MA - Barnacle Goose continues and more winter finches

 

Barnacle Goose (adult) - Turner's Falls power canal, Franklin Co., MA. December 4th, 2020. 

Dec 6th; raw, cold and blustery with two to three inches of fresh snow deposited on the higher ground (Wendell for example) while the valley floor around the Connecticut River was thankfully spared. The day began well with several Red Crossbills moving around Gill including four together in roadside maples on North Cross Road, and single Pine Grosbeak and Common Redpoll at Gill Elementary School. A Cackling Goose roosted with fairly small numbers of Canada Geese at the Turner's Falls power canal but I had to wait until near darkness to see the Barnacle Goose which flew in with a mass arrival of geese at around 16:50 hours. Still, Barnacle Goose is a distinctive species and it wasn't too difficult to pick out from the Canadas even so late in the day. 

Barnacle Goose (adult) - Turner's Falls power canal, Franklin Co., MA. December 4th, 2020. 

Cackling Goose (left) - Turner's Falls power canal, Franklin Co., MA. December 6th, 2020. 

Dec 5th; heavy rain and wintery showers all day. It was quite tough birding under those conditions but the Turner's Falls power canal came into its own in the evening with the Barnacle Goose and Cackling Goose arriving together at about 16:00 hours along with about 2,000 Canada Geese dropping in en masse in spectacular style. Two first-winter (Kumlien's) Iceland Gulls continued with the ever-growing gull flock though Lesser Black-backed Gulls remain puzzlingly scarce/absent to date. Other notables included over 100 Common Mergansers and about 65 Common Goldeneyes. 

Barnacle Goose (adult) - Turner's Falls power canal, Franklin Co., MA. December 5th, 2020. 

After a mass arrival of Canada Geese at dusk.

(Kumlien's) Iceland Gulls  -  first-winters, Turner's Falls power canal, Franklin Co., MA. December 5th, 2020. 

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.