A few shots from today along the Charles
Young male Common Goldeneye
American Coot hiding
About half the Ring-neck flock
The day’s highlight, a Red-breasted Merganser (my second along the river)
And my third a few feet away
Raccoon? tracks
Category: nature
1649 checklists?
Since I apparently submitted 1649 checklists to eBird last year, I figured I should explain how.
Some background first: A number of years ago, I went to see what my month lists looked like (actually half-months). According to my records, I had never seen a pigeon in September and there were many similar gaps. In order to avoid this, I decided that I would record every bird every day (and since I was at RPI for the next couple Septembers, it took several years to close that hole).
So, for the last few years, I’ve compiled a daily yard list, a daily work list, a daily driving around list, and normally a daily walk-around-the-neighborhood list. They all sort of fall in between casual observation and any of the other eBird categories (I try to count everything but don’t track time for the most part).
Of those 1600+ checklists:
342 were from the yard
213 from the neighborhood (plus a few from Hardy Pond instead)
162 were at work (plus a few from other schools)
243 were driving around Waltham (and a few from Lexington, Belmont, etc and Middlesex, Essex, and Worcester counties)
That’s almost 1000 right there. Add in the fact that I try to go out on my lunch break daily and do 20 minutes of birding (probably 200-220 days) and it’s probably about 400 full birding trips. Still a good number but not anything like 1600 implies. Breaking places up adds up as well (for example, Beaver Brook North is one place but I have separate checklists for Lot 1, the West Meadow, and Met State for town lines and other reasons).
WIR 12/29-1/4
Wednesday 12/29: River Walk: 16 Ring-necks, 7 Common Mergansers, Golden-crowned Kinglet.
Thursday 12/30: Scheduled but unknown power outage at work got me out for an extra hour. Wandered Dunback, nothing particularly interesting.
Friday 12/31: Started off at the Charles, 3 goldeneye plus the rest of the regulars. Moody St had a wigeon and the Lesser Black-back returning.
Saturday 1/1: BBC Trip
Sunday 1/2: Quick run down the Charles. Very little on the way down, but there was a yellow-billed goldeneye on the way back, so 3 straight winters with a Barrow’s now. Turned around to leave her and noticed a Merlin on the light poles.
Monday 1/3: Duck ponds were pretty quiet.
Tuesday 1/4: Paine, zip.
WIR 12/19-12/28
Sunday 12/19: CBC
Monday 12/20: Tired from Sunday
Tuesday 12/21: Woerd Ave boatramp had 10 Hoodies and 6 Ring-necks.
Wednesday 12/22: Charles: 5 Hoodies, 1 heron, 1 Cooper’s, 3 crows of slightly different size.
Thursday 12/23: Duck Ponds: One Great Blue, not much else.
Friday 12/24: Long walk on the Charles (Shaw’s to Woerd Ave boat ramp and back). About 10-15 hoodies, 9 Ring-necks, first goldeneye of the winter finally, 2 Fish Crow, 2 Red-winged Blackbird, 2 herons, and a flyover siskin/redpoll. Went to Dunback after for redpolls, no luck with those but 2 Fox Sparrows made it worthwhile.
Saturday 12/25: Yard was had the usual, nothing good on the way to NH.
Sunday 12/26: Snowstorm didn’t blow anything good in.
Monday 12/27: Snowstorm still didn’t blow anything good in.
Tuesday 12/28: Nothing, too windy and snowy to bother going out.
Greater Boston CBC 2010
Last Sunday was the Greater Boston Christmas Bird Count. As usual, I led the Waltham section. We had a mixed day, on the lower end for diversity (well technically exactly average) but had many high counts.
The day started at 5AM, when I walked down the street hoping the Great Horned Owl would be calling. No luck with that and no luck trying a screech-owl recording at Graverson, so back home to rest for a few minutes.
