Connecticut Lakes-Pittsburg, NH

Another spring has come to an end, and with that, the Hitchcock Center Spring Birding Class has come to a successful end. Our last trip of the spring season was spent up in Northern Vermont & New Hampshire.  We left the Hitchcock Center at 6AM (Friday June 12^th)  and headed up Rte 91 to our first stop…The P&H Truck Stop in Wells River, VT. This Restaurant (Truck Stop) has become a class favorite over the past couple of years, and hasn’t disappointed us yet. From there we headed north to MOOSE BOG. This area is one of the more reliable locations for finding Spruce Grouse; unfortunately this was not the case this day. However, we managed nice views of Black-backed Woodpecker, Black-burnian Warbler, Ring-necked Duck and three singing Rusty Blackbirds.

We departed Moose Bog in mid-afternoon and headed to Colebrook, NH. Colebrook would be our home base for the next two days.  We had a nice dinner that evening, but would not look for Moose this evening because of the heavy rains that were rolling through the region that night. The next morning we were up early and headed north the Pittsburg, NH. During the twenty-five minute trip up to Pittsburg, we could see the effect the heavy rains had on the region…..streams, and the water fall on Rte 145 was spectacular.

Our first road we birded was East Inlet. This has always been a productive road over the years. We had several Gray Jays, Boreal Chickadees, Yellow-bellied Flycatchers, and several species of warblers including Bay-breasted, Northern Parula, Canada, Black-thr.Green, along with Winter Wrens,  Ruby-cr.Kinglets and Purple Finches.

That evening after dinner we headed up to Moose Ally (Rte 3) in hopes of locating a Large brown mammal. This would be a life mammal for a number of the group…I’m happy to report Moose Ally didn’t let us down….one young Bull Moose put on a nice show for all.

Our last day was spent birding Day Road in Pittsburg. Certainly more of the same cast of characters,  but a few new species for the trip….Olive-sided Flycatcher, Mourning Warbler, more Gray Jays and Boreal Chickadees.  We logged 674 miles during the trip, ended up with 78 species and a handful of mammals.

Nice thing about this trip…everyone got great looks at just about everything. Enjoy the photos

The Falls on Rte 145 between Colebrook & Pittsburg, NH

Gray Jay-Adult

Boreal Chickadee-Day Road, Pittsburg.

Black-throated Green Warbler-Day Road.

Cliff Swallow- Moose Ally Ice Cream Stand. Cliff Swallows have been nesting here for years, sadly a high count of 32 nests have dwindled down to only 2 nests now! The owners have been working with New Hampshire Audubon to try and bring back the colony -stay tuned. 

Common Loon on 1st Connecticut Lake

Gray Jay-Juv

Mourning Warbler-Day Road...put on a great show for the group.

Northern Parula- Day Road

Olive-sided Flycatcher- fairly distant...amazing how far their call carry's. 

Moose-young male. Locals say the Moose population is starting to do better in recent years. However, a ways to go from the time 15 years ago when we had 17 in one evening!

Magee Marsh to Grayling

Valerie and I recently went on the road to Ohio and Michigan to seek out a Kirtland’s Warbler in Grayling, Michigan and to witness the “Biggest Week in American Birding” at Magee Marsh.

Rather than driving non-stop to Port Clinton, OH, we decided to spend the first night in Erie, PA.

The next morning we birded Presque Isle State Park. This was a very nice and spacious park, and very birdy. We were both astounded by the number of Yellow Warblers at this park! We knew we had at least a few hundred and no doubt this figure was on the conservative side. At about mid-day we headed west to Port Clinton, this would be our base for the next few days.

The next morning we hit the boardwalk at Magee Marsh. The organizers of this 10 day festival bill this “The Biggest Week in American Birding” and they may be right.  The amount of birders visiting Magee Marsh was very impressive.. The birding at the Marsh was fabulous with many birds at or near eye level. We encountered 26  species of warblers at Magee, although we didn't get anything to unusual in the warbler department, we had wonderful looks at everything.  

The birding possibilities are not limited to Magee Marsh…..other areas we birded included Metzger Marsh, Ottawa N.W.R., Oak Openings near Toledo as well as the many farm fields around the region.  The amount of planning that goes on behind the scenes for the birding festival must be enormous, we were both very impressed.

From Magee Marsh we drove five hours north to Grayling, MI to hopefully encounter our main target bird for the trip “Kirtland’s Warbler” Thanks to James Smith for some excellent directions to an area he has birded several times…..we found a male Kirtland’s at about 7:55PM! .Certainly satisfied that we got our main bird, we were going back the next morning for more prolonged looks and to see what else we could add to our trip list. The area also held Clay-colored Sparrows, Vesper Sparrows, Nashville Warblers etc. We also hit Hartwick State Park, not a lot to see in late morning, but found Red-breasted Nuthatch and Evening Grosbeaks.

At about noontime we made our way towards Lake Huron for Tawas City. Seems Tawas City was also holding a 3 day birding festival. Tawas ended up beaning one of our favorite areas of the trip, and we’ll plan on at least two days in the area next time we go back. The state park has a Lighthouse that hooks out into the lake hauling in migrants as they head north. More of the same cast of characters as Magee Marsh, but even better looks and we wouldn’t have thought that would have been possible. We added our 28^th specie of warbler for the trip (Orange-crowned) along with a few shorebird species, Olive-sided Flycatcher and just 30 minutes up the road was a late Snowy Owl.  

