Our on and off again rainy weather continued overnight into the day today thanks to the stalled front that broke our heat wave. I initially did not have plans to look for shorebirds today after having some great luck the previous few days but when I got up and looked at the radar and saw waves of rain had moved through overnight and continued through the morning I decided to try to find birds downed by the weather. I made a brief stop at Winsor Dam without finding anything too interesting. Looking at the radar again it looked like there was a let up in the rain to the west so I headed over to some fields in Hadley and as soon as I got there and started scanning I found an adult American Golden Plover and a Black bellied Plover before my scanning was interrupted by a text from Ted letting me know he was looking at a juvenile Stilt Sandpiper in a different field in Northampton. I immediately headed across the river and arrived just a couple minutes too late as the Stilt Sandpiper and the Lesser Yellowlegs it was with headed off to the south through the gloom. It was a tough miss as I have never had the species in Hampshire County before and I missed an amazing group of nine that showed up in mid August when I was working. I stayed around the area for a bit with just a few shorebirds around and none settling down thanks to a Merlin that perched on the edge of the puddle where shorebirds have been. I then decided to head back across the river to Hadley to scan the fields there in more detail and turned up an American Golden Plover as well as a scattering of other more expected shorebirds. I then got another message that a Whimbrel had flown over at Arcadia and then a (the?) juvenile Stilt Sandpiper dropped in briefly before flying off again to parts unknown. I gave some thought to going to that area but decided to head back to the original location of the sighting of the Stilt Sandpiper and spent the next hour and a half walking the muddy roads. As I walked around I turned up some great stuff including an early Northern Pintail in small pool, a flyover Black bellied Plover and a flyover Upland Sandpiper (my second and possibly third record of this species this fall...a great fall for them for sure), a few slightly late Bank Swallows and last but certainly not least my first Connecticut Warbler of the year. Ted mentioned he heard and saw one earlier in the morning in the same area of cornfields. As is typical with the species it was heard chipping first and after a lot of waiting on the road I got some killer looks as it worked through the cornfield. My best looks in awhile of this normally very cryptic species. Lots more photos and details at the following link. A very nice consolation prize for missing the Stilt Sandpiper.
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