Bird Atlas work-Red Crossbills

I spent the morning doing my first bit of atlasing for the fourth season of the Breeding Bird Atlas. I spent a total of around 5 hours covering about 11 miles of road/trails. There were many highlights including an early Black Throated Blue Warbler, a Black and White Warbler, Red Crossbills, Evening Grosbeaks, etc. I will let the list speak for itself.

Canada Goose 10 several pairs
Wood Duck 4
Mallard 3
Ring-necked Duck 2 males
Hooded Merganser 8 a few pairs near nest boxes
Ruffed Grouse 6 drumming
Wild Turkey 20 many displaying birds
Common Loon 1 breeding plumage
Sharp-shinned Hawk 1 in same area where nesting was suspected previous years
Cooper's Hawk 1
Broad-winged Hawk 3 two together, low, calling
Red-tailed Hawk 2
American Kestrel 1 male
Mourning Dove 16
Barred Owl 2 pair calling back and forth
Belted Kingfisher 1
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker 19
Downy Woodpecker 1
Northern Flicker 5
Pileated Woodpecker 1
Eastern Phoebe 6 nesting
Blue-headed Vireo 18
Blue Jay 45
American Crow 5
Tree Swallow 11
Black-capped Chickadee 44
Red-breasted Nuthatch 14 several pairs
White-breasted Nuthatch 1
Brown Creeper 3 carrying nest material
Winter Wren 1
Golden-crowned Kinglet 4
Ruby-crowned Kinglet 10
Hermit Thrush 5
American Robin 53 carrying nest material and building nests
Black-throated Blue Warbler 1 heard and then seen...early
Yellow-rumped Warbler 45
Pine Warbler 46 several pairs, most males
Palm Warbler 7
Black-and-white Warbler 1 heard and seen
Eastern Towhee 67
Chipping Sparrow 56 many pairs
Field Sparrow 1
Song Sparrow 11 carrying nest material
Swamp Sparrow 3
White-throated Sparrow 7
Dark-eyed Junco 2
Northern Cardinal 1
Red-winged Blackbird 22
Common Grackle 7
Brown-headed Cowbird 17
Purple Finch 7
Red Crossbill 4 group together, photos taken. North of area where I had them breeding last year
American Goldfinch 17
Evening Grosbeak 9 four distinct pairs plus at least one more heard

Hawk migration

I spent just under two hours this morning atop Goat's Peak tower at Mount Tom State Reservation watching the hawk migration. Given the weather conditions I was hopeful for a good flight and was not disappointed! A total of 495 Broad wings plus a few Osprey, Harriers, Sharpies, Cooper's and Kestrels rounded out the hawk migrants. In addition a total of 70 Double Crested Cormorants and an early Bank Swallow plus groups of Yellow rumped Warblers. The birds were still moving when I left at midday. I can only imagine the overall total for the day. A fantastic spring hawk watch day.

A rainy day

Despite the rain and raw temperatures I made a trip through Quabbin Park and was rewarded with a few nice sightings. Late morning I found a group of three Bonaparte's Gulls out from Winsor Dam as well as three Common Loons. I had a nice smattering of other earlier migrants such as Pine Warbler, Louisiana Waterthrush (singing from the same spot for almost a week now), various sparrows and others. Hopefully tomorrow will bring some nicer weather.

Arizona Part 2 Mount Lemmon

I made a few trips out from our base in eastern Tucson up to Mount Lemmon. It is a truly beautiful drive and its amazing to watch the vegetation change as you climb higher and higher up the mountain going from a Saguaro desert to a Ponderosa Pine forest with feet of snow! The bird life also changes along with the trees and plants. Some of the most interesting

sightings was watching a Pygmy Nuthatch excavate a cavity in a limb. There were many other new birds for the trip sighted at various locations on my way up and down the mountain.

Arizona Part 1

I will do a brief recap of my recent trip to Arizona. For this posting I will cover the first few days of the trip. This part of the trip I spent in the area of east Tucson and visited Saguaro NP several times and had some good luck with typical desert birds including Gambel's Quail, Black tailed Gnatcatcher, Rufous winged Sparrow, Lucy Warbler and many others. The weather was perfect with temps in the 80's and low humidity.

Moose encounter

I had a nice close encounter with a moose Sunday morning at Covey WMA as I tried my best to shake off my jet lag and get back to east coast time. Although I managed to see some good birds there the highlight was indeed this quite inquisitive moose. The closest and longest encounter I have ever had with a moose.

Back from Arizona

Just back from a good trip out to Arizona. Although it was not a strictly birding trip I had some very good luck nonetheless. Hit areas around Tucson, Mount Lemmon and Madera Canyon over the course of a week. I managed a total of 136 species with 20 of those life birds for me. The big highlights included Rufous-capped Warbler and Flame Colored Tanager. I will be posting some of my photos over the next few weeks.