After some severe storms which we luckily just missed having impact us yesterday, today dawned with fog, low clouds and a little drizzle. Although I could not stray too far from home for a few reasons I did get some birding in the Amherst area before I ran some errands and then headed back home (I even ran into Jack who is back in the area for just over a day before he heads back out west for the summer). There was certainly migration overnight with a few new species for me for the year including Orange crowned Warbler and Lincoln's Sparrow. As I headed home from my time in Amherst I decided to make a stop at Winsor Dam and made a quick scan of the water and noticed some birds on the water and quickly set up the scope and started scanning and turned up group after group of Common Loons that eventually totaled an amazing 93 individuals with almost all down on the water. This total beat my previous high count for the species in the county of 91 that I set on May 1, 2020 following some rainy weather. Oddly this time Common Loon appeared to be the only species impacted by the weather compared to the 2020 sighting when some other waterfowl and gulls were involved. We had a few more bouts of rain through the day and after one heavy shower I decided to return to the dam again in mid afternoon. I figured there would still be some birds around but I was not expecting to eclipse my record from the morning with an even more amazing count of 113 birds! There was even the high likelihood there were even more birds hidden even further out in the low fog on the water. It was really incredible to see and proved yet again that Winsor Dam can still surprise.
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