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| Yellow crowned Night Heron, Lake Warner, Hadley, MA, Sep 26, 2018 |
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| Yellow crowned Night Heron, Lake Warner, Hadley, MA, Sep 26, 2018 |
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| Yellow crowned Night Heron, Lake Warner, Hadley, MA, Sep 26, 2018 |
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| Yellow crowned Night Heron, Lake Warner, Hadley, MA, Sep 26, 2018 |
After a rainy day yesterday I was ready to get out this morning and see what might be around. I started off checking out some flooded
fields in North Hadley where I found half a dozen species of shorebirds including my first White rumped Sandpiper of the year. Viewing was intermittent due to fog with visibility changing from minute to minute. I tried to get some digiscoped shots of the White rumped Sandpiper as it was preening but could not get anything identifiable to come out. I assume it was the same bird that Ted G. had in the same area yesterday. I decided to try my luck a little further south at the Honey Pot where I hoped the fog was a little less dense. Just as I arrived there I got a call from Mary letting me know she found a night heron roosting on the roof of a house at Lake Warner. I immediately turned around and headed back up the road to meet up with her. I arrived at the area near the dam at
Lake Warner to see Mary still there looking at a juvenile Yellow crowned Night Heron. The bird is almost certainly the same individual found by the friend of a birder about a week and a half ago while she was out kayaking. I had tried multiple times for the bird before including a full circuit of the lake in a kayak without luck. I guess I just needed to look up on the roofs of nearby houses instead of in the trees along the shoreline! The bird seemed quite content on the roof, occasionally preening but otherwise just hanging out. It appears to be a very young bird with some odd feathering on the head that has not quite filled in yet. After about a half hour of watching the bird I headed out to other locales. The night heron was not only a new bird for Hampshire County this year (more on that below) but also a new county bird for me overall, bringing my total in the county to
295. Thanks to Mary for giving me a very timely call!
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| Yellow Warbler, Honey Pot, Hadley, MA, Sep 26, 2018 |
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| Palm Warbler 'western', Honey Pot, Hadley, MA, Sep 26, 2018 |
My next stop was down to the
Honey Pot which unfortunately was fogged in quite a bit but I nonetheless found a decent pocket of birds with a number of sparrows and warblers, including a late Yellow Warbler. I waited a little bit for the fog to lift but it looked to be just getting thicker so I headed a little further away from the river in the hopes of finding better visibility.
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| Solitary Sandpiper, Silvio Conte NWR-Fort River, Hadley, MA, Sep 26, 2018 |
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| Lincoln's Sparrow, Silvio Conte NWR-Fort River, Hadley, MA, Sep 26, 2018 |
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| Northern Parula, Silvio Conte NWR-Fort River, Hadley, MA, Sep 26, 2018 |
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| Empidonax flycatcher, Silvio Conte NWR-Fort River, Hadley, MA, Sep 26, 2018 |
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| Northern Flicker, Silvio Conte NWR-Fort River, Hadley, MA, Sep 26, 2018 |
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| American Kestrels, Silvio Conte NWR-Fort River, Hadley, MA, Sep 26, 2018 |
I finally found some less dense fog filled areas when I stopped at the nearly deserted
Silvio Conte NWR-Fort River. Thankfully the mosquitoes were tolerable compared to some other recent visits. I spent the next couple hours there walking along the paths as well as covering a few field edges. There were a number of mixed flocks moving through with a total of eleven species of warblers, a couple species of vireo and a few other migrants mixed in. As I was walking around the trails you could actually feel when the warm front came through with an immediate and quite noticeable rise in the temperature and the humidity followed by a pick up in the wind. The increased wind made picking out birds among the leaves quite difficult but not impossible. It will be interesting to see if the southerly winds bring in anything unusual.
It was a great morning of birding to be sure as I managed to add two new species to my Hampshire County list for the year (#231 and #232) with one of those being a new county species for me. I really had not intended to do another big county year this year but I really can't avoid it at this point as I have never had this many species at this time of year. My previous best year for the county was back in 2016 when I had a total of 238 species. I have included my overall totals for the previous four years. year to date and where I ended those years.
Year Total as of 9/26 Final total for year
2018 232 ?
2017 212 224
2016 225 238
2015 228 237
2014 228 237
Given that I still have a few months left in the year with at least a few easy to get waterfowl plus the possibility of any of a number of rarities there is a very real possibility of breaking my previous record...stay tuned!
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