On Saturday, Sam McGullam and I co-led the eleventh edition of the Hampshire Bird Club’s Halloween trip. We were set to lead the 11th last year, but a family situation forced me to cancel it at the last minute. Earlier this fall I had to cancel a different HBC trip due to heavy rain, but this time life and weather both cooperated.
A Belted Kingfisher and Great Blue Heron both posed nicely for photos at the Turners Falls power canal. This first stop ended with a bang: just as we were about to get into our cars to leave, a couple of Red Crossbills flew over the parking lot calling.
We drove from there to Northfield, along the way driving past a perched Cooper’s Hawk, and what surprisingly turned out to be our only two American Black Ducks of the day. I previously had always scheduled this trip for Sundays, as we visit areas that are popular with hunters on Saturdays. It sounded like Sunday hunting might be approved this year, so I decided to try having the trip on Saturday, especially since Saturday was officially Halloween. We unfortunately heard gunshots shortly after we arrived at Sawyer Ponds, and then were informed that a hunter had been training their retriever in Hell’s Kitchen that morning. We birded through those sites and into Satan’s Kingdom for almost 2 hours without seeing a single duck or shorebird in the usually productive wetlands. A couple of less usual landbirds made these stops enjoyable, including a Fox Sparrow and Winter Wren.
Around noon, when many birding trips slow down, this one livened up a bit. Further back into Satan’s Kingdom we spotted a trio of Rusty Blackbirds walking across the mud. We finally found our first (non-Mallard) duck, a Green-winged Teal, on a pond back in the woods; then, after we turned around and were walking back to our cars, a female Wood Duck flew by. The rising temperatures also brought dozens of Autumn Meadowhawk dragonflies and a couple of Red-spotted Newts out. We left the Kingdom for a quick stop at River Road, where a small flock of Cedar Waxwings were feeding on berries.
After lunch at the always-great Wagon Wheel in Gill, we wrapped up our day’s birding at Barton Cove. A Bald Eagle soared across the water, and some careful scoping picked out a pair of Hooded Mergansers from the boat ramp, followed by a few Ring-necked Ducks and a Pied-billed Grebe from the campground. We finished the trip with 46 species. Our eBird trip report, checklists, and a few photos are at https://ebird.org/tripreport/590228
