greylock....then back to Worcester

2011-09-12T06:24:00.000-04:00

A few weeks back we decided to head out to the northern Berkshires, since we seem to spend a fair amount of time doing the southern Berks (my personal fave between the two!)

Driving out through Hawley we came across this fabulous Sunflower farm right on Rt. 8A. It was almost magical in the early morning mists.

We took a back road up through Cheshire but the bird song seemed to indicate we were in for a tough day. We did have some warblers on the actual road up Greylock, especially around this opening filled with Virgin's Bower. We also had Ruby-throated hummers zipping in and out, but they were too fast for me.

There was, however, a young Raven flying back and forth across the road and he seemed quite happy to have his picture taken!

It's not until you see this bird's head in profile that you realize there's no way you can confuse this with an American Crow.

Unfortunately, Mark started this trip a little under the weather, so we never made it all the way up the mountain and so decided to cut our losses and head back home. We thought we might get out later in the day locally.

We did go out for some nighthawk watching along Rt. 56 in Leicester....overlooking the runway at Worcester Airport.

Depending on the cloud conditions and the winds, we've had great looks at birds as they fly south or southwest....sometimes coming quite close, especially if they're feeding. This view out to the southeast shows how deadly a clear night can be. You can see all the way to the Blackstone Tower (faint on the horizon to the right of white water tower) and the earlier clouds seemed to evaporate.

We had a handful of birds come right overhead fairly close, but with out a good cloudy sky, you can miss so many birds unless you're lucky.

We scanned whatever clouds there were, but other than a beautiful late summer evening we seemed out of luck.

We had less than 100 birds for the night....

and only a handful passed fairly close overhead.

The sky changed quite dramatically while we were there, but the big numbers never seemed to materialize. In fact, we've gone up there several more times, and either we're just missing the birds or they're not coming by Worcester this year.

I do hope this isn't an indication that there numbers are crashing. I think Tom Gagne in the valley has noted far less birds than usual from the Mt. Tom overlook as well. Being the optimist, I choose to believe we were just unlucky!

Enjoy....Sheila

Mid-August inside Gate 40 Quabbin

2011-09-11T15:06:00.000-04:00

Still trying to ring out birds for the breeding bird atlas, we do go into Quabbin when we can...partly because it's just a wonderful place to bird, but mostly because there is such a good variety of birds that breed there. Warbler species on this particular day included American Redstart.....

a juvenile Black-throated Blue....

and this sharp-looking Canada Warbler. And that's only to name a few. We also regularly have BT Green, Black & White, Pine, Blackburnian, Magnolia, Chestnut-sided, Yellow and, of course, Common Yellowthroat.

With all the rain this summer we are starting to see fungus everywhere. Now I'm not great with mushroom identification, so anyone who knows what I'm looking at should definitely add a comment and let me know.

" Mr. Bookman" with whom I live has just ordered 3 mushroom id guides. I've let him know that I'll keep all shots of 'shrooms in one specific folder and he can spend the time id-ing them to his hearts' content. My real fear is that once he starts to get good at identification, he's gonna suggest we start cooking them. Although as he mentioned just this morning "if you get a bird id wrong, it won't kill you".....not necessarily true with mushrooms.

Now this I believe I did identify -- a tooth fungus called Stacka Hydnum.

Of course this Common Wood Nymph on a dead tree trunk could be an id challenges of it's own.

Driving along one of the roads we came across a group of Robins down on the ground, presumably eating ants. This juvenile was with them...and I say presumably eating ants because after watching for about 5 minutes...

....we noticed the juvi Robin opening and closing his wings and he appeared to be placing his bill underneath the wing. Could it be that we actually came across a Robin "anting"? That's where the bird places ants strategically on it's body so that it can rid itself of mites and other pests.

We also came across these two Monarch caterpillars very much enjoying the leaf they were on. Now this is a good area for Monarch migration (especially out over the water from Gate 35) so it would be interesting if we could be there to watch these guys hatch and take off.

And since the Monarch caterpillars taste deadly to birds, this Red-eyed Vireo won't threaten it.

Although I often wonder about juvenile birds. Will this Red-eyed Vireo know better than to taste those caterpillars? They do look awfully tasty....

The highlight for this trip was definitely finding a Black Racer stretched lazily across the road....lucky for both the snake and me that Mark spotted it before I ran it over. Another great photo to add to Mark's list of "photographs of reptiles and amphibians of MA in the hand". This guy's was definitely checking Mark out to see if he posed any real danger. Even though he took a quick taste, Mark says the bite doesn't even hurt and he seemed even less problematic that a water snake.

Of course, I'll take Mark's word on that one....

Enjoy.........Sheila

Getting into Bugs!

2011-09-11T13:48:00.000-04:00

What do you photograph when there aren't any birds around? I guess it's time to start on bugs. Now this is not something I really thought I could get into, but once you start looking, it's totally fascinating. The goldenrod seems to attract a pretty good invertebrate population....like this Ambush Bug. I swear I looked at it for the longest time before I saw it's antenna and determined it was actually a living organism.

And then you get to the flower beetles....like this Banded Longhorn Flower Beetle (Typocerus veluntinus). We were seeing lots of this guys flying all over once we started looking for them.

Of course odonates fall into the insect category as well. Most of the time in Gate 35 I find the big dragonflies like the Calico or Halloween Pennants, but if you spend time looking for insects on flowers, you'll also find these tiny damselflies....like this male Familiar Bluet. Again thank god for Blair's book on these little creatures!

One of our best sightings for early August was of this Goldenrod Crab Spider. Yes, technically I know this is not an insect, but if you're photographing little crawlie things, I count spiders in the same broad grouping.

As the name suggests, you usually find this little guy on goldenrod, so finding it on a bright pink rose growing along the old railroad bed of Gate 35 was a special treat. He was very aware as I tried to get shots of him, he would always move to the other side of the petal when I got too close with my macro lens. After a while he moved to the goldenrod where he blended in much more appropriately.

The great thing about Quabbin is there's always something to see....if you take the time to look.

Enjoy......Sheila

Westport & Acoaxet -- 2 days before "Irene"

2011-09-11T12:59:00.000-04:00

We decided to head down to check out the preparations for Hurricane Irene on the Friday before she was schedule to hit. Sure enough, they were flying Hurricane warning flags as we entered the causeway by Gooseberry Neck!

At the entrance to the causeway we came across a little group of English Sparrows bathing in a depression in a piece of granite.

Once on Gooseberry Neck we could smell all the Japanese Honeysuckle in bloom....

And there were flocks and flocks of Tree Swallows just milling around the phragmites.

Some were just resting, and all I could think about was what would happen to these hundreds of little birds if the hurricane made a direct hit in this area.

There was not much going on in the way of landbirds....it's like everyone knew the storm was coming and had already moved to safer ground. In the parking lot at the entrance to Horseneck Beach we had a family of Turkeys looking for a safe haven. It's not often than you see Turkeys and gulls in the same parking lot.

Judging by the size and plumage of these birds, it was still a family group and probably bred in the area....so another record for the atlas.

Heading into Acoaxet we pulled the car over to check out a rather large turtle basking in the sunshine at that little pond near Gray's Grist Mill. Mark thought it might be a Red-eared Slider (the turtle they sold in every pet store in the 50's and 60's) which had been released years earlier. However, you can image our excitement when it turned out to be the endangered Red-bellied Turtle!!! These turtles are known in MA from a few ponds in the Plymouth and Carver areas and are not usually kept in captivity. So we don't know if this is an indication of a separate population or what. Needless to say we submit the paperwork, with photos, to Natural Heritage. Definitely our best find of the day....possible the year.

We had a nice Red-tail hunting the fields right on the border between MA and RI along Widgeon Lane off Pequaw-Honk Road (love that name) which is off Brayton Point Rd. across the country club in Acoaxet.

Also along Brayton Point there was a beautiful blooming Mimosa Tree. This may be the first time I've noticed it....and, yes, I know it's an invasive, but it was certainly distinctive looking.

As I mentioned earlier, birds seemed to be rather scare, although we did have a few shorebirds at the ocean overlook near Richmond Pond. This Black-bellied Plover was nice enough to stay for a few shots before flying off down the beach.

And at the fish run on River Rd. where Cockeast Pond runs out into the Westport River, we had large schools of Mummichogs (and some Sticklebacks).

Our second best sighting of day after the Red-bellied Turtle was sighting two Zabulon Skippers in a little clearing where we had them two years ago. We must have hit their flying time exactly right, since they were on the same blooming bushes as in 2009.

Of course, the big worry is how will they do in the upcoming hurricane?

We made a stop at the boat launch near the bridge over the Westport River and amid the preparations all the boat-owners where undertaking to secure or remove their boats, we found this poor little lamb...obviously lost as some family hurried to get their boat to safety.

We had a good morning, so we decided to head back to Worcester and finish our hurricane preparations...after all I still needed to get batteries and candles....YIKES!

Enjoy......Sheila

Summer in Quabbin - Three July Trips

2011-09-06T21:29:00.000-04:00

During the month of July we made several trips inside Quabbin to check on the several breeding blocks we've been covering for the Breeding Bird Atlas. The most frequent gates we visit are Gate 22 on the northwest side of Quabbin, Gate 35 in the northeast corner, and Gates 37 and 39. We also travel through the Gate 40 area so that we can get to Grave's Landing (which is in one of the blocks.)

This summer we've been able to watch Bald Eagles pretty regularly, since there has been a breeding pair on one of the islands you can see along Gate 35.....so it's not too unusual to have an immature bird pass over. Although this bird was promptly escorted (or should I say driven) out of the area by an adult Bald.

While we have not been able to confirm breeding loons in our northern blocks, we did have this bird hauled out on one of the islands visible from an overlook in Gate 22. Lots of adult birds in this area, but no sign of young ones this summer.

We did, however, have a Ruffed Grouse confirmed this year....thanks to this little baby hiding behind the parent!

And of course great warblers breeding throughout....like this male American Redstart....

bringing food home to the female while she was sitting on the nest.

And while there are good numbers of Ovenbirds during the early part of the breeding season, they seem to disappear (or get very, very quiet) by the time July rolls around. Needless to say we were delighted to get this bird responding to my screech owl imitation in early July.

The photo below shows you how difficult it can be to find a bird who's good at the camouflage game.

Although from a slightly different angle these Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers are easy to spot...and of course much easier to hear since they are quite noisy.

By the time early July rolls around (and especially after a wet spring and early summer) the mushrooms start to appear.

Both the photo above and below are good examples of Amanita species of mushrooms. The ones below remind me of pretzel nuggets popping up through the soil. I can imagine a child finding these mushrooms and being tempted to pick one up and pop them in his mouth!

Butterflies always delight me when I come across them. This Spicebush Swallowtail sunning himself on a fern stayed just long enough for me to get off a quick shot...

while this Northern Pearly-eye was much more accommodating.

One of my more exciting finds was this Striped Hairstreak at Gate 35. I can't recall having seen this species before....or at least I haven't photographed it.

