Scituate to Plymouth - 2/9/2014

  The Brookline and South Shore Bird Clubs had a wonderful trip which began in snow. We had some misses (Red-throated Loon, Harlequin Duck), but also had remarkable good fortune in locating some more difficult species. For example, despite not being able to locate a Red-necked Grebe at North Scituate, we had 6 flyby Snow Buntings. We began with eight and ended with four. We ended up with 77 species, more than normal.

Iceland Gull

Herring & Ring-billed Gulls

NOTE: One person drove by us in Marshfield and claimed a Three-toed Woodpecker coming to their feeder; description suggested maybe the sapsucker we had. We explained some images should be taken.

29 Brant (Atlantic)
867 Canada Goose
7 Mute Swan
40 Gadwall
10 American Wigeon - Forge Pond, Plymouth
318 American Black Duck
399 Mallard
50 American Black Duck/Mallard
3 Northern Pintail - Cumberland Farm Field, Middleboro
4 Ring-necked Duck
1 Lesser Scaup - Jenny's Pond, Plymouth
485 Common Eider (Atlantic)
40 Surf Scoter
225 White-winged Scoter
11 Black Scoter - N. Scituate
25 Surf/Black Scoter
3 Long-tailed Duck
75 Bufflehead
31 Common Goldeneye
1 Barrow's Goldeneye - Drake; Riverside Cir., Marshfield
7 Hooded Merganser
1 Common Merganser - Jenny's Pond - Plymouth
45 Red-breasted Merganser
2 Wild Turkey - Jenny's Pond, Plymouth
9 Common Loon
1 Horned Grebe - very low
64 Great Cormorant
1 Great Blue Heron
3 Northern Harrier
1 Cooper's Hawk
1 Bald Eagle - Adult; Riverside Cir., Marshfield
1 Red-shouldered Hawk
6 Red-tailed Hawk
1 Dunlin - Plymouth Harbor
55 Purple Sandpiper - N. Scituate
154 Ring-billed Gull
211 Herring Gull (American)
2 Iceland Gull (Kumlien's) - 1 Plymouth Harbor, 1 Scituate Harbor
47 Great Black-backed Gull
82 Rock Pigeon (Feral Pigeon)
25 Mourning Dove
3 Great Horned Owl - Cumberland Farm field, Middleboro
3 Snowy Owl - 2, Cumberland Farm field, Middleboro; 1 Plymouth Beach
5 Short-eared Owl - Cumberland Farm field, Middleboro
1 Belted Kingfisher
3 Red-bellied Woodpecker
1 Yellow-bellied Sapsucker - Spring St., Marshfield
7 Downy Woodpecker
4 Hairy Woodpecker
8 Northern Flicker (Yellow-shafted)
1 Peregrine Falcon - Plymouth Harbor
9 Blue Jay
15 American Crow
50 Horned Lark
19 Black-capped Chickadee
16 Tufted Titmouse
9 White-breasted Nuthatch
1 Brown Creeper
6 Carolina Wren 

1 Golden-crowned Kinglet
5 Eastern Bluebird
1 Hermit Thrush

 
44 American Robin
1 Northern Mockingbird
121 European Starling
3 Lapland Longspur - Cumberland Farm field, Middleboro
6 Snow Bunting - N. Scituate
9 Yellow-rumped Warbler (Myrtle)
13 American Tree Sparrow
2 Savannah Sparrow - Cumberland Farm field, Middleboro
17 Song Sparrow
2 Swamp Sparrow
7 White-throated Sparrow
12 Dark-eyed Junco (Slate-colored)
15 Northern Cardinal
13 Eastern Meadowlarks - Cumberland Farm field, Middleboro
150 Red-winged Blackbird
3 House Finch
27 American Goldfinch
26 House Sparrow

 

This trip summary was created using the BirdLog app for iPhone and iPad.
See BirdLog for more information.

