A record breaking December and the Quabbin CBC on New Year's Eve

Hooded Mergansers, Winsor Dam, Quabbin Park, MA, Dec 31, 2022

Looking north from Hank's Meadow, Quabbin Park, MA, Dec 31, 2022

Winsor Dam, Quabbin Park, MA, Dec 31, 2022

To end 2022 I took part in the Quabbin Christmas Bird Count this morning.  I helped cover some areas of Quabbin Park including Winsor Dam.  The weather was very unusual for the Quabbin count with temps that started off above freezing and rose to near 50!  Usually this count is brutal cold with snow and ice so it was a nice change for sure.  I got out listening for owls early and turned up several Great Horned Owls.  The rest of my time was spent mainly trying to track down waterfowl and although it was overall fairly slow compared to previous days I still managed eight species of waterfowl with the highlights being all three merganser species including a single Red breasted Merganser in a flock of Common Mergansers, a couple Horned Grebes and a Red necked Grebe.  In the bit under two and a half hours I was out helping on the count I found 27 species.

Red necked Grebe, Quabbin Gate 5, Belchertown, MA, Dec 28, 2022

Winsor Dam, Quabbin Park, MA, Dec 30, 2022

I also did some scouting for count week (three days to either side of the count day) and turned up some waterfowl and other stuff too.

Sunrise, East Meadows, Northampton, MA, Dec 29, 2022

Yellow rumped Warbler 'myrtle', East Meadows, Northampton, MA, Dec 29, 2022

Horned Larks, East Meadows, Northampton, MA, Dec 29, 2022

Northern Harrier, East Meadows, Northampton, MA, Dec 29, 2022

Greater Scaup, Hadley Falls Canal Park, South Hadley, MA, Dec 29, 2022

Black Vultures, Hadley, MA, Dec 30, 2022

Pale Canada Goose, UMASS, Amherst, MA, Dec 30, 2022

Barred Owl, Home, Belchertown, MA, Dec 30, 2022

Although I did not set out to break my December record for the county this year I did indeed do so with a large number of rarities for the month, lingering species and some irruptives.  My previous best December was back in 2018.  I broke the record on the 29th when I spent some time in the East Meadows and then down to South Hadley to an area above the Holyoke Dam where I had species #101 (a female Greater Scaup) that broke my old record.  Other rarities around for that morning included a Short eared Owl, Lapland Longspur, Eastern Meadowlark and a Yellow rumped Warbler plus high counts of a number of species.  I headed out again on the 30th and hit a variety of areas and found species #102 for the month with an American Kestrel.  Other notables for the next to last day of the year included four Black Vultures continuing in Hadley, a returning pale Canada Goose at UMASS (this appears to be the third year for this unique individual as I fist had it in January 2021), the continued Smith's Longspur plus a cooperative Barred Owl at the house.  Today brought me to #103 with the above mentioned Red breasted Merganser at Quabbin.