With rain moving in overnight and continuing into the morning I left work and headed over to Winsor Dam looking for birds downed by the rain (more on my time at the dam below). I checked my phone while at the dam and noticed a message from Aaron that he had a Franklin's Gull on the small (but productive) sandbar in the Oxbow in Northampton. I immediately headed back across the river and right to the marina where I set up the scope in the moderate rain and quickly picked out the Franklin's Gull in among the Ring billed Gulls and a single Herring Gull. I thought the viewing conditions might be better from the area of Arcadia so I left the marina and made my way over. There were a number of other birders present and all were getting great looks at the gull. Indeed the viewing conditions were better from the area of the water ski club and everyone was staying behind the no trespassing signs at the club. The gulls were occasionally flushed by some of the local eagles but would quickly settle back down at least until they flushed around 9:30 and the Franklin's Gull didn't return to the sandbar. It could have landed in one of the large grassy fields near the marina (which the gulls often do after getting flushed by eagles or boats) or it could have headed to the main part of the Connecticut River. Given the raining, misty conditions with low clouds and fog the bird probably didn't go too far. Franklin's Gull is very rare in Hampshire County (or anywhere in the state really as it is a review species for the state...link to the Massachusetts Avian Records Committee). I have only had Franklin's Gull once before and that was during a large incursion of the species into the area back in November 2015. I initially found two on the morning of November 13th and then found singles on the mornings of the 14th and 15th. Prior to the incursion of 2015 there is just one prior Hampshire County record from September 1986 in Amherst. Other western mass records prior to 2015 include one in Longmeadow in September 1986, one in Pittsfield in June 1997 and multiple reports from Turners Falls in November 2005 following the passage of Hurricane Wilma. If anyone tries to relocate the bird from today your best course of action would be to scan the various viewpoints of the Oxbow from the Arcadia side and perhaps look along the river in the area of the Northampton/Easthampton line.
Besides the Franklin's Gull there were a few other notable species hanging around the sandbar including a dozen Dunlin (down from a flock of 20+ that Aaron had earlier), a Pectoral Sandpiper and four Greater Yellowlegs. The Dunlin are certainly the most unusual of the shorebirds present and a species that can be tough to find in the valley and the count of a dozen is probably
As mentioned above I started my morning at Winsor Dam where I had a smattering of waterfowl including my first Bufflehead of the fall (a female that almost got picked off by an eagle almost as soon as it landed on the water), three Common Goldeneyes and all three scoters (one White winged Scoter, one Surf Scoter and two Black Scoters) as well as other more expected waterfowl. With the addition of some of the waterfowl, the Franklin's Gull and the Dunlin I now stand at 154 species in Hampshire County for the month (beating my previous record of 152 species set in 2018) and 238 in the county for the year (just shy of my record of 241 species also set in 2018).
The tropics also continue to be active with Tropical Storm Zeta near the Yucatan Peninsula and expected to move into the Gulf of Mexico and then impact the Louisiana coast mid week as a hurricane. The remnants look to move into the local area toward the end of the week. With the formation of Zeta the 2020 season ties 2005 for the most storms in a season with 28.
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