Birdwatching in Massachusetts, USA

From the Boston Globe in the USA:

Local bird sightings

August 30, 2009

Recent bird sightings as reported to the Massachusetts Audubon Society.

Highlights this week have included a prothonotary warbler [see also this video] in Parker River National Wildlife Refuge, a Northern wheatear on nearby Crane’s Beach in Ipswich, and a great white heron that continues to be sighted in Fairhaven.

Other reports from the Parker River National Wildlife Refuge on Plum Island included the following highlights: a pied-billed grebe; two Virginia rails; a sora [see also here]; a black-headed gull; a merlin; three peregrine falcons; seven Northern harriers; 11 whimbrels; five red knots; a buff-breasted sandpiper; a Baird’s sandpiper; a Western sandpiper; two stilt sandpipers; 31 short-billed dowitchers and one long-billed dowitcher; tens of thousands of tree swallows; nine species of warblers, including a prothonotary and a Cape May; and 10 Baltimore orioles. At Plum Island Airport, there were 110 killdeer, five pectoral sandpipers, and two purple martins.

Highlights from Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge in Concord included both American and least bitterns, a little blue heron, a sora, four white-rumped sandpipers, 14 pectoral sandpipers, a stilt sandpiper, 14 Wilson’s snipe, two great horned owls, and 71 common nighthawks. Other nighthawk reports included 208 in Westminster, 142 in Grafton, 150 in Lowell, 60 at Boston’s Fenway Park during a night game, and small numbers in several other communities.

A report from Duxbury Beach included 248 black-bellied plovers, 854 semipalmated plovers, three piping plovers, 24 willets, four whimbrels, 83 ruddy turnstones, four red knots, and 95 short-billed dowitchers.

On Nantucket, there were eight lesser yellowlegs, two pectoral sandpipers, four solitary sandpipers, three spotted sandpipers, a stilt sandpiper, a merlin, and a ruby-throated hummingbird [see also here].

Miscellaneous reports this week included a Virginia rail and 20 bobolinks at Drumlin Farm Wildlife Sanctuary in Lincoln, and five black-crowned night-herons and 300 Bonaparte’s gulls in Newburyport Harbor.

Following the passage of Hurricane Bill, a moribund immature white-tailed tropicbird was found in Carlisle last Sunday. Because of the tropical storm this weekend, birders are encouraged to be on the lookout for seabirds and other storm-tossed vagrants.

For more information about bird sightings or to report bird sightings, call the Massachusetts Audubon Society at 781-259- 8805 or go to www.massaudubon.org.

Blue-Footed Booby Visits New Mexico: here.

Great Blue Heron trying to act like a Hawk: here.

Behavior of Buff-Breasted Sandpipers (Tryngites subruficollis) during Migratory Stopover in Agricultural Fields: here.

Britain: The credit crunch has had little impact on people’s enjoyment of wildlife and nature, according to the RSPB: here.

Baltimore oriole in the Netherlands: here.

Purple martins: here.

Horned grebe photos: here.

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