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| River Otters, Covey WMA, Sept 15, 2012 |
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| Common Grackles leaving roost, Covey WMA, Sept 15, 2012 |
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| Common Grackles leaving roost, Covey WMA, Sept 15, 2012 |
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| Pied billed Grebe (one of two), Covey WMA, Sept 15, 2012 |
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| Pied billed Grebe (one of two), Covey WMA, Sept 15, 2012 |
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| River Otters, Covey WMA, Sept 15, 2012 |
Although the day began with rain it quickly ended and the sky cleared. Although a bit cooler than previous days and a bit windy at times, overall it was a nice day. I started near dawn at Winsor Dam in the rain. I quickly scanned the water and found nothing of interest so I headed to nearby Covey WMA. As soon as I arrived here there were three Great Horned Owls calling back and forth. I walked around a few of the marshes and small ponds and found 15 Wood Ducks, a couple Green Herons, two Pied billed Grebes together, a large group (3500+) of Common Grackles leaving roost near dawn and a couple Cooper's Hawks that were harassing and being harassed by the local crow population. The non bird sighting of the day was a group of four River Otters that showed quite well in one of the ponds. At one point all four tried to get on a log but the log kept rolling in the water and they all had to dive back in.
After Covey I made a brief stop at a small section of Quabbin Park. I ran into a couple of mixed species flocks but nothing unusual was in them. I also had a pair of Red Crossbills fly over which I tried to record but the birds were too far away to get any usable recordings. I spent only a brief time there before heading for home to take Wilson for a walk.
We did two walks along the Jabish Canal with the second one around midday much more productive. There was a large mixed species flock that contained 11 warbler species including Bay breasted, two Blackburnian, three redstarts, and large numbers of Blackpoll, Pine and Black throated Green Warblers as well as other species. There were also a few groups of Broad winged Hawks trying to move in the strong winds. I'm sure the hawk watch sites will get some good numbers of low flybys today. The highlight of the walk was a Common Nighthawk that came through fairly low moving south around 12:20. Odd to see it at that time of day and this late in the season. I tried a photo with my phone but it came back as a smudge. I tried to see anything on the bird that would make it something more exotic than a Common Nighthawk but could not. My latest date for this species is Sept 18 in 2010 at Mt Sugarloaf.
Tonight (and probably tomorrow night) look to be setting up to be great migration nights with northwest winds moving the birds south.
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| 8:44pm, Sept 15, 2012 |
Here is a radar image capture from 8:44pm showing a large amount of birds moving tonight...should be good tomorrow.
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