Out again at 7 to meet the group. All ready and off to our first stop by 7:30. Dunback was pretty quiet. Nothing in the woods. Lots of juncos in the gardens and one of yesterday’s sharpies was around but not much else. From here, we split up. I headed to Lot 1 with Christine and Lew while my parents, Barbara, and Mark worked Beaver St.
After dropping a car at the McLaughlin building, we started walking around Lot 1. We found a few waxwings at the pond and a Hermit Thrush at the edge of the big field. The woods were pretty quiet, so we headed to the West Meadow. Lots of robins and starlings just before the boardwalk (and a Canada Goose with them). A flicker flew over the boardwalk. The path out to Dawes was very icy, so we took the long loop. That turned out to be a good move as we found a large flock of Tree Sparrows along the parkway. More tree sparrows and a ton of juncos were around the building but not a whole lot else. We drove back to Lot 1, checking a couple feeders on the way.
Christine had to leave, so Lew and I headed to the Fernald to meet the rest of the group. The geese were not in the usual spot but we found them further down (and assumed the number was the same as Saturday). Since the others were a bit behind and there was nothing here, we changed plans and met up at the Gore Estate. Lots of geese on the lawn and a few doves around but much quieter than it had been. Part of the reason became obvious when a Cooper’s Hawk popped up as we were ready to head out.
From here, we headed to Wendy’s for a lunch break. Judy and Nancy were already there. They had the best day out of all of us, with a Pine Warbler at Prospect Hill and two pintail in front of the Y (the other group had a bunch of cowbirds at the field station but not much else).
After lunch, we hit the Charles, which was very quiet. No ring-necks and no herons. Did get one Common Merganser and a few Hoodies. The Moody St to Prospect St loop was on the quiet side as well, no Great Black-backed Gulls and no interesting ducks. There was a single tagged Ring-billed Gull, which was banded in Worcester in January and seen in New Brunswick in August.
Since we still had some time, we ran up to the Woerd Ave boat ramp where we finally found a Ring-necked Duck. Then it was back to the cars and the end of the day. I took a quick swing around, hoping to add pintail to my personal CBC list without luck.
Overall, 39 species including 3 new to the section. For a few days, the Purple Finch we had on Saturday was a count week bird, but someone did report one from Sunday eventually. A quick count of my results spreadsheet showed that we had about 12 high counts for the section (based on my numbers, so not official before 2004 and lacking the early years). With decent weather it was a very enjoyable day.
Bugs of the Year 2010
And to follow up the birds of the year, some insects.
21 new odes, only 1 in Mass.
Runners up: Pygmy and Extra-striped Snaketail, Superb Jewelwing, Umber and Stygian Shadowdragon (DSA writeup still coming)
Best: Spatterdock Darner
10 new butterflies, 1 in Mass
Runners up: Mestra, Arctic Skipper, Pipevine Swallowtail
Best: Two-spotted Skipper
Barely looked for Tiger Beetles and Asilids this year, will have to change that next year.
Bird of the Year 2010
For the 10,000 Birds Best Bird of the Year post:
With 21 life birds, 10 state birds, 5 county birds, and 6 city birds, not to mention reacquainting myself with an additional 310+ species, there’s lots to choose from.
So the runners up…
Top life birds: Pink-footed Goose, Roseate Spoonbill (photo from later), Great Skua, Northern Jacana, Upland Sandpiper
Massachusetts birds: Sage Thrasher (oops, never posted much about this one), Curlew Sandpiper
Middlesex county: Yellow-crowned Night-Heron, Laughing Gull
Waltham: Black and Common Tern
Reacquaintances: Long-billed Curlew, Baird’s Sandpiper, Hudsonian Godwit (oceanic migrants), Hooded Warbler
But the overall best bird of the year is a tie between
and
White-faced Storm-Petrel (all 8 (or 22!) of them)
WIR 12/12-12/18
Sunday 12/12: Red-shoulder at Hardy Pond as already mentioned. Tried Dunback and the field station in the rain with nothing to show.
