The annual Northampton Christmas Bird Count occurred despite a light snow that continued first a good portion of the day despite the forecast it would stop much earlier. I didn't initially have a specific location to check for the count so I decided to head to a typically birdy area along the river in Hadley. The roads were not great due to the snow but passable and not too stressful due to lack of traffic on a Sunday morning. I spent about two hours in the snow and got quite a haul of unusual species with the best being the continued 'Audubon's' subspecies of the Yellow rumped Warbler. Other notables included a male Northern Harrier (not too common at the location), all six species of woodpeckers here, a Ruby crowned Kinglet, a Gray Catbird, a couple Hermit Thrushes and at least eight 'Myrtle' subspecies of Yellow rumped Warbler. I'm glad I then ran into the team covering the area and gave them all the info on the birds, distance covered, time, etc so they could include it in the data for the day in their area. I then headed home to walk the Wilson and start cleaning up the couple inches of snow.
I have had some other good stuff the last few days despite the continued cold and at times very windy weather. Yesterday was one of the better days with my best looks yet of the 'Audubon's' warbler. I also added Eastern Towhee for the month at a private residence in Granby a few days ago. With the addition of the above mentioned species as well as others not specifically mentioned I now stand at 97 species for the month in Hampshire County which puts me at the highest point ever for the first two weeks of December ever here by several species. I have only reach the 100 species twice before in December (2018 with exactly 100 species and 2022 with 102 species). Even if I didn't add any species for the remainder of the month it will already put me in third place ever for the month of December here.
