As much as I grow attached to the neighborhood regulars — the Red-tailed Hawks, the Canada Geese, the American Kestrels — it’s always exciting to see a new bird in the city. The Eastern Towhee above is the first I’ve seen in Holyoke. It flew into a tree right in front of me at the end of an afternoon of…
Red-tailed Hawk at morning and evening
I saw the male Red-tailed Hawk this morning on my way to work — and then, this evening during a walk around town:
April brings activity at downtown Holyoke’s American Kestrel nest
I stopped Saturday morning on Race Street to photograph the male Red-tailed Hawk, who seemed to be gliding around playfully in the gusty wind. It wasn’t long, though, before I heard a familiar call: the male American Kestrel, dive-bombing the hawk.
Two ways of looking at a blackbird
There’s the bird itself — above, a Red-winged Blackbird on a reed in one of the city canals — and then there’s everything around the bird. This is the stretch of South Canal Street the blackbirds seem to favor:
Red-winged Blackbirds, Mallards along South Canal Street
With steady rain starting to fall this afternoon I stopped by South Canal Street to see if the Red-winged Blackbirds had returned for the spring.
The canal here is still mostly iced over — but, indeed, there were a number of male blackbirds hanging around, along with a pair of Mallards. I’ll have to start making regular stops here, to see when the females return.
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Cedar Waxwings in Heritage State Park, along Appleton Street (photos)
After seeing a single Cedar Waxwing in Heritage State Park in early January, the park was suddenly full of them during the first week of March.
Have Holyoke’s downtown Red-tailed Hawks found a new home?
Last summer, while the young Red-tailed Hawks that hatched at the Open Square nest were still in the neighborhood, I noticed a third nest in downtown Holyoke — this one on a High Street fire escape.
Western Massachusetts birding, 1958: ‘Unusual species’ reported
I ran across this article — from the March 17, 1958 edition of the Springfield Morning Union — by pure luck while working on a project at work this week.