But as much as I love to photograph and id butterflies and birds (and fungi to a lesser extent) I love getting a good shot of a dragonfly. It's always fun to thumb through Blair Nikula's A Field Guide to the Dragonflies and Damselflies of Massachusetts and come across a photo that cinches your identification. This Spangled Skimmer is the only dragonfly n the Northeast that has white stigmas. Now that's an identification even I can feel confidant about!

And then there's the Wood Lilies that bloom near the powerlines off of Dugway Road near Gate 39...always a delight to come upon.

Of course one of my least favorite animals at this time of year is the Deer Fly. The nice thing about them (if there is anything nice) is that they don't seem to bite (not like Greenheads). Often they just follow the car buzzing around Mark's hand as he tries to entice them to land....go figure....

This year instead of trying to swat them and get them out of the car, I used the opportunity to take some photos as they wandered across the inside of my windshield.

And if you leave Quabbin via Gate 37 you're likely to come across a flock of Turkeys visiting any of a number of feeders along West Street.

So now you've had a sample of Quabbin wildlife. And I hope it entices you to visit one of the gates and venture a little ways into our last great semi-wilderness in central Massachusetts. It's always a great place to visit.

Enjoy......Sheila

Butterflies (and some birds) in the southern Berks

2011-08-23T06:14:00.009-04:00

Late July or early August can be wonderful in the southern Berkshires, especially if you can avoid the tourists who come from NY, VT and all parts of MA. We, of course, don't consider ourselves tourists in the same sense....although I'm not exactly sure why that is. The above shot is of that extensive marsh (with the Great Blue Heron rookery)....part of which you can see just by pulling off the road along Rt. 7 south of Stockbridge.

And the photo below is from a barn in Tyringham where we still had Barn Swallows being fed! This Rose-breasted Grosbeak certainly took her time posing for my camera. And this immature Red-winged Blackbird was an easy guy to spish in for a photo as well. Luckily when I'm shooting plants and flowers, I don't need to worry about their flying off. This Arrowhead was in the marsh in Stockbridge along Rt. 7 too. Part of the Konkapot IBA we documented several years ago follows along Monument Valley Road off of Rt. 7 between Stockbridge and Great Barrington. We often check out the water right off of Stony Brook Road. This trip we were rewarded with lots of interesting skippers in the reeds where the brook crosses under the road.

We had several Broad-winged and Mulberry Wing Skippers in this area.And it's always interesting to find Bull Thistle....I forget it's a biennial. And down in Sheffield we found our first Common Buckeye of the season! And while looking for Hackberry Emperor I spotted this Galium Sphinx Moth and managed to get this one, slightly blurry shot before it disappeared.But our real reason from coming to the southern Berks this particular weekend was to see if we could find a Giant Swallowtail. Since there had been several reported in the area just days before, we were cautiously hopeful. And sure enough we had at least 7....all of which Mark spotted from the car. They really are a BIG butterfly! Just look at the size comparison to the Monarch in the Butterfly Bush below....And this Halloween Pennant also put in an appearance for the camera as well.One of the more interesting invertebrates of the day was this Hickory Tussock Moth caterpillar. They were all over this one area near October Mountain.In Tyringham we had more than a dozen Pearl Crescents trying to get some salts from a drying mud puddle.Queen Anne's Lace (aka Wild Carrot) is another biennial plant. Although I have to admit I see it everywhere so I really did think it was an annual. Pretty though....In New Marlborough we went to check to see if the Giant Swallowtails had made their way east along the CT border -- but we didn't have any. There were good numbers of Question Marks though. I finally learned how to identify this from the Comma from above....it's that black horizontal bar just at the end of the dots. Comma's don't have that! I always tried to get an underwing shot so I could see whether it was a Question Mark or Comma. But I learned that the Comma can also have a separate dot....so now I go for the upperwing shot. However one skipper I never get confused it the Silver-spotted Skipper. It's a big dark skipper and the white patch is unmistakable. We followed this Spicebush Swallowtail all over a dirt road to try to get a decent shot. Back up in Tyringham we checked along Breakneck Road and found lots of Spotted Knapweed. Looks superficially like a Bull Thistle (also in the Sunflower family) but has a definite "pineapple" look to it. Along the road we also had large numbers of Viceroy's.... To end our foray we stopped and visited at Rawson Brook Farm to get some GREAT fresh goat cheese....and of course to see how the young goats were doing. It was hot and they just seemed to want to sit it out either under or on top of the little platform.You can beat a day like this....even though there weren't a lot of birds....the butterflies and other bits of nature certainly made up for that.

Enjoy.....Sheila

Westport & Acoaxet in mid-summer

2011-08-22T05:40:00.009-04:00

A late July trip to this area in mid-summer can be a joy. Off of Gooseberry Neck we usually find "teenage" Common Eiders. These were closer to adult plumage, but you could still see some of the lighter juvenile feathers. It's always fun to see a Double-crested Cormorant drying his wings....they always remind me of a kid's kite just before it takes off. And while they don't breed in the area, per se, this is the time to start getting good numbers of Great Egrets...from late July to early September. We've had several trips this year to the area, and we are consistently finding Green Heron near the Back Eddy restaurant just over the bridge on Rt. 88. This fellow was preening and I was able to catch him just after he plucked a feather! Semipalmated Plovers are working the beach..... along with Sanderlings -- some just coming out of breeding plumage. We also had some "battling" Semipalmated Sandpipers along the beach by the boat ramp on Gooseberry Neck. I was lucky enough to catch almost the whole interaction with my camera.These two birds definitely did not like each other. Even as other birds moved past them, they kept the focus on each other.One of these guys must have really done something to the other one....they fought for about 10 minutes until finally one just moved further up the beach and the whole incident ended.Common Terns feeding off the rocks at Acoaxet is always a delightful summer experience. And you can start to spot some of the juvenile birds as well. And Laughing Gulls too. This trip, though, I was surprised (and delighted) to find Least Tern...especially when one is being fed by the other! The bird seems to have become less common over the years....or maybe it's just that we're not going to the same places. So finding one in Acoaxet is truly special! We didn't have much in the way of landbirds; although finding this newly-fledged Savannah Sparrow was a treat. And, of course, the obligatory Osprey..... If you poke around Acoaxet you can also find odonates... and a Sweat Bee coming to a Turk's Cap Lily!This section of state continues to be one of my favorite coastal trips. Soon it'll be time to look for migrating warblers at Gooseberry Neck....but for today I'll just enjoy the summer.

Enjoy.......Sheila

Ruffed Grouse Encounter

2011-08-18T18:04:00.012-04:00

For some reason this year, I am running into Ruffed Grouse more often than in previous years. I'm not sure why that is....although Worcester County has had a good representation in the Breeding Bird Atlas. This species has been found in 117 of the 179 Worcester County blocks.My blog today is going to focus on just one encounter with a grouse family in the Spencer area. Driving down one of the roads connecting Lake Quabog with Sturbridge, we came across an adult crossing the road. Since he/she didn't immediately dive into the woods we figured there were young nearby. So we turned off the car (as did another car coming in the opposite direction) and proceeded to watch the bird call the young to cross the road as well. Sure enough within about 10 seconds two little heads popped out of the bushes on the right and cautiously followed the parent across the street. About a third of the way across they realized they were very exposed and decided to bolt for the other side. At the halfway point they panicked and one of the young decided to take to the air....with the other one quickly following. We were delighted to have caught this little outing rather than just hear the usual drumming off in the woods. With the two young off the road we thought the parent would hightail it into the bushes as well. But instead it paced back and forth a bit making little clucking sounds and turning back towards the side of the road the family had just left. Sure enough within a minute or so, another little head peeked out..... This juvi was definitely more cautious about venturing out onto the road. The bird stretched itself out until it looked ridiculously long-necked, inching further and further out onto the road. Even more cautious than the previous two youngsters, this bird would take a step and wait, then another and so on. At one point I was concerned that more traffic would come along and the bird would flee back to the safety from which it came. Finally the parent bird seemed to lose patience and called the bird more insistently, and sure enough this little one picked up the pace and ran across the rest of the road like it's life depended on it. The whole encounter probably lasted only about 5 minutes, but watching the behavior of the parent and the different juvenile birds was totally enjoyable and reinforced, yet again, just how fascinating it can be to watch individual behavior in birds.

I kept wondering if they all talked about the encounter once they got back to the safety of the woods!

Enjoy.....Sheila

A Season of Block Busting.....

2011-08-17T19:27:00.014-04:00

This blog will cover a number of different atlasing trips during June and July to a variety of places. One of the things I've loved about doing the breeding bird atlas for the last 5 years is visiting such varied places across the state and getting familiar with the bird life....and other things.In early June a group of us did block busting in two of the Onset blocks in Plymouth County. Both Plymouth and Bristol counties have needed to recruit birders from other parts of the state to get as much of the atlas done as possible. Give some of the great birding areas I have no idea why more south shore birders haven't ventured into some of these wonderful areas, like Onset 1 and Onset 2, where you get fabulous views of Bird Island and many of the breeding terns.Like this Common Tern above and the Roseate Tern below. And the Ospreys out gathering food for their nestlings.... One of our best sightings was of this Mockingbird near the Kittansett Country Club bringing in food to a recent fledgling. Both parents made several trips and each time were greeted with the squawking of the baby bird begging for food like it was starving! We also had nice looks at non-breeding birds as well...... like these Ruddy Turnstones and very clear examples of active breeding behavior like these copulating Killdeer. In the Marion block we busted our team "found" nesting Purple Martins, which is always a delight.And we had great views of Eastern Kingbirds flycatching above a field. Not that it's unusual to see a species of flycatcher "flycatching" but the way they hovered over the field made them look more like hummingbirds. In our Monson block we observed some great interactions between a parent Crow and her recently-fledged young.....certainly big enough to fend for themselves but definitely preferring mom and dad do the hard work. We also had a family of young Bluebirds catching their fair share of insects as well! Driving around some of the wonderful country roads we came across a persistently-singing Blue-winged Warbler which showed definite signs of being the offspring of a hybrid. The bird had blackish markings around the face letting you know that somewhere in his ancestry was a Golden-wing.Some of the unfortunate findings included young Cowbirds. It was always important to try to figure out who the parents were. The bird below was still being attended by a pair of Chipping Sparrows. In 2 of our Berkshire blocks we had Barn Swallows still feeding young in July, definitely causing us to question some of the early safe dates marking the end of their breeding season.And try as we might, none of our teams could turn up a young Cedar Waxwing. They seem to be very late breeders....at least in our western blocks. And it was in the Berkshire blocks that we turn up some of the more unusual breeding birds in the state....like Snipe.One of the great parts of atlasing (and birding in general) is getting attuned to the many other species in these same areas. We had great butterfly sightings....like this Eastern Tiger Swallowtail or even more impressive was this Giant Swallowtail that Mark & I had late in July when re-checking some of our Berkshire blocks. We also had Eyed Brown in the Great Barrington block. And this unusual moth (Virginia Ctenucha) in the Pittsfield block our teams covered.Other unusual critters we came across included Scottish Highland Cattle in Tyringham and Turkeytails in the Brimfield State Forest.

