Tuesday 7/20: Back side of Prospect Hill was very quiet. Finally got around to checking out the vernal pool, leaning that way for the Spatterdock but will hopefully find out for sure next June.

Wednesday 7/21: Hanscom again. Very successful, we confirmed Upland Sandpiper and Grasshopper Sparrow. Fox running around was also nice. Trail behind the high school at lunch was extremely quiet.

Thursday 7/22: Paine at lunch was quiet. First of year Autumn Meadowhawk was about it.

Friday 7/23: BBN had a couple surprises. Up the hill, I found a family of towhees. Not a new confirmation for the block, but I had no idea they were in this spot. Down in the middle, I found a presumed family group of Great Crested Flycatchers, which should be a confirmation for the block. Otherwise, 1 Scarlet Tanager and many pewees. Too cloudy for bugs.

Saturday 7/24: Long walk around Great Meadows had first of year Great Egrets and a site tick Indigo Bunting along with Red-breasted Nuthatches. Very few shorebirds. A quick stop at the Cambridge Res had 4 Least Sandpipers.

Sunday 7/25: Lazed around but eventually rechecked the Cambridge Res, which had pretty much the same as yesterday. Also checked out Cranberry Hill in Lexington. Didn’t explore much but a Field Sparrow with food was nice.

Monday 7/26: Duck Ponds: Solitary Sandpiper, Lance-tipped Darner, not much else.

Tuesday 7/13: Joined a survey at Hanscom this morning. Very cool to be able to walk around the runways. Lots of meadowlarks and Bobolinks plus up to 5 Grasshopper Sparrows and an Upland Sandpiper (finally for the state and county). No luck confirming either of those however.

Wednesday 7/14: Hardy Pond, watched a flock of red-wings on the field and pretty much ignored the pond.

Thursday 7/15: West Meadow (Met State Boardwalk). First Shadow Darner of the year but otherwise pretty quiet. Very overgrown, not coming back at lunch until that gets cleared up.

Friday 7/16: Duck Ponds. Juv Spotted Sandpiper and a kingfisher at the ponds. Bushwhacked past the fallen trees down below and heard wrens scolding something. Little more bushwhacking and I was looking at the Screech-Owl again! Definitely has a bit of down still, so combined with the week, I’m calling it confirmed. Got out of work early and ran back over with the camera:

Saturday 7/17: Great Meadows before it got too hot. Vegetation is a bit high too see easily but there were a few Least Sandpipers around. A Black-crowned Night-Heron flew over and a Solitary Sandpiper flew down the river. At the bittern bench a small heron popped up, but turned out to be a Green Heron. A Swift River Cruiser (there were several on the river earlier) came in and landed right next to the bench and allowed for some nice photos:

After that I stayed in and got around to a bunch of documentation that’s long overdue.

Sunday 7/18: Started at Rock Meadow. Out of my targets, only had success with Orchard Oriole (see previous post). Continued on to McLean where a Striped Hairstreak was a surprise. Finished with a quick walk along Concord Ave to check the marshes (nothing today but an early morning trip with some tapes might be an idea).

Monday 7/19: Deep in the woods at Prospect Hill, 1 deer and not much else.

The big highlight from Rock Meadow today was a family of Orchard Orioles. I’ve been hoping to confirm breeding for several years now and finally succeed today.

Youngster

What?

Mom and a youngster

Someone’s hungry

Mom taking a break.

Update: Coincidentally, great video from Lang Elliot was posted today (7/20).

As promised, here’s the first day of my trip to Maine for the Dragonfly Society of the Americas annual meeting.

Thursday 6/24:

The meeting was scheduled to begin with a late afternoon social thing. Since it’s about 5 hours to Orono, I decided to head up early and make a couple birding stops along the way. I left the house a little after 6 and reached the Kennebunk Plains at about 8:30.

The plains are a big open grassland with all sorts of interesting birds. My main target was Upland Sandpiper and I wasn’t even 50 feet from the car when one made several passes overhead.

