Date: 10/18/26 3:15 pm From: Barbara Volkle <barb620...> Subject: [MASSBIRD] CT River Valley trip results
Thanks to Strickland Wheelock for this report.
Barbara Volkle Northborough,MA <barb620...>
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Date: Sun, 18 Oct 2026 13:24:13 +0000 (UTC) From: Strickland Wheelock <skwheelock...> Subject: CT River Valley trip results
Our birding trip from Drumlin Farm WS [10/17] out to the Ct River Valley area ended with several nice birding surprises plus introducing our participants to several excellent birding locations new to them - all this on a very windy, cool day.For starters, we headed directly to Arcadia WS in Easthampton - just west of the CT River & Mt Tom - an excellent sanctuary that has a wonderful variety of habitats from woods/fields/marshes - a maze of very productive birding trails that we enjoyed for a few hours. Before we started exploring these trails, we had on the ride there a N Goshawk fly across the road to start the day.Once on the 1st trail along a field & woods, we discovered volumes of migrating birds feeding along the edge - many Wht-thr Sparrows, Cedar Waxwings and Yellow-rumped Warblers mixed with Purple & House Finches, Chipping Sparrows, Red-bellied Wood. & N Flickers, Ruby-cr Kinglets, Hermit Thrushes plus the common species. Overhead we had small kettles of Red-tailed Hawks soaring, Turkey Vultures plus an Am Kestrel. Once in the woods, we had many more of the passerines plus Brown Creepers - by the marsh we enjoyed Rusty & Red-wing Blackbirds, Green-winged Teal, E Phoebe, Cooper's & Red-shouldered Hawks, Gt Blue Heron plus all the geese & Mallards [missed the Cranes this morning].Once we left the parking area, we headed north along a dirt road that bordered several large fields and the Ct River that have many sparrows & raptors plus sections of woods/brush loaded with Yellow-rumps W, Catbirds, woodpeckers, sparrows, etc. We stopped at a few productive sites but needed to push over the Ct River due to time to Hadley and the Honey Pot area. This large agricultural area of fields/corn & many other crops located along the east side of the river is a great spot during the winter months for field species like Pipits, Horned Larks, often Snowy Owls. Today we enjoyed a couple adult Bald Eagles soaring over the fields, a N Harrier and several Savannah Sparrows.Last stop of the day was Mitch's Way bordering the Ct River on the west side & Skinner SP on the east side. This dirt road is along woods, low brush and always spring & fall is a spot that often has surprises - today we walked only a short distance down the road and found the trees were located with Yellow-rumps plus a Palm Warbler, Nuthatches, Wht-thr Sparrows but in that mix, we found a late Brown Thrasher, Hermit Thrushes, a late Yellow-thr Vireo and a Sapsucker - a great ending to what turned out to be a productive day [54 species] on this very windy cool day.Thanks to Rachel Sharon & Leslie Bostrom for all their driving and working closely with the participants - thanks also to Arcadia WS folks that helped me in my scouting of the sanctuary just prior to the trip - thus making for a great & productive beginning of our day.
