Quabbin Park and Covey WMA...no crossbills

I have made trips to Quabbin Park the last two mornings to see if the Red Crossbills were still in the area I have had them for weeks. I had no luck finding any this weekend but the breeze made it tough to listen, especially Saturday. There is a lot of potential feeding areas in the immediate vicinity so the birds may indeed still be around but not right along the road. Despite the lack of crossbills there were still a few nice birds around including a great looking Barred Owl being mobbed by nuthatches. Oddly I only saw one Common Loon in two mornings...very strange for this location. The variety and number of waterfowl was quite low with small number of Common Goldeneye, Common Merganser, Hooded Merganser and Black Duck. Given the cold weather and the freezing of small ponds and swamps I expected more waterfowl but they may have moved south or just be in other sections of the Quabbin. I also made a trip to Covey WMA and had a few species of sparrows as well as some cooperative Eastern Bluebirds. Of course I left my camera at home so the birds were quite cooperative today! The weather started cool both mornings with temperatures in the low to mid 20's. The weather is forecast to really cool down next week so it appears winter is upon us. At least there is no snow yet.