Trip Highlights

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.

Only one car made the trip, others missing the rich early shorebird migration that passes over the island in August.  The low tide kept shorebirds far out at Joppa Flats, but we still picked out a dozen Laughing Gulls among the hordes of peeps feeding in the mud with a few lesser Yellowlegs, Bb Plovers, an Osprey and a Snowy Egret.  At this date and time, the island was not busy with people and cars, so we drove slowly and studied the marshes for the white egrets.  First, we stopped at Lot One, still home to several Purple Martins.  Here also were the visiting Tree Swallows perched by the hundreds on nearby brush, often surging into the air in clouds, eager for the day to warm and the insects to rise and offer themselves for food.  The Salt Pannes had near and distant Great and Snowy Egrets, a surprise Little Blue Heron, plus a Great Blue Heron and hunting Osprey, Merlin, and Peregrine.  The Wardens appeared quiet after an American Bittern and eight Glossy Ibis flew away at our arrival.  Then we emerged from our car and were amazed to find 2 Least Bitterns hunting the muddy edge of the nearby pond.  None of us had ever been able to study them so closely in the open, especially for so long.

We headed down the island, and the first look at the Hellcat Pool was from the blind, giving us looks at plenty of Semipalmated Plovers and Sandpipers, some Least Sandpipers, Black-bellied Plovers, Dowitchers, both Yellowlegs, a flock of 25 White-rumped Sandpipers, 2 Dunlin, a Killdeer, and 2 Gadwall with young.  We paused for a short time along the main road beside Stage Island Pool and spotted a Black Tern flying past, plus some Least Terns, Yellowlegs, and more sandpipers.  It was a short way to the parking lot at the point, where we walked to the beach behind the ropes that protected the Piping Plover and tern nesting area. Inside this area of young reeds, we could see flocks of Semi-palmated Plovers and Sandpipers circling and settling into the sparse dune grass to rest protected during high tide.  Five Piping Plovers were there among the many Least and Common Terns, a few Ruddy Turnstones, and some Black-bellied Plovers.  On the ocean’s edge there were Sanderling flocks feeding where the waves washed up their food. On the ocean side of the point, Emerson Rocks were covered by the high tide, leaving only a few Cormorants on the ocean’s surface and a few more Sanderlings on the beach.  We left the point and headed back north to Hellcat, this time walking out on the dike, where we enjoyed closer looks at a few Pectoral and Spotted Sandpiper.  In the Forward Pool behind the dikes there were even bigger flocks of the same species we watched from the blind on the opposite side.  Also there, were 2 Least Terns and 4 Snowy Egrets.  On our way out of the refuge we stopped at Lot one and walked down to the boat pullout, where we “pished” a bit to entice a Salt-Marsh Sparrow to fly out of hiding several times and close to us.