Arcadia in the early morning

Barred Owl, Arcadia, Northampton, MA, Nov 19, 2012

Northern Pintail (bottom left) and Mallards, Arcadia, Northampton, MA, Nov 19, 2012

Northern Pintails (upper left), Mallards and domestic ducks (right), Arcadia, Northampton, MA, Nov 19, 2012

domestic duck, Arcadia, Northampton, MA, Nov 19, 2012

Great Blue Heron, Arcadia, Northampton, MA, Nov 19, 2012

Black capped Chickadee, Arcadia, Northampton, MA, Nov 19, 2012

American Robin, Arcadia, Northampton, MA, Nov 19, 2012

Northern Harrier, Arcadia, Northampton, MA, Nov 19, 2012

Northern Harrier, Arcadia, Northampton, MA, Nov 19, 2012

Today I headed over to Arcadia bright and early to try to find the Snow Goose seen there yesterday morning.  Although I could not relocate the Snow Goose I did find a couple Northern Pintails, a Gadwall, 11 Green winged Teal, a Wood Duck, 13 Black Ducks, 332 Canada Geese and 269 Mallards on the partially iced over marsh.  I also had a couple of domestic/mallard ducks that I have not seen there before, really husky compared to a typical Mallard.  I also tried to catch up with some redpoll flocks to see if I could find a Hoary Redpoll among the Common Redpoll (one was seen in the area on Saturday). Yet again no luck beyond a single Common Redpoll.  After checking out the marsh I headed to the Arcadia Meadows for a couple hours and had a few pockets of birds but it was overall fairly quiet.  Certainly a good showing of American Tree Sparrows and Northern Cardinals.  Other birds of note included a Barred Owl that I flushed along a hedgerow, a Northern Harrier, a Great Blue Heron looking very cold in the early morning, an American Pipit, and a Swamp Sparrow. 

In the afternoon I headed to a few spots at Quabbin Park and had the following:  two Red necked Grebes, 11 Horned Grebes, a White winged Scoter, a Long tailed Duck, a Bufflehead, several Common Loons and a few Mallards.  There were also a few Common Redpolls at Hanks Meadow.