Hiking, birding etc. November

Despite the fact I haven't posted in a long while, I have been birding a fair amount. Mostly local stuff and little in the department of "human powered birding" (I will post a summary around the 1st of year, but the species count is modest at best).

Pine Siskins had been quite common a month ago, but my observations have shown fewer in the past two weeks. Perhaps they have moved on and/or have "settled" into prime a feeding stations, away from were I have birded. The good news is White-winged Crossbills are showing up in good numbers with reports coming in from the Berkshires to the coast.

The ski season is open at Wachusett Mtn ski area, but I was still doing a bit of late season hawkwatching.

I managed some good local birds during November, while hawkwatching at Mount Watatic (Ashburnham) on the 1st, I was fortunate to "catch" a view of migrating Snowy Owl! It was in view for a few minutes while it utilized thermal lift (soaring) and some flapping and gliding headed south. It was a good migration day and I was able to record 65 Snow Geese, 295 Canada Geese, 37 Red-tailed Hawks, 1634 migrating American Crows a few Snow Buntings and 50 Pine Siskins. Raptors weren't the only "game in town" and I enjoy the crow migration as much as the hawks.

On 11/9 I had an excellent view of a passing juvenile Golden Eagle on Watatic. So close, in fact, I was able to comment to a near by hiker... the exchange went sort of like this...."see that dark bird over there"?, he said, "ya, the one with the white tail, never saw one with those white patches on wings around here before?"...he had no binoculars..."ya, that's a Golden Eagle". 34 White-winged Crossbills and ~100 Pine Siskins also passed that day too.
On the 29th another close Golden passed Watatic, an adult, riding the wind current up the south side of the hill. RIGHT in front of a young girl who was busy fiddling with her cell phone, texting no doubt, and oblivious to the whole spectacle! Another interesting sighting was a couple walking their 2 pet goats, both leased and "decked out" in hunter orange!

The November, and season totals, hawkwatch summary and detail is HERE

The view, to the west, down the Holyole Range from Mt. Hitchcock

Laura and I hiked a bit of the Holyoke Range in Hadley on the 23rd, a 4.5 mile walk that took us up Bare Mt., from rte 116, over to Hitchcock Mt., down a trail on the south side and back. Not a lot of birds ,but great views of the Conn. Valley and an enjoyable hike. While I was spishing in chickadees, a flock of 12 White-winged Crossbills passed over head calling. The true highlight was a stop at Atkin's Farm, in Amherst, which has excellent pastry selection. A chocolate eclair, the size of a small Russian submarine, hit the spot!

"Moss" growth near an oak on the south side of Mt. Hitchcock.

Crystal Lake in Gardner was about 80% iced over but I found a nice assortment of waterfowl there on Sunday morning 11/30. Species included: Canada Goose ~175, Wood Duck 1, Mallard ~120, Black Duck 14, Mallard X Black Hybrid 2, Common Goldeneye 7, Common Mergaser 26 and Red-breasted Merganser 1. Only 6 gulls were present but one was carrying an orange wing marker # A31. (note on this bird: Ken MacKenzie, project leader for the gull tagging program, saw this bird (A31) on Wachusett Reservior the evening before)

Winter is settling in, most lakes, ponds and some moving water ( this is Priest Brook, the upper Miler's River watershed) was ice covered on 11/30 .


Red-breasted Merganser was at Crystal Lake in Gardner on 11/30 , present since 11/15.


Wood Duck on Crystal Lake in Gardner.

North Central Mass. and Keene, NH area 10/5

On way home from Keene this afternoon, I stopped to bird the back road of the Keene airport in Swanzey, NH. There I found good numbers Yellow-rumped Warblers, 1 Blackpoll, 1 Palm and a few Common Yellowthroats along with plenty of sparrows. White-throated, Swamp and Song are now moving through the area in numbers. The biggest surprise was an Eastern Screech Owl that responded to my imitation, while I was trying to attract songbirds. At first I expected to find another birder, doing the same as I, but realized the owl's call was coming from a stand of maples in a wetland. It called off and on for about 15 minutes in full day light about 3:30PM.

I decided to bird the Lake Dennison area of Birch Hill Wildlife Management Area, part of my Christmas count territory (Athol CBC), in Winchendon, Ma. and then hit Crystal Lake in Gardner for the gull roost.

