Mammal Land

Did you know Northern Cardinals are the last to leave the feeders each night ...at least at my house. However, the next wave of visitors start to arrive a couple hours after sunset. This year we've experienced up to eleven species of mammals stopping by the bird feeder.   Recently a pair of Gray Foxes have been stopping by on a regular basis, including tonight..10-28. Prior to these two Gray Foxes, the only one I had ever seen was a dead one up at Lake Onota in Pittsfield.  

Below are a few photos of  feeder visitors....

Gray Fox

Opossum

Flying Squirrel- 1st one I've seen in nearly thirty years 

Mr. Skunk

Black Bear

Raccoon

Wood Chuck

Happy Halloween.....and another Major Storm heading into New England! 

Yellow-headed Blackbird

Yellow headed Blackbird....

Ventured out Sunday morning with Priscilla Moor to do a little birding in the Berkshires, at least that was the goal. It was just getting light as we Headed down Bay Rd, in Hadley,   I noticed a few dark blobs in a roadside puddle and quickly turned around. WE pulled up slowly and found (14) Wilson's Snipe feeding and preening right next to the road! They were later joined by (2) Least Sandpipers (getting a little late) . I photographed them as best I could in the low light and after fifteen minutes we headed down the road, not too far and took a quick right onto East Hadley Rd. I remembered a section of field was recently plowed and it might be worth looking around for some other shorebirds. 

We got out and scanned, a few Killdeer, but not much else...at least for the moment. We started heading out and I caught a Am.Golden Plover flying overhead..Let the show begin!

Something had put up the majority of the Killdeers in the largest Cornfield and in that flock contained the Golden Plover and one Pectoral Sandpiper. The birds eventually settled in to the closest plowed field and offered decent looks at the Plover and Pect. After a few minutes I turned the scope towards a large flock of Brown-headed Cowbirds that was down the road. I panned through them, didn't see anything at the moment, but then they all went up. As they went through my scope field I thought I glimpsed white wing patches in one of them?

I told Priscilla that maybe I had a Yellow-headed Blackbird, but kept scanning...nothing.

The flock move closer to the road, so we slowly drove up to give it a second look, after a few minutes-BINGO. Both Priscilla and I had pretty good looks at the rare western vagrant and I was able to get a couple of photos. We got the word out, and to my surprise the blackbird stayed around all day and quite a few birder's got to see it.

Yellow-headed Blackbird-winter male

Evening Grosbeaks......

The other highlight this past weekend was the Evening Grosbeaks that made an all day visit to our feeder . During the last week or so Evening Grosbeaks have been turning up in modest numbers at feeders thoughout the Baystate. Another segment of the winter finch puzzle is taking place, at least for the moment. Evening Grosbeaks once graced many a feeder in New England in the late 1960's 70's and into the mid 80's. When I say graced, I mean ravaged feeders...I can remember one winter having flocks of 150 at a time and going through 600-700 pounds of sunflower seed that winter. As for other winter finches...Pine siskins really started hitting feeders today (10/19) in larger numbers. Here in Belchertown are Siskin numbers increased to forty today, Tom Gagnon in Florence reported over fifty and reports from the Berkshires had over seventy! Also of note...Two Pine Grosbeaks were reported from New Salem...too be continued.

Enjoy the photos

Scott

Evening Grosbeak-male

Evening Grosbeak-female

American Golden-Plover-Juv. Hadley

Wilson's Snipe- Hadley

Dunlin-Basic plumage. East Meadows-Northampton,MA

Ruby-throated Hummingbird-Granby, MA. Getting late for Ruby-throats- this bird was banded and was found to be an adult female. 

Pine Siskins-Moving in or through.

The last couple of weeks Pine Siskins have been moving into Massachusetts. Their arrival is just another piece of the Winter Finch puzzle. The Winter Finch forecast is an interesting one, the cone and berry crops to our north are a bust. With that in mind, it's predicted that many northern finches will start moving south in search of food. Besides the recent arrival of Siskins, Red Crossbills and Red-breasted Nuthatches have already made a statement into the region. There have also been a handful of reports of Common Redpolls, Evening Grosbeaks and even a couple of Pine Grosbeaks. So keep the feeders filled and an eye to the sky.

Pine Siskin- 

Pine Siskins- Loving Black Oil Sunflower Seeds.

Purple Finch- (Male) Very good numbers so far this fall.

A nice comparison between Purple (left) and House Finch. (right)   

 Another invasion this fall, this time from the west. Clay-colored Sparrows (above) and Dickcissel's have been reported throughout New England and in very good numbers.

Lincoln's Sparrow

Common Yellowthroat-male.

Eastern Towhee-female.

Greater Yellowlegs- Somewhat scare this fall in the valley...at least for me.

Ruby-crowned Kinglet

Blue-headed Vireo

You know when the Yellow-rumped Warblers start showing up in large numbers...Warbler migration is coming to an end.

White-crowned Sparrow- Hadley. (Adult)

Sharp-shinned Hawk-Imm

Praying Mantis in Val's garden.

Rainbow from the house.

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.

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