Acadian Flycatcher at nest - Bernardston, Franklin Co., MA. July 11th, 2020.
A balmy Saturday evening with a strong southern wind seemed like a good opportunity to get outdoors and go for a family bike ride. Our destination was close to home in Bernardston and we aimed to do about 10 miles at a casual pace. My expectations for bird finding in the summer heat were pretty low but I carried my iphone all the same, just in case I heard or saw something unusual. We'd barely gone a mile into the ride when I heard the distinctively sharp 'peek' notes of what could only have been a calling Acadian Flycatcher. By the time I'd stopped to get a sound recording and fumbled around with my phone, Susannah and Matan were way up the road and the bird had stopped calling. But on the return leg of the journey I fared better. The bird was again calling spontaneously. This time I managed three recordings above the background noise of the stream and had brief naked-eye views of the bird zipping back-and-forth high amid the Eastern Hemlocks. Even without binocular views, I was pretty well convinced that it was an Acadian Flycatcher, a scarce/rare, low-density breeder at a handful of widely scattered sites in the Pioneer Valley. On a personal level, I recognized several years ago that I'd never actually seen an Acadian Flycatcher in Franklin County so to locate a self-found bird was especially satisfying. After the bike ride we returned to the same area, armed with bins and camera and soon located the bird, and it was still calling. It was so fast and tricky to view but, remarkably, it was clearly in the early stages of building a flimsy, basket-like nest high on the outer limbs of an Eastern Hemlock. I snapped a few pics as best I could and then moved on.
Acadian Flycatcher at nest - Bernardston, Franklin Co., MA. July 11th, 2020.
Subsequent visits on July 13th and 14th found that the nest had very clearly been built up and attended to, and it looked relatively complete by the 14th. Oddly, there was no sign of the actual bird on either of those dates and the 11th was the only date on which I actually heard and saw the bird itself. I'll be keeping a close eye on the nest and will likely offer a more more updates to this page over next couple of weeks.
Acadian Flycatcher nest - Bernardston, Franklin Co., MA. July 13th, 2020.
The nest had clearly been worked on since the 11th, but no sign of the flycatcher during my visit on the 13th.
Acadian Flycatcher nest - Bernardston, Franklin Co., MA. July 14th, 2020.
More material added to the nest since the previous day, but still no sign of the flycatcher on the 14th!
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