Thursday, October 7, 2021

Warblers for the first week of October

Palm Warbler 'yellow', East Meadows, Northampton, MA, Oct 7, 2021
Palm Warbler 'yellow', East Meadows, Northampton, MA, Oct 7, 2021
Common Yellowthroat, East Meadows, Northampton, MA, Oct 7, 2021
Yellow rumped Warbler 'myrtle', Arcadia, Northampton, MA, Oct 7, 2021

The first week of October has come to an end and the diversity of warblers continues to drop off but I nonetheless still had some good stuff with a total 16 species.  Today I started my morning at a very foggy Arcadia.  The fog made viewing difficult at times and after a couple hours I decided to try another spot as the fog just would not burn off.  I headed to the nearby East Meadows where the visibility was slightly better.  Overall a fairly quiet morning for warblers with a total of just seven species.  I'm sure if the sun came out earlier I could have added a few more but that was not in the cards today.  By midday the sun finally broke through the temps responded with highs in the mid 70's.

Palm Warbler 'yellow', Arcadia, Northampton, MA, Oct 6, 2021
Common Yellowthroat, Arcadia, Northampton, MA, Oct 6, 2021
Nashville Warbler, Arcadia, Northampton, MA, Oct 6, 2021
Tennessee Warbler, Arcadia, Northampton, MA, Oct 6, 2021

Yesterday I birded at Arcadia in mainly overcast conditions but it was at least fairly warm (which unfortunately meant mosquitoes again).  Diversity was way down with just five species of warblers despite covering a lot of territory.  The lack of sun probably had some impact on turning up a number of birds.

It was rainy for most of both Monday and Tuesday (plus I had to work) which resulted in few warblers to be seen.

Tennessee Warbler, Arcadia, Northampton, MA, Oct 3, 2021
Common Yellowthroat, Arcadia, Northampton, MA, Oct 3, 2021

After work on Sunday I went down to Arcadia once again with the highlights being a late Cape May Warbler plus continued good counts of a number of species including Tennessee Warbler.

Black throated Green Warbler, Arcadia, Northampton, MA, Oct 1, 2021
Tennessee Warbler, Arcadia, Northampton, MA, Oct 1, 2021
Palm Warbler 'yellow', Arcadia, Northampton, MA, Oct 1, 2021
Nashville Warbler, Arcadia, Northampton, MA, Oct 1, 2021
Yellow rumped Warbler 'myrtle', Arcadia, Northampton, MA, Oct 1, 2021

I started the month at Arcadia where I spent a few hours tracking down warblers and had nine species including another morning with double digit counts for Tennessee Warblers plus continued good numbers of Nashville Warbler and Common Yellowthroat plus over a hundred Yellow rumped Warblers.  I also made a brief visit to the East Meadows and found at least one late Yellow Warbler continuing in a large weedy patch.

Wilson helping me prep dinner, Oct 5, 2021

We recently got some bad news which has curtailed my birding a bit.  My boy Wilson has cancer and I don't want to leave him home too long as he has to wear a cone when I'm not there.  The soft tissue sarcoma developed on his right front paw as a mass that was biopsied last week and we got the results yesterday.  We have a surgical consult next week and then we go from there.  I'm having a hard time with it as we lost Kody to cancer too.  Wilson is doing just fine and is his normal self with the exception of having to endure a dressing on his foot as we wait for the biopsy wound to heal.  We are hopeful we can beat the cancer and have more years to go out exploring.   We have no idea how much the treatment will cost but we will pay whatever it takes to get Wilson better.  If one is so inclined to donate they can following the following GoFundMe link.

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