August has now come to an end and it ended on a warm note with the last few days near 90 and humid. The forecast calls for a bit of a cool down as northerly winds come in. I suspect there will be an influx of fall migrants with the change in weather conditions by the end of the week. I ended the month with 147 species with highlights including a Black Tern, Snowy Egret (more on that below), ongoing influxes of Red breasted Nuthatches and Red Crossbills, a number of lingering species and a few early Dickcissel plus a total of 23 species of warblers. I spent the last day of the month hitting numerous spots along the river (and a few away from the river) mainly looking for shorebirds and perhaps an odd wader...more on waders for today and the month below.
The overall lack of post breeding waders has been very unusual and unexpected. During the entire month I only managed to find a single Great Egret in Hampshire County, until today when I added two more individuals. This total is way below the average I typically get in August when it is not unusual to double digit counts at a single location the last several years. There have been some recent reports of double digit counts in Hampden County so maybe more will show into September. The number of Green Herons have been around average (perhaps a little above) as have the number of Great Blue Herons. I also had a single juvenile Black crowned Night Heron early in the month but none after. There has been an influx of White Ibis to points north of their typical locations this year and I have kept my eyes out for one but have so far had no luck. There had been no reports of Snowy Egrets or Little Blue Herons in the area for the fall season until this morning when I saw a report of a Little Blue Heron from a couple days ago along the Connecticut River in Hatfield. I was not going to even bother trying for it but after making multiple stops along the river and finding myself in Northampton and no word from anyone else bothering to try to relocate it I decided to head up to see if I could find it. I walked down to the waters edge at one of the canoe launches and quickly found two Great Egrets and a smaller white bird with them. The distance was far and light was crap but I got some looks and distant photos before I relocated a bit further north to getting better looks. The second vantage point was not much better and I thought initially it was a Little Blue Heron but after letting people know about it again, the bird came in much closer and they got much better views and photos and the bird was indeed a Snowy Egret. Wish I had stayed longer to have the bird come in closer! Either species is quite unusual and I was happy to find an odd wader to end the month. Shorebirds were around at a few spots but nothing too unusual although the low water at Lake Wallace produced more diversity and numbers than typical with five species there today.
