Ever since my chance encounter with a Boreal Chickadee in New Salem last November, I don't mind admitting that I've become a little obsessed with the idea of finding another, partly because I'm genuinely fond of the species but also because I narrowly missed getting documentation photos of the New Salem bird. Throughout the remainder of the fall and winter I've been hopeful that another would come my way and my interest was more than a little piqued when I noticed a report from Lori Van Handel in Williamstown on January 11th. The initial report was followed by multiple successes from local birders and the site (along North Hoosac Road) was subsequently posted as a "stakeout". This morning I decided to take my chances and drove out to Williamstown, just over an hour from Northfield. On arrival I was slightly surprised see no other birders at the scene but on other the hand I was thrilled to open the car door and hear the Boreal Chickadee calling from the closest spruce grove! It made one circuit around the neighborhood evergreens and then moved off to the SW, its call notes being lost amid traffic and construction noise. My twelve minute stay was short but sweet having produced fabulous views and three very satisfactory audio clips of the diagnostic, wheezy calls. Gracious thanks go to the finder, Lori Van Handel.
As far as I'm aware this is at least the fourth in Massachusetts during the current 2020/21 incursion with two reports from Franklin County in early November, and another that visited a yard in Wellfleet on the Outer Cape in early December.
The journey home was swift and neatly punctuated by a light morph Rough-legged Hawk flying alongside Rt 2 at Mile Long Farm in Charlemont, that's just a couple of miles west of last week's close views of a light morph along the same stretch of road and almost certainly the same bird.
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