Thursday 12/19: Great Horned and Winter Wren at Dunback. Nothing exciting at Moody St.
Friday 12/20: Turkeys and bluebirds at West Meadow plus a grackle almost at Dawes. Nothing along the parkway. Normal stuff on the river walk, although I chased a presumed Iceland Gull from Elm St to Prospect without getting a good look.
Saturday 12/21: CBC, more eventually but nothing terribly exciting.
Sunday 12/22: Stayed in.
Monday 12/23: Stayed in.
Tuesday 12/24: Five flickers together at BBN were about it. Tried for count week ravens at Prospect Hill with no luck.
Wednesday 12/11: Nothing much on the Charles, loon and hundreds of ducks on the res.
Thursday 12/12: Nothing at Paine or Gore. First goldeneye of the season on the Charles.
Friday 12/13: Too cold, although lots of ducks on the res but I didn’t have a scope for them.
Saturday 12/14: With the CBC canceled for Sunday, I wandered to the Oak Grove Cemetery instead of scouting. Couldn’t find the Lark Sparrow and it was too cold to get of the car and see the Chipping (not to mention working trucks and a Merlin scattering stuff). Also checked the Mystic Lakes quickly but didn’t see anything beyond mergansers. Stopped at the res on the way home, but stuff was too close to the highway and the heat waves were too strong to really sort through, although I could pick up pretty much all of the ducks that had been there.
Wednesday 12/4: Dunback and Waltham St were fairly quiet beyond the continuing catbird.
Thursday 12/5: Started at BBN and the West Meadow. Loads of robins, starlings, and turkeys but not much else. Continued to the res, where the usual ducks were still around (but since it’s December 6 of the 15 entries on the eBird checklist were caught by the filters for high counts). School St was quiet. Decided to scan through geese at Nine Acre Corner on the way home. Got out of the car at Willow Guzzle and the first bird I saw was another late catbird. Also another 40 or so turkeys but nothing in the 150ish geese.
Friday 12/6: Did some scouting at the field station with nothing much to show for it. Quick stop at Hardy Pond had the usual, Bufflehead and Kingfisher the most interesting.
Saturday 12/7: Nothing much at Purgatory Cove. Winter Wren at Forest Grove. Nothing along Moody St. Then chased a flycatcher.
(Click through for more)
Sunday 12/8: Savannah Sparrows at Waltham St, Barred and Great Horned Owls plus 2 Winter Wrens at Dunback.
Monday 12/9: Nothing.
Tuesday 12/10: Started at the river walk. Fairly quiet other than a creeper which was new for the spot. Nothing in a quick check of the gulls at Moody St and nothing by Purgatory Cove. Swung by the res on the way home, tons of ducks (225+ Ring-necks, 10+ Greater Scaup, 60+ Ruddy, 75+ Hoodie) and a Common Loon.
Working the Charles this year (Watertown Square to Norumbega although probably not much in Watertown). Goal is 105 birds (and to get my river list up to 150, which means 11 new) . As usual bold is new for the river, italics is otherwise interesting.
Thursday 11/28: No outdoors time and nothing incidental in Otis.
Friday 11/29: Started at BBN, where I managed a Ruby-crowned Kinglet and Hermit Thrush. Nothing at the West Meadow. Continued on to Hanscom where one Snowy was way, way out. School St. was quiet. Common Loon and the usual ducks at Flint’s. Thought that was it for the day, but a late afternoon phone call had me running back to Hanscom where Simon had found a Short-eared Owl. About as far as the morning’s Snowy, but fortunately it eventually started hunting in the field on the other side of Virginia Rd (and flew over our heads).
Saturday 11/30: Family stuff in NYC.
Sunday 12/1: Spent most of the day stuck in traffic but an eagle flew across the Hudson before we left.
Monday 12/2: River walk was quiet, except for a Nashville Warbler! Continued to Prospect St without much, then Purgatory Cove and Norumbega (2 shovelers). Lots of mergansers on the res and lots of ice at Hardy Pond.
Wednesday 11/20: Started at Rock Meadow but it was too windy. Moved to School St where I worked the larks and pipits for 45 minutes but couldn’t find a longspur. Quick check of Flint’s Pond (no obvious scoters/loons/grebes but wasn’t about to get the scope out and then a quick walk through Waltham St. had nothing.
Thursday 11/21: Shrike and 2+ White-crowns at Kaveski. Still no luck with longspurs at School St. Lots of ducks but nothing exciting at Flint’s.
Friday 11/22: Waited out the rain before a quick check of the Cambridge Res. Two eagles but no scoters, so I ran around Fresh Pond and got the 2 White-wings that had been hanging around, plus a loon and a few scaup.
Saturday 11/23: Charles from Shaw’s to Prospect St then a scan of Purgatory Cove and Norumbega without anything of note. Ducks in bad light at Cambridge Res but nothing jumped out.
Sunday 11/24: Early check of Cambridge Res had ducks in awful light. Nothing at the north end (mostly with a bit of ice) or Hardy.
Monday 11/25: Dunback had the catbird still, a Killdeer, bluebird, Fox Sparrow, and Great Horned Owl.
Tuesday 11/26: Started by heading west. Flint’s had the usual. Spent 40 minutes at School St, pretty sure I heard a longspur in with the larks at one point but no luck finding it. Norumbega had gulls, geese, and mallards (and ice). Purgatory Cove was frozen but a Great Cormorant on the river was a nice surprise. Cambridge Res looked fairly quiet.
Wednesday 11/13: Walked from Lot 1 to the big marsh at BBN. Lots of waxwings, a Fox Sparrow, and a late Common Yellowthroat plus 2 deer.
