Category: birding

Couple shots of an interesting nest at the Paine Estate today. Owner ID appreciated.

I photographed 2 species at Mt. A today:

Which one was more exciting?

Just made a little update to the Charles page, where there’s now a link to a spreadsheet that breaks the birds down by location.

Also have one for the Western Greenway, will link that to the Paine and Beaver Brook pages eventually. Still need to add Bentley, Forest St fields, and Shady’s Pond. Key to the locations on there:

• Habitat
• McLean: trails on the McLean property (opposite Rock Meadow driveway to start)
• Rock Meadow
• Met State: Beaver Brook North from Rock Meadow to the Avalon apartments (including the area around the McLaughlin building)
• BBDP: Beaver Brook ponds
• BB: Beaver Brook reservation (Trapelo/Waverly Oaks Rd)
• Lot 1: Falzone field and vicinity (including some of the development along Walnut/Woburn St)
• West Meadow: trail west of Avalon, the meadow itself out to Walnut/Woburn St and the edges of the development there
• Concord Ave: along Concord Ave from the Avalon entrance or so down to Rock Meadow, including the transfer station, edge of the golf course, and the big marsh with the radio towers
• Fernald: all the Fernald land
• Cedar Hill: girl scout camp
• Lawrence Meadow: corner of Waverly Oaks Rd and Beaver St (not sure about access)
• Waverly Oaks Marsh: marsh behind the office park next to Beaver Brook
• Lyman Pond: behind Gardencrest
• Lyman Estate
• Paine Estate: Storer conservation land
• UMass: UMass Field station on Beaver St
• Chesterbrook: Waltham High School, Kennedy Middle School, the trail running from the high school to the YMCA, the YMCA, Northeast School, etc.

X is my sighting, O is someone else’s when I don’t have one. Obviously there are a lot of O’s missing. I’ve gone through most emails from the last few years (the sharing is new, not the spreadsheets) and eBird for the hotspots but there’s plenty more out there.

I took a walk around the Waltham St. Fields for snipe yesterday. Or at least I started to, halfway around I bumped into these guys and couldn’t check the rest of the fields:

Two young Greater White-fronted Geese!

Sun was pretty bad there but note pinkish bills.

I ran home to post them and then returned to show my parents. Scoping from the street they looked more orange-billed (not that the bills show here):

Marj soon showed up and we reentered the fields and were able to get fairly close. Bill color looks a bit pinker again but the right one is still quite orange. Also note how little (if any) white there is on that one, seems rather late to be so limited.