Thursday, September 26, 2024

2024 Fall Roundup Results

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!



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.


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