A long weekend in New England, Tuesday 15 May

Tuesday morning, our last in the USA for a short while, dawned with the promise of heavy rain moving up form the South.  We decided therefore to change our plans, get up very early and drive back from Hartford, CT, to just south of Boston.  This meant partaking of rush-hour traffic, which was surprisingly nasty but we still made it to the North Shore Audubon Sanctuary within five minutes of it being open.

We enjoyed the short trails around, seeing another Eastern Phoebe:

Nest-building Chipping Sparrow:

And at the river edge, Greater Yellowlegs:

Back in the woodland a very vocal Ovenbird:

And another Magnolia Warbler:

A nervous (and rightly so) Wild Turkey walked in towards the centre for the food under the feeders:

From North Shore we tried Wompatuck State Park but found this to be disappointing (and we dipped out on the Cerulean Warbler supposedly there) but we did meet some local birders who recommend we visit the Daniel Webster Audubon Sanctuary, which we did, seeing our first ever Purple Martins:

And of course Red-winged Blackbird:

As well as a very cold and wet looking Tree Swallow:

We really enjoyed this last stop on our brief holiday, and would visit again, it probably came third overall behind Plum Island and Pleasant Valley and is only 45 minutes to the airport, assuming you don't hit traffic, which we did.  

We added 12 life species and brought our US list to 399... so roll on the next birding trip across the pond!