Trip Highlights

We were an hour late after hitting a long delay caused by an awful accident on Rt. 495 just before Lawrence.  By that time Joppa had flooded with the incoming tide so nine of us headed for the island.  We checked the airport without success, except for a hunting Harrier that was close for some time. The only bird at the first large Pannes was a Pied-billed Grebe that flew in and began diving for its lunch.  Not far along, 18 Great and 2 Snowy Egrets were lined up close to road. The Wardens was packed with cars and people, but we found spaces and then discovered that a Lark Sparrow had been present in the area all morning.  We soon had long, amazingly close looks at that bird and a Clay-colored Sparrow, perched closely together in bushes or feeding at edge of the bare ground of the car lot.

We stopped at Hellcat to study shorebirds in a small area of North Pool and Forward Pool, where the sunlight was all too bright.  The shallows held about 200 each of Semipalmated Plovers and Sandpipers and 75 Greater Yellowlegs, 15 Lesser Yellowlegs and quite a few Least Sandpipers.   Good shorebirds we picked out were 7 Red-knots, a few Dunlin, two Stilt Sandpipers, a dozen White-rumped Sandpipers, 2 Golden Plovers and 20 Short-billed Dowitchers along with 4 Long-billed Dowitchers.  Also, there was a Blue-winged and a Green-winged Teal, as well as a Glossy Ibis feeding with 20 Snowy Egrets.  A great sight was a passing Peregrine Falcon that drove all the birds into the air in panic.

We moved on to find almost nothing at Emerson Rocks at high tide. Breeding season was over, so there were no Piping Plovers to be found.  We did get very close to many Semipalmated Sandpipers and Plovers roosting in the dunes, along with a few Black-bellied Plovers and Sanderlings.  Off shore, there were only 2 Eiders and one White-winged Scoter.  We returned to walk through the Hellcat woods, but found no herons, though a Long-tailed Weasel chased us along the boardwalk before zipping away.

Four eager birders arrived for the first fall walk at Stebbins Refuge and recorded 27 species.  There was little migration and the trails were still wet from the earlier morning rain so we walked the length of Pondside Road.  Best birds tallied there were Green-winged Teal, Gadwalls and a Belted Kingfisher.  We did manage a pleasant walk along Tina Lane and down to the riverfront beyond the fields, and then the rains came.  Thankfully it was warm, so getting drenched almost made us sing in the rain.  We laughed it off and hoped the weather would bring in some migrants.

It was a poor nighthawk migration through the region overall, but a good group managed to count a flight of 91 Common Nighthawks.  We would have had more if we had moved up to the Tina Lane intersection with Pondside earlier.  Most of the nighthawks seemed to feed over the ponds there and then veer off toward the river.

The trip had ten people, starting at Pynchon Point, where we found 2 Great Blue Heron and many Waxwings.  At the Big E, we had Great Blue Heron and 2 Green Heron, 2 Cormorant, and a Kingfisher.  Spotted and Solitary Sandpipers were in the western pool and many Geese and a Killdeer were in the field.  The south pool had two Black-crowned Night-Herons, two Green Herons, and an Osprey.  Up over the dike, the river was low with a large sandbar where we found a Great Egret, some Killdeer, a Lesser Yellowlegs, four Common Mergansers, and a Pileated Woodpecker.  The wires over the dike had a family of three Kestrels dropping to the grass for prey.  After a break we went to Longmeadow, where the large sandbar had Semi-palmated Plover, Least and Semi-palmated Sandpiper, two Fish Crows, and a big flock of Geese.  The leader spotted a Baird’s Sandpiper briefly.  Pondside had 10 Wood Ducks, two Great Blue Herons, 2 Green Herons, a Great Egret, and the Mute Swan family.

The Kayak trip down the Connecticut River in Sunderland had a third boat with Harvey’s nephew, who was a welcome companion.  The water was high, so there was not much sandbar habitat or shorebirds.  We had an Olive-sided Flycatcher, a flock of nine Common Merganser, only 3 Spotted Sandpipers, 2 Kingfishers, 4 Great Blue Herons, 2 Cormorants, 2 Ravens, 2 Pileated Woodpeckers, 3 Bald Eagle, and a young Peregrine Falcon.  A flock of 150 swallows were on a high wire across the river, mostly Bank, but a few Tree and Barn.  Feeding Cedar Waxwings were everywhere, launching out from trees on banks. There was no wind and a strong current, so effort was fairly modest until the last half mile when the water slowed and the wind picked up.  We tallied 29 species, and also got a close, long study of a Greater Swallow-tailed Butterfly on the island where we stopped to eat and swim.