And wildflowers were fun to id as well....although I know we ran into some species that had "escaped" from cultivation somewhere long ago and were now growing wild. We had Field Scabious in Marion....a wonderful blue flower that just seemed to cover some of the fields we birded. Here's one of the garden escapes I have yet to identify....anyone have any ideas? Or this one? This I know is Blue Flax! But this daily-like flower I've researched and I think found the name....and have lost it!!! But this (I think) is Tickseed or lance-leaved Coreopsis. Next year I am definitely going to spend more time on wildflowers!

Some of the teams we had helping us bust these blocks will look familiar to you if you were reading my blog last year. We've been lucky to have a very dedicated group of folks who are willing to traipse around the state with us on this atlas project.In Marion 1 we had Bill Rasku, Danny Berard, crazy Mark Lynch, Kathy Mills and Dan and Debbie Berard. On the Pittsfield West 8 block we had John and Eileen Stencil, Wendy Howe, Kathy Mills, Simon Hennin and Bill Rasku helping us. And on a different trip to the Berks to do Great Barrington 11 we were joined by Simon, the Berards and the Stencils again....like I said a very dedicated crew.

Even though Mark and I are still doing "mop up" on some of our blocks, the atlasing season is coming to a close. And since this is the last year of the project many of us are wondering how we'll keep ourselves busy next year. I guess time will tell......

Enjoy.....Sheila

Gate 35 Quabbin -- Sunday 7/31

2011-07-31T20:05:00.008-04:00

Driving into Quabbin in late summer is always a joy. And we still managed to upgrade one species for the atlas project....Winter Wren carrying food! However, going in Gate 35 proves enjoyable no matter what time of year. Soon after entering the gate we encountered (for the second time) a rabbit in the forest. We're trying to determine if this could, in fact, be a New England Cottontail. Both times we came across this animal it took off deep into the forest cover -- not usually the habitat for finding Eastern Cottontail. Since you arrive at the water fairly quickly from the gate, Common Loons were calling and flying all around.

This bird flew from south to north to apparently join another adult who was calling for company.

While we've found lots of adults, and some presumed pairs, we have yet to confirm breeding behavior in this block in Quabbin.

As we were checking the loons, a group of about 20 ducks flew overhear....going north as well. Most of the birds seemed to be juvenile Mallards, but it did look like there were a few Black Ducks mixed in. Although with all the interbreeding that's been going on, it's hard to tell a pure-bred Black anymore.

And we did have this juvi Common Loon....but it's impossible to tell if he was hatched in this particular atlas block. Still a nice look at the juvenile plumage.

The big sighting of the morning was a Whimbrel that took off from the phragmites island and headed north.....calling all the way!

At the end of the paved road we had a little group of landbirds, so we decided to head into the forest and go out Gate 37. This Black & White Warbler was out feeding with a juvenile bird -- very quietly going about his business.

One of the mysteries we find every summer is the total lack of Ovenbird presence. So we decided to stop every 1/4 or so and play the call to see if we could at least get a verbal response. At our first stop we played the call twice and heard no response....however, I did see some moving around in the bushes so we decided to wait it out. Sure enough it was an adult Ovenbird and it never made a sound.

Eventually the bird put up in a low bush and started to walk along the branch -- still totally silent. We had this happen on two other stops, so we've come to an early conclusion that this very loud, consistent songbird of the forest, goes totally silent once the breeding occurs.

While stopping to look for Ovenbirds we also noticed a number of other forest songbirds. We had a pair of Scarlet Tanagers teaching their fledged young the art of fly-catching. As soon as a stepped into the woods to see if I could get any photos, the female bird came forward to check me out.

The male bird stayed close by as well, and his brilliant color kept distracting me every time one of the young got close enough for a photo.

At the top of the hill along the ridge between Gate 35 and Gate 37 we had the usual Wood Pewee's, Towhees and an assortment of warblers, including Black-throated Blue, Pine, Common Yellowthroat and Chestnut-sided. We also had a plethora of Catbirds!

There were a number of unusual beetles on the Steeplebush that was growing in and among the cut over areas. This year we seem to be much more attentive to invertebrate while we're out birding. It obviously started with butterflies, then odonates and now it seems anything that flies!

I spent alot of time pouring over the Kaufman's Field Guide to Insects of North American as well as Richard White's A Field Guide to the Beetles of North America and I couldn't get a definitive id for this beetle. It may be some sort of long-horned beetle but I couldn't find the right pattern. I'll still keep looking, but if you have any good ideas, let me know.

We headed out Gate 37 and had a long-tailed weasel run quickly back and forth across the road. Mark thought that if we threw out a cracker with goat cheese on it, we might get lucky since weasels have a great sense of smell....but no luck.

I did, however, get to photograph this beautiful Crown Coral growing on a decaying log. I actually find fungi to be as interesting to photograph as flowers.

The deer flies seemed to be on vacation for at least part of the trip...so all in all it was a morning well spent in a wonderful place!

Enjoy.... Sheila

Lots of Good Stuff in Gate 35

2011-06-01T09:26:00.018-04:00

At the very end of May we took a few days off and decided to poke around Quabbin to see if we could increase our atlas coverage. We started on Memorial Day with this Starling in downtown Worcester atop the American flag and thought it was a good omen. We spent time in Gate 35 covering our Shutesbury 10 block. Birds were not plentiful along the road in, but we hit it when the Pink Ladyslippers were at their best.

We had a small group of warblers fly in across the Quabbin and this is a picture of a little Black & White Warbler that landed and proceeded to go directly to sleep. We watched him for almost 10 minutes and he didn't move a feather!

This Hermit Thrush, on the other hand, was very active and out feeding....but not making a sound.

We took the little side road that goes off towards the campground in the Women's State Forest and when we got to the marsh we were able to watch this American Lady feeding on the ground right in front of us.

It's nice to be able to get shots of both the upper and lower wings to ensure we've seen all the fieldmarks.

We also had Painted Turtle at this marsh which had just come out of the pond to lay her eggs.

As we continued down the road we had this male Scarlet Tanager feeding down on the road. Wouldn't you know my camera would be on the wrong setting one of the only times when I see this bird down low and not hidden by foliage! Most of shots were almost black....this was the best of the bunch.

We also had some nice Blue Flag growing on the wet roadside.

And there were a number of Canadian Tiger Swallowtails feeding there...

...along with Juvenal's Duskywing...

...and this combination Red-spotted x White Admiral, which was an interesting study.

Back along the "main" road to the end of Gate 35 the wind had picked up a bit and we actually had whitecaps on the water.

At one point I actually pulled over to photograph the "waves" splashing on the shore...not something you often see here.

We stopped to photograph a Question Mark.....and from above you could clearly see the black horizontal mark that tells me it's not an Eastern Comma...

and the white marking on the underwing does look like a real question mark.

This area at the end of Gate 35 is always a bonanza for odes. I think this Common Whitetail is an immature male.

We also had several Chalk-front Corporals....

And a number of unidentified odes, including this newly-emerged "teneral".

Not sure about this "green-eyed" fellow either. Or this unidentified one as well. Sometimes odonate identification is exhausting.....

We did have American Bittern calling again from the phragmites island, so we were able to consider this a probably breeding bird for the atlas. As we headed back out we had a nice pair of Common Loons fairly close to our shore....I wondered whether these were the same two as last year that we watched and watched, but never confirmed their breeding.

We also had flyovers again from Westover as we left the water area.....

Back at the powerlines the turtles were going to town with their egg-laying. We had this Painted actually laying her eggs very near the road....

and this Snapping Turtle doing the same.

As I was photographing the turtles, Mark spotted a snake sunning itself further up on the road. He thought it was a Black Racer.

Suddenly he yells to come quick with my camera because it was a Hog-nosed Snake!!! In the 35+ years we have been out birding together, I have never seen this snake.

One of the first things you notice is that it spreads the skin around it's head and tries to look like a Cobra....very cool.

Of course once Mark picked her up she was as docile as our own pet Rosy Boa at home. She didn't even try to bite him. She has that little pug nose (although I suppose it's really a "hog" nose) so she looks kinda cute.

She constantly "tasted" the environment and probably knew she was in no danger. This alone not only made my year at Quabbin, but might have made every trip ever made into Gate 35 worthwhile.

Going over to bird Gate 22 and finish the block for the morning didn't produce anywhere near the excitement...although we did have a female Common Merganser swim out from some bushes right next to the shore where we were standing.....no sign of ducklings though.

As we headed out a different gate I saw these "steps to nowhere" which I had never seen before. I now have to do some research and figure out whose cellar hole they were leading to.

These couple of recent trips to Gate 35 made me realize no matter how many times you go to an area, there can always be surprises and new things to find.

Enjoy.....Sheila

Last Class Trip to Southern Berkshires - 5/28

2011-05-29T18:40:00.010-04:00

Our final trip of Mark's Spring Migration class for MAS Broad Meadow Brook was held on the Saturday of the long Memorial Day weekend. We travelled out to the southern Berkshires to try a route through Beartown State Forest and back through the Tyringham Valley. After meeting right off the Turnpike in Lee, we proceeded directly to the entrance of the state park off Pine Street and Beartown Mountain Road. Within 5 minutes we had our first Louisiana Waterthrush and upon entering the state park boundary we stopped to try and get looks at a fairly close singing Overnbird. This can be such a hard bird to see, until after he's flown. His song can be so ventrilocal! Amazingly, with just a little spishing, this bird flew in and perched so that everyone got good looks at him.

We stopped and checked various other singing birds and at the first brook crossing near Mt. Wilcox Road we spent some time listening to Alder Flycatchers and watching the territorial fights taking place between 2 or 3 pairs of Chestnut-sided Warblers.

We also had okay looks at Blackburnians along the road as well. They always perch rather high, so my photos tend to show the underbelly and maybe the throat.

This was a new area for everyone on the trip, and even though it was Memorial Day Weekend, we didn't run into any dirt bikes and it looked as though the park still wasn't in full swing.

So we had time and space to stop and check out even the more common birds, like this male Common Yellowthroat who was singing his little heart out.

It's hard to be in a place like Beartown and not be distracted by all the flora and fauna of the area. Even this Pinxter seemed more exotic!

Taking the Mt. Wilcox Road loop we were amazed by the numbers of dragonflies on the road. Every time we stopped to check out a singing bird there were dozens of odonates flitting around. This female Common Whitetail graciously perched on a birch log so I could get a nice contracting photo. While their normal habitat is a variety of wetlands, they are known to stray very far from water foraging for food.

The same is true for the Chalk-fronted Corporal.

And the flowers couldn't be taken for granted either. This Columbine with it's exquisite color and unique flower shape can actually be fairly easy to overlook along the roadsides.

One of the always humbling facts about spending so much time out in nature, is for me to realize how much I DON'T KNOW. The best I could do with this little bug was to get it into the metallic wood-boring beetle family.....but from there I was stumped.