While birding the edge of the forest near the Dennison parking area, I heard the whistle of an Osprey. That lead to two surprises:

The first one bad, was a dead Great-horned Owl. Some one had lifted its body onto one the park barbecue grills, the bird's insides were essentially consumed and nothing was left except skin, feathers and bones. Having no plastic bags in the car I left the bird behind, it would be interesting if the cause of death could be determined.


Dead Great-horned Owl
The second was a good: I noticed splashing on the far side of the pond and then saw a cormorant in flight. This bird had a nice white belly, giving the indication it was a Great Cormorant, always a nice find in Worcester County, especially on a small lake. It perched in a dead tree and I thought it worth a walk around the lake to get a closer look and try for a photo or two. The two below were best of several I digi-scoped just as the sun dropped below the horizon.


Great Cormorant at Lake Dennison

Great Cormorant at Lake Dennison
The Lake Dennison "corm walk" meant I had little light for the gulls in Gardner. I was fortunate the 350+ gulls present were close to the cemetery, making the count and ID's straight forward. Even more fortuitous was the fact a single adult Lesser Black-backed was among 300 Herring, 40 Great Black-backed, 25 Ring-billed Gulls. Last year, several gulls were trapped and tagged with wing markers of various colors, red, orange, black and yellow (if I recall correctly). Last evening while birding in Westminster I saw a Herring pass overhead, headed toward Gardner, with red tags, but I couldn't read the numbers.



Crystal Lake Cemetery after sunset

Watatic Hawkwatch 9/13 to 9/21

A digi-bin photo of a passing Broad-winged Hawk at Mount Watatic. Lillian and Don Stokes have some nice hawk photos on their BLOG, check the mid September entries.

For the past few years I have taken vacation time to count migrating raptors passing Mt. Watatic in North Central Massachusett, located 1 mile south of the Mass/New Hampshire border. While migration was well under way before I got started on 9/13, I had timed my vacation for the peak of Broad-winged Hawk Migration, typically taking place between 9/10 and 9/23.

My friend's Thom and Sue visited me for the week to help with the count. Thom had begun counting on Watatic back in 1986, he now lives in Maine. Over the course of the week, several folks would visit to help with the count from various points in Massachusetts and Southern new Hampshire.

This "hawkwatcher" was particularly interested in the Broad-wing Hawk flight!
There is no road to the summit, but the hike on the Wapack Trail, a bit over a mile from Rte 119 in Ashburnham, is pleasant and the views at the top are among the best in central Massachusetts. I have included some photos from the watch site, located on what we call the "east summit", a rocky knob about 200 yards east of the main summit.

The View looking North West along the "Wapack Ridge", the 21 mile Wapck Trail runs along the ridge from Rte 119 in Ashburnham to just beyond North Pack just outside Peterboro, NH. For more information of hiking the Wack Trail see this link Friends of the Wapack .
Looking north, Thom working the scope. The highest point, just left of center is Pack Monadnock, were a daily hawk count takes place from September 1 through October 31st, to follow "Pack's results see this link Pack Monadnock Raptor Observatory.
The East Summit, as seen from the main summit looking East. Blood Hill is in the back gorund to the right. The smoke is from Thom and Sue burning a smudge stick of white sage, a little Broad-wing "hocus-pocus" . Looking southeast toward Billy Ward Pond, on a clear day you can Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, Ma. with optics.
Looking south, Stodge Meadow Pond is to the left, Wachusett Mountain (just right of center), the clearing to the right of the pond is Timber Lost Farm in Ashburnham. Here is a link to the Wachusett Mountain hawkwatch results. The South West view, Little Watatic Mountain with early morning fog coming off Upper and Lower Naukeg Lakes.
The view West South West, the biggest bump on the horizon (to the far right) is Mount Grace.

This hill top affords a great view in nearly all direction, so when the hawks aren't flying we enjoy the scenery and dramas like the one below.

At first I thought the Dragonfly (one of the Meadowhawks) had the spider, but it was the spider that had the upper hand. When you notice stuff like this on a hawkwatch...the birds aint flyin.

Over the week we had a modest start with warm and hazy weather on the 9/13 and flight of 165 hawks, 9/14 was a rain out, 9/15 was very windy with gusts to nearly 40MPH, 9/16 brought us nearly 500 birds, and the 17th over 800.

