Date: 5/12/25 6:32 pm From: Matt S. <accipiter22...> Subject: [MASSBIRD] May 12, 2025 Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge: 17 Warbler species. Still Feels "early" though.
May 12, 2025 Mount Auburn Cemetery
The radar looked great overnight and I was itching to get back to Mount
Auburn. I spent 4 hours there, the longest trip I’ve taken in a while, but
with having to drive in, I feel like I need to stay longer. I’m glad I did.
I picked up a few species at the end, and got to 17 warbler species on the
day. I remember maybe 10 years ago it was not terribly uncommon to see in
the 60s for species counts here, but I haven’t gotten even close to that
again until today, and that was with 0 raptors. I’m not sure if that’s
just me…
The overall feel to me is still very “earlyish”, the dominant birds by
number are still Parula, Yellow-Rumps, and Black-And-Whites. Throw in
redstarts too, but they’re always around in numbers. I’ve had a lot of
one-offs this season too, lists where if I had missed one or two the day
would look pretty sparse from a species standpoint. I started in the Dell
and Harvard Hill, and got all the usual suspects (BTG, Nashville, the
previously mentioned quartet, etc0. I kept hearing a blackburnian calling
but didn’t see it at first. There was also a chestnut-sided giving a
really weird song, it was like a medley of songs almost. They apparently
have two different songs, but the difference is one doesn’t have the accent
on the end, and this one I heard was pretty different. After that I headed
out of the dell and ran into a Canada Warbler pretty much immediately, but
lost it after about a minute. The dry dell coughed up a Tennessee warbler
that was vexing myself and another observer for some time from the top of a
tree. I wandered around spectacle for a while, which was fairly quiet, but
the area above spectacle had another Nashville, a Maggy, and some other
stuff.
I decided to return to the Dell before leaving, and I’m glad I did. On the
path between that and Harvard Hill I heard a wood thrush, then got good
looks and added sightings of a Cape May, followed by a pair of
Rose-Breasted Grosbeaks, an Indigo Bunting, and a Blackburnian Warbler
(which I had heard singing the whole time but not see). There was a good
group of folks there, including a fellow I used to bird with pre-pandemic.
Those were good times, we used to scrounge the area with Rob Jilek as well;
it was rare for me to bird with people before that, it brought back a lot
of happy birding memories. We also got a Scarlet Tanager, and apparently a
summer tanager was around too, but I just missed it. Still, a great day of
birding, one of those ones where I lost track of time completely. I just
found myself wandering around the grounds here and there just seeing what
was there.
That's all for now,
Matt s.
Newton, NH
<Accipiter22...>
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Mount Auburn Cemetery, Middlesex, Massachusetts, US
May 12, 2025 7:41 AM - 11:51 AM
Protocol: Traveling
2.77 mile(s)
58 species
