I added a new species for me in Hampshire County today, which is something that has becoming increasingly rare. The story starts yesterday when I was at work and got a text from Theresa letting me know a Long billed Dowitcher was found by David Sibley in the East Meadows. I got more messages over the course of the day about the bird as well as another unusual species including a juvenile Little Blue Heron showed up. Always tough to be stuck at work when some cool birds are so close by. After a busy night at work I headed right over to the East Meadows where I ran across Cory and heard the bird was present earlier but had flown off to a location unknown. I decided to try an area I knew has featured some good shorebird numbers lately and after scanning through the several species present I came up empty as far as a rare bird was concerned. I was walking back to my car and ran across Joe who said he had the dowitcher earlier in the same puddle it was in yesterday, perhaps 15 minutes before. I then headed over to that location and was joined by a handful of others and scanned the area for a bit without any luck. There was at least one Green winged Teal still in the puddle along with a few shorebirds and several herons/egrets. With several people staked out at the original puddle I decided to go back and check where I originally started looking and after a bit I had the bird working the far shore...Hampshire County species #305! (my first new addition to my Hampshire County list this year and my first since the Smith's Longspur in December 2022). I got some distant photos and video through the heat shimmer and then texted a few people I knew were nearby. I also had a (the) juvenile Little Blue Heron flyby in the distance toward the Oxbow in the company of a Great Egret but my focus was on the dowitcher. After watching the dowitcher for awhile and not getting any responses to my texts I started walking back to my car to drive over to the other birders to let them know about the new location for the bird. Apparently as I was walking the bird flew back to the original location of the sighting yesterday and everyone present got to see it. I joined them there and got some more photos. The remaining flooded sections of the meadows still look prime to attract shorebirds and I would not be surprised at all if more rarities show up. I ended up with eight species of shorebirds during my hour and a half plus spent there this morning. I then headed toward home after getting my fill of the birds in the East Meadows with a short stop to check another area for a notable species, with more on that to come at some point. I added three new species for the year in the county in just a couple hours!
Although somewhat expected on the coast, inland records of Long billed Dowitchers are decidedly rare with just a handful of records in western Massachusetts. There are only a couple previous records for the valley in eBird (although there are certainly some older records that have not yet made it into the database).
There were certainly a number of other birds in the meadows as I looked for the dowitcher and figured I might as well add a few of them.
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