The wind continues...and delivers Brants

The winds have continued with a short let up yesterday to allow some heavy rain to fall.  I managed to make brief stop at Winsor Dam in Quabbin Park on my to and home from work today to make a quick check for waterfowl.  This morning there was a single Common Loon as well as a group of five White-winged Scoters and a single Surf Scoter.  My evening stop found three White-winged Scoter still out on the water and just as I was packing up the scope I noticed the surprise of the day...a group of eight Brant moving south fighting the strong winds.  They disappeared over the dam not to be seen again.  I have only seen Brant here on one other occasion several years ago.  Timing is everything!

California Part 4 -Big Sur



Black Oystercatcher, Pfeiffer Beach, CA, Sept 23, 2011

Red-shouldered Hawk, Andrew Molera SP, Sept 23, 2011

cropped photo of Chestnut-sided Warbler, Julia Pfeiffer Burns SP, CA, Sep 23, 2011

Andrew Molera SP, Sep 23, 2011

Julia Pfeiffer Burns SP, CA, Sep 23, 2011

Following my very productive day in Monterey we continued our California trip by heading down the coast a bit more to the Big Sur area.  We rented a house near Pfeiffer Beach and spent a few days here from September 23-25.  We visited a few parks around the area including Andrew Molera SP, Julia Pfeiffer Burns SP and Pfeiffer Big Sur SP as well as Point Lobos State Reserve on the final day of our visit.  The weather was a bit overcast at times but overall was quite satisfactory.  The area is known for its released California Condors but I missed out on seeing any.  Despite that miss I had some great birds from Black Oystercatchers to Red-throated Loons to various raptors and migrant warblers including a rare warbler for California...a Chestnut-sided Warbler.  The scenery alone is worth the trip there and the great birds just make it that much better.

Quabbin gates and other spots

White tailed Deer, three of five seen, Quabbin Gate 45, Hardwick, MA, Oct 17,2011

A final day out and about before a busy week at work.  I had the intention to head over toward Hadley to check some of the farm fields for sparrows but got a bit of a later start so I headed to Quabbin instead and made it over to Gate 45 and walked down to a couple of isolated ponds that usually hold some waterfowl and this was indeed the case today.  I had my first of season Ring-necked Ducks (21 of them) as well as Pied billed Grebe, Hooded Mergansers, Black Duck and Wood Duck plus a Double crested Cormorant fishing in a small beaver pond.  There was only a couple small mixed species flocks around in this area today but I had some decent birds with them including Common Yellowthroat, Blue headed Vireos as well as several Yellow rumped Warblers.  A couple of Winter Wrens popped up into view briefly at various locations and a Ruffed Grouse exploded from the undergrowth as I walked by.  I also had a total of five deer cross my path and (unfortunately) noticed a major increase in deer ticks.  I picked off a lucky 13 on me this morning alone while in this area of Quabbin. 

After leaving here I stopped briefly at Winsor Dam and found more Horned and Red-necked Grebes well out in the reservoir.  They appeared to be closer to gate 5 so I headed over to that location to try and get a better view.  I found a total of 21 (!) Horned Grebes there as well as a group of Mallards, three Gadwall and three American Coots out together.  A close Common Loon rounded out the birds of note here.

Wilson after his walk...finally tired out

I next came home and got Wilson and we headed to the Belchertown Land Trust trail to burn up some of his energy and hope my remaining energy held out for the walk.  The best sighting by far here was a Marsh Wren that was located somewhat near a small wetland in the woods.  The bird seemed lighter in the face with less rufous color overall then others I have seen, perhaps a juvenile?  It seemed out of place here and appeared to be associated with a mixed species flock.  Certainly unexpected here as luck would have it I didn't have my camera with me but I did get great looks at it.