It circled and called quite a bit and landed occasionally. Most of the time on the ground, it was hidden in the grasses, but I did manage one shot.

Upland Sandpiper was a long-overdue life bird so I spent a good bit of time enjoying them (there were at least two right there). Very much a curlew.

Once I had my fill of the sandpipers, I continued down the trail hoping for a few of the other specialties. Grasshopper, Vesper, and Clay-colored Sparrows all apparently breed here but I was only able to find Vesper. Fortunately, there were several and they were very cooperative.

I eventually worked my way down to some water, which was pretty quiet. It was getting hot, so I headed back to the car (stopping for the sparrows again) and moved on.

My next stop was to be Scarborough Marsh. However, I got somewhat lost along the way (not sure if there’s been new development since the birder’s guide to Maine was written or if I was just in the wrong spot for the entire time) so it took an extra hour. Once at the marsh, it was drizzling a bit. I decided that I didn’t feel like carrying the scope and would just take a quick walk out.

On the way, a Seaside Dragonlet posed nicely:

The usual birds were around including many egrets, a few Glossy Ibis, and Willets.

Sharp-tailed Sparrows were singing a good bit and I got some brief views. I suspect most were Nelson’s but one appeared noticably brighter, so that was probably a Saltmarsh. After following the path most of the way out, I headed back to the car for lunch (stopping for these neat flies on the way).

From here, I headed straight up to Orono, arriving early afternoon. I checked into my hotel, showered, rested a bit, and then headed to the main conference hotel. The group was taking over the lobby and I quickly was saying hello to many of the people I had met last year and meeting many others that came from further away.

After an hour or so here, we moved in a large group for dinner. This wasn’t the best idea as the nameless (only partially because I don’t remember it) restaurant was not capable of dealing with 30 people at once. The waitstaff was new but almost had things under control but the kitchen did not. My table got food probably 20 minutes after the other tables. For a slightly more expensive place, I wasn’t impressed with the obviously frozen green beans and packaged rice pilaf.

Once we finally managed to get away from the restaurant, we returned to the hotel where the initial meeting had already just about finished. Fortunately, they ran it again, so we were briefed on possible locations for tomorrow’s field trips.

After that, it was off to the hotel and bed for a fairly early start.

Back to Tuesdays apparently.

Tuesday 7/6: Didn’t get out (way too hot) but a Band-winged Meadowhawk in the yard was first of year.

Wednesday 7/7: Hardy Pond in the heat. Seemed to be common stuff around but didn’t spend much time looking.

Thursday 7/8: River walk was hotter than I realized. Most of the usual birds were around and I counted about 50 Blue-fronted Dancers between Shaw’s and Elm St.

Friday 7/9: Duck Ponds. Ponds were quiet (although a Great Blue and Killdeer eventually popped up at the lower one). Downhill, I had to bushwhack to the bridge (and couldn’t reach the second one). A whole bunch of birds sounded annoyed, with a redstart among them. After a few minutes scanning, I finally picked up a young Eastern Screech-Owl sitting on a branch. Patch tick!

Saturday 7/10: Joined the Concord Butterfly Count. I’d say separate post but there were very few butterflies in the hot and dry and then we got rained out in the afternoon. My Broad-winged Skippers turned out to be the best thing on the day. Still fun though.

Sunday 7/11: Tried to refind a couple things and generally found nothing. Checked the duck ponds for the owl and redstart, then Prospect Hill for saddlebags. Finally stopped at Woerd Ave as I had the camera and have wanted some Lilypad Forktail shots for awhile but couldn’t find any of those even.

Monday 7/12: Paine had the regular birds and some Somatochloras but not much else.

Monday 6/28-Tuesday 6/29: DSA Postmeeting in Jackman, ME.

Wednesday 6/30: Prospect Hill had an Indigo Bunting and a few marginally interesting dragonflies.

Thursday 7/1: Paine had a few butterflies and a good number of dragonflies although all fairly common.

Friday 7/2: Purgatory Cove was pretty quiet at lunch.

