Today marked the end of our long stretch of record setting high temperatures with yet another day above 70 degrees. High temperature records were broken for six days in a row which is incredible in November. My first stop after getting out of work was to an area near the malls in Hadley where Mike has had a few late warblers the last few day. I only stopped briefly and didn't find anything. I then headed to Wentworth Farm Conservation Area in search of some lingering species or irruptives. Overall the area was fairly quiet with nothing too unusual. I then headed home to take Wilson for a walk and after almost completing our walk I heard from Mike that he and Scott had found a few other late warblers in the spot near the mall. I decided to try my luck once again and this time the stop was much more productive and found at least three Tennessee Warblers, a very late Wilson's Warbler and a Gray Catbird. Really amazing to find such an odd selection of species in such a small area with lots of 'development' all around. These warblers were very late and somewhat unexpected this far into November. More on late warblers for the last few days at the following link. The month has been very productive in Hampshire County with 115 species so far, which is already a couple species ahead of my best previous November back in 2017.
November 11th has been an extremely productive date for me in Hampshire County with this date producing two of the four first Hampshire County records I have found (King Eider in 2013 and Pacific Loon in 2015). I made a brief stop by the Winsor Dam (where the records above occurred) but with strong southerly winds the waters at the dam where mainly empty with no unusual waterfowl around. Perhaps with the cold front coming in tonight and northerly winds and cold temperatures for the foreseeable future something else noteworthy will show up.
I had just a few minutes on my way to work on Tuesday morning and I decided to spend that time at Arcadia, primarily around the marsh in the hopes of finding some unusual waterfowl. The best I could find was an American Coot (presumed to be the same individual that has been in the area for awhile but who knows).
After work Monday morning I headed over to the rail trail in Amherst to follow up on a few late warblers (and a very late Least Flycatcher) that Ted had there the day before. I walked all around the same areas he visited but came up empty on his sightings but I did have some interesting birds around including a color banded Black capped Chickadee. I next went to nearby Wentworth Farm Conservation Area and had better luck there with a very late Magnolia Warbler (more on warbler the last few days at the following link) and a flock of 80+ Common Redpolls.
The tropics continue to produce storms with Tropical Storm Eta expected to make landfall on the west coast of Florida tonight and then head out into the Atlantic. Tropical Storm Theta will slowly dissipate as it moves eastward toward Europe way out in the Atlantic. This season has already set the record for the most named storms in the Atlantic for any hurricane season and there is a decent chance of yet another storm forming in the western Caribbean in the next few days.
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