Yesterday morning fog and whip-poor-will survey last night

Not much to report from yesterday morning as everywhere was fog, fog and more fog.  The thunderstorms of the previous night dropped a lot of rain and the humidity was quite high.  Not sure if anything came in after the storms but if anything did I didn’t get to see it!  Eventually the fog burned off and the temperatures climbed to 90.

View from Goodnough Dike, May 30, 2013

Last night I conducted my second whip-poor-will survey along with a couple biologists from Quabbin.  This survey route is a new one and starts near the middle entrance at Quabbin Park then to  the east entrance over to Goodnough Dike, up around the tower then over to Winsor Dam then south through Covey WMA and ending in southern Belchertown.  Not the best time to conduct the survey but I’m not sure a better time will present itself this year so we went ahead with it.  The route must begin at least 15 minutes after sunset and consists of ten stop with a total of six minutes spent listening at each stop.  We had a total of six Eastern Whip-poor-wills along the route with five at survey stops and one between stops.  The number should have been higher and if we get a chance in the next survey window in June we will run the route again.

Before the survey began I checked the reservoir from Winsor Dam and had a surprising 48 Mallards out on the nearly still water. I looked though the group but couldn't find anything more unusual among them then a single Hooded Merganser. During the survey we also ran across a Barred and Great Horned Owl in addition to the six whip-poor-wills.

Stop                                                       # of whip-poor-wills

1                                                              1            

2                                                              1

3                                                              2

4                                                              0

5                                                              0

6                                                              0

7                                                              1

8                                                              0

9                                                              0

10                                                            0