Sunday, July 11, 2010

Birding in Sterling....Well.....Kind of

I did some birding this morning with Alan today in Sterling.......All though once may question whether it was birding or not per say now that July is in full swing and the birds have gotten very quiet, but we figured it wouldn't do any harm to check out Sterling Peat to check on water levels in hope for mud which would mean shore birds in the next weeks to come.

All would be quiet except for the regulars who call Sterling Peat their summer residence. The only shorebirds we would see would be one Least Sandpiper, a Spotted Sandpiper and a few Killdeer doing their call as they flew away from us in indignation.
After that it would be Kristoff Pig Farm in Sterling which we discovered a month or so ago, when we were doing the bird census for DCR. This pig farm is abandoned with a ton of over grown brush which makes things very "birdy" and looks like the perfect place for sparrows in the fall so you know we will be sure to get back there this fall. Anyhow, we were hoping for some cuckoo's in here but all we would hear would be the familiar birds that one hears this time of the year. The best thing about it is the diverse habitat if you feel like walking for a while which is always nice because you get a better variety of birds.

DCR doesn't have the funding to tear down the existing barns and above is a picture of one. Very cool and we were hoping to see some bats in there but that was a 'no go".

So there you have it all. Birding in Central Massachusetts in the middle of summer......... At least I knew about it before hand, not like last year when I was so new and the fact that birds took summer siestas was foreign to me.

Now I know it just goes with the time of the year and I find other things to do like my running, hiking as well as a new sport I tried yesterday for the first time which was mountain biking. I went to a bike trail called Vietnam in Milford with a friend who was nice enough to find me a loaner to see if I would like it or not. I used to own a bike and bike the bike trail and local roads, but something about a mountain bike has intrigued me for the past couple of years so I wanted to try it out for myself and my friend was nice enough to grab his sisters for me to give it a test drive if you will. Needless to say it was a lot of fun, but killer on the legs which are still tight today, but all in all I really enjoyed it and hope to do it again soon. Who knows, maybe I will even get one for next year and then watch out all of you birders because I will be coming right at you on a bike. Hows that for a scary thought. ;-). Take care all

6 comments:

Chris said...

HI Kim,
Yes live has other aspect than birding and it is sometime driving us on other roads, which are also nice ;-)

Rich said...

I like the pig barn! I was 100 miles behind a hog truck last week - stunk.

Kathie Brown said...

What is DCR? Looks like you had fun anyway. Have fun mountain biking (if you can call those hills in Massachusetts "mountains)!

Warren and Lisa Strobel said...

Birding and biking - perfect combo! I love your description of the birds' summer seista. July birding is uber tough. The bugs don't really help either.

L&W

Lara Hoke said...

Nice. And it rhymes!

Dawn Fine said...

Howdee all..Birding and Biking sounds like fun.
Cover allot of ground and exercise..
Hope your summer has been great.

Going to get a BwBTC outing together end of August. Kathie from Kathiesbirds and sycamore canyon will be in the area then.

Not sure where yet..but prob. CT,RI or MA.
let me know if you are interested.

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