Cackling Goose, a hybrid goose and more neck tagged Canada Geese plus other stuff

Greater White fronted Goose x Canada Goose hybrid and Cackling Goose, Hadley, MA, Mar 3, 2018

Greater White fronted Goose x Canada Goose hybrid, Hadley, MA, Mar 3, 2018

Cackling Goose, Hadley, MA, Mar 3, 2018

Canada Goose with neck tag, Hadley, MA, Mar 3, 2018

Canada Goose with neck tag, Hadley, MA, Mar 3, 2018

Canada Geese with neck tags, Hadley, MA, Mar 3, 2018

After the heavy rain and wind yesterday I wanted to get out and see what I could find this morning.  The most productive stop of the morning was up to the fields in North Hadley/North Amherst where I found a Cackling Goose hanging around with a Greater White fronted Goose x Canada Goose hybrid (the two birds were found together at the UMASS Pond a few days ago by Keenan).  The two birds were inseparable and were never more than a few feet away from each other.  I also found two neck tagged Canada Geese among the 1500+ geese.  The tags were yellow with black writing with the codes "GT6" and "GU5".  I have found similarly tagged in the past and the codes beginning with "G" have all been tagged in Greenland (Greenland tagged Canada Geese -April 2015, Greenland tagged Canada Geese -March 2013).  I have reported the birds to the banding lab and will update when I hear back on the details of the birds.  A Peregrine buzzed the large flock and sent them all up in the air for a bit but a good percentage settled back on the fields.

White crowned Sparrow, Honey Pot, Hadley, MA, Mar 3, 2018

Yellow rumped Warbler 'myrtle', Arcadia, Northampton, MA, Mar 3, 2018

I started the morning off at Arcadia mainly looking to see if any waterfowl were around after yesterdays nor'easter but it was oddly very quiet with little in the way of waterfowl.  I did manage to turn up at least five Yellow rumped Warblers in the same area they have been for weeks. I then made a brief stop in the East Meadows but it was too muddy to go in very far so I headed over to the Honey Pot where I found two of the continuing White crowned Sparrows among a few other sparrows.  I also made a few stops around Quabbin but it was very windy at Winsor Dam so no luck in finding anything unusual there either.