Although the last couple days have featured cooler than usual conditions with rain and wind yesterday, the amount of good birds have been impressive with a number of rarities around. To start out yesterday before the heavier rain arrived I went to the East Meadows and relocated an early Dunlin Theresa found the previous day as well as over 130 Green winged Teal. I then stopped briefly at Arcadia where I had a couple Bonaparte's Gulls and a few species of waterfowl. I made a few more stops on the way home before picking up Wilson for a walk. After seeing some reports of Caspian Terns in the Berkshires I decided to try my luck at Winsor Dam and this produced a brief look at a Caspian Tern that was rapidly lost in the fog and ever increasing rain. I tried a few other local ponds and found even more waterfowl likely put down by the weather. A return trip to Winsor Dam found the visibility improved and I was able to watch two distant Caspian Terns actively feeding and got some videos. Late in the day I heard from Mary that she had a bunch of waterfowl at Gate 5 so that is where I figured I would head this morning. Today I walked down to Gate 5 and started scanning the water and turned up a few scattered groups of Bufflehead and Common Mergansers. I then ran across a group of gulls on the water and although the rising sun was rapidly making viewing tough I noticed the group were all black headed type gulls and I certainly was expecting a group of Bonaparte's Gull but was then surprised to see two larger individuals with darker gray backs on the right side of the group and immediately knew it had to be something good. I snapped off a few photos and videos and then continued until the sun made viewing near impossible. I got word out about the gulls and was still trying to figure out if the birds were Laughing Gulls or Franklin's Gulls. The conditions for viewing improved a bit when some clouds blocked out the sun. After watching for several minutes the bird flew up and circled around for a bit before heading north. The birds in flight quickly cinched the identification to Laughing Gulls. After perhaps ten minutes I caught sight of one of Laughing Gulls heading back south. It seemed like the gull wanted to settle with the slowly growing flock of Bonaparte's Gull it only circled a few times before continuing off the southwest. Although Laughing Gulls are quite common on the coast it is not a species that wanders far from the coast and any record inland in the state is noteworthy. This is only my third record for the species in Hampshire County and the first time I had more than one at a time. My earlier records for the species include one seen on August 4, 2020 during the remnants of Tropical Storm Isaias moving through and another on September 11, 2020. With all the unusual species the last few days I have already topped the 100 species point for the month.
I also opened up the water feature to kick off April and have already had eight species of birds and three species of mammals. The first capture of the year was a Black capped Chickadee. Hopefully it will be another good year of birds at the water feature.
