August 28th & 29th, 2005. Connecticut River Valley, MA.
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Shorebird notes - Northampton south to Longmeadow.
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set off with the intention of checking just a handful of local areas,
finishing off at the East Meadows. As the birding wasn’t quite what we
were hoping for, we left the East Meadows earlier than planned and
headed south to Longmeadow to check the famous ‘sandbar’. We weren’t
disappointed either as it produced two immaculate juvenile
Buff-breasted Sandpipers. While we were there, cloud and rain began to
move in. By the time we reached Agawam at noon, it was raining
quite heavily. A really heavy rain shower at about 12:30hrs produced an
amazing fall-out of Lesser Yellowlegs, with birds literally dropping
out of the sky. It was truly spectacular. After checking Petersen and Veit
(Birds of Massachusetts 1993) we realized that this could be one of the
largest inland flocks of Lesser Yellowlegs recorded in Massachusetts in recent years.
They brought with them three Stilt Sandpipers, again something of a
rarity inland.
The following is a summary of our shorebird notes for the CT River Valley over the two days August 28th & 29th.
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Semi-palmated Plover - 3 Longmeadow sandbar, 4 Bondi’s Island, Agawam both on 28th. 1 Hatfield on 29th.
Killdeer - numerous locations, but over 60 at Hatfield on 29th.
Lesser Yellowlegs - 66 Bondi’s Island, Agawam on 28th. 61 arrived in one flock at about 12:30hrs. (View images).
Spotted Sandpiper - 2 juveniles Longmeadow on 28th.
Semi-palmated Sandpiper - 3 (2 juvs, 1 adult) Longmeadow, 1 (juv) Bondi’s Island, Agawam and 2 (juvs) East Meadows all on 28th.
Least Sandpiper - 3
South Maple Street, Hadley,12 East Meadows, 14 Longmeadow, 6 Bondi’s
Island all on 28th, 12 Hatfield on 29th.
Baird’s Sandpiper -
3 (juvs) remained at the East Meadows, Northampton on 28th but one bird
apparently missing, possibly taken by a predator (Cooper’s Hawk or
Northern Harrier). (View images.)
Pectoral Sandpiper
- 5 (one flock) Bondi’s Island, Agawam on 28th. Arrived with Lesser
Yellowlegs fall-out but didn’t stay and continued down stream. 1 (adult)
East Meadows on 28th, and 1 (juv) Hatfield on 29th. (View images.)
Stilt Sandpiper - 3
(at least one juv), Bondi’s Island, Agawam. First thought two birds,
but examination of images revealed a third. These birds were
surprisingly tricky to pick out from the large numbers of Lesser Yellowlegs.
View images.
Buff-breasted Sandpiper - 2 Longmeadow sandbar on 28th (View images), and 6+ at Hatfield, found by Mark Taylor on 29th (View images).
| | Taken using Canon Powershot A-95 through Swarovski HD telescope . |
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