Glenn d"Entremont

Hull - 2/1/2014

10 people joined me on a 1/2 day trip to bird the ocean and bay around Hull. The weather was wonderful (for a change), spring-like, about 50 degrees, windless and sunny. Starlings and a song sparrow were singing. We began the morning looking at a large group of Horned Larks with a smattering of Snow Buntings on the HRA land in Hull. We also noticed a dead Ring-billed Gull that had a broken neck. Overall we had a nice array of seabirds on the ocean and the bay, including good looks at 3 Black Guillemots. Amazingly the day started and ended with bird death. At our last stop on the bay, an alert observer noticed a Snowy Owl on top of an arbor in a nearby yard. Upon closer observation, the owl sadly proved to be dead. Paul Fitzerald heroically retrieved the owl and delivered it to Norman Smith at Trailside Museum. Paul reported the following information from Norman - "Our Snowy Owl was a hatch year male, with a good healthy weight of 1700 grams. The bird died sometime during the night as rigor mortis was only just setting into the legs and the eyes were still clear and moist. There was some blood on the secondaries of one wing which would have come from the bird's last kill. Norman Smith agreed that poisoning is the likely cause of death but he'll do a toxicology and let me know." 

So if you like to be surprised, come on a SSBC trip. You never know what you might see.

Birded the bay and ocean sides of Hull from various locations

33 species (+1 other taxa)

Brant 34
Canada Goose 45
American Black Duck 5
Greater Scaup 1
Common Eider 605
Surf Scoter 46
White-winged Scoter 85
Black Scoter 4
scoter sp. 250
Long-tailed Duck 25
Bufflehead 37
Common Goldeneye 16
Red-breasted Merganser 25
Red-throated Loon 2
Common Loon 11
Horned Grebe 15
Sanderling 3
Black Guillemot 3
Ring-billed Gull 25
Herring Gull 87
Great Black-backed Gull 12
Rock Pigeon (Feral Pigeon) 35
Blue Jay 3
American Crow 2
Horned Lark 62
American Robin 5
Gray Catbird 1
European Starling 85
Snow Bunting 8
American Tree Sparrow 1
Song Sparrow 1
White-throated Sparrow 1
Northern Cardinal 1
House Sparrow 82

This report was generated automatically by eBird v3 (http://ebird.org)

Nancy Swirka

Scusset Beach State Reservation - 1/4/2014

Let me quote PB Shelley to describe early Saturday morning January 4th 2014

The cold earth slept below;

Above the cold sky shone;

And all around,

With a chilling sound,

From caves of ice and fields of snow

The breath of night like death did flow

Beneath the sinking moon.

The wintry hedge was black;

The green grass was not seen;

The birds did rest

On the bare thorn’s breast,

Whose roots, beside the pathway track,

Had bound their folds o’er many a crack

Which the frost had made between.

All 6 of us agreed that although we started at temps of -3 F, because there was no wind and we were all dressed for the cold, we were actually not freezing. I have certainly birded Scusset and felt a lot colder.

The birds did not rest however, on the contrary they were very active feeding and amazingly finding seeds on the mostly snow covered ground

Scusset delivered all the expected bird highlights; Horned Larks, Snow Buntings and as many Yellow-Rumped Warblers as I’ve ever seen there.

It seems wherever we turn this winter, we run into Snowy Owls – Scusset proved to be no exception!

Thank you for posing so beautifully!

Because we were trying to get to Warren Harrington’s Memorial on time, we did not have a chance to check out the large raft of Eiders we spotted right at the end of the trip in the middle of the canal – here is hoping the King Eider was not hiding among those…

Below is the full list of birds observed:

Scusset Beach State Reservation, Barnstable, US-MA
Jan 4, 2014 8:00 AM - 11:30 AM
Protocol: Traveling
1.3 mile(s)
Comments: South Shore Bird Club trip; -3 to 25degF; sunny, deep snow
36 species

