Good excuse to spend an hour in the car with the AC cranked yesterday.
Tag: countybirds
286
My third Fork-tailed, next one will hopefully have the full tail.
Caspian!
Back to the Arlington Res today in equally lousy conditions (sunnier but much colder). Haven’t rushed around like this for a bird in a couple years.
360/285, thanks Bob.
WIR 1/22-1/28
Wednesday 1/22: Nothing
Thursday 1/23: 3 Lesser Scaup on the Charles, nothing else new.
Friday 1/24: Nothing
Saturday 1/25: Wandered up to Lowell to look for Glaucous Gulls. No luck with those but at least 4 Icelands included an adult. Decided to check Moody St on the way home and since I was already on the highway, started at Norumbega. That was frozen, but heading down River Rd I noticed a bunch of Ring-necks at the little pond on the other side of the road. Doubled back after checking the frozen Charlesbank to count them and had a male pintail in among them! Finally reaching Moody St, a Merlin flew over as I walked out to Cronin’s but nothing of interest from there.
Sunday 1/26: Too cold and windy. Checked the res quickly and was quite surprised by 5 Greater Scaup. Also surprised by a Great Horned calling around 11:30 PM.
Monday 1/27: Watertown Charles fairly early: 3 Bufflehead, 1 Lesser Scaup. Then got rained on. Rain cleared early afternoon so went back to Lowell. Only the adult Iceland at the boat club when I arrived and not too many other gulls. Moved on to Sheehy and finally picked out a Glaucous (hopefully now that I’ve got a county one, I’ll be tripping over them locally). Tried down by the ballpark again but didn’t want to walk so went back to the boat club. Two Glaucous and three more Iceland at least.
Tuesday 1/28: Cold.
WIR 11/27-12/3
Wednesday 11/27: Owl
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.
Tuesday 12/3: Not much.
Snowy
With the rain today, wasn’t expecting to go out (had debated circling the res but didn’t bother). A 3:15 call from Marj was a nice surprise then.
Glad someone was out and about, thanks Simon!
550!
WIR 1/16-1/22
Wednesday 1/16: Went to the river walk in crappy weather. About 9 Ring-necks, 1 Hoodie, and 2 coots were about it.
Thursday 1/17: Nothing exciting at the duck ponds.
Friday 1/18: Moody St. again. Two Bufflehead and not much else. Gull was present and was just a Herring.
Saturday 1/19: Pretty slow at Dunback and elsewhere.
Sunday 1/20: Started with a Charles tick, 2 Canvasbacks at Norumbega. Continued to finally try for the chat behind the Kohl’s in Burlington. No luck with that but I finally got a Red Crossbill for the county flying over. Horn Pond next was fairly quiet, one flock of redpolls was about it. On to Silver Lake and hopefully another county bird. No luck with the Glaucous Gull however and not many gulls to scan through. That turned out to be good as I got to the coast just in time for the Mew Gull show, would have missed it if I had lingered at all.
Monday 1/21: Lazy start, eventually heading to Merriam’s Corner (Red-tails everywhere but not much else) and Kaveski Farm (nothing exciting). Great Meadows after that had a few goldeneye, bufflehead, and a Ring-neck plus a very cooperative redpoll and the screech-owl was in the usual hole.
Tuesday 1/22: River walk finally had a goldeneye. Otherwise about the same (2 coots, 9 Ring-necks, 10ish Hoodies, no Common Mergansers).
352/278
Last night I did my usual routine after dinner: turned off phone, took off shoes, took off socks, and picked up laptop. I was debating if it was hot enough to lose my pants as well when I noticed that Echofon (twitter client) was showing activity even though I had just checked. That generally means someone has been spamming the BBC account. Sure enough, I switched over and saw a new mention. However, not spam: @jryandoherty: @bbcbirds Black-bellied whistling duck @ great meadows concord!
After whacking the retweet button, I realized it was still a little before 8 and fairly light out. A quick check confirmed that sunset wasn’t for another half hour or so. Grab socks, put on shoes, and run out the door (suddenly glad that I’ve been too lazy to take the scope out of the car). No traffic and green lights meant I made it in 15 minutes.
I started down the path and at the bridge I heard an odd whistle. It took a second time but then it clicked that it would be the duck. A quick scan of the water didn’t turn it up and I could see people further down so I kept walking. Another couple feet and it called again. This time I scanned the air and found it in flight. Nice looks as it circled a couple times before dropping into the far corner.
I made my way down to the group, thanked Ryan, and said hello to Bob, Martha, Ryan, and Jeff. Turns out that the bird had been sitting right on the edge (as seen in Ryan’s photos). That would have been nice, but a couple minutes later and I would have seen nothing so I won’t complain.
Eventually Simon joined the crowd and we moved to the new platform hoping the extra couple feet in height would be enough. It wasn’t, but the duck eventually called and then flew off (barely showing enough for the late arrivals). I attempted some phone video but since I can’t see or hear the bird it’s not being posted.
With the duck gone and the mosquitoes coming out, we headed off. Definitely a good night.
277/198
I missed a Bonaparte’s Gull at Great Meadows yesterday (see WIR eventually). However, one of the eBird comments mentioned something about it possibly having been around for a few days, so I figured I’d head over this morning before the rain started.
I decided to bird my way over, checking the Cambridge Res and Flint’s Pond on the way. The southern end of the Cambridge Res was busy (although I initially drove by and decided to double back) with a couple Common Mergansers and some Wood Ducks. Rounding the bend, I pulled over to scan in the usual spot and saw enough to get out the scope (it had starting spitting a bit, so I did hesitate). First thing in the scope were four birds together. Three were quite dark and one showed some white. The odd one out stopped rolling over and looked like the rest. Yellowy ‘horns’ were also visible, a group of Horned Grebe! This is among the high counts for Middlesex county (ties the highest in eBird).
Panning around, things got much better when two small gulls came into view. An adult and a young Bonaparte’s! Much better to find my own. Called home, sent out a quick email, and then spent 10 minutes attempting to get photos. They were too far out, but this video is almost passable (believe you have to click through to play):
Note that they all lined up. My parents pulled up and the birds all drifted off to the right, which made for a tense minute or two before I refound them.
On to Flint’s where a Common Loon was among the swallows (and almost nothing else).
Walking in at Great Meadows, I ran into Linda Ferraresso who immediately said that there was a Bonaparte’s Gull on one of the boxes. Third of the day, not bad for a county bird. Also not the one seen the day before (which was an immature).
Not exactly a high quality photo, but you do better with a phone in the rain.
I walked down to the river and heard a couple rails. Being patient, I waited around until one actually stepped into the open (if I figure out how to trim video I may post eventually). On the way back, my first Warbling Vireo of the year was singing.
From here, I headed off for a quick run through some of the other local ponds. Red-necked Grebe continued at Horn Pond but no fallout birds there or at the Mystic Lakes, Spy Pond, or Hardy Pond. And Arlington Res was as dead as I’ve seen it, not even a swallow flock.