Doing the loop we stopped to try to spish in the one of the numerous Black-throated Blue Warblers, and we were obviously a little too close to this Red-eyed Vireo's nest....since he (or she) came in with a vengeance to see what the heck we were doing.

After coming out of Beartown in Monterey we headed back on the Tyringham Road to check out the valley. Of course we had spent the full morning in Beartown, so we realized that Tyringham would not necessarily be at its best in terms of bird song. Driving down one the roads that crosses the valley we came across some nice patches of Ragged Robin. Even when in full bloom this flower can look a little scraggily....the blooms remind me of a pink Witch Hazel!

This Corn Speedwell always tricks me into thinking it's a Forget-Me-Not.

We also had a fairly good-sized group of Eastern Commas on the dirt road down to the Town Pond in Tyringham. I think I've finally been able to separate this from the Question Mark...at least I hope so.

I find the marking on the underside to be less helpful in some individuals. If you blow up the photo of this individual it might look like a question mark....but the horizontal bar on the upperwing after the 3 dots days it's an Eastern Comma. Yikes, I'm not sure I'll ever be really good at butterfly identification.

And of course no trip to Tyringham would be complete without a visit to Jean Brown's grave in the small cemetery off Church Street. I've spoken about this before so I won't bore you with details of who and what this is....it's enough to say it's always fun to tie birds and art together in the same trip.

This beautiful Black Swallowtail was foraging in the fields at the other end of the valley at the entrance to the WMA.

A very nice way to end our last trip with this class. It certainly will be interesting to do some of these same spots in fall migration....but I refuse to even think that far ahead at this point!

Enjoy.......Sheila

Class Trip to Rutland State Park - 5/22

2011-05-26T06:54:00.012-04:00

We had our fourth Migration Class trip to Rutland State Park and Barre Falls Dam and had a mostly breeders rather than migrants. We heard lots of warblers -- Black-throated Blues, Pine, BT Green, Redstarts everywhere, so some of them must have been migrants! Probably the most numerous bird of the trip though had to be Rose-breasted Grosbeak. They were EVERYWHERE! It seemed like migration was definitely on for them just based on the number we had.
We did have some Blackpoll Warblers (always a sign that migration is winding down) and we had two Parulas working the trees near the beaver marsh along Prison Camp Road.

At the same beaver marsh we had great looks at a pair of Brown Creepers gathering food and flying into a nest site in a big dead tree very close to the road. Since the photo below is almost a "Where's Waldo" shot, you really need to click on the pic and see it full screen to enjoy the bird.

Deb Berard spotted this Green Heron at the river crossing near the prison camp and it spent quite a bit of time out in the open looking for food, before some fishermen launched their canoe and scared him off. We also heard Virginia Rail in the big marsh and there were Bobolinks displaying over the open fields. Everyone (except me and my camera) got great looks at an Indigo Bunting along the road as well.

As we were tracking down a singing Northern Waterthrush near the river crossing, I snapped this photo of Least Flycatcher in full song. It's always fun to see the bird doing their call so that there's no question of what empid you're looking at. However, taking a photo and filing it away is always a little flat....without the song to complete the picture.

Similar to the Quabbin area, Lily of the Valley seemed to be everywhere this year.

And the same can be said for Wild Geranium too.

We stopped to show the class the leaves of Purple Trillium (since the blooms are long past) and we found this Jack in the Pulpit in the same area.

But, of course, everyone's favorite was the Fringed Polygala....some were past prime and had lost petals due to all the rain, but we still found a few lovely blooms.
The thrush of the day seemed to be Veery...they were calling at almost every stop we made. Although we did hear Wood Thrush singing as well; just not in the same numbers.

After driving through the major roads and coming out above the dam on Rt. 62, we took the class south on Grainger Road -- which also serves as a snowmobile trail in the winter. While Mark and I have birded these roads several times, I think this was the first time we had taken a class so it was a new place to explore for everyone.

Since it was cloudy and threatening showers, we weren't surprised to hear a very close Black-billed Cuckoo calling in the canopy. We stopped and Mark did a surprisingly-good imitation and the bird immediately flew in closer and started calling. Everyone got good looks at the bird -- which isn't always easy with cuckoos. And it turned out to be a life bird for Neil in the class.

The trip ended as a morning trip as advertised and Mark wondered if folks wanted to check one little pond in Rutland since we hadn't seen Wood Duck and he thought we might be getting close to a century run for the day. Unfortunately most folks had other plans, do we stopped over ourselves. We did not add any species; however, we got great looks at Catbird nesting very close to the rail trail...

and a pair of Canada Geese with only one gosling in the pond.

It had been a fun morning and Mark had been right -- we ended the trip with exactly 100 species on the nose!

Enjoy.....Sheila

Birds & Art - Decordova Sculpture Park 5/21

2011-05-26T06:53:00.013-04:00

We recently led our annual Spring Birding Trip to the Decordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln....one of my favorite museums. This was the first time, however, that we had to compete with a bike race that was gathering at the same time and in the same spot. Normally that wouldn't worry me at all, but it did put a dent in that all-important time first thing in the morning when the birds are most vocal. Although I'm sure it caused some of the birds to move out of the immediate area, you certainly wouldn't haven known it by the Baltimore Orioles (like this first year male) who were singing up a storm.Right along the wetlands someone had put up a series of colorful bird houses? Our wonderful docent, Noni, wasn't quite sure where they had come from.....and there was nothing to tell us it was part of an exhibition....so I'm guessing they're just birdhouses!

At least the House Wren who was trying to attract a mate to the area with his song thought so.

It was great to again see one of my favorite pieces, Boaz Vaadia Ammi'el. It's always fun to see how this piece changes in the different seasons -- the backdrop of spring foliage was enchanting.

Noni was in midst of telling us about Issac Witkin's two pieces -- Jacob's Dream

and Maiden's Dream

when we heard a Scarlet Tanager fairly close (but high up) in the trees nearby. After much searching we were able to show the entire group this beautiful bird moving around in the upper canopy of trees.

Once satisfied with looks at this bird, we move on to Tom Chapin's Manna (which looked beautiful in the morning light)

and then to my favorite piece -- Jim Dine's Two Big Black Hearts. Since I know this piece is technically "on loan" to the Decordova, I'm always relieved to see it still there. For me this is one of the signature pieces of this museum, and I fear for the day when I come into the sculpture park and find another piece in its place. I just love at this art surprises me every time I look at it....first from farther away and then how it changes when you get close up.

We had a great group on the tour and they seemed as interested as we were in both the birds and the art -- and enjoyed the banter that always take place between Mark and Noni on one of these trips -- this time in front of Douglas Kornfeld's Ozymandias. Last fall when we did this trip, we had a chipmunk who had taken up residence underneath the sculpture, but we didn't see him this year.

One of the new pieces we saw was Roy Lichtenstein's Five Brushstrokes. I do admit that it wasn't one of my favorites -- it seemed sort of flat for a sculpture. But I'm sure the name recognition alone will be good for the park.

Since the trip was scheduled for just two hours (to coincide with morning bird song) we only did the lower level of pieces and ended up near Ilan Averbuch Skirts and Pants (after Duchamp).

On the way back to the cars some of us wandered through Ron Rudnicki's Rain Gates and came upon a pair of Catbirds bathing.

After most folks dispersed, Mark & I moved around Sandy Pond Road to the water department building parking lot and found this Eastern Kingbird sitting on the bow of a boat waiting either taking a break from nest building or watching guard over a nearby nest. We also had a Spotted Sandpiper which obviously nests along one of the rocky pieces of shoreline on the pond.

We had a great trip and ended up with 44 species for the morning. While it wasn't a stellar trip from a birding viewpoint, it's always enjoyable to combine birding with the spectacular art on view at the Decordova.

Even if you can't make one of our birding/art trips to this place, you should get out there on your own....you'll love it!

Enjoy.....Sheila

Quabbin Highlights

2011-05-21T18:57:00.011-04:00

A couple of misty May trips to Quabbin recently produced some nice sightings of migrants.

At the Administration Building we got to watch a Chipping Sparrow collecting Dandelion seeds to feed his/her young.

And without much notice, a Pileated Woodpecker came bombing out of the woods and flew right over my head -- definitely the strangest shot I've ever gotten of a Pileated!

This Blue-winged Warbler was singing his heart out trying to attract a mate.
As was this Black-throated Blue Warbler. I have yet to see one female BT Blue this season!

And I finally had my first Indigo Bunting of the year at the Enfield Overlook, which is always a great place to hear these guys.

Near the marsh on Rt. 9 this Yellow-throated Vireo was one of a pair out foraging.

An early morning trip into Gate 35 is always calming for me.

And the Chestnut-sided Warblers along the powerlines cut-through were particularly noticeable.

Down where the road cuts off to the campground in the Women's State Forest, both sides of the road were blanketed with Lily of the Valley.

Definitely a flower I associate with my childhood, so I probably have an absurd amount of photos of this flower.

And the Starflowers were mixed in with the Canada Mayflower and the Lily of the Valley.

But the most colorful were the Fringed Polygala that pop up along the roadside in May. Much like the trillium, they only last a few short days and with all this rain, it was hard to find any blooms that hadn't already lost their "wings".

From the end of 35 the different greens were particularly amazing this morning. No matter how I hope, the camera can never really capture all the nuance of the original colors -- which is probably why nature continues to amaze us.

We were quite excited to find two species of tern though...inside Quabbin! We had this Common Tern, which flew around for about 15 minutes. And we had an adult Black Tern which really just zipped through passing over the phragmites island and made a bee-line south.

And a Savannah Sparrow at the end of the road in a wet brushy area, was clearly a migrant as well.

As we were leaving we watched this ripple of water from almost at the phragmites island coming towards us. Whatever it was it was swimming a long way. As it got closer we realized it was a River Otter who had been out hunting and was obviously bringing home food for the young somewhere near where we were standing. So we decided to move on.
On our way out we came across this Turkey Vulture hanging with a friend on the powerlines and definitely trying to dry out.After leaving Gate 35 and heading back to Worcester via Barre Falls Dam we heard the phone click in so we knew we had a message. However, we waited until we pulled into the driveway to check. BIG MISTAKE! It had been Dave Small telling us that there was a Red Phalarope at the boat launch right in front of the Administration Building at South Quabbin.
So being the crazy birders that we are, we jumped back in the car and raced out to South Quabbin. When we arrived we were greeted with the phrase no birder ever wants to hear -- "it just flew off less than 2 minutes ago".

Dale Monette, who works in the visitor center, had stayed to wait for us. So after it flew he got permission to check around the cove where the other birders had seen it fly and sure enough it was still there. We ended up getting awesome looks at the bird which made the second trip to Quabbin that day all worthwhile.It's good to have friends....

