Hotline Trip

Seven members enjoyed dry, calm, but cold conditions on the hotline trip in Amherst, Hadley and Northampton. We began by checking the UMass campus Pond, finding a single Snow Goose among the many Canada Geese and about 50 Mallards.  In the nearby Hadley fields there were many more geese, three Red-tailed Hawks, a Harrier, and several Robins.  A few Tree Sparrows and a Grackle were in the Honeypot and a single Common Merganser was spotted in the river.  

We crossed the river into Northampton, to find a flock of a hundred Horned Larks and a possible Sharp-shinned Hawk on Aqua Vita Road.  There was a good variety of the usual land birds at Arcadia, including a couple of Robins.  The West Meadows was our final destination, where we could find no Longspur among a flock of 50 more Horned Larks, but we did spot a Merlin and a Peregrine Falcon and two more Bald Eagles.