Bonaparte's Gulls at Quabbin - November 7th

Last Saturday we had a great morning trip to south Quabbin to see if there were any unusual ducks putting in yet. It seems we've missed the larger scoter flocks this year. We actually started in Rutland State Park listening for Saw-whet Owls and were successful in hearing 2 or 3 different birds along the roads before dawn. When we got to the area in front of the Administration Building there were several Common Loons in and out of the mist. There were fish almost jumping out of the water and the loons all seemed to be enjoying a robust breakfast.

We were fortunate to be looking in the right direction when the "local" adult Bald Eagle decided to go fishing himself. Luckily for the loon there were so many fish in the area the eagle didn't didn't even bother with the loon...probably too much work to swim back to shore with a loon for breakfast. Unfortunately for the eagle he made a couple of dives and came up empty-handed before flying off to the north looking for better spots.

Robins were everywhere in south Quabbin and there's lots of food for them, so it will be interesting to see how many hang around this year for the various Christmas counts. (It's hard to believe that our first count is just over a month away!)

Clearly Juncos were on the move, as were White-throated Sparrows, but we only had a handful of Yellow-rumps flying over.

So we were left with the beginnings of the "winter flocks" of chickadees, nuthatches and Brown Creeper. We also had Golden-crowned Kinglets in fairly good numbers.

Even though it was a beautiful morning, we didn't have much in the way of raptors at all from the Enfield Lookout. We kept wondering if the weather was too nice.

A quick stop at the blueberry patch didn't add much either. There was a small flock of Bluebirds in the trees.....

and a very feisty Red Squirrel yelled at us constantly.

Down near the Goodnough Dike we had a pair of calling Pileated Woodpeckers working the trees to the west of the reservoir.

But Mark wanted to go back to the Administration Building and check for unusual gulls. We had 1 or 2 young Bonapartes quite a ways off first thing in the morning and we wanted to see if they stayed around. We checked the Fish Hatchery which produced one sub-adult Bald Eagle flying over. But it seems that the Killdeer that usually linger have moved on.

I've learned over the years to trust Mark's intuition, because when we got back to the Administration Building, one of the young Bonaparte's was flying around catching fish right in front of us.

Since these things move around so fast, I was happy to be able to study some of the shots when we got home and really see the field marks...a nice first winter bird.

As we headed back to Worcester through the Brookfields, we stopped a couple of places to look for geese in the fields and for ducks at Quabog -- nothing much going on; although we had our first Goldeneye of the season at Quabog.

Much to Mark's chagrin, I can't seem to pass that miniature horse farm without stopping to take at least a few shots. While he considers them "mutants", I definitely have a soft spot for these little guys....even bundled up in their winter coats. It sorta makes them look that much more cuddly!

Enjoy.....Sheila

October Sliding into November

Since the weather was supposed to be windy and warm on Saturday, we decided to make our annual Halloween pilgrimage to Swan Point Cemetery in Providence and see what interesting tributes were being left for H. P. Lovecraft. And to bird the Blackstone Corridor along the way. We made the usual stops in Cumberland -- Sneech Pond, Diamond Hill and Arnold Mills Reservoirs -- and found some of the fall ducks had moved in. In addition to a good number of DC Cormorants, we had our first Ruddy Ducks of the season. In fact we had more than 200 Ruddies on Diamond Hill Res and still had a lingering Killdeer and Osprey. In the Woonsocket Reservoir No. 3 (in Lincoln actually) we had two adult Peregrines who disappeared suddenly to be replaced by an adult Bald Eagle. Needless to say there were no ducks in the immediate vicinity. And shorebirds had either cleared out or been feasted upon by the Peregrines.

In the Uxbridge area we had a very large flock of Ring-necked Ducks.....all in all signaling that fall is coming to an end and we should start thinking about our next favorite phrase -- "I hope the water stays open for the Christmas Count"

But our real purpose was the trip to Swan Point to see Lovecraft's grave. It was a bit disappointing, in that we didn't run into one goth kid looking for the grave!

However, we did get to see that they still have special alarm lighting set up just for the occasion and we got to leave our little momento to this author on this oh-so-special-day....

So we headed back to Worcester to get ready for the hordes of trick-or-treaters. And we weren't disappointed. The first kids appeared at 4:45 (one of the earliest starting times) and it was non-stop until we shut the lights off just after 8:30. We had the usual Transformers, princesses, ninjas and witches -- but also a great Titanic, katydid and painter with her own moving wall. Don't ask, but you really had to be here to appreciate the chaos. Our final tally (including parents) was somewhere between 300-400!


