PINK FOOTED GOOSE plus a Greater White fronted Goose set a new Hampshire County record for me

Pink footed Goose, Hadley, MA, Dec 6, 2016

Pink footed Goose, Hadley, MA, Dec 6, 2016

Pink footed Goose, Hadley, MA, Dec 6, 2016

Pink footed Goose, Hadley, MA, Dec 6, 2016

Greater White fronted Goose, Hadley, MA, Dec 6, 2016

Pink footed Goose, UMASS campus pond, Amherst, MA, Dec 6, 2016

Just back late yesterday from a brief trip down to Puerto Rico (much more on that in a later post) and today I was out birding in the cold weather and found a second Hampshire County record of a Pink footed Goose when I ran across one in a goose flock in Hadley.  I must have some ability to attract this rare goose from Greenland as I found the first county record of the species back in the spring of 2014.  I certainly hoped to find some unusual waterfowl today and I hit the jackpot.  I found the large flock of geese in a farm field in Hadley and I initially scanned through the flock and saw nothing unusual but on my second scan through to start counting them I found the Pink footed in relatively close and I started taking digiscoped shots and getting the word out to a number of other birders.  The Pink footed Goose became species #237 for Hampshire County this year, which tied me for my previous best years back in 2014 and 2015.  I was very happy to tie my record and was not expecting to break the record today but I did after getting a call from Devin who told me he also found a Greater White fronted Goose in with the same flock that held the Pink footed.  I made another run over to Hadley and did indeed find the Greater White fronted Goose and broke my record bringing my total for the year so far for the county to 238.  I was not sure I would ever break over the 237 mark without a tropical system but I did.  Very happy these two new species decided to wait until I was back from Puerto Rico to show up!  During my second stop in the afternoon most of the geese were sleeping but as a C-5 flew past they all flushed up and headed toward UMASS where I caught up with most of them on the campus pond (minus the GWFG)...another new species for the UMASS campus. Another banner day of birding in the valley.

Northern Shrike, Covey WMA, Belchertown, MA, Dec 6, 2016

Earlier in the morning I followed up on a report of a Northern Shrike at Covey WMA and I found the adult bird relatively quickly.  Hopefully it stick around for a bit...although I'm sure the local bird population would rather see it move along.