Monday 12/13: Lyman Pond had lots of feeder birds and not much on the water.
Tuesday 12/14: Prospect Hill had nothing.
Wednesday 12/15: Paine had a couple juncos and a creeper.
Thursday 12/16: Checked Gore Place for a change. Possible target for the CBC not found and not too much of interest.
Friday 12/17: Charles: 5 Ring-necks, 10 Hoodies, 1 Common Merganser.
Saturday 12/18: CBC scouting. Dunback was quiet (multiple sharpies contributing). Lots of geese at Fernald. Gore was birdy but nothing unusual. Pintail with the mallards and geese in front of the YMCA was nice. Afternoon buzz around Beaver St didn’t have much. Moody St. was more open than last weekend; nothing unusual on the water, but a Purple Finch was a nice surprise.
Check Every Bird
Based on a discussion from today’s sightings, a couple points that are worth repeating every so often:
Check every bird
Walking around Hardy Pond today (after a 7:30 AM reverse-911 call warning of icy conditions), I watched a medium-sized hawk fly up and land on a pole. Almost certainly a Cooper’s, but I took a closer look. Hmm, Buteo. With a lot of streaking on the front. It flew into the yard across the road. Crows saw it and chased it off, but not before I got a good look at the tail, enough to say Red-shouldered. Waltham bird #190!
It wasn’t that nice out (raining a bit, although not icy, no idea what the call was for), so I easily could have said Coop and not taken a closer look.
Know the Common Birds
I’ll be honest and say that I did almost pass by the hawk (or at least wasn’t going to look until I was much closer, at which point it probably would have flown off). But something looked slightly off, so after a few steps I did stop and check it out. Without knowing Cooper’s and Red-tailed well, I wouldn’t have picked up the slightly different shape.
You don’t have to know every bird, but knowing the common ones means the less common ones stick out. For another example, see the Cerulean. Even though I didn’t recognize the song, I knew it wasn’t one of the common ones and chased it down. And of course, Harry is another example.
So, take a few minutes and check out the flock of House Sparrows at your feeders. They’re incredibly variable, spend some time comparing different individuals. Learn what they look like from every angle. There may not be a Chaffinch or other rarity (coincidentally posted today) there now, but one of these days there will and if you’re not careful it may slip right by.
WIR 12/2-12/11
Adjusting dates again as I got lazy.
Thursday 12/2-Monday 12/6: New Jersey and Delaware. Trip report in prep but highlights included thousands of geese, a few Tundra Swans, many eagles, good numbers of shorebirds, etc.
Tuesday 12/7: Prospect Hill was quiet.
Wednesday 12/8: Paine was even quieter.
Thursday 12/9: Didn’t get out.
Friday 12/10: Mother found a warbler at Government Center, I couldn’t find it. Quick run along the Charles had 5 Ring-necks, 3 Common Mergansers, a few Hoodies, and a Great Blue Heron.
Saturday 12/11: Started CBC scouting by walking through BBN. Not a whole lot but 2 Cedar Waxwings in Lot 1, many robins at the West Meadow, and about 10 Tree Sparrows at the McLaughlin building weren’t bad. Back to Government Center (no warbler), then on to the Charles. Seemed quieter than yesterday (more hoodies, a second heron, but only 1 Ring-neck and no Commons). Kingfisher was good though. On to Woerd Ave (frozen), then back to the Moody to Prospect St loop. Another ring-neck but otherwise common stuff. Attempted to go for geese but none of the flocks were in a spot that was suited for stopped, so on to Flint’s Pond (couple goldeneye, bunch of ruddy) and then the Cambridge Res. Mostly frozen but one puddle had about 25 swans, another had 8 goldeneye, and the third had several hundred ducks including 20 Wood, 20 Hooded Merganser, 7 Common Merganser, 2 Gadwall, 1 American Wigeon, and many Mallard and Black.