The month of September has now come to an end and it was a record setting month for me in Hampshire County with a total of 171 species seen over the course of the month, which beat my previous best ever September in the county with 169 (which occurred in 2020). Among the 171 species was a total of 27 species of warbler. More photos and information on warblers for the month can be found at the following link. As mentioned in an earlier post I'm on a record setting pace for the year with 241 species as of the end of September. This total is higher than many of my previous year totals for the county and I still have a quarter of the year to go. My best year ever in the county was last year with a total of 247 species and by this time last year I was at 228 species. Even with no additional species added to my total for the year I would still be in a tie for my second best total set back in 2018. I still have a few species of waterfowl that should be relatively easy to find over the next couple months plus the potential for a wide range of rarities that could show up. It will be interesting to see what the rest of the has in store for birds for me.
I will look at the last few days for the month below. The migration conditions have been great the last few nights which has resulted in some really good mornings of birding. Today I went to the East Meadows and it was yet another cool morning but not as cool as forecast with mainly cloudy conditions. I arrived before dawn and had some birds still moving with the most notable flight call heard being a probable Gray cheeked Thrush (Bicknell's Thrush cannot be ruled out). I then spent some time checking some weedy fields and some edge habitat and had a number of unusual and late species including Eastern Wood Pewee (oddly out in a cornfield), a Least Flycatcher, a Yellow Warbler and a Dickcissel and managed to get photos of all of them.
Yesterday I arrived at Arcadia before dawn and was treated to another good showing of American Woodcocks leaving their roost in a cornfield. It was cold with temperatures a balmy 42 degrees to start the day....first morning that needed a winter hat and gloves so far this fall. As the sun started coming up there was a decent pulse of Wood Ducks moving with nearly fifty counted. I spent a bit over four hours covering multiple areas with a number of other highlights including the following: a late Warbling Vireo still singing, an influx of both kinglets, a Marsh Wren singing softly, another noticeable increase in sparrow numbers, a Yellow breasted Chat that actually stayed in view long enough for me to get some photos but then dropped out of view after perhaps 20 seconds and was not seen again, loads of Red winged Blackbirds leaving their roost and eleven species of warblers including double digit counts of Tennessee Warbler and Nashville Warbler as well as a late Yellow Warbler. It was a really good morning and another one of those mornings you wish you could be in multiple places at once.
Tuesday I stayed close to home and hit just a few areas including Lake Wallace where I had a very late Virginia Rail and then onto Quabbin Park. The weather conditions were less than ideal to find birds with low overcast, a breeze and eventually a bit of rain but I still ran across a couple pockets of birds Mammals were a highlight in the park with a Black Bear and lots of White tailed Deer.
After work on Monday I headed over to Arcadia and even with a less than early start I still had a great selection of birds including a slight late wood pewee, a noticeable increase in sparrows, nine species of warblers including good numbers of Tennessee Warblers, a late Yellow Warbler and at least 113 Yellow rumped Warbler. I wish I had been able to get out earlier and cover more ground as I didn't get a chance to cover some areas I know held many more birds.
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