Surner Birding

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Meadows Birding

Semipalmated Sandpiper (Juv)

Spent Sunday birding the East Meadows in Northampton and along the river in North Hadley. I headed out early hoping to find some shorebirds that had been forced down from the over night serve thunderstorms. I made it out to the Meadows by 7am and not long after I received a call from Ian Davies- he, Larry Therrien and Jacob Drucker had located 3 Buff-breasted Sandpipers out in the middle of the fields. I located them from the other side of the field and got decent views with the scope, but the Buffy's never got within range of the camera. I also had 2 American Golden-Plovers flying overhead and 20+ Least Sandpiers and a single Semipalmated Sandpiper feeding in the many water holes created by the evening thurderstorms. Other highlights included a number of Savannah sparrows, a Vesper Sparrow, Tennessee, Yellow and Palm Warbler and 2 Philly Vireo's. Complete list below.... A very nice morning in the field.
East Meadows, Hampshire, US-MA
Sep 9, 2012 7:00 AM - 9:30 AM
Protocol: Traveling
2.0 mile(s)
36 species

Mallard 6
Northern Harrier 1
Red-tailed Hawk 1
American Golden-Plover 2
Killdeer 8
Semipalmated Sandpiper 1
Least Sandpiper 26
Buff-breasted Sandpiper 3 Juv's- plowed field just beyond red barn.
Rock Pigeon 9
Mourning Dove 18
Ruby-throated Hummingbird 1
American Kestrel 2
Merlin 1
Blue Jay 2
American Crow 8
Tree Swallow 1
Cliff Swallow 1
Red-breasted Nuthatch 1
Northern Mockingbird 5
European Starling X
American Pipit 1 heard & seen moving around the meadows.
Cedar Waxwing 3
Tennessee Warbler 1
Common Yellowthroat 5
Yellow Warbler 1
Palm Warbler 3 WESTERN
Vesper Sparrow 1
Savannah Sparrow 35
Song Sparrow 2
Northern Cardinal 2
Indigo Bunting 4
Bobolink 4
Red-winged Blackbird 40
Purple Finch 2
American Goldfinch 6
House Sparrow 45

This report was generated automatically by eBird v3 (http://ebird.org)

Savannah Sparrow-Numbers starting to increase in the Meadows.

Least Sandpiper-(Juv)

American Kestrel- Two seen along with a Merlin in the Meadows.

Tennessee Warbler- Always a nice find in the spring or fall here in the Valley. Didn't expect to find this bird in the Meadows.

Magnolia Warbler- Found along the river in Hadley.

Black-throated Green Warbler- young male

Philadelphia Vireo- Basically a uncommon/rare late August to mid September migrant in the Valley. Very rare spring migrant.

Sunday, July 8, 2012

Texas...

Valerie and I made our way down to the Texas coast and the lower valley (Rio Grande) for a week of birding in the early part of April. We flew into Austin and then made a four hour trip down to Rockport. Our target bird was the Whooping Crane. The worlds population of some 350 Cranes winter on the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge. We headed out Friday afternoon aboard the "Skimmer" for a four hour trip around the refuge. The trip is hardly limited to the Cranes, Several species of Herons, Shorebirds, Gulls and Terns make for an interesting afternoon.

After a successful trip to Aransas we made our way down to to the Bentsen R.V. Park where we spent the several days birding the Rio Grande. We finished the trip by heading up to Fort Hood to visit my son for a couple of days. We ended the trip with just over 190 species, 8 of which were firsts for myself.

Scissor-tailed Flycatcher- one of hundreds encountered during the trip.

Osprey-

Reddish Egret- one of many on the Aransas boat trip.

Whooping Crane-one of about thirty birds seen this day.

Ferruginous-Pygmy-Owl-another star of the trip. This bird was on a private ranch.

Great-tailed Grackle- Very happy their in Texas and not in New England. Very noisy birds!

White-tailed Hawk

Common Pauraque- one of several on the trip.

White Ibis-sub adult. Having a bite of crab!

Cinnamon Teal- What can you say- a beautiful bird!

Great Kiskadee

Green-winged Teal

Golden-fronted woodpecker- Mission, TX

Red-crowned Parrot- Just as the sun was setting, we stumbled upon two birds after getting lost in Harlingen.

Pied-billed Grebe- South Padre, Is

Eastern Screech-Owl-Bentsen RV Park

Saturday, February 25, 2012

Hello,

Its been a few weeks since the last entry, so I've finally had a moment to do a little updating. A few weeks ago I found out at midnight that a Lazuli Bunting was discovered earlier in the day at the Audubon Sanctuary in Wellfleet. (Mass) The Lazuli Bunting is a very rare bird in the state with only two prior sightings- the first from Nantucket and the second from Hadley. The Hadley bird was just a one day wonder and the Nantucket bird was a little harder to get too. So, I got up at 7:00am and headed for the Cape and would eventually meet up with Priscilla Moor along Rte 6.

