After more days of warm weather a cold front came through yesterday and resulted in strong northwest winds overnight into this morning. Given the conditions I headed to Winsor Dam where I arrived before dawn. Ted arrived not long after and we started scanning and within a short time started seeing some small groups of waterfowl flying around. The vast majority of the birds stayed fairly far away (as is typical at Quabbin) and very few flew past us to the south despite the strong winds. The small flocks would start heading south and then turn back north and fly back and forth. I'm sure a few settled on the water but with the rough conditions we could not see them. We managed eleven species of waterfowl plus a few groups that went as unidentified. The bird of the morning there by far was a swallow species that showed briefly and we were unable to pin down an ID on. I was scanning and saw the bird flying over the water, above the surrounding hills and had it in view for just a few seconds in the clear blue skies...long enough for me to shout "swallow!" before it disappeared. Despite our best efforts we were unable to relocate it. Given the recent weather (strong south winds for days followed by strong north to northwest winds) the most likely species would be Cave Swallow. The species has been pushed north with these conditions with multiple reports around the Great Lakes, the northeast coast and even well up the St. Lawrence Seaway in Canada. This was a tough one to not be able to definitely identify. The winds slackened off a bit and the waterfowl seemed to slow considerably so I decided to head elsewhere. I first went to UMASS and did not find too much in the couple spots I stopped...no luck turning up a Cackling Goose among the hordes of Canada Geese. I then went to Hadley to try to find some late warblers and found a single Yellow rumped Warbler. In the same area there was a very uniquely plumaged Dark eyed Junco and I got a few photos of it...a very cool looking individual. I then headed toward Amherst and as I drove on Moody Bridge Road I noticed a large group of vultures kettling up and I quickly pulled over. I started sorting through the large group and quickly realized almost all were Black Vultures! I ended up with an amazing 58 individuals...a crazy high number for the species here and even more amazing given the date. The species has increased more and more every year but this total blows away my highest counts for the species here in Hampshire County.
