MA - Barred Owl big day

Barred Owl - Montague, Franklin Co., MA. January 29th, 2019.

Yesterday (Jan 29th) I made a spur of the moment decision to drive the quieter roads of Franklin County in a low-key but focused searched for Barred Owls. Motivation had received a boost the previous day when I unintentionally came across two Barred Owls relatively close to each other around the Montague Sand Plains. Unknown to me at the time, Brian Kane had actually seen four Barred Owls the previous day within a very short period of time just a little further south. Although Barred Owl is perhaps the most frequently encountered of the three regular breeding owl species in Franklin County, the sheer numbers of owls being seen and reported during the daylight hours must surely point to an incursion of birds from further north? In addition, all the birds that I found yesterday were in similar habitat - fields edges and/or woodland fringe over looking tall, rank grasses, and quite often in very open situations. In contrast, I usually find our residents pairs in mature, mixed forest.

The tour went well and did not disappoint. I closed the day with eight Barred Owls seen, six of them photographed. Ironically, Susannah had also seen a Barred Owl in the yard across the street from our house in Northfield that morning but she only told me about it in the evening! 

Although we had an incursion of Barred Owls about three years ago, the most obvious indicator of those birds was the amount or roadkill to be seen especially along Interstate 91. I haven't seen anything quite like the current influx since we started living in Franklin County in fall 2010. The remarkable numbers and plain visibility of the owls is something to behold. On the sobering side, a couple of the birds were ridiculously docile, perhaps starving, and uncomfortably close to roads. 

Barred Owl - Gill, Franklin Co., MA. January 29th, 2019.

This was the only owl from the day outside of Montague town limits.

MA - adult Thayer's Gull perhaps?

Iceland Gull (adult) L. g. kumlieni/thayeri  -  Turner's Falls, Franklin Co., MA. January 29th, 2019.

For the third time inside a week at I've come across an adult Iceland Gull that looked like a pretty good candidate for thayeri. The gull watching at Turner's Falls has been pretty sensational over the last two weeks with good numbers of Iceland Gulls (L. g. kumlieni) showing up in the roost on most evenings. Typically, five to seven Iceland Gulls have been present with all of the age classes represented but yesterday evening (Jan 28th) Scott Surner and I tallied no less than 10 Iceland Gulls, three of which were adults including one dark-winged bird that I might have also seen the previous week.

Since I don't have any definate records of thayeri for Turner's Falls I often look out for potential candidates in a location where dark-winged kumlieni are uncommon but certainly expected in most winters. Even so, this bird jumped out and appeared (to me) to tick a number of boxes for thayeri. 

I understand that the photos are of marginal quality but I'd certainly be interested to receive any feedback from those more experienced than I with adult Thayer's.


All of the images were taken this evening (Jan 29th) in dull, overcast conditions with light, drizzly showers.