Monk Parakeets-East Boston & Misc

I decided to join Alan today in his quest for the Monk Parakeets in East Boston today as it would be a life bird for the both of us and plus also thought it would be nice to "twitch" for a bird outside of Worcester County which is something I hadn't done since the Scissor-tailed Flycatcher in Orange last year. When we arrived the skies would be gray as a cold rain somewhat dampened our spirits but not for long as we would soon find the nest and it wasn't exactly hard to miss.
As you can see in the picture above. The parakeet would be inside of the nest tidying up so we assumed at first it was done with the nest building process but we would soon find out we were mistaken.
As it would loudly announce its departure with a very loud "chape yee" call that would echo through the park as this fairly good sized and colorful bird would make its way to the willow tree for more material.
Where I stood waiting as we had picked up on its behavioral pattern and I wanted a picture of it during its nest building process.
And a close up of this magnificent bird.
It would grab a few twigs and then fly back to the nest to add to its already enormous size. The funny thing was that there would be a few folks walking in the park and except for one guy, no once noticed or paid much attention to the bird. Now I know most people are not into birding and we are a special bunch, but a bird as obvious as a parakeet and not being noticed totally blows me away seriously. Heck, even a non birder should notice a bird as big and colorful as this one, wouldn't you think?? :-p
There would be a few other birds around including two Northern Mockingbirds who would be directly across the street. I couldn't help but wonder if they live nearby the parakeets and whether or not one of them will add the call of the Monk Parakeet to their song vocabulary. If so, I would love to hear it as the call of the parakeet is unique to say the least!
After that we decided to try our luck at the SuAsCo Reservoir in Westborough for the reported Caspian Tern, knowing very well it would not be there, but it would be the perfect excuse to go back to what has become one of my favorite places to bird lately. There are some really thick and birdy shrubs at the beginning on one of the trails that I wanted to show Alan as he had never been here before and low and behold we could hear some noise coming from deep within the shrubs so we did some pishing and who would come out and immediately belt into song, but the Brown Thrasher I met for the 1st time last week.
The sun would peek out briefly which would allow me my first halfway decent photo of the thrasher this year.
I would also show Alan the area where there are normally quite a few warblers and a place where I got my best look at a Yellow-throated Vireo last year, but the only thing we would see would be the regular backyard birds including this very busy Black-capped Chickadee who appears to be in the ending stages of some serious nest building. Does anyone see a pattern here!
As we were leaving I could hear a call above that sounded somewhat familiar to me as I had heard it for the 1st time recently and it would be that of an Osprey so we watched it for a while. It would never get real close and was at a distance I am used to seeing them at while hawkwatching, but they would do something that I had never really noticed before until now, which is change their body in flight and what that would do was totally reshape the body and how the bird would look in your binoculars. What was so cool about it is I could clearly see in through my optics and was taken aback at how different a raptor can look by doing something as simple as adjusting a wing or bringing them forward as if to glide. Geeky I know, but hey, I'm a geek! ;-)
I would end the day with a nice long walk in the woods near my home after I went home for lunch. Wouldn't you know the sky appears to be opening up some and it would chose to do so on a Sunday evening after my weekend would be over with!

Take care all