Today was forecast to be very windy and I wanted to get out early in the hopes that the wind would be light at the beginning of the day. I made a brief stop at Winsor Dam before dawn to see if there was anything interesting lingering after the rain yesterday (there was not). The wind was indeed light to begin the day so I decided to head over to the rail trail in Amherst to try to find some arriving passerines. There was some activity along the main trail but not too much so I took a side trail and that is where I found an adult Black crowned Night Heron. I was walking along the trail and it flushed up from a small marshy area maybe fifteen feet from me and took flight squawking a few times and then landed in a tree along the edge of another marsh. I was able to get some good looks through some thick brush but it took some time to find a spot where I could get some distant photos. I got the word out about it as it seemed to be staying put. Mary was nearby and I was able to show her the exact spot to look for it and she got to see it. Unfortunately others who looked for it later failed to relocate it but I suspect it did not go too far. Black crowned Night Heron is a rather rare visitor to the area (especially in spring). The species formerly bred in fairly large numbers in the area going back to the 1800's into the early 1900's. In Birds of the Connecticut Valley in Massachusetts (by Bagg and Eliot) they note that it was not difficult to find nesting colonies of the species in the 1870's-1880's with multiple locations noted. Even into the 1920's there were several large colonies with the largest being Pine Point in Springfield where 'several hundred' night herons nested for years. A combination of habitat loss and vandalism destroyed the various colonies and they no longer breed here.
I hit a few other spots in the Hadley and Amherst area before heading home to take Wilson for a walk. Oddly with the strong west winds there was a noticeable movement of raptors with many fighting hard against the wind and seeming to move more east then north (I bet the coast will get great counts of raptors today).
I was home by late in the morning and was about to get some chores done around the house when I noticed a message from Mary saying she had a Hooded Warbler in Hadley. I immediately headed in that direction and arrived to a very windy location along the river. I walked in and met Mary and Greg and after a bit of waiting in a somewhat less windy location the Hooded Warbler sang a few times. It largely stayed out of sight but occasionally would pop into view and eventually I got some photos. The habitat is right for it to breed (if it can find a mate). More on the Hooded Warbler can be found at the following link. A really productive day to end the month of April despite the less than ideal weather conditions. I ended the month with 146 species in the county which is above a typical April but five species short of my best April ever back in 2019.
Yesterday I spent a few hours at Quabbin Park before the rain arrived. I began the day before dawn in a successful search for some Eastern Whip Poor Wills. I then covered a variety of locations around the park overt the next three hours of so and eventually had 77 species with the highlights including a calling Virginia Rail, a Black billed Cuckoo, large numbers of Yellow bellied Sapsuckers, Ruby crowned Kinglets, Chipping Sparrows and Eastern Towhees, a flock of a dozen Red Crossbills (Type 10) and 14 species of warblers with large numbers of Ovenbirds, Black and White Warblers and Yellow rumped Warblers. I then headed home to pick up Wilson and we took a couple short walks as the rain started to come down. I ended the morning with just under 90 species with eight new species for the year for me in Hampshire County.
The forecast for the first day of May looks to be windy and cold with a chance of at least snow flurries and possibly a dusting in the hills.