We made our way back to Magee Marsh for one last walk around the boardwalk before heading home the following day. All in all a very productive and fun trip…..we ended up with 180 species and 2,644 miles tacked onto my car. Below are a few photos from the trip……

Tennessee Warbler- Magee Marsh

Common Nighthawk- Ottawa NWR

Trumpeter Swan-Ottawa NWR.   The refuge and adjacent areas now host somewhere around 20 active nests. These endangered birds are not countable by listing standards,  but  were very cool to see flying around and even better to know their introduced population is doing well.  

Dunlin- Really good numbers and nice to see them acquiring breeding plumage. 

 This was kinda of strange! Herring Gulls building their nests in what appeared to be an abandon parking lot in downtown Port Clinton.

Clay-colored Sparrow-Grayling,MI

Orange-cr.Warbler-Tawas State Park. one of six.

Black-thr. Green Warbler

Mourning Warbler-Magee Marsh Boardwalk

White-faced Ibis- near Magee Marsh.

Pied-billed Grebe-Ottawa

Yellow Warbler-

Northern Parula- Tawas

Blue Jays coming off lake Huron-Tawas

American Redstart

Bay-breasted Warbler-Magee

Blackburnian Warbler

Scarlet Tanager-Magee

It was great to see Purple Martin colony's   

Purple Martin

American Woodcock-Magee

Yellow-rumped Warbler

Killdeer

Sandhill Crane-Ottawa

Cape May Warbler

Killdeer with young

Red-headed Woodpecker-Another bird that's become rare in New England, nice to see good numbers of them.

Kirtland's Warbler- Grayling

Plum Island to Southern New Hampshire

The first trip of the 2015 Spring Birding Class took place on Feb 7th and our destination was Salisbury, Plum Island and southern New Hampshire. Now the word "SPRING" is a real loose term at this moment. We were lucky to get the trip in with all the snow storms that have taken place this month. In fact, Its been years since I've seen this much snow on a birding trip to the coast...WOW!

The weather was cold, but very little wind made it a very pleasant day, even with a few light snow showers in the afternoon. We had really nice looks at the birds we encountered during the day..highlights included 3 Snowy Owls, 5 Bald Eagles, Purple Sandpipers, Thick-billed Murres, a number of waterfowl, (1) Horned Lark at the boat ramp and a very out of place Eastern Meadowlark.

Purple Sandpiper-Rye, N.H.

Snowy Owl- Rye, N.H.

Snowy Owl-Rye, N.H. - on the bath house.

Thick-billed Murre- Certainly an unexpected surprise.

Closer to home....Eastern Screech-Owl in Hatfield. (Red Morph)

E.Screech-Owl

South Shore-Outer Cape to home

A couple of weeks ago I joined up with Al Richards and a few other members of the Hampshire Bird Club on a field trip to Boston and areas along the South Shore.  Our main target bird was the Black-backed Woodpecker that has been hanging out at the Forest Hills Cemetery. We arrived at 8:30AM and waited 60 minutes in 10 degree weather…..NO WOODPECKER!  We weren't the only disappointed birders that day, but the woodpecker would make a comeback in the days to follow.

 We then headed down to Weymouth for the King Eider that seems to have settled in for the winter, and we located it within a few minutes. The views were hardy killer, but good enough.  Five minutes from the King Eider was the next target bird…Lark Sparrow.  This bird has also been hanging out for a while at Stoddard Park….The park was a very active dog walking park.  When we first arrived I didn’t think we had much of a chance of locating this bird with all the activity, but after ten minutes the group had found the bird.  The Lark Sparrow was surprisingly accustom to the foot and paw traffic at the park. We made one last stop in Marion for a Townsend's Solitaire, but we missed on the Solitaire, but got a Great Horned Owl calling at 3PM! From there I headed to Falmouth to visit family and do a little birding the next day on the lower cape….photos below.

Lark Sparrow- 

Hooded Mergansers...female Bufflehead in background.

White-winged Scoter-Plymouth Harbor

Iceland Gull- one of eight birds around the Provincetown area. Other gulls encountered at Pilgrim Lake- 2 Lesser Black-backed and Glaucous Gull

Common Eider-Chatham Fish Pier.

Dunlin & Sanderling-1st encounter Beach-Eastham.

Red-breasted Merganser-young male. Chatham Fish Pier.

Black Scoters- We came across a flock of 300+ at Nauset Beach in Orleans.

Closer to home...Young Cooper's Hawk hanging around the feeder.

Northern Cardinal-female...aka Miss Piggy

Savannah Sparrow-This was a brand new feeder bird for me, completely unexpected. I've had them on a couple of occasions in the yard in May, but a first in winter and at the feeding station. 

Snow Geese on Mill Valley Rd in Hadley. Unexpected in January. 

Another unexpected species for January...Turkey Vulture - early arrival or hold over from the fall?

Starling-Bill starting to turn yellow for the upcoming breeding season.