It is a rare event when I add a new species to my Hampshire County list but it happened this morning when I found a female Common Eider at Winsor Dam! I arrived at the dam a little after ten in the morning after visiting a few other spots along the river after getting out of work (more on that below). I set up the scope and started scanning and came across a few birds on the water including a large raft of Black Scoters (totaling a bit over fifty birds) plus a single each of Surf Scoter and Common Goldeneye plus a few Bufflehead. I then caught sight of a somewhat large brown bird on the water swimming almost directly at me. I knew it was something unusual but the distance and the profile of the bird made it tough to figure out but an eider species was certainly on my mind. After looking at the bird for just a few minutes Ted arrived and I got him quickly on the bird and we both concurred on eider (likely common) but views were tough. We alternated between studying the bird, getting crummy distant photos and video and notifying other birders. The bird would occasionally give some side profiles views and we became more confident of it being a Common Eider. The bird continued to get closer (at least for Quabbin) and was out near the large orange buoy at its closest approach. At this point Scott arrived and very shortly thereafter the eider took off and flew further out where it joined a group of Black Scoters. More birders continued to arrive and all present got to see the bird. It was tough to pick out at times within the scoter flock, especially when it had its head tucked in. If we had not seen it when it was closer I don't think we would have been able to identify the bird once it was much further out and with the scoter flock. It is always satisfying to find a rare bird and it is made more satisfying when others get to see it and enjoy it too. This appears to be just the third county record with previous ones being from Oct 8, 1988 at Winsor Dam and April 19, 1997 at the Oxbow, with both previous records coming from Tom Gagnon. Common Eider is an extremely rare species inland overall in the state and not sure why this bird showed up here today as the conditions were sunny and somewhat calm. There certainly were some northerly winds the last two days but the species is not known to stray very far from coast, even in bad weather conditions. The Common Eider becomes Hampshire County species #304 for me and Quabbin species #255 and Winsor Dam species #216 (thanks to eBird for keeping track of of these numbers). I returned to Winsor Dam around 2PM and the Common Eider continued with a group of Black Scoter. Unfortunately it didn't come in any closer and I had to be content with distant views once again. This time of year can be great for rarities and I have had a bit of a track record of turning up stuff at Winsor Dam around this date with two of my four first Hampshire County records occurring at Winsor Dam and both on November 11 (King Eider in 2013 and a Pacific Loon in 2015). I will certainly be keeping my eyes out for more unusual species showing up over the next few days.
Before finding the Common Eider I had visited a few other locations and turned up some more unusual species including a pair of Sandhill Cranes in Hatfield and some flyover Evening Grosbeaks at Arcadia.
This mega rarity comes on the heels of several other unusual species I have had so far this November including a Red Phalarope on the first, Yellow headed Blackbird on the third, a couple late warbler species and a Golden Eagle on the seventh plus some tough to find species like American Coot and Ruddy Duck. In the first nine days of the month I have found a total of 105 species in Hampshire County, which is my second highest total at this point of the month with lots of potential species still to come (my best at this point was 2020 when I had 113 species by the ninth and ended the month with 122...we will see if I can beat this total).
No comments:
Post a Comment