No rarities today but some nice pockets of birds

Ruby-crowned Kinglet, Quabbin Park,Oct 16, 2011

Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, Quabbin Park,Oct 16, 2011

Winter Wren, Quabbin Park,Oct 16, 2011

Song Sparrow, Quabbin Park,Oct 16, 2011

Ruby-crowned Kinglet, Quabbin Park,Oct 16, 2011

The windy weather continues for today with temperatures starting around 50 again.  I visited Quabbin Park and Covey WMA again today.  No out of the ordinary birds but I did have some waterfowl on the reservoir including a couple each of Horned and Red-necked Grebe, a few Common Loons and a few other species.  There was some movement of raptors with several Red tailed Hawks, Bald Eagles, Cooper's Hawk and an Osprey.  Passerine flocks seemed to be almost absent until I found a nice flock feeding in dense undergrowth, grape vines and various fruiting plants near the entrance to Quabbin Park.  This small area contained 20+ Ruby-crowned Kinglets, five species of warbler,a Blue-headed Vireo, several Hermit Thrush's, Yellow-bellied Sapsucker and several other species.  The kinlgets seem to be everywhere with over a dozen in a couple small apple trees at the same time.  Covey WMA was relatively quiet with the only oddity being a Northern Bobwhite that somehow had escaped the hunters over the past few days.

The winds have changed...and may bring odd birds

The weather had turned from rainy and somewhat warm yesterday to sunny, cooler and windy today with some late afternoon showers.  The wind was slight to begin with in the morning but increased and stayed steady out of the southwest for the entire rest of the day.  This weather pattern at this time of year could result in some oddities showing up from out west or down south (although mainly these birds would be pushed to the coast).  A nice discussion of this can be found on Massbird in a post from Marshall Iliff from Cornell.  Here is a bit of that post:

Massbird,

Several conditions are aligning this weekend to make for what may
potentially be a great weekend for birding and could very well bring an
additional slug of top-level rarities.

Rare bird prognostications are an imperfect science, for sure, and certainly
I won't be totally surprised to be completely wrong. But for those who like
a challenge, are interested in the science of birds and weather and the
not-so-random appearances of "vagrants", this would be a good weekend to get
out afield.

Here are a few things to think about:

1) This fall has already had a large number of rarities turning up. I assume
this is due to the same dip in the jet stream that has brought us such cool,
moist weather all summer and fall, yet with consistent southerlies. Consider
the birds recently: Lark Bunting; Smith's longpsur in ME; multiple
Ash-throated Flycatchers (Plum Island and Winthrop); Townsend's Warblers in
NJ and MD; Black-throated Gray Warbler in NJ; Green Violetear and Bell's
Vireo in Maryland, etc.

2) The long, trailing offshore system a couple weeks ago produced one of the
more impressive fallouts of southern passerines along the coast from Boston
to central Maine. (My impression is that birders did not cover places like
Cape Ann well enough; Cape Ann may have been superb on Sunday and Monday 2-3
Oct, but the best coverage there was 5-6 days later). Impressively, many of
the birds (Hooded Warblers, White-eyed Vireos, Summer Tanager, cuckoos etc.)
have persisted through this week and some are setting very late records
(e.g., the multiple recent Yellow-throated Vireos). Since some of these
birds may still be around in coastal thickets, it is yet another reason to
get out and look.

3) Most importantly, this weekend's weather could very well bring some new
rarities. We are now in the middle of two very wet cold fronts moving up
from the south (as did the system 2 weeks ago that brought these southern
landbirds). This wet weather is scheduled to clear tonight and behind it a
third low pressure system will bring strong westerly winds. This system has
been tracking across southern Canada and the Great Lakes and will have
pretty long wind fields that have good potential to displace birds--in other
words, this could be a good weekend for vagrants. Over the weekend wind is
forecast (at e.g., Gloucester) to be 15-20 mph or higher from the WSW or SW.


This system does not have the "ideal" conditions to displace southwestern
birds to New England. This type of system--best known for Cave
Swallows--would have southwesterly winds in advance of a long front that
trails far down into Texas and northern Mexico. When these conditions occur
in early November, Cave Swallows occur and often a smattering of other
unusual species (Ash-throated Flycatchers, rare eastern warblers, etc.) crop
up as well.

