Category: birding

Halfway There

Some more town listing today. Started at the Dunstable Rural Land Trust property, hoping for a county month bird in Purple Martin. No luck with that but the other goal was 5 new Dunstable birds. Ruby-crowned Kinglet was singing right away for one. Spent a while at the pond without much then had a kestrel as I moved on. The other pond had a few swallows and that was about it. Tried looping the trail like I did last time and took a wrong turn, which ended up adding Louisiana Waterthrush (and FOY Ovenbird). Got back to the right spot and went out to Fletcher St, picking up a Pileated and a few sparrows. On the way back, another waterthrush was singing. Another look at the pond added a Rough-wing and FOY Eastern Kingbird.

Still needing two and with the weather going downhill, I decided to check the pond in the center of town, then head into Pepperell. Nothing on the pond, so off to Marion Stoddart. First bird out of the car was a Killdeer, which was Pepperell #100! That’s town 27 reaching the mark in the county, which means I’m halfway to the goal of every town (or 72% if we consider each town bird up to 100 part of the total). Walked the trail to the other parking and added Rough-wing, Palm, and raven plus a ton of Yellow-rumps. BT Green sang once on return.

Looking over my target list, I realized I had forgotten Wood Duck was on there, so Dunstable was at 99. GPS said it was faster to go back to Rt. 3 than down to 119, so I doubled back and pulled in at Amos Kendall. Walked a bit but the wind had picked up and it was really quiet, so finishing Dunstable will wait for another day.

Looking ahead, obviously Dunstable will be over the line shortly. Somerville’s also in the high 90’s and needs a ton of common warblers so that shouldn’t take more than a few minutes in the next few weeks. Wakefield is next at 87, also needing a bunch of common migrants. After that, I’ve got a ways to go on most, Townsend and Littleton in the 70s and 11 more past 50. The goal for the rest of the year is probably getting everything under 50 past 50. Fortunately there’s a geographic pattern, with clusters in the northeast, western edge, and southern corner of the county, so doing a few in a day should be possible. If only May was 60 days long…

Swainson’s!!

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After a pretty quiet morning Sunday, I made one last stop at the greenhouse side of the Waltham St. fields. The back corner has been good for Connecticut Warbler in the past, so I made a bit of a beeline there. Just a House Wren and a couple phoebes in the veggies. Working the back side, I saw one of the farm workers pull in. Waved hello, said hi to the dog, and worked my way to the front.

Still wasn’t seeing much of anything as I worked my way out when a hawk flew up from the ground in the plowed section. It seemed a bit odd shapewise and looked pretty dark, so I went for the camera and started firing away. It went up and circled a bit before drifting off.

Swainson s

Looked down at the photos and it was pretty clearly not something I was expecting around here. I quickly checked Sibley, the HWI app, and a few Macaulay photos and found nothing to go against Swainson’s. Still not believing, I sent a back of camera photo out (should have captioned “talk me down” instead of just “thoughts?”).

No immediate response and with the bird apparently having drifted off, I decided going home and looking at photos on screen was the best thing. Got the first confirmation back before I got to the computer and that was enough to send out the messages and emails.

Unfortunately the weather deteriorated and despite people spread out, it didn’t reappear.

Goose Hunt

Sunday afternoon, the Middlesex RBA group dinged with a picture of a Barnacle Goose at Bullough’s Pond in Newton. No way to chase it then, but I figured I could stop by on the way home Monday. It turned out the bird had been seen at the cemetery too, but disappeared shortly after.

Monday turned crappier than expected and I ended up lazing around but reports were negative anyway. I thought the Charles seemed a likely place and planned on a few stops Tuesday.

Tuesday morning, I pulled in at the Norumbega parking lot (where I actually had been when the initial message came through, unfortunately I was about to pick up a sub and didn’t have time or optics to have chased it then). Lots of geese including a few down the road but nothing exciting. Behind Charlesbank was pretty dead, so I continued to Forest Grove.

Parking at Auburndale Park, I decided to do the river side first instead of my normal loop through Flowed Meadow and along the landfill. Nothing near the playground. I went down the tiny trail that gives a view partway down. There were two Canadas sitting in the river right there and I almost didn’t, but then decided I could hide behind the big tree without bothering them too much. A quick scan didn’t show much but there were a few geese down near the dock and one looked pretty white-headed. I quickly jogged down to the pump house where the view was more open and there was the Barnacle Goose!

Barny

Messages sent, then a quick walk to make sure at least one of us was on the Waltham side. Waited around for a few in case anyone was nearby, then made a quick loop down to the cove. Came back to watch the goose drifting north but fortunately the first arrivals were there.

Hopefully it’ll be consistent in habits for a few days and let others catch up.

Great Meadows

Been quite some time since I had 2 new birds at Great Meadows in a day (2019, which was also the last year I had more than 1 in the year).

Black billed Cuckoo

Yellow crowned Night Heron

Should have been 3 but the ibis didn’t cooperate.