The third week of November has now come to an end and our largely cooler than average and windy weather has continued with a few flurries on a couple days. Given these weather conditions, the time of year plus the ongoing issues with Wilson (see below) I have concentrated on birds in the south Quabbin area (particularly around Winsor Dam). Waterfowl is always the big draw here this time of year with gulls not far behind. The best waterfowl species of the week was certainly the Barrow's Goldeneye at the Holyoke Dam on the 12th (and continued through the week). No huge shows of waterfowl at Winsor Dam although the diversity has been decent overall with some mornings more productive than others. The gull show has been good too with the best for the week being an Iceland Gull on the 17th. Irruptives of multiple species continue to arrive into the area. The best was a flyover White winged Crossbill on the 17th. Evening Grosbeaks and Red Crossbills continue to be around in small numbers at multiple locations. Pine Siskins and Purple Finches also continue to show quite well plus increasing numbers of American Goldfinches. The Finch Forecast (which I contribute data to) called for the potential of a large flight of many species and so far the forecast is looking to be playing out. It will be interesting to see what the rest of winter brings in. With a little extra time away from home I covered a few spots the last couple mornings trying for late warblers and find a group of half a dozen Yellow rumped Warblers in an area they have overwintered in the past and a very late 'western' Palm Warbler today.
Wilson continues to occupy my time and thoughts as we struggle through what we will do with him. For now we are just in monitor mode of the tumor and trying to stay on top of him making things worse. As I said before there are no good options available for us and it continues to be some stressful times. Thankfully he is still acting happy (although he really wants to lick at his foot every chance he gets!).
The last week has seen more great migration conditions early on and then a bit of a warm up and some rain to end the time period. Warbler migration is largely over beyond the late season migrants although I did have a very good day yesterday with a total of eight species of warblers (quite good for this late in the month this year given all the great migration conditions). Sparrows continue to arrive in numbers with a great selection of species around. Waterfowl numbers and diversity have been on the low side so far although I expect that will change with the arrival of cooler weather into the four week of November. Purple Finches and Pine Siskins continue to increase in number and will hopefully be just the vanguard of irruptive species to arrive this year...time will tell. I'm a bit behind for the month as waterfowl has not really shown up in numbers and I have concentrated on finding late warblers...I currently stand at 125 species, which is my lowest count at this point in October since 2017. I also presented a program at the Hampshire Bird Club on the evening of the 14th and it was apparently well received and had the biggest crowd for a program at the club since Covid. The topic was "Endemic Warblers of the Caribbean". I have made a couple presentations recently and have found that I really enjoy doing them.
