Today dawned cool and drizzly (quite a change from yesterday when it was sunny and in the 60's). I was not feeling great after work but did make a couple stops on my way home with the highlights being the continued Redhead in Hadley as well as an early Greater Yellowlegs. The yellowlegs pushes me to 107 species for the month, which ties my highest ever total for the month in Hampshire County. I'm actually ten species ahead of my previous best March here so no doubt I could beat my record if I was not soon to head off to warmer locations. Beating my record would be good but I prefer going to the tropics!
Around the house I have been checking the duck boxes every few days and noticed about a week ago that at least two of the three boxes had been visited by ducks (the wood chips were pushed down a bit...the first step in the nesting process). I finally found the first egg today in duck box # 2 (my original box I installed years ago when we moved here). I will have to wait until I catch a female on the eggs to figure out the species but if history is any gauge it will be Hooded Mergansers once again.
I also got the water feature up and running. Initially I froze my hands trying to hook everything up a few days ago only to find the hose to the top of the fountain was still froze so had to wait for another warm day for the remaining ice to melt and yesterday fit the bill with sun and temps in the mid to upper 60's. I got a few camera captures even before getting the water running and the first species to show was a Black capped Chickadee. Look forward to another year of good stuff showing up as migration picks up.
No comments:
Post a Comment