After work this morning I headed out on a sunny but cold and windy morning trying to track down a Cattle Egret that Mike found yesterday evening. I drove past the area multiple times with brief stops without any luck until I finally went by again after nine and saw the bird feeding in a grassy field. The traffic in the area makes it tough to stop so I had to keep going and then turn around and come back to one of the few spots I could pull off in and I could not find the bird again. I tried multiple vantage points but no luck. No idea where it went but given the weather conditions I doubt it went to far. I also checked a few other nearby farms but still had no luck finding the egret again. A bummer not to get any photos but at least I saw it. The rest of the day was fairly quiet but I did turn up another new species for the year for me in the county but the wind made tracking down any passerines difficult to say the least. I suspect there will be a big influx come Sunday (May 1) as the winds will shift around to the south and almost certainly bring in the first big influx of migrants.
After some rain late Tuesday that ended overnight I had a slight hope something of interest would be at Winsor Dam in the morning but a stop at first light didn't turn up anything noteworthy. I then decided to head over to Amherst to check out the Meadow Street fields in the hopes the Dunlin seen there late yesterday by Joe was still around. I arrived there just before six and started scanning and after a few minutes I had distant scope views of the breeding plumaged Dunlin. I tried for some digiscoped shots but the results were less than stellar but at least showed the black belly. There were a few other shorebirds around in the distant puddle including both Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs, Spotted Sandpipers and Killdeer. I made a few other stops mainly looking for passerines before the winds picked up for the day.
Black and White Warbler, Mitch's Way, Hadley, MA, Apr 26, 2022
There were decent migration conditions from Monday into Tuesday and with that in mind I decided to try a few spots in Hadley at dawn with my first stop to Skinner SP where I added a few new species for the year including an early Wood Thrush and a few Black throated Green Warblers. I also had a few very vocal Barred Owls that made quite a racket. I then headed to Mitch's Way and added a few more species. Although the overall diversity was a little less than expected I still had 45 species with three new species for the year (Rose breasted Grosbeak, Northern Parula and Bank Swallow). A few other stops didn't turn up anything new but there were certainly new arrivals around. A late day stop at Winsor Dam in between bouts of rain didn't turn up anything unusual.
For my birthday I started my morning along the rail trail in Amherst and eventually caught up with Devin and we birded the area for about three and a half hours (eBird list here) We didn't have anything too unusual but it was a nice morning to be out and to catch up with Devin. The rest of the day I spent mainly around the house and reward for sitting out on the deck was my first Ruby throated Hummingbird of the year.
After getting out of work on the 23rd I made a brief stop at Aqua Vitae Road where I had a White crowned Sparrow (likely the overwintering individual) before I made a longer stop at the Fort River section of the Silvio Conte NWR. Nothing unexpected for that stop but I did get a photo of a Field Sparrow sporting a leg band.
I ended the month with 136 species which is around average for me over the last several years.
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