Weekend birding, April 26-27

We are now into late April, and the birding is going to start getting crazy soon. In New England we had another taste of migration and finally the warm weather that we come to hope for after a long cold winter. With warm winds coming from the south starting Friday, a lot of birders were hitting their favorite spring hot-spots to see what migrants might've show up - and few were disappointed. Far from being a "fallout" of epic proportions, there were reports from all over New England of warblers, orioles and tanagers showing up.

As for myself, I had a pretty good weekend with a lot of FOY/FOS (first-of-year or first-of-season) birds. On Saturday, my plan was to join our friends Laura and Mark on a trip to Salem Woods in Salem, MA - mere minutes from where I used to live in Salem, but never really birded. Unfortunately, we didn't set the alarm (counting on my internal warbler alarm to go off) and actually overslept a bit. It was bright, sunny and warm, and I couldn't let missing the start of the planned walk ruin what could be a good day of birding, so when Paul and Diana called to say they were heading to Mt. Auburn, Pam and I were ready to go. It certainly wasn't as "birdy" as it will be in a mere 2-3 weeks, but still quite nice. We easily saw the Great Horned Owl in the dell (which I've posted about in previous weekends) and got some great new migrants, including Blue-grey Gnatcatcher, Black-and-white Warbler, Northern Parula, and Blue-headed Vireo. There were also plenty of Hermit Thrushes, Palm and Yellow-rumped Warblers still around. After a few hours, and as it got into the hotter part of the day, we decided to call it quits, and they dropped us off back at home. I was antsy still to be outside, and after a quick lunch and before I had to bring the car in for a scheduled service, we headed over to Horn Pond down the street in Woburn, where we added Yellow Warbler and an early Eastern Kingbird to the new arrivals list - mixed in with Wood Ducks, Phoebes, Flickers, Downy, Hairy, and Red-bellied Woodpeckers that have been around for a few weeks. After that, it was time to take care of the car, relax a bit, take a quick shower and join the family (parents came to town, and my sister and her husband live in the next town overr, so it's pretty nice and easy to get togther occassionally) for dinner. A long but very satisfying day.
On Sunday, Pamela had a lunch date with several of her co-workers in Boston, so she planned to sleep in - meanwhile I was torn about what direction I was going to head. I was leaning to going to Wompatuck State Park in Hingham, MA where by buddie Eddie was leading a walk. Wompatuck is a great place for migrant and he always gets some good birds on these spring trips there. I just wasn't sure I'd be able to pull myslef out of bed in time to make it down there for the 7am start time. Well, I slept terribly Saturday night (maybe all the Greek food then ice-cream I had that night? nah!) so was up early and actually made it to Hingham about a half hour early. He had a good sized group and we headed off to see what we could find. Walking in, we heard our first Ovenbird, and listened to the difference between Pine Warblers and Chipping Sparrows - which could sometimes test the best ear in spring. Also heard my first Eastern Towhee of the year, followed by my first Black-throated Green Warbler, then Northern Waterthrush. This has traditionally been a good spot for Louisiana Waterthrush (in fact, I believe I had my 'lifer' here a few years back with Eddie) and had high hopes as there have been other reports in New England of the birds showing up, but we missed it today, although another birder reported it a little further up the road in th park. By the time we arrived, it had stopped singing though. Perhaps next week. But the best bird of the day happened just before that - I received a call from our friend Rob, who was also in the park but prefers not to bird in a group, that he and Cory were watching a Hooded Warbler. We got the grou there in time to see the bird but it had moved off quite a ways, and only about 3/4 of the group had got on it. Another very interesting sighting that we had, thanks to an astute observer was a pair of Pine Siskin building a nest. These little finches occassionally make it down to MA in the winter, but this year some seem t have stuck around and are building nests. I've heard of several, and while this pair were working on their nest, there is another pair that I've heard of that has already hatched chicks!

At around 11:30ish we wrapped it up, and I headed north, thinking I would make a quick stop in Concord to check in at the heron rookery were I had seen Pileated Woodpeckers excavating a cavity a few weeks back. It is not a well known area as it is at the edge of a residential neighborhood, and there is unfortunately very little parking. After determining that there was no place I could park where I wouldn't be towed, since the three parking spots provided were all taken, I decided to head back to Horn Pond. I should mention that while I had been seeing and hearing a lot of great birds this weekend, I wasn't really getting any good photos (well, I got lots of photos of bare branches, etc where birds had been) and was starting to think that when I posted aain to the blog that it was going to be all narrative and no pics! :( While heading back, I received calls from Paul and our friend Linda to let me know that a Yellow-throated Warbler was spotted a little earlier in the day at the Arlington Reservoir, so I headed the car in that direction. A second call from Paul after he arrived telling me to be sure to bring my camera as the bird was flitting about at eye-level sparked the hope that maybe I would get a few photos after all. Within moments of arriving I was enjoying some stunning looks at the rather uncommon for New England warbler. Managed to get a few shots off too. Again - not National Geographic quality (mine never are) but I'm pretty happy with the way they came out...