Thursday 11/14: Checked Forest Grove and Purgatory Cove without too much, then the res on the way home (tons of Ring-necks but no luck with the Redhead).
Friday 11/15: Great Meadows had 85+ GW Teal and some other ducks (including a Ruddy) but not much else. Checked Barrett’s Mill for the Ipswich Sparrow quickly but lots of dogs. Continued to School St where there were 450 Canada Geese and lots of pipits, larks, and cowbirds but couldn’t find a better goose or a longspur.
Saturday 11/16: Quick check of the res found birds too far out. Dunback was busy with highlights including the continuing catbird and Barred Owl, and Orange-crowned Warbler, and a Lincoln’s Sparrow. An interesting gull got away but was probably an Iceland. Waltham St. had nothing but geese.
Sunday 11/17: Started at BBN. Palm Warbler up the hill was pretty much the only thing of interest (plus a Chipping Sparrow on the return). West Meadow had a Yellow-rump, a Fox Sparrow, and what was probably Wednesday’s yellowthroat plus 3 deer. Around the res after with Hooded Mergansers all over, plenty of Ruddies, 6 Gadwall, 3 goldeneye, and the usual Ring-necks.
Monday 11/18: Morning check of the res had nothing different. Four Greater Scaup at Hardy Pond were nice. Ended up at Great Meadows late afternoon and had a nice flight at dusk (although nothing exciting beyond a probable night-heron).
Tuesday 11/19: Windy at Arlington Res without anything different (10+ Gadwall were the best). Same at Cambridge Res.
Several months ago, I made a rough tool to visualize flight seasons for dragonflies (or anything else). I finally cleaned it up this week and put the builder online. The end result is that it’s very easy to make something like this:
Darkness indicates the number of years observed for each segment (so the light ones are seen occasionally and the darker ones all the time more or less). Originally, this was embedded here but since it’s slow to load, there’s a screenshot and a link. Here’s another example: birds in Middlesex county by half months.
To make your own:
Create a csv file with your data. You need name and date, but other fields are ignored so exports from AviSys or eBird or something are good. Here’s an AviSys sample line:
"Spatterdock Darner","Rhionaeschna","mutata","Prospect Hill","06/08/10", 1,"/m netted at base","MA","US"," ", 544
Go to the seasonality charter and run your file through it. There are instructions there and it should be fairly obvious other than counting the fields.
I’m using Google Docs but Excel or other spreadsheets should be similar. You can either upload the file to the web somewhere or paste it into the document (or create the document around it, but that requires more work every time you update).
If you upload to the web, create the spreadsheet. In cell A2 enter the formula =importdata(“url-to-file”)
If you copy and paste, paste into A2. In B2, use =split(A2,”,”). Select from B2 down to the B(whatever the last row is) and hit Ctrl-D to fill down. Now right click on column A and select Hide Column (click the little right arrow to unhide when you want to paste new data in).
Add the date headings.
Now to format and turn the pile of numbers into a nice chart. Select the entire range, the pick Conditional formatting from the Format menu.
Create a bunch of rules like the screenshot below matching the text and background color. I used a breakdown of 1, 2-3, 4-5, 6-7, and 7+ for five levels of shading but you can use whatever.
Add one last rule for Is equal to 0 and select white for text and background.
You’re done! You can use the Publish to the Web option on the file menu to share or embed it like the samples above.
If anything isn’t clear, leave a comment or send an email. If you have large amounts of data, it’s probably better to ask me for the scripts and run them locally.
Wednesday 11/6: Chased the Dunlin at Heard Farm. Decent flyby view (I assume, I went camera first) and then a shrike.
Thursday 11/7: Fox Sparrow, Catbird, and Barred Owl at Dunback. Light conditions were good at Cambridge Res and I was able to count 210+ Ring-necks. Hobbs Brook end had a Greater Yellowlegs, Gadwall, and 30+ Green-winged Teal.
Friday 11/8: Arlington Res: lots of dabblers, a Pectoral Sandpiper, lots of juncos and Song Sparrows. Then chased the Western Kingbird in Concord. Got it before I even reached the crowd, but took another hour to get better views.
Saturday 11/9: Joined the MBC trip to Dunback (probably a different catbird, 5-7 Fox Sparrow, and a Purple Finch). Cambridge Res after. Nothing along Winter St and the big flock by Trapelo was in an odd spot so I almost kept going. Noticed a bit of an opening where I could pull over and in the first group I looked at was a Long-tailed Duck! Up and out with the scope and going through the Ring-necks I found a Redhead too!
Sunday 11/10: Started at Rock Meadow which had lots of robins and finches but nothing of any interest. Decided to check the duck ponds for the first time in a couple months and was rewarded with a patch tick Gadwall! Moved on to the res (same birds but the flock was too far to pick out the Redhead) and then Flint’s (Red-necked Grebe) and Waltham St. Fields (GB Heron, Kingfisher, and flyover cormorant).
Monday 11/11: Started at Lindentree, which was dead. Moved on to check some goose fields and found no geese. Next was the Charles including a handful of GW Teal at Norumbega, 3 Shoveler at Charlesbank, and fire engines at Purgatory Cove. Skipping that, I went to the other bit of Waltham St and had another catbird and not much else. An afternoon check of the res found the flock even more distant.
Tuesday 11/12: Waited out the snow and then went to the res. Big flock of Ring-necks way out but fortunately the Redhead was with a smaller flock at the Trapelo end. On to Flint’s where there were 2 Surf Scoters. Gulls and Hoodies at Hobbs Brook and Hardy.