We hit it big on the 18th with nearly 2,000 raptors passing between 9 and 10AM, the bulk of which passed just west and many close and over the summit. Thom and I divided sky, he taking the west and me the east and Sue tracking birds over head. I while I was busy counting, hulkered down out of the wind, a few dozen here and there I could hear Thom's commentary in the back ground. Finnally he said "take look back here" as dozens and dozens passed close by and 3 kettles of Broad-wings were behind the hill, about 200-300 hawks in each. As happens many times a flight may start with many passing on one side of the hill (today the west) and then switch to the other side (today the east). Between 11 and noon we had nearly 1900 pass, but this time mostly to our east and more distant, expect for the 500 high-flyers that came right over the summit and nearly got missed in the blue sky! We would finish the day with over 5,000 birds, nearly all Broad-wings. Details from the week can be found here: Mount Watatic Hawkwatch.

All the nearby hawkwatches had good days on the 18th, "Pack" had 2500+, Wachusett 3800+ and Barre Falls 4200+. They were all headed to Connecticut...where Quaker Ridge hit the big time" with over 13,000.

I will probably do some more counting this fall and will add to the Hawkcount.org data base, Hawkcount is good site to look around and check on numberous watch sites in Canada, USA and Mexico.

Mt. Monroe and Washington Hike 7/23/08

Last month I Hiked up the Ammonoosuc Ravine Trail to the AMC Lake of the Clouds hut, over to Mt.Monroe, back towards the hut and on to Mt. Washington, via the Crawford Path. The descent was via the Gulfside Trail, skirting Mt. Clay and down the Jewel Trail, back to the trailhead completing a 10.5 mile loop. The primary focus was hiking but I did manage to see and hear some nice birds along the way.

headwaters of Ammonoosuc River about a mile from the trail head.
From the parking lot, at the trail head, was a few Swainson's Thrush, a White-winged Crossbill and 4 Evening Grosbeaks. The trail began a fairly easy, but rocky, ascent for the first few miles where the path paralelled the Ammonoosuc River (a fast flowing stream at this stage). Afterwards, the trail became steep and the river is a series of spectacular water falls and pools. The most common bird of the day was Blackpoll Warbler, which I probably under counted.

A pool about 2.5 miles into the hike.
A short spur (a few hundred feet) from the main trail leads to "The gorge", well worth the side trip.

Visibility was poor once I reached about 4500 in elevation, less than 100 feet at times but at least there was no heavy rain. Dispite being mid July, gloves were a nice addition to the pack as the moist air and 30+ MPH wind quickly chilled the hands. Once above tree line I heard a few Dark-eyed Juncos and White-throated Sparrows but little else.
Heading toward Mt. Monroe
The summit of Monroe had essentially zero visibilty and the wind was gusting to 40MPH, so after a quick touch of the summit marker I headed back down.
Only a few hikers were on the trail between Monroe and the Washington summit, they being a few "staffers" packing food to The Lake of the Clouds AMC Hut...frozen turkeys and butter was "the order of the day".

Lake of the Clouds staff member packing in Food (frozen turkeys and butter) to the hut
A Mt. Washington summit building through a thick fog

With the Washington Summit "socked in" there was only a few tourist at the visitor's center but there were perhaps 15 to 20 hikers. A bowl of hot chilly, from the visitor's center "cafe", was a nice addition to the sandwiches I had packed for lunch.

After coming off the summit trail I joined the Gulfside trail, where it crosses the Cog Railway track, heading toward Mt. Clay. Just before reaching the rail crossing I heard then saw 2 Amercian Pipits, this is one of the few places this species breeds in the north east, I believe Mt. Katadin in Maine is the only other.

The Guldside Trail crosses the Cog RR track. Top speed of "the Cog" is about 2 MPH, being run over by the cog would lead to an instant nomination for " a Darwin award"!

The cloud deck rose a bit offering a wonderful view of Mt. Clay as well as a nice look down into the Great Gulf, toward the east. Not having time to climb Clay I followed the Gulfside trail to the west of Clay where it intersects with The Jewel Trail which leads back to the trailhead.
Mt. Clay from the Gulfside Trail

The Jewel Trail heading down from the base of Mt. Clay. The patch to the left is the end of Base Road, the departure of the Cog Railway, the trailhead is a mile beyond that.
"The Cog" chunging toward Mt. Washington.