Priscilla and I made it to Wellfleet by 11:15am, walked in to the visitors center and watched the Bunting for the next thirty minutes. From there we decided to head a little farther east to Wellfleet Harbor just to see what might be around. The highlight was a nice male Barrow's Goldeneye hanging out with a small flock of Common Goldeneye's. Also in the Harbor were Greater Scaup's, Common Eider, Buffleheads, and a Dolphin?

The Dolphin sighting would be a low point of the morning....Recently there has been a rash of beached Dolphins on the bay side around the Wellfleet area. The sighting inside the harbor could only spell doom for this beautiful animal. In fact we found a dead dolphin across the channel being fed upon by Great black-backed gulls.

closer to home...last weekend I was lucky enough to be included in a small group to view a roosting Long-eared Owl! These owls are a rarity in Massachusetts, but because they're so hard to locate, it wouldn't surprise me at all, if in fact their status might be uncommon?

The other huge highlight last weekend (Feb 18) was the discovery of a Dark-morph Red-tailed Hawk by Jacob Drucker around Hampshire College in Amherst. This beautiful raptor is from the western United States and is almost unheard of in Massachusetts. This bird was seen twice during a three day period, the last observation was on the 18th.

Scott

Lazuli Bunting- Wellfleet Bay Sanctuary.

Barrow's Goldeneye- Wellfleet Harbor

Dead Dolphin- Wellfleet Harbor.

Long-eared Owl- Hampshire County.

Dark-morph Red-tailed Hawk (lower bird) Eastern Red-tailed Hawk (above)

Clay-colored Sparrow-Honey Pot, Hadley (Feb 25,2012)

Gadwall-female. Umass Campus Pond (Feb 25, 2012)

Saturday, January 28, 2012

Rough-Legged Hawks- honey Pot/So.Maple Street, Hadley

Spent the morning chasing down a couple of Light-morph Rough-Legged Hawks in the Hadley area.
Rough-Legged Hawks may make an appearance in western mass each year ,either one day wonders or a bird or two seen during migration but most birders can go a few years without catching up to one. So when two different birds seemed content on hanging around for the last few days around South Maple Street and the Honey Pot....It was time to go. The Rough-Legged Hawk nests far to the north and west of New England and can start to show up in Massachusetts by the second week in October, but more likely to be encountered later into November.

The most I've ever had in one day in western Massachusetts was seven a few years back, also in Hadley. Historically there have been some amazing numbers here in the valley, but you have to go back to the 1870's and 1880's when Edward Damon prowled the meadows of Northampton and Hadley with his gun. During those years he would collect up to sixty Rough-legs a year. Some of these birds made it to a number of museums in the region. Below are a few photos of the two Rough-leggeds I caught up to today. Both birds appeared to be juveniles-lighter eyes and lack of solid tail band among other things. The other interesting bird of the day was a Clay-colored sparrow, a bird found by Ian Davies and Evan Dalton a few days earlier. After about an hour we finally located the sparrow. It really didn't provide me with any great photo opportunities, but was able to get reasonable looks.

Scott

Rough-legged Hawk- Light morph. HoneyPot, Hadley.

Rough-legged Hawk- Light morph. So.Maple Street. (Not quite has cooperative as the honey Pot bird)

Rough-legged Hawk- So.Maple Street.

American Kestrel-male. Honey Pot

Clay-colored Sparrow (bottom bird-back shot) also horrible photo!

Merlin- honey Pot

Dark-eyed Junco

Northern Cardinal- last week in the Honey Pot

Song Sparrow

American Tree Sparrow.

Savannah Sparrow- Honey Pot

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Hello Folks,

Its certainly been a few months since my last post, perhaps I'm just getting over the October Snowstorm....probably not, just been busy with the Holidays and Christmas bird Counts. I managed to participate in three Christmas Bird counts this season-Northampton, Quabbin and Greenfield.While all three were fun, the Greenfield count had the edge this year. I joined Josh Rose and James Smith as we birded the Power Canel, Barton's Cove and the Rod & Gun Club in Turner's Falls. The theme of the day was FOG! not just fog, but industrial Fog. The fog really didn't clear until about 2:30pm, but the highlights of the day was away from the water. We birded the power lines near the canal and it turned out to be great. Highlights - Hermit Thrushes, Field Sparrows, Ruby-crowned Kinglet and a first for the Greenfield count..Common Yellowthroat first detected by James. Below are a few photos....