Owls at dawn and a Northern Shoveler at Quabbin

Northern Shoveler, Winsor Dam, Quabbin Park, MA, Jan 3, 2015

Northern Shoveler, Winsor Dam, Quabbin Park, MA, Jan 3, 2015

The good birds for 2015 continued this morning as I explored areas around south Quabbin.  I started off predawn at Herman Covey WMA trying for some owls and was rewarded with two Northern Saw Whet Owls, a Barred Owl and two Great Horned Owls in just a short period of time.  It really seems to be a good year for saw whet owls and it is always fun to find them.  Once it started to get light I headed over to Winsor Dam where I found a male Northern Shoveler.  A really unusual species inland and I have just nine sightings of this species in Hampshire County (three from Winsor Dam) with the majority in spring (only other fall/winter record was late Nov at Winsor Dam).  A ride through Quabbin Park produced more waterfowl including 16 Black Ducks, 146 Mallards, 7 Hooded Mergansers, five Common Mergansers, three Common Loons and ten Horned Grebes.  With a few more species added to the total for the year I'm up to 59 so far...if only I would continue finding new species at this rate!