Plymouth, Sandwich & Falmouth

The trip originally scheduled for January 4 was postponed to the 5th due to rain in the forecast.  Thirteen members braved windy weather, and racked up 46 species, while hitting nine key birding spots.  We started off the trip by heading to a new eBird hotspot, the Rte 105/Vaughn Hill Rd fields in Rochester, where White-fronted Goose and Snow Goose had been observed mixed in with a large flock of Canada Geese.  While we missed on the White-fronted Goose, we all had wonderful scope views of the immature Snow Goose and a smattering of Bufflehead, Hooded Mergansers, Black Ducks and Mallards.  A Bald Eagle was spotted overhead and a flock of 40 Horned Larks flew over and disappeared when they landed in the field.  Next stop was Sider’s Pond in Falmouth which added 30 Greater Scaup, Great and Double-crested Cormorants, 9 Ring-necked Ducks, 5 Red-Breasted Mergansers and a Mute Swan.  Also there, were several land birds, including a Flicker and a Sharp-shinned Hawk.  On down the road to Salt Pond, we found 300 Greater Scaup and 35 Lesser Scaup, and added 6 Goldeneye and a Great Blue Heron.

After a rest stop at McDonald’s we headed to Town Neck Rd, Sandwich where we counted over 200 Common Eider, 1 Surf Scoter, 6 Black Scoters, a possible alcid, 3 Common Loons and a Red-throated Loon.  A short walk from the parking area added 2 Golden-crowned Kinglets and a Yellow-rumped Warbler.  Our next destination was Scusset Beach State Reservation for 150 Common Eiders, 4 Common Loons, and 4 White-winged Scoters, but King Eider was not to be found.

We then drove to Plymouth and Great Herring Pond, where we did our usual stop at the end of Eagle Hill Drive.  There were no specialties this year, but we did count 25 Goldeneye, 25 Bufflehead, 5 Red-breasted Mergansers and a few Mallards and Black Ducks, plus a wonderful view of two Bald Eagles flying together overhead lit by the sun.  From there we headed to Plymouth Harbor where we had more Goldeneye, Bufflehead, Black Ducks, Eider, Surf and White-winged Scoters.  The Jetty added 200 Brant to our list and from there we headed off to Cumberland Farms for the day’s last light.  We missed on Short-eared Owl and Rough-legged Hawk, but got 2 Harriers and a Red-tail from the north end of the fields, and from the east side on Fuller Rd we added a Cooper’s Hawk, 100 Robins and 100 Red-winged Blackbirds.