While a longer field of southerly winds might be nice, any westerly
component connected to far away lands has a lot of potential to produce
rarities. The wind fields should be almost continuous from the Great Lakes
to the Northeast coast, so we might optimistically hope for some
displacement of October migrant species from those areas. Some possibilities
might be Le Conte's Sparrow, Sedge Wren, Say's Phoebe, Western Kingbird and
(long shot) Smith's Longspur or Sprague's Pipit. Sandhill Cranes and rare
geese like Greater White-fronted and Ross's could be in the cards. And in
1998 a somewhat similar system produced a massive East Coast fallout of
Franklin's Gulls. While this system may be north of big concentrations in
Kansas now (see eBird, of course, for current Franklin's flocks:*
http://tinyurl.com/5tqc22b*), it is a species to think about. However, I
think the 1998 system was significantly stronger, so if this storm does
produce Franklin's, it is unlikely to displace the hundreds that reached the
East in 1998

With the chance of some rarity potentially showing up, the excitement of going out in the morning always increases a bit.  I began at dawn at Winsor Dam at Quabbin and then continued to various other areas of Quabbin Park.  The interesting bird of the day was a swallow species seen distantly from the area of the blueberry patch in Quabbin Park.  It was too far away to ID to specific species but was certainly a swallow.  It appeared dark above and light (but not white) below.  Given the time of year the default swallow would be Tree Swallow but given the weather conditions anything is possible.  It would have been nice to have the bird closer and had a better look.  There was a variety of waterfowl around but nothing too unusual.  A flock of 14 Horned Grebes was very neat to see.  Beyond that just a few Common Loons, Common Mergansers and a few others.  I returned a few more times to Quabbin during the day but found nothing too out of the ordinary.

White-winged Scoter, Quabbin park, Oct 14, 2011

White-winged Scoter framed by trees close to shore, Quabbin park, Oct 14, 2011

I'm including a photo of a White-winged Scoter I had very close to shore yesterday at Quabbin Park.  This species is seldom seen so close to shore here so it was a good sighting as far as I'm concerned.  It will be interesting to see if tomorrow brings anything new.

Leucistic Sooty Shearwater in Monterey Bay

Sooty Shearwater leucistic

Sooty Shearwater leucistic showing underwings

Sooty Shearwater leucistic

Sooty Shearwater leucistic

Sooty Shearwater leucistic

Sooty Shearwater leucistic with normal Sooty Shearwater behind it

A little more in depth description and photos of the partially leucistic Sooty Shearwater seen on a Monterey bay pelagic trip with Shearwater Journeys. This was one of possibly two present but certainly the most photogenic. The bird was in a large feeding flock of Sooty Shearwaters that we managed to get right in the middle of. The bird was in view for a few minutes and then dove right next to the boat and it was not seen again. Despite its unique appearance it was easy to lose in this dense feeding flock of shearwaters. There had been numerous sightings of similar birds on other Shearwater Journeys trips but as Debi Shearwater points out in her blog they are seldom photographed. Another similar bird was indeed photographed by Brian Sullivan on a trip on September 11, 2011
http://shearwaterjourneys.blogspot.com/2011/09/images-of-day-by-brian-sullivan.html

I was very happy to get a look at this bird as well as manage several photos of it before it disappeared. A truly unique looking individual.

Additional photos from my Monterey pelagic trip

Black-footed Albatross

Buller's Shearwater

Northern Fulmar light morph

Sooty Shearwater

Black-footed Albatross

Common Murre

South Polar Skua

Pomarine Jaeger

Long-tailed Jaeger

Ashy Storm-Petrel

Rhinocerous Auklet


A few additional photos from my September 22 pelagic trip from Monterey out into Monterey Bay.  The overcast conditions made for some difficult photography but the birds were great.  Hopefully you will enjoy the wide variety of species shown above.