Enjoy.....Sheila

Class Trip to Fairhaven & Mattapoisett - 5/14

2011-05-15T18:14:00.015-04:00

We had a great class trip to the Fairhaven and Mattapoisett area recently. Mark and I had gone down the night before so that we could get the "night" birds in a few of the blocks we plan to atlas this year. So when we met the class at 7, we had already been out birding since well before dawn.We met at the 99 Restaurant in the shopping plaza at the end of Rt. 240 and our first breeding bird of the trip was this House Sparrow nesting in one of the openings in the restaurant sign. Normally you don't get a chance to see this sparrow in the nest, but this was quite visible.

At the conservation area on Little Bay Road we had singing Catbirds (when you could hear them above the noise of the pack of beagles that some jerk was running to catch rabbits.)

And we had lots of Baltimore Orioles -- but we didn't have any sign of the breeding Orchard Orioles that we had the previous year when doing this block for the atlas.

What we did have, however, was a lovely singing White-eyed Vireo....our first of the year....and everyone in the class got great looks at this little fellow singing his heart out.

As usual the place was filled with Yellow Warblers....

We also had pairs of Oystercatchers at several points along Sconticut Neck Road.

This is such a handsome bird, I never tire of looking at that coral bill and the snazzy black and white pattern.

Everyone got great looks at a Red Fox "bringing home the bacon".

It was funny to watch this little fellow just wander down the road...

cut through lawns and gardens...

and finally just disappear over the stone wall. The interesting thing is about a half hour later at the southern end of Sconticut we came across two kit foxes "playing" with a squirrel that one of the parents had brought home and we wondered if they were the offspring of "our" fox from 1/2 mile up the road. We concluded that they probably were the recipients of the previous fox's hunting foray.

At the end of Sconticut Neck we were able to spend some time scoping Angelic Rock and found the cormorant and gull nesting to be proceeding nicely.

From just this one picture alone, I was able to get a count of about 84 breeding pairs of Double-crested Cormorants!

Now about two weeks earlier, Mark & I had spotted a Great Egret sitting in some bushes on the island. We speculated whether or not the bird could possibly be breeding. So when we saw this Great Egret fly in with a full crop, we were quite excited when he landed in the same bushes and saw two other Great Egrets pop up. This is obviously a small, new breeding area for this species....very exciting.

Another real highlight of the trip was watching the displaying Willets on territory. At the small pond along Sconticut Neck Road we had a great display!

We had a pair of Willets flying around and one of the birds (presumably the male) landed on the telephone pole right next to us....calling vigorously to proclaim his territory.

He continued to call for a few minutes, then he settled down and looked around...

and finally flew off to rejoin (or find) a mate. Within about 30 seconds there were then 5 Willets flying all around the pond and the road. What a great opportunity to see these birds close and personal both in flight and just sitting still!We made a foray out to West Island where we had more Willets, Oystercatchers and this nice American Copper at Hoppy's Landing near the causeway.

A few of us walked down the beach at the lighthouse at the end of West Island and came across dozens of jellyfish washed up on shore. This is the same spot where we had hundreds of dead starfish several years ago right after a big storm.Our destination though was to check on the progress of the breeding Piping Plovers....and we weren't disappointed.

When we first approached the enclosure we had both birds running around. The female quickly returned to the nest (which appeared to have 3 eggs) and the male proceeded to draw us away from the area back to where we had come from.

In Mattapoisett we had a Common Tern at the end of Brandt Island Road....exactly in the same spot where we had our first tern of the year a few weeks back. We also had a distant view of the tern activity on Ram Island.

As we drove the roads near Shaw Cove Road, we were looking for more of the grassland birds....hoping for Meadowlark, Bobolink and Savannah Sparrow in the fields.

It was also an opportunity for me to get close photos of English Plantain in bloom. I know it's considered a pesky weed (and it is) but seeing an entire field of it in spring is still lovely.

We did have both Savannah Sparrow and Bobolink, but we dipped on the Eastern Meadowlark.

We don't often do this area in spring (fall and winter are great for geese and lingering shorebirds) so I was enchanted with the blooms.

Some of the fields seemed covered from end to end with Winter Cress (a member of the Mustard family) but we also had smaller patches of Buttercups -- basically a riot of yellow flowers!

We stopped in at the herring run to check on the progress of the nest White-breasted Nuthatch we had found a few weeks earlier, and sure enough both mom and dad were busy shuttling food back and forth to the nest.

And the Warbling Vireos were busy setting up their nesting territories as well.

We ended the trip back in Fairhaven along the bike path off Weeden Road where we had this orange form of House Finch, along with the usual Carolina Wren, towhees and Yellow Warblers.

It was a wonderful blend of migrants and breeders and the class really had a chance to experience spring migration and early breeding behavior. We had seen a lot of species, so there was some speculation as to the totals. Mark decided to wait until we got home for a final tally. So it was exciting to realize that we had done a "century run" on a class trip -- 100 species on the nose! It was a good thing we had made that final push for the Bobolink!!!

This area is fast becoming one of my favorites -- possibly beating out the Westport/Acoaxet area in terms of places to actually get out and hike around. You should try it out if you're in the vicinity.

Enjoy.....Sheila

Mother's Day inside Gate 40 Quabbin

2011-05-10T05:38:00.006-04:00

We spent Mother's Day morning traveling out to opposite Mt. Zion inside Gate 40. Migration was absolutely amazing. We first notice Black & White Warblers just inside the gate....and they continued to be a major feature throughout the whole morning. We had several pairs where the male was guarding the female as she picked up little bits and pieces for the nest. Right along the main road where everyone walks was a very visible Robin's nest. I'm hoping the vegetation comes out a bit so the bird doesn't get disturbed, although she was sitting very tight when I took a couple of quick shots. I just think she'll become much more obvious once the eggs hatch and both parents have to fly back and forth a lot to keep those hungry mouths filled.

The other predominant singer of the day was Black-throated Blues -- they seemed to be everywhere. And of course some of them were doing a song similar to the Cerulean Warbler, so we did need to stop and check it out.

I had my first really good looks a Veery for the year. On the recent class trip Mark got some migrating through South Quabbin, but I didn't see them, so this was my "year" Veery (that is if I kept a year list).

We also had some nice looks at Blackburnian Warblers as well. I never get tired of seeing the blazing orange throat.

And more Veery's.

We spent some time at Grave's Landing as well....but other than a loon quite far out and a Belted Kingfisher, it was rather quiet.

Without too many birds to look at I'll often get distracted by anything to photograph...even Common Blue Violets. They actually are such a pretty flower and remind me of my childhood. I remember my mother having patches of violets in her garden and my sister and I would always pick a bouquet for Mother's Day. So maybe that's why I took the photograph.

On the way back up the hill from Grave's Landing, I saw my first male Rose-breasted Grosbeak of the spring. I've heard their squeak on several trips, but this was the first one that stood still for a photo....although he certainly didn't do much posing.

As we got closer to Dana Commons we were distracted by two planes flying fast and low from Westover. This happens occasionally, although I don't know what sort of mission they're on over Quabbin. The photo below was not cropped -- that's how low they were passing over!

I also got my first dragonfly of the year as well -- a Springtime Darner which we were able to identify by the yellowish stripes on the thorax. If you enlarge the photo you'll notice he also some sort of bug which he was flying around with in his mouth.

After leaving Quabbin we needed to wait to get to a high spot so I had cell coverage to call in and let them know we had left (which is what you're supposed to do both before entering and upon leaving). We pulled off at the Quabbin Land Trust area on the hill before descending into Old Furnace. And we had a pair of Eastern Kingbirds flying around, displaying and looking like they were definitely on territory.

A wonderful way to spend my Mother's Day morning!

Enjoy.....Sheila

Class Trip to South Quabbin - May 7th

2011-05-09T05:39:00.009-04:00

We had our second class trip this past Saturday to south Quabbin, and spring migration was certainly on...not a huge day, but we did have good pockets of birds. We started the morning at the administration building and the highlight was watching a pair of Chimney Swifts flying into the chimney on the building -- great way to the start the morning! After getting some good warblers in the trees at the far end of the parking lot, we high-tailed it to the spillway entrance. As soon as we entered from Rt. 9, we could hear birds all along the road. Near the powerlines we had a beautiful male Scarlet Tanager stay out long enough for everyone to see.

While we were checking on the Raven's nest at the spillway we noticed Bearberry blooming. Along with some warblers' songs, spring is the time when I have to relearn certain species of wildflowers. I always get this species confused with Wintergreen -- another creeping member of the Heath family with small bell-shaped flowers.

Of the 17 species of warbler we had for the morning, Prairies seemed to be moving through in little flocks. We had at least 3 or 4 near the spillway.

Although they were jumping around so quickly feeding it was a real challenge to get shots of these birds.

Although we checked the Raven's nest pretty carefully, it appears that the young birds have already fledged. So we started to head up the hill making a few stops along the way. The American Redstarts had moved in and were in full song.

On our way up to the tower, we had a number of Yellow-throated Vireos and our first Least Flycatchers of the year -- both of which were terribly difficult to get good views.

At the Quabbin Tower we had more Prairies and this male Rufous-sided Towhee just singing his heart out.

We ventured into the old apple orchard just below the tower and proceeded to attract the local chickadees and titmice who were more than happy to take handouts from Tom Mongeon, along with others in the group.

We left some seed for the little Red Squirrel as well....

After spending a little bit of time at the Enfield Lookout we move down the east side to the old blueberry patch. These days that's known as Hanks Meadow and while the class birded along the road I ventured off in search of thrushes. In years past I've been lucky to find some near the old foundation about 25 yards up the gated road. But not this time.

We did, however, have our first butterflies of the day -- two American Ladies flitted from dandelion to dandelion right alongside the road. Just look at that intricate "cobwebbing" on the underwing.

Probably our most unusual sighting of the morning was of a young woman doing a nude photo shoot at the water's edge. I know this probably isn't a permitted activity in Quabbin, but since we were a group of 10 people with binoculars we decided it was better to just move along.

We did have a possible Orange-crowned Warbler there; but everyone got such brief looks at it we decided to play it safe so it went down as "unidentified" warbler.

We left Quabbin Park after a nice stop for Chestnut-side and Blue-winged Warblers at the powerlines near that last apple tree before leaving the easternmost gate. We also had some Raven's there, but it was hard to tell if they were the family from the spillway.

After a quick (but uneventful) stop at the marsh along Rt. 9 we stopped at the fish hatchery to get Killdeer for the morning and arrived back at the administration building just in time for folks to break out their lunch and end the trip just a minute or two before noon. We had 90 species for the morning......

and that doesn't count the Bobolink Mark & I got when we stopped by the fields near the miniature horse farm on the way home. Another really nice morning for this class!

Enjoy.....Sheila

Gnatcatcher Nest Building in Monson

2011-05-08T05:45:00.005-04:00

No matter how well I plan, it seems that something always comes up to interfere with vacation plans, so this year I'm taking as much vacation in days as I can possibly carve out from work. This past Friday was one of those....and I'm so glad I was to do so. We decided to go out to one of the breeding bird atlas blocks that we agreed to do so that we could help the Hampden County coordinators finish up some blocks that were under-represented in terms of species. The block we're covering is in Monson and it's a wonderful area to bird. So much so that Mark's thinking he would like to lead some field trips there with a class. Down one dirt road which dead ended at a trail into the Conant Brook Reservoir, we had came across a goat farm which had a whole flock of young Nubian kids frolicking. What a fun way to start the early morning.

