I have not had a chance until today to post about a female Canvasback that initially showed up in the Oxbow last Tuesday and which I got to see on Wednesday morning before I went to work. The bird originally found by Bob and Lura and I was just too tired to drive back over on Tuesday to see it so I decided to wait until Wednesday morning to try to relocate it and thankfully the bird stuck around. Canvasback is a fairly rare bird in the county with several years between sighting and I have only had the species on three previous occasions: one in January of 2004 in the Connecticut River in Northampton, another single on March 25th of 2008 at the Oxbow and a group of seven together on January 14th in 2013 in the Connecticut River below the Coolidge Bridge. On Wednesday morning I arrived at Arcadia just after six and after a quick scan of the Oxbow I quickly turned up the Canvasback as well as a number of other species of waterfowl including two Lesser Scaup and nearly two hundred Common Mergansers plus my first Pied billed Grebe of the year here. The nearby marsh at Arcadia also had waterfowl including the continued pale Canada Goose that has been around for a few years during the winter (I will eventually do a full post on this bird when I get a chance). Overall I ended up with a dozen species of waterfowl during my stop at Arcadia.
I had plans to go out looking for waterfowl on Thursday morning after work but instead I got stuck at work for mandatory overtime so not much for birding that day and by the time I got out at 6pm I was dead tired after being up for 35+ hours...I was in bed by 7:30 after a quick dinner. Friday turned out to be a really nice day with no wind, sunny skies and temps that eventually warmed into the 40's. I got up and headed out to check a few spots along the river. I tried and failed to find any Yellow rumped Warblers but the morning was still productive nonetheless with a flyover Snow Goose with a flock of Canada Geese and multiple large groups of Canada Geese at a few spots. I tried to find some other rare geese among the flocks but had no luck. I checked a few other spots on my way home to walk Wilson but didn't find anything too unusual. I then spent the rest of the day around the house and spent some time checking out the hordes of Black capped Chickadees coming to the feeders and had multiple banded birds once again. I also did a final check of the three duck boxes at the house before the nesting season starts and found box #1 has already had a visitor with a depression in the wood chips...I would not be surprised to see eggs within a week.
I also checked the game camera along the Jabish Brook at home and had some good captures including Black Bear, Beaver and Bobcat.
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