Once I was back below tree line and into the forest I heard my first and only Yellow-bellied Flycatcher. Shortly after, I crossed paths with 3 Gray Jays, 2 adults and one Juvenile, which approached to wait for handouts . The adults were more bold than the Juv., but eventually the youngster landed on my hand for some trail mix.

An adult Gray Jay

The skiddish "sooty" juv. Gray Jay making a quick "grab and go"
Ad. Gray Jay posing nicely
The last few miles of the hike were uneventful, and tough on the knees, but upon reaching the parking lot this Red Fox was walking across the parking lot.

Red Fox a the trailhead parking lot.



The bird list:


Yellow-bellied Flycatcher...1
Blue-headed Vireo...2
Gray Jay...3
Common Raven...1
Black-capped Chickadee...3
Red-breasted Nuthatch...1
Winter Wren...2
Golden-crowned Kinglet...4
Swainson's Thrush...10
American Pipit...2
Nashville Warbler...1
Magnolia Warbler...1
Black-throated Blue Warbler...3
Yellow-rumped Warbler (Myrtle)...2
Black-throated Green Warbler...5
Blackburnian Warbler...1
Blackpoll Warbler...25
White-throated Sparrow...2
Dark-eyed Junco (Slate-colored)...5
Purple Finch...1
White-winged Crossbill...1
Pine Siskin...1
Evening Grosbeak...4

New Hampshire Birdathon 5/24 (Coos County)

We saw at least 9 Moose, this a young bull.
Our NH birdathon team (Chuck Caron, Paul Meleski and I) decided to do something a little different, for us at least, for this years NH contest. We loaded up the "land yatch" and headed to northern New Hampshire and birded the wilds of Coos County,concetrating on Pittsburg looking for some northern specialties planning then to work our way south to Whitefield/Jefferson area.

The "Walmart" of Pittsburg
We arrived mid-day on Friday and scouted some of the logging roads, Indian Stream and East Inlet Roads, north of the town of Pittsburg. The weather was cold, windy with on and off rain, snow flurries and hail. Bird song was minimal but finding territorial species such as Northern Parula, Magnolia, Blackburnian, Black-throated Blue (and Green) and Yellow-rumped Warblers was not an issue. We heard a Yellow-bellied Flycatcher, while probably a common bird up here, May 23rd seemed a tad earliy for so far north or maybe because we'd heard it just after being "hailed" upon.
Indian Stream


Later in the afternoon, we checked into the Colebrook Country Club and got dinner a few miles away, the only place that had a generator (there was a local power outage). After dinner we drove some of the back roads in the Colebrook area where we had Savanha Sparrow, Bobolinks an Amercian Bittern and heard winnowing Wilson's Snipe.
Most impressive, to ME, was a yard that had so much junk in it, you couldn't even tell what was there ...and guess who left his camera at the motel...this would've certainly taken 1st prize on Foxworthy's "Red-neck yard of the week"! I was one vote short to get this locale on the Saturday route, my plea of "*@$# the Spruce Grouse", fell on deaf ears!

Aside from fishing, apparently "Moose tipping" is the local sport of choice.

On "game day" we got started a bit before 4am, hitting some back roads in Colebrook as we worked toward Pittsburg. The song of White-throated Sparrows was constant, we picked up the song of a distant winnowing Snipe and American Bittern. Once we got up to Pittsburg and onto Indian Stream Road bird song was constant, nothing fancy but never out of ear shot from the song of Northern Parula, American Redstart, Magnolia (especially), Blackburnian, BT Blue, BT Green Warblers. Northern Waterthrush and Ruby-crowned Kinglets were very common as well.

Along East Inlet Road there was still pockets of snow between the Balsm Fir, we picked up a Bay-breatsted Warbler, Evening Grosbeak and Rusty Blackbird. At the East Inlet spillway we missed the Hooded Mergs that were present on Friday but, a Gray Jay came in and took handouts! We would see 3 more during the morning. We continued up East Inlet Road carefully looking for Spruce Grouse, missing it but we got a few Boreal Chickadees.

Chuck and Paul survey a remote marsh near the Canadian border.
Our first surprise species was 4 Surf Scoters on Scott's Bog Pond, 2 drakes and 2 hens, along with a pair of Ring-necked Ducks and Hooded Merganers. On 2nd Connecticut Lake we got 5 White-winged Scoters and a Bald Eagle, and a hen Common Goldeneye flew past over 1st Connecticut Lake. We found a nice flock of swallows along on Rte 3 which was mostly Cliff Swallows, that were nest building on a gift shop and a few nearby homes.