There were Yellow-rumped Warblers (both male and female) at almost every stop we made. And we had a male Downy Woodpecker constructing a nest. I first noticed the bird as there were small pieces of sawdust falling from one of several holes in this tree.

The reason I was even looking at this tree was because the last time we birded this block (see "Getting Ready for Atlasing" back in March) we had a Red-bellied Woodpecker setting up territory in a different hole in this same tree!

This Downy was totally silent as I stayed with my camera focused on the hole for several minutes. He kept poking his head in and out and dropped sawdust as he went about preparing the nest for his mate. Finally he flew to a nearby tree starting drumming and made a loud call...just to let us know that this was his territory and we could move on.

Since the black has a lot of good farms and fields, we had Chestnut-sided Warblers back on territory. But we only had males, no females yet. This always gives me a chance to "re-learn" their call. This is one warbler call (of many) that I have to hear once or twice every year before it clicks. I put warbler calls into 3 categories: those I know cold year to year (like Common Yellowthroat, Prairie, Blue-winged, etc.) The second group consists of those I need to hear a few times to re-acquaint myself (Chestnut-sided, Yellow-rumped, Blackburnian and a few others). The last group are those I really have to work on (Cape May and Bay-breasted top the list) I'm happy to say that over the years the first group gets a little bit larger year over year!

Travelling down one of the side roads, we came across this solitary Large-flowered Trillium. This was a "life" wildflower for me -- very exciting! The flower was so fresh and while; it's hard to believe it turns pink with age.

The highlight of the day (and possible the whole weekend) was a pair of Blue-gray Gnatcatchers nest building in a deciduous tree at Dean Pond. We pulled into the turnoff on the east side of Sutcliff Road and immediately heard several gnatcatchers calling. After a few minutes of watching the birds closely, Mark noticed them flying back and forth into one particular tree.

Even with the leaves in the early stage of blooming, the nest of this bird can be quite difficult to find. It's not just the size of the nest, but they do such a good job of building it so that it blends into the surroundings.

Both the female and the male actively work on the nest and we watched them for about 15 minutes tirelessly bringing in little bits of lichen, pine needs and spiderwebs to build their home. If you enlarge any of the photos, you'll be able to actually see the spiderwebs anchoring the nest to the branch.....so cool!

And they would take turns sitting in the cup and fitting the side of the nest to their specifications. While this isn't a large bird, they seemed to really fold up their tail when they were on the nest. I can't image how crowded that little nest will be in a few weeks when they have 3-4 hungry little gnatcatchers jammed in there.

Every once in a while the male bird (notice the more extensive black forehead markings) would sit in the cup and press his bill along the outside rim, making sure the nest was nice and tight.

This is the sort of behavior that birders just love to watch. Imagine my excitement being able to photo document the whole thing. What a way to start off a long weekend...

Enjoy.....Sheila

Checking out Fairhaven - May 1st

2011-05-03T06:41:00.006-04:00

We spent a wonderful Sunday checking out stops in Mattapoisett and Fairhaven where will plan to bring a class trip in a few weeks. At the end of Sconticut Neck Road we had breeding gulls and Double-crested Cormorants already on nests at Angelica Rock.And we had a a fat and very fluffy-locking raccoon hunting along the edge of the marsh at the conservation area and bike path off Little Bay Road. There were Yellow Warblers, Towhees and male Baltimore Orioles in the area, but in a few weeks we hope to find the breeding Orchard Orioles and the Willow Flycatchers.

Red-winged Blackbirds were displaying as the females are coming back in force now and they want to protect the prime territory they had staked out several weeks earlier.

Fairhaven has a wonderful bike path and along the thickets there were male Yellow Warblers zipping after other males who had wandered into "their" thicket.

And we had a small flock of Cedar Waxwings along the same section of the bike path. These birds seem to stay in small flocks until much later in the season when they get very quiet and pair up.

At the end of Brandt Island Road in Mattapoisett we had some great close looks at a pair of Willets. It's so nice to see them in their rich warm brown breeding color vs. the plain grey color I always associated with their fall migration.

Usually I get a fuzzy shot of their bold wing pattern in flight, but this Willet decided to show me the pattern without making me work for it!

It was also nice to see a Red-breasted Merganser standing out of the water on a spit of land so you could get the jiz of the bird rather than just it's back as it sails away....

But the highlight of the trip for me was to get my first tern of the season!

We had one tired-looking Common Tern sitting on a rock. I know that in a few weeks when we're back with the class we'll have many more, and probably Roseate Terns as well....but for today it was time to celebrate this one little Common Tern who had just arrived back from who-knows-where.

At the Herring Run we stopped to check on warblers, but instead we found a pair of White-breasted Nuthatch already tending a nest. We saw both male and female at one point, so it's hard to know whether they are still building the nest, just about to lay eggs, or actually feeding young already.

Can't wait to bring Mark's spring migration class to this location in a few weeks and see what's happening then!

Enjoy.....Sheila

Spring Migration - MAS Class Trip to The Brookfields

2011-05-02T07:03:00.006-04:00

Mark had his first trip with his Spring Migration class this past weekend, and we kept it local. It was a morning trip only and we met at the Dunkin Donuts in Spencer so everyone could fuel up before heading off to Lake Quabog. We had a distant immature Bald Eagle, but haven't seen the previously-breeding adults for about a month now. Wondering if they moved to South Pond or elsewhere this season??? It was nice to hear the morning song as we hiked in the WMA adjacent to South Pond. We had nice looks at a pair of Yellow Warblers, towhees, nesting Canada Goose, Wood Duck, a lovely Swamp Sparrow and heard our first Blue-gray Gnatcatchers of the season. The gnatcatchers were stubborn though and we couldn't get them to come out in plain view for the class. We did have a small (3-4) migrating flock of Great Crested Flycatchers that everyone got looks at.

We headed off to see if the gates were open in Wells State Park yet, but the DCR told us they won't be opening up to the public until May 6th. So we walked along the dirt road to the powerlines instead and got our first Prairie Warbler singing.

The dirt road runs right along the little pond that feeds into Walker Pond to the south. There is a trail that follows the powerlines to the west where you can get a good look at the heron rookery, but it was somewhat flooded and we plan to go back when the park is open and take the trail inside the park to get the same view.

The pond proved quite enjoyable with all the turtles out sunning themselves and our first green frog was looking very fresh in his spring colors. We also had a pair of Belted Kingfishers putting on a very noisy show.

The Tree Swallows were starting to set up natural cavity nesting territories in all the dead stumps in the pond. The Pine Warblers were in full song and we had a Brown Creeper doing it's lovely spring song as well.

Since we were essentially in Sturbridge, we decided to stop in and check on the progress in that heron rookery. In a matter of one week everything had changed.

Warblers had moved in and there were Yellows everywhere. Tree Swallows were swooping in close to us as we tried counting all the active Great Blue Heron nests -- I had 14! It'll be totally chaotic in another few weeks when both parents are out catching food for the voracious young birds.

When we first arrived the Osprey nest looked deserted. However, one of the birds must have been tucked down since the mate flew in after about 10 minutes and perched right at the nest before he, too, disappeared.

The Killdeer was sitting tight on a nest as well, so we left her alone so as not to flush her.

Everyone seemed to really be blown away by the amount of bird life going on right behind these industrial buildings and literally stuck between the Mass Pike and Rt. 20. It was a great stop to make with a class.

Of course hoping to repeat last year's class trip to the miniature horse farm where we watched a mare give birth right in front of us, we had to make a stop and check out the frisky foals. At this point Mark doesn't even try to stop me anymore, since he knows it's fruitless -- if we're in the area, I am going to stop!

While we didn't have the birth drama, everyone seemed to enjoy the 6 or 7 babies running around. In fact we had twins come right up to the fence with their mom and allow for some nuzzle rubbing.

Since we were pretty close to the noon hour, we headed back to Spence via Elm Hill Farm (which is a Mass Audubon sanctuary) and enjoyed some nice patches of Bloodroot in full bloom.

This member of the Poppy family gets it name from the orange color of the juice that runs out of its stem if broken. Since they don't bloom for very long, I can never bring myself to pick one or break a stem to see the orangey color myself. This is one of my favorite early spring flowers!

It was a great first class trip, with a total of 81 species for the morning -- not bad for inland. And the mix of birds was great. It's always such fun to pull a class together and have the first trip be such a hit. What a great way to end April. Thank you Spring!!!

Enjoy......Sheila

April in Quabbin

2011-04-29T19:21:00.005-04:00

Since I took Monday (4/25) as a holiday from work, we decided to head out to Quabbin to see how migration was progressing inland. As we entered the park from the easternmost gate, we stopped along the road to listen to some Pine Warbler song. I noticed a number of Bluejays flying in and out of one tree and then I saw something moving near a squirrel's nest. It turned out to be a Fisher looking for his morning breakfast. By the time I got my camera ready, he was already zipping down the tree trunk and making a hasty retreat into the deeper woods. Never again will I wait to get my camera ready -- all I managed was one quick shot (somewhat blurry) as he sped away. Still a nice way to start the morning though. We came across a number of deer in south Quabbin -- all looking a little worse for wear from the winter.

At the rotary near the road up to the tower, we had a flock of about 8 Flickers feeding on the ground. Most of the birds flew off, but this one bird definitely had some good food he was not prepared to leave.....so he allowed me to drive around the rotary twice snapping photos from different angles.

Even after checking the tower, he was still in the rotary as we passed back down.

Near the Administration entrance we had a pair of Turkeys....with one male in full display. It was almost silly looking. I just can't understand why Fish & Wildlife allows hunting of this bird during it's breeding season. They are totally oblivious to everything around them when there's a female nearby -- it must be like shooting a pet at close range. Ridiculous!!!

Other birds focusing on their spring breeding activity included this Red-bellied Woodpecker...

this pair of Common Mergansers in the river near the Fish Hatchery....

and this female Belted Kingfisher.

Red-winged Blackbirds and Grackles are all in full display at the marsh along Rt. 9 as well. I don't know whether it was the rough winter or my advancing age, but this spring I've definitely enjoyed every moment, every song, every chance to photograph nature.

While at the Administration Building we ran into both Dave Small and Dale Monette. We were able to find out from Dave which roads were now drivable inside Quabbin and from Dale we learned that the Ravens along the powerlines in Gate 35 had young in the nest.

So we decided to head home via north Quabbin and check out Gate 35 area....at least along the first part of the road near the water.

Sure enough when we approached the powerlines one of the adult Ravens flew off and we could see two young bobbing up and down in the nest -- another record for the Breeding Bird Atlas!

Following the old railroad bed along the water, we had 3 different adult Bald Eagles, including a pair on the nest on Hamilton Island. And we had lots of warblers moving along the trees at various points.

We could great looks at Palm Warblers foraging very low on both sides of the road.