Saturday 7/3: Out to Otis for the night. Ovenbird walking next to me was about the best thing.

Sunday 7/4: Spinylegs and two uncaught Somatochloras to start the morning in Otis. On to New Salem where Ethan’s yard was quiet but I found a pair of Evening Grosbeaks up the hill.

Monday 7/5: 3 Broad-wings over Ethan’s were the best of the morning. Failed to catch the couple of Somatochloras.

Monday 6/21: Paine, not too much exciting. Couple interesting darners stayed too high to ID.

Tuesday 6/22: Didn’t get out.

Wednesday 6/23: Charles at lunch. Very few odes (few bluets, 1 baskettail, 1 slaty skimmer) but an Orchard Oriole was a nice surprise. Very early migrant or overlooked here? Also a family of mallards was running around the neighborhood in the afternoon, hope they made it across Trapelo safely.

Thursday 6/24 to Sunday 6/27: At the Dragonfly Society of the Americas annual meeting. Separate post sooner or later but highlights included getting a nemesis bird on the way up, 6 species of Ophiogomphus and 2 Neurocordulia plus various butterflies and a moose.

I never got around to posting about the DSA Northeast Meeting from last July, but it’s time for the annual meeting. Here’s a couple videos that somehow star me from last year to give a taste.

(there’s 1:15 of not much happening in the second one before I pop up)

Would have been nicer if I wasn’t swinging and missing as much.

Thanks to Meena Haribal for posting these videos.

Monday 6/14: Paine: first Banded Hairstreak of the year plus a Painted Skimmer and Scarlet Tanagers right at the parking lot.

Tuesday 6/15: Duck ponds had a good selection of dragonflies and a kingfisher.

Wednesday 6/16: Prospect Hill was quiet (barely any bugs even).

Thursday 6/17: Charles was pretty quiet. Lots of swallows, a juvenal Wood Duck, fledgling House Wren, couple dancers that got away.

Friday 6/18: BBN had lots of the regular stuff but nothing really of note.

Saturday 6/19: Trail building at Shady Pond all day. Usual forest birds sang a bit but didn’t seem much. One interesting bluet (Skimming?).

Sunday 6/20: Didn’t really get out as had some computer things to deal with. While running up to Nashua, made brief stop in Tyngsboro to see if the Willow Flycatchers were singing. They weren’t but one of the Osprey passed over and both Green and Great Blue Herons flew over Rt. 3.

February 13

Today was a travel day as we headed back to San Antonio. Of course, with 2 very good birds on the way, it was also a good birding day.

We left Rockport and started towards Beeville. On the way, we found a couple Sandhill Cranes in a field and had an Avocet and other stuff fly over.

Reaching Beeville, we worked our way to the outskirts where a Northern Wheatear spent the winter at a farm. The farm was easy to find (a bit closer to the road than the directions implied). Getting out of the car, we were almost immediately joined by a Canadian couple. Seconds later, the wheatear popped up and gave us pretty good views (which was doubly nice as other people reported having long waits and only distant views).

After stocking up on peanut brittle for gifts, we headed on to the next stop, Choke Canyon State Park. Not surprisingly, the other people were heading that way too and we arrived at the same time. Checking in, we got directions to the pond hosting the Jacana and headed that way. Almost immediately, we located the bird walking out in the open along the edge of the lake.

We spent close to an hour watching it walk and fly along the edge of the pond, getting great views.

We drove around the park a bit and eventually stopped at one of the picnic areas for lunch. This was near the fishing area and we enjoyed a flock of Snowy Egrets waiting for leftovers.

From here, we headed back to San Antonio, arriving at Jack’s midafternoon. We went out to Red Lobster for dinner (again with a wait from rodeo crowds). It was fairly good (especially considering we already had excellent seafood the last few nights). We then packed and got ready for our early flight.

The return trip was easy with flights right on time (not having to get off the plane in Chicago was very nice) and we were home by midafternoon with Harry waiting.