Just back from a sixteen night stay in New England. As usual, a non birding holiday but managed three mornings birding plus what I saw on a variety of walks. We started off in Boston, then on to Kennebunkport in Maine, Holderness in New Hampshire, North Conway NH, Stowe in Vermont, Manchester VT, Mystic in Connecticut and finally four nights at Chatham on Cape Cod. I had wanted to do a pelagic from Cape Cod but, for the first time in years, there had been no interest in September although some had gone out in earlier months. The weather throughout was very good. We had rain on part of two days, otherwise sunny and warm. Cool, first thing in the mornings in the mountains and on Cape Cod it was very warm to hot.
Areas birded :-
Boston Common and Boston Public Garden. Plum Island. Kennebunkport harbour areas. Laudholm Farm and Laudholm Beach near Kennebunkport. Lake Squam and Holderness Hotel gardens. Squam Lakes Natural Science Centre. Trapp Family Lodge woodland, Stowe. Equinox Pond and woodland trails, Manchester. Forest Beach and Conservation Lands, Chatham, Cape Cod. Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary, Cape Cod. Race Point Beach, Cape Cod.
BBC's Autumn Watch with Chris Packham etc came from Holderness last October. Race Point Beach is at the northern tip of the Cape. There are large warning signs advising Great White Sharks hunt seals in the shallow waters off the beach. I did a three hour sea watch there and on three occasions, I saw a fin slicing through the water. Needless to say, there was no one in the water swimming!
Trip List :-
Canada Goose Mute Swan Wood Duck Mallard American Black Duck Eider White-winged Scoter Wild Turkey Rock Pigeon Mourning Dove Chimney Swift Ruby-throated Hummingbird American Avocet American Oystercatcher Black-bellied Plover Semipalmated Plover Marbled Godwit Sanderling Least Sandpiper Semipalmated Sandpiper Spotted Sandpiper Solitary Sandpiper Greater Yellowlegs Willet Lesser Yellowlegs Parasitic Jaeger Bonaparte's Gull Laughing Gull Ring-billed Gull Herring Gull Great Black-backed Gull Common Tern Forster's Tern Common Loon Northern Gannet Double-crested Cormorant Great Blue Heron Great Egret Snowy Egret Turkey Vulture Cooper's Hawk Broad-winged Hawk Red-tailed Hawk Belted Kingfisher Red-bellied Woodpecker Downy Woodpecker Hairy Woodpecker Pileated Woodpecker Eastern Phoebe Blue Jay American Crow Fish Crow Raven Black-capped Chickadee Tufted Titmouse Tree Swallow Barn Swallow Red-breasted Nuthatch White-breasted Nuthatch Starling Gray Catbird Northern Mockingbird Eastern Bluebird American Robin Cedar Waxwing House Sparrow House Finch American Goldfinch Chipping Sparrow White-throated Sparrow Saltmarsh Sparrow Song Sparrow Orchard Oriole Common Grackle Ovenbird Black-and-white Warbler Chestnut-sided Warbler Wilson's Warbler Northern Cardinal Rose-breasted Grosbeak
I didn't take many photographs but a few are attached of Ring-billed Gull, Laughing Gull, Willet, Least Sandpiper and American Avocet, the latter being a rarity in north east US.