And Yellow-rumps seemed to be everywhere, along with Pine Warblers which didn't approach close enough for a good photo opportunity. Nevertheless, I was delighted with the spring Palms.

Early spring in Quabbin can be such an amazing thing......

Enjoy.....Sheila

Westport and Acoaxet - April 24th

2011-04-29T18:19:00.006-04:00

We spent a foggy Sunday morning in Westport and Acoaxet...hoping the fog that was hugging the shore would lift. It was fun to photograph in the fog, though. Even this Herring Gull at the boat ramp at Gooseberry Neck looked exotic shrouded in gloom. Traveling along the shore road we found two Greater Yellowlegs in the small pool across the street from Westport Town Beach. These were our first real migrant shorebirds of the year. Of course, I realize that Killdeer do migrate, but somehow when I see a migrant non-breeder at the ocean I experience shorebird migration differently.

As we pulled into the beach park right at the corner, we were greeted by a Northern Mockingbird going through a full repertoire of spring song. I actually snapped this photo as the bird was doing his Killdeer rendition!

We checked down Fisherville Lane (the side road across from Mysti Brook farm) hoping for our first Black & White warbler, but it was a bit quiet. With the morning fog still holding close, the Usnea looking especially fluffy.

While we didn't get the B&W, we did have our first Great Crested Flycatcher....although the foggy conditions didn't allow for his colorful plumage to be truly appreciated.

We decided to cut across Horseneck Road and head out towards Demarest Lloyd state park to check down some of the side roads for an early White-eyed Vireo. At the little pond at the dip in the road right after making the turn, we had this beautiful Great Egret in full breeding plumage. Just the color around his eye made the trip worthwhile!

We didn't get the vireo, but we had our first raptors of the morning, with this Red-tailed Hawk trying to get dry from the damp, foggy start to his day.

Since it seemed to be clearing a little, we headed over to Acoaxet hoping there was finally better visibility right along the coast. At the end of River Road we realized that the coast wasn't going to be our best bet for visibility still.

Although at the overlook near Richmond Pond we did get a Harlequin Duck even in the foggy conditions.

Just 1/4 mile inland, though, the clearing was happening. These Marsh Marigolds along Brayton Point Road were our first of the year.

And we had Yellow Warbler near the herring run.

The birds seemed to be feeding in the bushes all along the side roads. I was intrigued by these "pussy willows" which were in that in-between stage after their pussy willow phase.

And we finally had a singing White-crowned Sparrow as well.

As we left the area we stopped in the boat launch area near the Back Eddy restaurant and had some nice Common Eider, along with another Greater Yellowlegs -- this one more striking without the fog.

We headed back to Worcester after a lovely Easter morning in the area -- both the fog and the holiday kept a lot of people off the roads. Very relaxing....and just what we needed before heading off to an Easter visit four energetic (but totally delightful) grandchildren.

Enjoy.....Sheila

Yellow-legged Gull.....or is it?

2011-04-23T07:58:00.005-04:00

On Friday, April 15th, we headed down to Hyannis in the hopes of finding the Yellow-legged Gull. We don't chase nearly as many rarities as we used to, but a North American bird will still get us wandering further afield than usual, especially if the bird is in Massachusetts. We arrived at the Kalmus Beach lot to get some glimpses of the gull perched fairly far out on some pilings at the end of a dock. After about 10 minutes all the gulls took off and headed somewhere for the evening roost. Oh well, we decided that we had planned to stay overnight and come back in the morning anyway. So after watching the Piping Plover for a bit we headed into Hyannis for a nice dinner and checked into a hotel.
Saturday morning back at the parking lot we were greeted by the noisy calls of the pair of Osprey who had taken up residence right at the entrance to the lot. Judging by the size of their nest this wasn't new territory to them.

We spotted both birds in the marsh across the street and managed to get some close shots.

As we pulled into the parking lot, Mark spotted a group of birders already there at the far end of the lot, so we zipped right down -- not realizing that they were looking in our direction at the Yellow-legged Gull right next to my car! As soon as I stopped the bird flew off to the beach and all I could think about was that the birders at the far end were probably using every name in the book to describe what we had just done. Luckily as soon as we stepped out onto the beach it was clear that the bird hadn't flown very far and we all got a chance to study the bird in our scopes.

Luckily we knew some of the birders so I was able to apologize for my car flushing the bird and we all joked about what would have happened if it had flown off for good.

To make up we tried to thrown some of the previous evening's dinner out to bring the bird closer, but for some reason none of the gulls seemed very interested in our leftovers.

The bird was quite cooperative and we managed to get good looks and really notice not only the legs but the bill color and construction as well. It should be noted that there have been subsequent questions about whether this bird is truly a Yellow-legged Gull or actually a hybrid between a Lesser Black-back and Herring Gull. I guess we'll have to wait for the "powers that be" to decide.

We did have the bird flying around and settling out on the water. After about 30 minutes we decided to head off cape where we planned to check out one of the blocks we planned to do for the atlas this year.

We did stop to check some of the Herring Gulls at the far end of the parking lot. There was a pair definitely courting each other.

One of the Herring Gulls in the lot seemed to have a bad foot, so Mark decided to pull over and go to the edge of the lot and dump out the remaining leftovers from the night before. We thought that this bird might enjoy not having to fight with other gulls for a handout since he was injured.

Within 5 seconds of dumping the chicken, every gull in the area seemed to converge. Now realize these are the same gulls that wouldn't take out handout on the beach. This time, however, they were interested.

Sure enough Mark spotted the Yellow-legged Gull flying in and a got one quick shot of the bird as he gulped down a piece of Chicken Marsala and headed off to digest the good-sized piece of chicken.

I'm sure the birders who had been watching this bird on the beach were less than thrilled....again. So we decided to beat a hasty retreat before we had a third instance of causing havoc with birders. We did check and found out that the bird did reappear after a few hours and many other birders arrived and had a chance to see this handsome gull.

It'll be funny if all this havoc turns out to be over a hybrid gull!

Enjoy.....Sheila

All the Signs of Spring -- April 9th & 10th

2011-04-11T05:18:00.007-04:00

While the April showers have opened up many small ponds, we were totally surprised to find this group of what looks like GOLDFISH in a small pond in a cemetery in Rutland. They were literally everywhere..... As we arrived in Westport on Saturday morning, we were concerned with the huge fire out on one of the Elizabeth Islands; hopefully, it was an early spring controlled burn.

And we got our first Great Egrets of the season along the river in Acoaxet.

At the overlook we didn't have much, but this Horseshoe Crab shell up in a hedge row tells a lot about the winds, water and spring weather right along the coast. This was certainly a long-lived guy judging by the size of the shell.

We didn't have a lot of landbird migrants right along the coast, but we did have good numbers of Red-necked Grebes right offshore.

Driving back up to Worcester along Rt. 146 we saw our first hawks of the day -- this pair of Sharp-shins spent about 15 minutes doing a very showy flight right over the road in Sutton. We had to pull of so we could get the full effect.

They were acting more like a mated pair on territory than true migrants. It was fascinating to watch how their flight profile changed in the windy. At times they didn't even look like the same species!

One of the birds actually zipped quite close after a dive and we got some fairly good looks.

On Sunday morning we decided to get up very, very early (even for us) and head out to do some owning inside Quabbin. We were excited since we had found a Screech Owl in the fall in one of our atlas blocks and wanted to see if we could get the species in "safe dates". Alas we were denied. In fact when we got to Quabbin, we found a sign on the gate saying we couldn't drive in. So after checking several gates (same sign) and even trying Rutland State Park (gates closed!) we head back to Worcester and decided to go out again around 6:30 or 7.

Glad we made that choice, since as we pulled in the driveway we saw the "neighborhood" fox trotting through our yard. Now realize, we live right in the city, so seeing a fox in our backyard is always exciting. We've even started to leave little morsels of food for her so she doesn't have to cross too many streets to get food for her young.

We also found that a pair of Red-tailed Hawks had set up their nest in the same tree as last year across the street in our neighbor's backyard. Wow, animals are certainly getting good at adapting to urban environments.

With these two sightings erasing our earlier disappointment with owling, we decided to head out to the Spencer-Brookfield area and see what other signs of early spring we could find.

The Song Sparrows were in full spring song as we left...

At Ceramic Pond in Spencer we found a lovely pair of Wood Duck checking out suitable nesting habitat.

And an incredibly cooperative Pine Warbler singing his little heart out.

We decided to swing down to Sturbridge and check on the Great Blue Heron rookery right along Rt. 20 (which had about 11-12 nest in various stages of occupancy).

And the pair of Osprey were definitely nest-building as well.

Finding Killdeer on the nest already was a wonderful bonus; although I do worry about the nest location in the gravel on an access road to the microwave tower.

Swinging back up through the Brookfields, we found a distant Red-necked Grebe on Wickabog. And, of course, any stop at Wickabog means a drive-by my favorite horse farm to check on the progress of the new foals.

My check on the miniature horses means Mark must check on the pigs down the road. And in the early spring sun, this one certainly seemed contented!

So we headed back to Worcester content ourselves that spring had finally arrived!

Enjoy......Sheila

First April Weekend Part 2 -- Southern Berks

2011-04-10T18:43:00.007-04:00

Getting ready to head out to the Berkshires, this is what greeted us at Dunkin Donuts -- a large number of Ring-billed Gulls (and 1 Herring Gull) fighting over pizza at 5:30 a.m.!You can see that having a number tag clearly didn't prevent this guy from getting his fair share. So we picked up our donuts and jumped on the Pike heading west to visit the Tyringham, Monterey, New Marlborough areas.

We stopped at Lake Garfield in Monterey to check on the geese that were in the pond -- some of which was still ice covered. For the next 15 minutes we were treated to the antics of two Otters running along the edge of the ice and causing all sorts of consternation for the geese.

I really got to appreciate just how active these members of the weasel family are. They actually reminded me of our new 10-month old kitten, Molly. Definitely into everything!

The open water was a mixture...some areas were still partially frozen (like Lake Garfield above) while others already had pairs of Wood Duck moving through the brush.

We had Tree Swallows in a few locations; although only the males were back.

It will probably be another few weeks before the first females arrive.

And in New Marlborough we found one of Mark's favorite animals. I really think if we lived somewhere where we could keep farms animals Mark would have a goat and I'd have a miniature horse.

Our major reason for going out to the blocks we did last year, though, was to see if the Sandhill Cranes had returned to their regular nesting spot.

And we weren't disappointed. Both the male and female were in the same marsh where they've bred for the last 4 or 5 years. Although I did hear that they were unsuccessful raising any young last year. Hopefully this year will be a better outcome for them.

On our way back to the Pike, we stopped in Great Barrington at one of my favorite stores. Asia Barong Antiques on Rt. 7 (near the K-Mark shopping plaza).

We often wonder what the neighbors would say if we put a giant Buddha on our front lawn. Oh well we had to settle for another Ganesh.