On Sunday (with the clocks falling back) we headed off to Westport with Rebecca and Kevin Bourinot at a reasonable hour hoping to find a Cave Swallow that had come northward in yesterday's balmy 73 degree weather. But alas we were denied.

We started early at Gooseberry Neck and didn't have much in the way of landbirds at all. However, there were both Common and Red-throated Loons aplenty.

And lots of scoters and eider. This female Surf Scoter was staying very close to shore and managed to get several good things to eat right off the rack line. Mark and Kevin had an unidentified swallow (even with their scopes) way down the beach from Allen's Neck, but it never came in our direction. After a brief stop at Allen's Pond, where I must admit it was a bit disconcerting to see my first female Buffleheads of the season, we decided to head to Acoaxet.

But what was even worse than Buffleheads was to find our first Harlequin Ducks in Acoaxet! Even though we had a semi-pal and 3 Black-bellied Plover, try as I might, I just coulden't shake the impending doom of another winter. I'm already asking "where we can go for a long weekend in January or February?"

And while the "mermaids' purses" seemed to cheer up Mark, I seem to be experiencing an early bout of autumn melancholy. It didn't help that landbirds weren't much better in Acoaxet, although we managed to find about 6 or so Eastern Meadowlarks right on the border with RI in the Brayton Point Rd. area.

In addition, we had this very colorful Red-tail hunting in the area.

And a small flock of Field Sparrows. There were also the obligatory Yellow-rumps and a few Golden-crowned Kinglets sprinkled in for variety.

Nothing extraordinary (see highlights below), but an enjoyable day nonetheless!

Enjoy......Sheila

Westport/Acoaxet Highlights:

Both Common (37) and Red-throated Loon (14)

19 species of waterfowl including:

American Widgeon (26)

Green-winged Teal (26)

Ring-necked Duck (64)

Greater & Lesser Scaup (159 including scaup spcs.)

Common Eider (1084)

Harlequin Duck (7)

Black Scoter (3)

Surg Scoter (32)

White-winged Scoter (62)

Bufflehead (3)

Hooded Merg (12)

Red-breasted Merg (89)

Ruddy Duck (8)

9 species of shorebird including

Both Greater & Lesser Yellowlegs

Pectoral, Dunlin, Sanderling

Killdeer, Semipalmated and Black-bellied Plover

Ruddy Turnstone

But only 2 species of warbler -- Common Yellowthroat & Yellow-rumped

Plus we had a coyote and a Monarch butterfly!

Northern Berkshires in September & October

Okay so the first big, white snowflakes are falling and I feel the need to look back at warblers and fall foliage....of course it was only a few weeks ago! Anyway, this blog is actually the result of two different trips to the northern Berks -- one on Labor Day and one a few weeks later when we were on vacation a few weeks later (10/1 to be exact). In the first trip we spent most of our time in Florida and Monroe right up on the Vermont border....We visited the Bakke Mountain Trust area and had great views to the north. Hopefully, this area will be spared the proposed windfarm that's been in the courts for several years.

This area had a good showing of Kestrals on the day we visited, and I do wonder if they would breed there if someone erected a kestral box. Of course, if this place does go the way of the windfarm developers, we can say goodbye to that possibility.

Between this area and the dirt road in Monroe up to Raycroft Tower, we had a great showing of landbirds. It's sorta hard to tell who's a migrant and who's a permanent resident in this neck of the woods.....like this Blue-headed Vireo.

Black and White Warbler

Immature Common Yellowthroat, along some powerline cut-throughs.

We also had a good number of female Blackburnians.

And both male and female Black-throated Blue Warblers.

And this immature Magnolia warbler.

We even managed to spish in an Ovenbird who acted quite territorial.

The dirt road to and from Bakke Mountain proved to be quite interesting as well. One of the odder sightings are these road signs, since you're clearly in the middle of no-where.

And while I know it's a necessity, it's always disconcerting to see the dead ground cover and plantings along the power lines once the electric company has been in there with their herbicides. It really makes you wonder about the damage it's doing to the environment. I'd love to know the cancer rates in the areas close to this sort of spraying.

Two highlights of the trip were this Red-backed Salamander Mark found after turning over ten's of rocks along the road.....

and most impressively this Spring Salamander along the side of this same wet dirt road.

The opportunity to photograph these two little guys was very exciting. Although I must say that Gyrinophilus porphyriticus is quite hefty. Being a lungless salamander we quickly got this guy back into a nearby fast-moving mountain stream. I'm not sure he would have made it under the rock where we found him.

And we had quite a few woodpeckers as well.

We found Bottle Gentian at the higher elevation as we approached the open area near the Bakke Mountain property....

and we found Nodding Ladies' Tresses in the lower parts of Monroe along the brook leading down to Dunbar Reservoir and the Deerfield River.

