This year’s Fall Roundup was held on Saturday, September 21st. 35 participants spread out in teams from Quincy to Plymouth to survey the entire South Shore area. Thank you to everyone who participated or helped organize the count.
Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate with us this year. The forecast was a bit questionable a day out, but we decided to go ahead with the event anyway. But the forecast kept getting worse and we were faced with steady rain and high winds on Saturday morning.
Given those conditions, our species total and many of the individual counts are lower than normal, but we still managed to get out and find some interesting birds.
Nate and Noah found a Little Gull in the afternoon on Plymouth Beach. This species has only been recorded twice before on the Fall Roundup, with the last sighting all the way back in 1976!
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| Little Gull by Noah Henkenius |
The Quincy team picked up a Bufflehead, which has only been seen 3 times before on the roundup. Buffleheads don’t normally arrive in our area until later in the year, but this individual appears to have been around all summer.
Warblers were scarce this year, but Liam managed to find a few at Leland Farm, including a Mourning and a Connecticut. The Cohasset/Hull team found 4 Glossy Ibis. And Dan used the storm to his advantage and picked up Great and Cory’s Shearwaters in a seawatch at the end of the day.
Although most of our counts are fairly low, one notable high count this year was Lesser Black-backed Gull. We found a total of 15 this year, including 11 on Duxbury Beach and 1 at Plymouth Airport.
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| Merlin by Kathy Rawdon |
The full species list is below:
Total species: | 130 |
Canada Goose | 580 |
Mute Swan | 117 |
Duck sp | 4 |
Wood Duck | 75 |
Blue-winged Teal | 4 |
American Wigeon | 1 |
Mallard | 564 |
American Black Duck | 70 |
Green-winged Teal | 33 |
Greater Scaup | 4 |
Common Eider | 198 |
Surf Scoter | 17 |
White-winged Scoter | 5 |
Black Scoter | 50 |
Scoter sp | 8 |
Bufflehead | 1 |
Red-breasted Merganser | 4 |
Wild Turkey | 106 |
Pied-billed Grebe | 1 |
Red-necked Grebe | 3 |
Rock Pigeon | 144 |
Mourning Dove | 49 |
Ruby-throated Hummingbird | 1 |
American Oystercatcher | 4 |
Black-bellied Plover | 107 |
Semipalmated Plover | 195 |
Piping Plover | 2 |
Killdeer | 17 |
Whimbrel | 1 |
Ruddy Turnstone | 22 |
Red Knot | 5 |
Sanderling | 168 |
Dunlin | 6 |
Least Sandpiper | 18 |
White-rumped Sandpiper | 8 |
Pectoral Sandpiper | 1 |
Semipalmated Sandpiper | 740 |
Short-billed Dowitcher | 5 |
Spotted Sandpiper | 2 |
Solitary Sandpiper | 1 |
Greater Yellowlegs | 43 |
Lesser Yellowlegs | 9 |
Bonaparte's Gull | 14 |
Little Gull | 1 |
Laughing Gull | 1015 |
Ring-billed Gull | 701 |
Herring Gull | 1626 |
Lesser Black-backed Gull | 15 |
Great Black-backed Gull | 476 |
Gull sp | 88 |
Least Tern | 1 |
Caspian Tern | 2 |
Common Tern | 970 |
Forster's Tern | 65 |
Common Loon | 23 |
Cory's Shearwater | 1 |
Great Shearwater | 1 |
Shearwater sp | 2 |
Northern Gannet | 2 |
Double-crested Cormorant | 1725 |
Great Blue Heron | 78 |
Great Egret | 134 |
Snowy Egret | 98 |
Green Heron | 3 |
Black-crowned Night-Heron | 40 |
Glossy Ibis | 4 |
Osprey | 9 |
Northern Harrier | 2 |
Sharp-shinned Hawk | 2 |
Cooper's Hawk | 3 |
Bald Eagle | 8 |
Red-shouldered Hawk | 3 |
Red-tailed Hawk | 2 |
Belted Kingfisher | 17 |
Red-bellied Woodpecker | 6 |
Downy Woodpecker | 16 |
Hairy Woodpecker | 5 |
Northern Flicker | 16 |
Merlin | 1 |
Peregrine Falcon | 3 |
Eastern Wood-Pewee | 1 |
Eastern Phoebe | 14 |
Blue-headed Vireo | 1 |
Red-eyed Vireo | 7 |
Blue Jay | 150 |
American Crow | 118 |
Common Raven | 4 |
Black-capped Chickadee | 139 |
Tufted Titmouse | 59 |
Horned Lark | 1 |
Tree Swallow | 467 |
Bank Swallow | 2 |
Barn Swallow | 11 |
Ruby-crowned Kinglet | 1 |
White-breasted Nuthatch | 19 |
Brown Creeper | 2 |
House Wren | 29 |
Carolina Wren | 43 |
European Starling | 128 |
Gray Catbird | 217 |
Northern Mockingbird | 21 |
Eastern Bluebird | 15 |
Hermit Thrush | 1 |
American Robin | 760 |
Cedar Waxwing | 13 |
House Sparrow | 43 |
House Finch | 61 |
American Goldfinch | 32 |
Chipping Sparrow | 105 |
Dark-eyed Junco | 1 |
White-crowned Sparrow | 2 |
White-throated Sparrow | 4 |
Savannah Sparrow | 73 |
Song Sparrow | 100 |
Swamp Sparrow | 61 |
Eastern Towhee | 5 |
Red-winged Blackbird | 295 |
Brown-headed Cowbird | 2 |
Common Grackle | 6008 |
Black-and-white Warbler | 3 |
Connecticut Warbler | 1 |
Mourning Warbler | 1 |
Common Yellowthroat | 13 |
American Redstart | 6 |
Northern Parula | 3 |
Magnolia Warbler | 2 |
Yellow Warbler | 3 |
Blackpoll Warbler | 9 |
Palm Warbler | 6 |
Pine Warbler | 22 |
Yellow-rumped Warbler | 2 |
Black-throated Green Warbler | 3 |
Warbler sp | 4 |
Northern Cardinal | 80 |
Indigo Bunting | 1 |
