Wednesday 4/13: Hardy Pond in the rain was pretty quiet. Nothing at all on the Cambridge Res.
Thursday 4/14: Lots of woodpeckers and Pine Warblers at Paine along with my first Chipping Sparrow of the year.
Friday 4/15: West Meadow was very quiet.
Saturday 4/16: Fells where we didn’t see Louisiana Waterthrush. I continued to Prospect Hill and the Cambridge Res without much.
Sunday 4/17: Led an MBC trip to Rock Meadow and BBN. Highlights: Sapsucker, Fox Sparrow, first of year Swamp Sparrows, Brown Thrasher, and a raccoon. Also first Cabbage White of the year. Arlington Res in the afternoon had a Pectoral Sandpiper among the usual stuff.
Wednesday 4/6: Hit Hardy Pond for a couple minutes on the way to work: 5 Ruddy, few mergansers, bufflehead, etc. Paine at lunch had the expected Pine Warbler along with a Hermit Thrush but not much else (half surprised no butterflies). Frogs were going strong.
Thursday 4/7: Long walk around BBN. Phoebes all over (minimum of 5) and at least one Rusty Blackbird singing from the vernal pool was an overdue patch tick. Turkey ran across the road on the way out.
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)
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.
Wednesday 3/23: John Crookes reported a Greater White-fronted Goose along the Charles yesterday, guess where I went. First bird as I pulled in was the Lesser Black-backed Gull, nice to finally get some good views. The goose was present as well (I’m not so sure it’s a wild one but #192 in Waltham for now). Bob Stymeist pulled in at the same time and we watched both for a few minutes (and Bob got some shots of them together). Merlin was nice as well as were the 2 tagged Ring-billed Gulls (one was a returning bird).
Wednesday 3/16: Rained heavily. Hardy Pond still mostly frozen. I saw about 10 gulls and 3 swans.
Thursday 3/17: Poked around BBN. Path to the West Meadow was flooded. Not much of interest but everything around was singing. Couple black ducks in the flooded marsh on Concord Ave, need to keep checking it.
Friday 3/18: Paine. Robins, robins, and robins. Surprised no butterflies. Walked to end of the street at night hoping for woodcock. No luck there but at least 4 peepers were singing.
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:
Wednesday 3/9: Started to walk at Prospect Hill but it was windy and nasty so drove around the Cambridge Res instead (frozen, but Turkey Vulture over 128) and then Hardy Pond (also frozen).
Thursday 3/10: Wigeon on the Charles (just after the railroad bridge), nothing else new.
Friday 3/11: Nothing
Saturday 3/12: Started the day with a Hairy at the feeder, then joined the Menotomy walk at Horn Pond. Too crowded but Saw-whet was nice as were first of year Killdeer, Brown-headed Cowbird, and White-crowned Sparrow. Went to look at the big redpoll flock in Concord in the afternoon. Couldn’t find any Hoaries but nice views of lots of Commons. Also had a stonefly.
Wednesday 3/2: Forest Grove was pretty quiet (2 Ring-necks was about it). Also a couple Hoodies at the boat ramp.
Thursday 3/3: Too cold.
Friday 3/4: Prospect Hill was quiet.
Saturday 3/5: Indoors at the Birder’s Meeting all day. Good stuff although felt like it was too nice to be inside when I left (did cloud right over again).
Sunday 3/6: Moody St area. Wigeon was around and there was a slightly leucistic starling but not much else. Woerd Ave and Charlesbank didn’t have much more.
