On the Wing #20: Closing the Gap
I must say that I've birded many places this past year. I was able to go to Florida for the first time in two years and picked up several new species, while slowly picking up several more species since then. I've even seen some of my entries on eBird show up on the rare bird alerts for Massachusetts (the most recent one being a young male Common Goldeneye ( Bucephala clangula ) that I spotted at Assawompsett Pond in Lakeville). But this past Friday, I experienced some of the best birding I've ever had. Last Friday, I went to Parker River NWR in Newburyport and my mind was blown. It wasn't simply the number of species that I haven't seen before, but also the huge numbers of other species I saw there. I saw huge flocks of ducks like Northern Pintails ( Anas acuta ), Mallards ( A. platyrhynchos ), and American Black Ducks ( A. rubripes ), as well as smaller groups of yellowlegs and egrets. In the wooded sections abounded with warblers, Swainson's Thrushes (a life...