Enjoy.....Sheila

First April Weekend Part 1 -- Quabbin

2011-04-10T18:42:00.005-04:00

When I got up on Friday, April 1st, looking forward to the first weekend of April, you could say I was less than thrilled to look out at the feeders in the back yard and see someone's idea of an April Fool's day prank! WTF....this was supposed to be the month of April showers bringing May flowers and everything.By Saturday morning it was clear this would melt away soon so we took a little trip out to Quabbin hoping there would be even less snow. And as this Robin in front of the Administration Building shows we made a good call.

We had a pair of Cooper's Hawks calling on territory. At first I thought it was a Pileated Woodpecker since that call has fooled me more than once, but this little male stayed perched in the same tree for over 30 minutes....clearly ready to defend his territory.

This was the most frozen I've seen the reservoir this late in the season, and Mark spoke with Dale Monette in the visitor's center and he said they weren't quite sure they were going to be able to open Quabbin on time for fishing boats. There were small soft spots starting to open up enough to let Common Mergansers hopscotch their way up north, but certainly not for boats to move around yet.

We had several Fox Sparrows, including a group of about 10 along a side road near the marsh on Rt. 9.

I love the rich warm reddish brown on these birds compared to the Song Sparrow. And when I'm lucky enough to hear them sing in the spring, it's always an extra bonus.

At the fish hatchery were were lucky enough to have an immature Bald Eagle perched right over one of the concrete sloughs.

I slowly worked my way down to the end so that the sun wouldn't have the bird totally backlit.

And while at one point he looked like he might take off, he actually stayed the entire time I walked down and back. This is definitely the closest I've ever gotten to a Bald Eagle in my life. All I could think of, though, was the previous weekend when we brought Melissa et al to Quabbin to see eagles and I wished this guy had been around then!

On the way home we stopped to check the Brookfield ponds and found our first turtle of the season out sunning itself at the back part of Lake Wickabog.

By the time we returned to Worcester in early afternoon, all the snow has melted away and we knew it really had been an April Fool's joke!

Enjoy......Sheila

Checking South Shore Blocks - Sunday, 3/27

2011-04-03T19:55:00.005-04:00

Finishing out the month of March with a pre-breeding bird atlas trip to check areas we could do for block busting in the Wareham / East Marion area. We tried various roads on Indian Neck and the best sighting we had was of this Star Wars Storm Trooper at the top of Bourne Hill Rd. It was a little cold and windy, but the Chickadees were out in force...

and the Downy Woodpeckers were definitely setting up territory.

And it seemed like there were Song Sparrows in every bush and thicket!

A real surprise were a number of adult Gannets at the mouth of the Wareham River from Swifts Beach.

We even had several heading up the river itself!

And from the tip of Sippican Neck we had great views of Bird Island where we saw more Gannets. Wished we had a tern or two to report, but it's way to early for those guys to show up yet.

The Osprey's were back, though, and we had several active nests being worked on.

One of the nicest birds we came across in our morning trip was this Red-Shouldered Hawk sitting at the edge of a Cranberry Bog right off Rt. 6.

At first we thought it might be a Harrier, but as soon as we pulled over and got our bins on the bird, saw the coloration and the black & white "checkerboard" patterning, we knew it was a shoulder.

The bird flew into a dense thicket of trees nearby and we're assuming it's already got a nest underway. So we will definitely have to check back during our block busting trip in early June.

Things are certainly looking up for spring!

Enjoy.....Sheila

Late March Morning Trip to Quabbin

2011-04-03T18:46:00.004-04:00

On Saturday, March 26th, we had a fun morning trip to Quabbin with some friends. It's always fun to take people who have a little interest in birding and show them all the possibilities fairly close to their own backyards. When you're looking through the eyes or a newer birder you get to rediscover all the excitement all over again. A female Eastern Bluebird on a sign with a beautiful male nearby really is pretty awesome! While I never tire of spring Killdeer, this was one of two birds running around the fish hatchery in Belchertown. Unfortunately, we had hoped to be able to show some close eagles, but they weren't there on this particular morning.

Also at the hatchery was a Belted Kingfisher who put on a fabulous show calling and circling around our small group several times before perching in a tree allowing good looks....and we had a Phoebe as well!

Besides the Bald Eagles on the far off nest from the Administration Building, we had tremendous looks (and vocalizations) from the nesting Ravens near the spillway. With a scope we could actually see one bird on the nest sitting very tight.

Definitely a highlight for our friends was visiting the old apple orchard just below the tower to "feed" the titmice and chickadees.

It was a cold and somewhat windy day, but Brenda was the first to get a chickadee land on her hand.

We weren't too sure since we didn't have any actual seed with us...but as Jan proves the crumbled up Ritz crackers seemed to work just fine.

Melissa (along with the others) were totally in awe of these little things flitting in and out...even though Mark tried to tell them it wasn't anything magical, the birds had just been trained by consistent hand feeding.

Jon was the last to try it, since he was convinced that the birds would be afraid of his height...and you can see the look of total amazement when a bold little chickadee landed the second he offered his handful of crackers.

We also had a good number of Fox Sparrows and several very noisy Red-bellied Woodpeckers on the outskirts of the orchard.

On the way back to Worcester we stopped to see the pregnant miniature horses (no new babies were out), but the young piglets were romping around in the sty about a mile further down Snow Road. A really fun morning with a great bunch of friends!

Enjoy....Sheila

Spring Arrives!

2011-03-22T05:27:00.006-04:00

After almost of week of laryngitis, getting out for some "quiet time" with the birds seemed anticlimactic. Wait, what am I saying? Getting out with the birds is NEVER a disappointment.

We actually started the morning very early (left the house at 3:30 am) to check for owls and woodcock in some of the atlas blocks we're trying to help with in Hampden County. And we had a pretty good showing in Monson; although the woodcock just weren't back in numbers yet. We did have a great pair of Barred Owls "duetting" right next to the pulloff we used on a little back road. All in all a very satisfactory showing and great for adding species to a couple of blocks.On our way back home we decided to recheck some of the ponds and the Quabog River in the Brookfields. The rivers (like the Quabog above) were still quite swollen and we had good numbers of pairs of Common Goldeneye. But for me one of the all-time great signs of spring is the first foal at the Sawmill River miniature horse farm in West Brookfield.

And sure enough there she was....the first of the breeding season. Technically I'm not really sure if it was a she or he, but I'm going to use she for now because it just seems right somehow.

Even Mark (who is totally not impressed by these "mutant equines") laughed at the antics of this less-than-a-week old foal. She just pranced around like the world was hers and since she was the first, she didn't have any competition telling her differently. Of course in 2-3 weeks, she will probably have lots of company to zoom around and play with. Don't know what it is about these little horses, but I really do want one in my life on a regular basis.... Oh well, it's always fun to visit.We also had some great looks at Snipe in the WMA fields across the street from South Pond.

Wow, talk about blending into your surroundings!

Even when you know they're there, it's still hard to refind them when you change your vantage point.

We called it an early birding day, since we had been up since way before dawn and we had a birthday party to go to for our friend Scott Surner out in the Connecticut River valley. I wish I had brought my camera with me, since the photo of Scott "with hair" is priceless! I don't think I've ever laughed that hard in my life. Thank you Jan and Carlos!!!!

When we got home the "supermoon" was still visible and I couldn't resist taking just a few photos. It was pretty magnificent.

On Sunday we decided to check out another block we're doing for the atlas, just to see what the habitat was like. This one is on the southeast coast in Plymouth County, right on the border of Plymouth and Sagamore.

While it was a beautiful day, right along the ocean it was a tad cold and windy. This shot from Sagamore Beach pretty much shows the amount of coast we have going north. As you might imagine quite a bit of the area is marked private, but there are some roads you can poke down.

And we found a great public trail through a phragmites marsh which looked very promising. We had a pair of Catbirds. Although it's hard to tell if they are just overwintering or whether they'll stay in the area to breed.

And we seemed to have a ton of Song Sparrows, most doing their spring song. While I don't think the area is a rich as inland in terms of breeding birds, it will be fun to see what is breeding right along the southeastern coast.

Overall, this was just a real fun weekend....birds, friends and baby miniature horses!

Enjoy.....Sheila

Getting Ready for Atlasing!

2011-03-15T19:51:00.004-04:00

With the Snow Buntings dwindling at Worcester Airport, we are definitely looking ahead to checking out blocks that need some special attention this year....the FINAL year of the Breeding Bird Atlas. We headed out to check a few blocks in Hampden County which need to have the species increased. Along the way we stopped to check the ponds in the Brookfields and had this beautiful immature Bald Eagle over the Quabog River.

We were able to pull off near the Rt. 148 bridge that's being repaired and got some great looks at the bird sailed over the flooded river checking for breakfast.

With everything being so flooded in the area, we were surprised to come across this pair of beaver out of the water. I thought they would be mating in their den, not out in public!

One of the new blocks we are checking out is in Monson, and we were excited to find 2 different adult Bald Eagles hanging out in an area suitable to support a nest.

The bird above is bird #1....we know that since eagle #2 below flew into the same tree and they exchanged places. We spent at least 30 minutes in the area and the bird was definitely acting like it was on territory.

As spring progresses we will have to revisit the area several times to see if we can find any indication of nesting vs. this being a bonded pair wintering in the same area.

We did, however, have great looks at a Red-bellied Woodpecker in a definite nest hole.

There were two birds in the area and they kept calling back and forth to each other.

We just pulled the car off the road and sat for a few minutes watching the comings and goings. The male flew off once or twice but always came back to the same hole calling for the female.

This will be an exciting spot to check in a month or so to see what nesting activity actually took place. I don't think I've ever found the actual nest of a Red-bellied, so it's definitely something to look forward to.

Enjoy......Sheila

Goodbye to Winter - Hello to Spring.....maybe

2011-03-14T05:52:00.006-04:00

Early March can bring such mixed messages. Sometimes it seems like winter is never going to leave. You have all the big dirty piles of snow that have been plowed onto the sides of the parking lot and then when the warming sun starts to melt them, you watch them slowly (very slowly) melt and get even dirtier. But you also start to get excited about the upcoming season....SPRING!!!! The Snow Buntings at Worcester Airport are definitely thinking about heading back to the tundra. Early in the season we were seeing flocks of hundreds....on March 6th we had a flock of about 40. And they seemed like they were definitely staging for migration.

Very few were feeding in the parking lot; most were moving the the grasses along the runway.

And some of the birds have started to molt into their summer plumage. We had quite a few males that were starting to get their to lose their rusty coloring and develop the solid black back.

After a quick check of the flocks, we decided to head off to Quabbin to see how spring was progressing there.

Even the lichen along the rocks near the spillway had a spring-time look to it. And we had our first chipmunks of the season!

We stopped at the fish hatchery in Belchertown and even the salmon looked more ready for springtime.

But the real sign for me was the return of the Killdeer.

In the last 2 weeks these birds have started to pop up in just about every flooded field I've seen.

I know everyone talks about the Robin as such a sign of spring, but I'll take Red-winged Blackbirds, Grackles and Killdeer as the true sign that spring is almost here!

Enjoy....Sheila