We spent most of the morning in Pittsburg and got 2 of the 4 boreal specialties we'd hoped for, missing Spruce Grouse and Black-backed Woodpecker.
Scott's Bog Pond

Back toward Colebrook we got Rock Pigeon and House Sparrow and picked other easy birds on route toward Pondicherry. We had about 90 species on the list when we reached the Whitefield Airport, we'd quickly add a few more species such as Black Duck and 2 Pine Siskins convinently dropped into a tree beside us, just long enough for us all to see them.

The long walk into Pondicherry Wildlife Refuge was a level walk along an old rail road bed, an Olive-sided Flycatcher allowed close study and a few photographs.

Olive-sided Flycatcher at Pondicherry
The view from the platform at Cherry Pond was spectacular with the Presidential range as a back drop to this natural pond.

Mt. Washington from Cherry Pond

On the walk to Little Cherry Pond we added Blackpoll Warbler and Red-breasted Nuthatch which now brought our total to 99 species. The mosquitoes were now out in force as we continued onward, some one commented "there better be something good out here". As we arrived at the viewing platform we heard an unfamilar sound, that was most likely a Black-backed Woodpecker. However, this was on our "had to be seen list" and we had some uncertainty so this went uncounted. A monemt later a Black Tern was seen on the far side of the pond, a perfect bird to bring us over the century mark for the day! A hen Wood Duck was seen a moment later and then a singing Tennesee Warbler on the walk back to the car.

Black Tern (digi-binned) at Little Cherry Pond
Our last bird of the day was a Chimney Swift in Twin Mountain, after we'd eaten dinner at a local restaraunt. We finished off with 104 species and we had some interesting misses, such as Downy Woodpecker, Tufted Titmouse, White-breatsed Nuthatch, Northern Cardinal, Scarlet Tanager and Northern Rough-winged Swallow to name a few. Though, some of these may be tough to find up north and we did not spend a lot of time worrying about these.

Our list of birds for 5/24:

Common Loon
American Bittern
Great Blue Heron
Canada Goose
Wood Duck
Mallard
American Black Duck
Ring-necked Duck
White-winged Scoter
Surf Scoter
Common Goldeneye
Common Merganser
Hooded Merganser
Turkey Vulture
Osprey
Bald Eagle
Sharp-shinned Hawk
Broad-winged Hawk
Red-tailed Hawk
American Kestrel
Ruffed Grouse
Killdeer
Spotted Sandpiper
Common Snipe
American Woodcock
Herring Gull
Black Tern
Rock Dove
Mourning Dove
Chimney Swift
Ruby-throated Hummingbird
Belted Kingfisher
Northern Flicker
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker
Hairy Woodpecker
Pileated Woodpecker
Olive-sided Flycatcher
Least Flycatcher
Eastern Phoebe
Eastern Kingbird
Blue-headed Vireo
Red-eyed Vireo
Blue Jay
Gray Jay
American Crow
Common Raven
Tree Swallow
Bank Swallow
Cliff Swallow
Barn Swallow
Black-capped Chickadee
Boreal Chickadee
Brown Creeper
Red-breasted Nuthatch
House Wren
Winter Wren
Golden-crowned Kinglet
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Eastern Bluebird
Wood Thrush
Veery
Swainson's Thrush
Hermit Thrush
American Robin
Gray Catbird
European Starling
Tennessee Warbler
Nashville Warbler
Northern Parula
Chestnut-sided Warbler
Magnolia Warbler
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Black-and-white Warbler
Black-throated Blue Warbler
Blackburnian Warbler
Black-throated Green Warbler
Bay-breasted Warbler
Blackpoll Warbler
Yellow Warbler
Canada Warbler
Ovenbird
Northern Waterthrush
Common Yellowthroat
American Redstart
Eastern Towhee
Chipping Sparrow
Savannah Sparrow
Song Sparrow
Swamp Sparrow
White-throated Sparrow
Dark-eyed Junco
Rose-breasted Grosbeak
Bobolink
Red-winged Blackbird
Common Grackle
Rusty Blackbird
Brown-headed Cowbird
Baltimore Oriole
Purple Finch
House Finch
Pine Siskin
American Goldfinch
Evening Grosbeak
House Sparrow