In fact I actually found this petite member of the orchid family as I was trying to get a good close photo of this Common Ringlet.

Our 2nd trip to the northern Berkshires a few weeks ago allowed us to enjoy the area in her most colorful fall wardrobe.

Even the goldenrod and asters seemed to be brilliant.

We spent most of this trip doing the areas in Cheshire that we had down for the BBA, only now we were looking for migrants and not just breeding birds. In areas where the corn had been harvested already, we found good numbers of American Pipit. I put this photo in so you could experience the same frustration as I did trying to find the darn birds when they were down on the ground. Believe me, there is a pipit in the photo below!

Once I got home and was able to enlarge the photos I could actually see the bird....at least in most of the photos.

The scenery was just as impressive as the fall birding...

We spent some time at the WMA on Stafford Hill and were able to get great looks at Black-throated Greens feeding on the goldenrod and ragweed.

This towhee actually seemed to be wagging his tail....

And, of course, everywhere we stopped (in the right habitat) we had tons of Palm Warblers.

They really are a smart-looking bird -- even in fall plumage.

The fall colors were amazing....and I probably took more than my fair share of photos -- partly because I promised my niece in California that I would "share" fall foliage with her and partly because I'm just a sucker for the colors!

We actually spent the night in Great Barrington, so now I have to dig out those photos and do a southern Berkshires blog within the next few days.

Enjoy.....Sheila

The Nostalgia of Chasing a Rarity

On Columbus Day after birding the Westport/Acoaxet area, we returned to Worcester to find that a Brown-chested Martin had been found at Cumberland Farms in the Middleboro area. We sort of kicked ourselves for not checking MassBird on my Blackberry, but there wasn't much we could do. We agreed that if it was still being seen on Tuesday we would try for it in the afternoon. However, the weather was not great and we made the decision not to go for it. So after hearing Tuesday night it was seen several times we decided to go for it Wednesday a.m. We don't usually chase birds the way we did 25 years ago, but even though this wasn't a "life" bird, it was a North American bird (and a Massachusetts bird to boot!) I have to admit that I have a soft spot for Massachusetts list birds. After all it was our sighting of the Jackdaw on Martha's Vineyard in the early 80's that was responsible Mark and I deciding to get married....but that's a story for another time.We made the decision Wednesday a.m. to take the morning off work and make a run for the Martin. I decided that I would be able to catch up on work this weekend with the rain forecast for tomorrow (Sunday). We got to Cumbies just before 10 and the bird had flown over just 5 minutes earlier....but was currently nowhere to be seen. The numbers of White-crowned Sparrow were pretty spectacular though, so I contented myself with shots of sparrows darting back and forth across the main dirt road and let the 40 or so other birders keep looking for the Martin.

A juvenile Red-tail allowed quite a close approach and didn't even fly off as I passed him.

As expected, there were numbers of Harriers in the area. After about 10 minutes Mark spotted the Martin coming in high over the trees to our east.

Suddenly there it was -- Progne tapera. This bird didn't spend a ton of time with other swallows; we had trees, a barn and a rough-wing all fly over. But the Martin seemed more solitary; however, it did get bombed by the Rough-winged Swallow once while we were watching it.

So let me apologize for some of the less-than-clear shots -- catching flying swallows in my camera is one of the many things I still need to master. I did want to include a couple of different shots so that you could see different aspects of the bird. For example, the one below gives you a good idea of just how broad that wing can look. While somewhat larger than most of our "regular" swallows, the bird is not nearly as large as our Purple Martins.

Also (as anyone who mentions this in Mark's presence knows) you really can't judge size against a clear sky -- there aren't any reference points, so how do you know it's not just closer or further away? Of course, it was interesting to overhear some of the birders at Cumbies doing just that.

To me the most notable field marks were the coloration, the size (when you saw it with the Trees or the No. Rough-winged) and the breast band somewhat similar to the Bank Swallow. Also the brownish sides when it passed close enough to get a good look. The question I have is could I pick this out in one of the really large flocks of swallows or would I just overlook it in the chaos and "noise" of all the other swallows.

Like I said, this wasn't a life bird -- we had this species at Iguazu Falls in Argentina. And even though the Cumberland Field farms aren't as exotic, this was still an exciting bird to get on our Massachusetts state list.

We were back in Worcester before noon, and I was able to get into work for the full afternoon. I really like it when things work out like that....sorta makes up for all the times when you just miss the bird by 5 minutes and it doesn't show up again! And of course I have a long list of those as well.

Enjoy.....Sheila