Dark-Eyed Junco

Beside the parking lot just below the summit of Mt. Holyoke, in Skinner State Park, Hadley MA.  We'd had good reports of bird sightings yesterday, but we saw very little (to be sure, we didn't get there until mid-morning).  It was cloudy, chilly, and intermittently very windy, which didn't help.  Stay tuned for the next few days.

This evening we attended an  presentation  to our local Hampshire Bird Club  by Andrea Jones, on her work as director of bird conservation in California for the National Audubon Society. I've known Andrea since 2005, when she was at Mass Audubon and steered me to Allens Pond Sanctuary, where from 2005 to 2009 I took most of my images of piping plovers and least terns; she moved to California in 2006, where she's been very successful. Her talk was highly informative and even inspiring--just wonderful.  (As it happens she used some of  my California images, including most notably  this one from 2006,  which I have just posted.)