Brant 7
Common Eider 400
Surf Scoter 3
Black Scoter 1
Common Goldeneye 5
Red-breasted Merganser 10
Red-throated Loon 1
Common Loon 12
Great Cormorant 2
Northern Harrier 1
Sanderling 1
Ring-billed Gull X
Herring Gull X
Great Black-backed Gull X
Snowy Owl 1
Belted Kingfisher 1 Heard.
Downy Woodpecker 1
Northern Flicker 1
American Crow 8
Horned Lark 4
Black-capped Chickadee 4
Carolina Wren 1 Heard.
Golden-crowned Kinglet 1
Hermit Thrush 1
American Robin 80
Northern Mockingbird 1
Cedar Waxwing 12
Snow Bunting 60
Yellow-rumped Warbler 30
American Tree Sparrow 3
Song Sparrow 32
White-throated Sparrow 2
Dark-eyed Junco 2
Northern Cardinal 5
House Finch 2
American Goldfinch 1

View this checklist online at http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S16227412

This report was generated automatically by eBird v3 (http://ebird.org)

Christine and Steven Whitebread

Taunton-Middleboro Christmas Bird Count - 12/29/2013

We had thirty two people in the field this year and we tallied 81 species. This is about average for the count and not bad considering the circle has no ocean views. Thanks to Mark Faherty, we added another exciting species to the Taunton/Middleboro CBC list: MacGillivray's Warbler. Last year we added Northern Lapwing to the list. I sure hope this is a CBC trend we are experiencing.

The Taunton/Middleboro CBC took place on December 29th, 2013. Thanks again for your participation! The weather was difficult in the afternoon with periods of heavy rain, reduced visibility, and increased wind. Despite the inclement conditions later in the day, we managed to find some nice birds.

Notable species observed during the count include the following: a Brown Thrasher, a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, and thirty Rusty Blackbirds. In addition, the high count of six Bald Eagles and eleven Gray Catbirds was interesting. The Gray Catbird high count was surprising since there are no coastal thickets within the count circle.


Canada Goose 2,408
Mute Swan 24
American Black Duck 116
Mallard 456
Ring-necked Duck 1 (low count)
Greater Scaup 212
Lesser Scaup 4
Scaup sp. 6
Bufflehead 235
Common Goldeneye 146
Hooded Merganser 65
Common Merganser 70
Red-breasted Merganser 29
Wild Turkey 98 (high count)
Common Loon 2
Great Blue Heron 2
Bald Eagle 6
Northern Harrier 3
Sharp-shinned Hawk 2
Cooper's Hawk 3
Red-shouldered Hawk 4
Red-tailed Hawk 29
American Kestrel 1
Merlin 2
Peregrine Falcon 1
Ring-billed Gull 723
Herring Gull 2,072
Great Black-backed Gull 268
Rock Pigeon 97
Mourning Dove 246
Eastern Screech-Owl 20
Great Horned Owl 6
Belted Kingfisher 7
Red-bellied Woodpecker 34
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker 1
Downy Woodpecker 85
Hairy Woodpecker 17
Northern Flicker 61
Blue Jay 154
American Crow 75
Horned Lark 11
Black-capped Chickadee 165
Tufted Titmouse 79
Red-breasted Nuthatch 1
White-breasted Nuthatch 76
Brown Creeper 6
Carolina Wren 113
Winter Wren 8
Marsh Wren 1
Golden-crowned Kinglet 99
Ruby-crowned Kinglet 3
Eastern Bluebird 16
Hermit Thrush 7
American Robin 861
Gray Catbird 11
Northern Mockingbird 33
Brown Thrasher 1
European Starling 1,760
American Pipit 16
Cedar Waxwing 15
Yellow-rumped Warbler 27
Pine Warbler 1
MACGILLIVRAY'S WARBLER 1
Eastern Towhee 1
American Tree Sparrow 149
Chipping Sparrow 4
Field Sparrow 24
Savannah Sparrow 12
Fox Sparrow 5
Song Sparrow 230
Swamp Sparrow 30
White-throated Sparrow 229
Dark-eyed Junco 904
Northern Cardinal 206
Red-winged Blackbird 160
Rusty Blackbird 30
Common Grackle 4
Brown-headed Cowbird 22
House Finch 90
American Goldfinch 173
House Sparrow 490

Happy New Year!

Jim Sweeney