The landscape between Water Street and the Connecticut River, downstream from the Holyoke dam, has changed dramatically over the last decade-plus.

Year by year, workers transformed the massive complex of paper mills into piles of brick and timber and mulch. Now it’s a blank slate awaiting a new industrial presence: startup Sublime Systems is planning a fossil-fuel-free cement manufacturing facility on 16 acres of land, powered by the canal system that once allowed the paper makers to thrive.

What hasn’t changed is how rich the corridor is for birding. The flat industrial lots yield to a narrow strip of woods along the banks of the river, and its an excellent place to spot raptors, songbirds, waterfowl, shorebirds and more. On a Sunday afternoon after a cold week, I saw two adult bald eagles and a juvenile, a pair of red-tailed hawks, a sharp-shinned hawk, a golden-crowned kinglet, hooded mergansers, a white-breasted nuthatch, and a few white-throated sparrows.