On Saturday, August 7, 2021 the MYBC met at Orchard Hill in Amherst this past Saturday to spend the morning together and found some great birds, as well as frogs, dragonflies, and flowering plants! The moment everyone arrived, two Peregrine falcons flew over our heads screeching...we think it was a young bird begging its parent for food. A Mourning dove was sitting on a nest nearby.
Not long after we started walking, a Blue-winged warbler popped out of some shrubs, near a Yellow warbler and a Chestnut-sided warbler! As we walked on, some House finches flew into a black cherry tree, but the coloring looked off...it turns out it was leucistic, which means that some of its feathers -- but not all -- are white instead of their normal colors! Throughout the walk we saw some comical Gray catbirds, orioles, tanagers, and more. A few of us shared what they knew about plants and insects, which helped us enjoy Orchard Hill beyond the birds. Altogether, we saw 35 different species of birds (eBird Checklist here).
At one point, while standing near some jewel weed, a young birder jokingly held up his hands to summon a Ruby-throated hummingbird -- not more than 30 seconds later, a hummingbird came buzzing in. If you join us on our next trip, maybe you'll summon a bird!