Goodbye, New England

Monday, I went to work with Eric, and we got to play a pretty good game of basketball. We left there in the early afternoon, and I checked out the Sachuest NWR for the last time. I was looking to see if I could get a glance at the RAZORBILL that had been reported as flybys here, but alas, I did not see one.

Tuesday was my last day of work at the Ryan Center. I did some random work that included possibly the silliest task I'd ever been asked to do at work: My co-worker Greg and I cleaned grates for about 2 hours. Eric stayed at work that night for the woman's basketball game, but I went home and watched the results of the Massachusetts political bloodbath.

Wednesday morning, Eric drove me to the Providence train station. On the way, we stopped at Watchemoket Cove in East Providence, where the day before a birder had reported two BLACK-HEADED GULL amongst the hundreds of RING-BILLED GULL. I located the Ring-billeds pretty quickly, but they were far away and hard to ID. Eric and I drove to a different part of the cove, looking for other areas that might offer a different part of the cove, and kind of failed. When we came back to the original spot, the gulls were much closer. This time, there was one BLACK-HEADED GULL that was quite obvious in comparison to the others, and was coming into
his spring plumage.
After riding into Boston, I met up with Erin and Meg at their house to drop my stuff off. I then headed down the Emerald Necklace in Jamaica Plain. My first stop was Jamaica Pond, which at times can attract tons of gulls, and sometimes a rarity within. There were only about 15 birds on the ice, which included LAUGHING GULL and RING-BILLED GULL. I continued a couple miles down through he Arnold Arboretum, but had no incredible sightings.

Last night I met up with Dan, Meg, Erin, Steve, and Meg at a Malaysian restaurant in Chinatown. It was delicious, especially the desserts. After, we went to Jake Wirth's with Doug, Jerry, and Alison. It was a good Boston send-off.

This morning after waking up in Jamaica Plain, I took the bus to the Mt. Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge to try my hand at the bird sighting from 1/15: four WHITE-WINGED CROSSBILL that had been seen in a stand of conifers. After spending about 30 minutes at the "Eagle Ave." mentioned, I was not able to relocate the birds. I did, however get to see many of the temperate winter birds that I may not see for some time, that included BROWN CREEPER, RED-BREASTED NUTHATCH, WHITE-BREASTED NUTHATCH, BLACK-CAPPED CHICKADEE, DARK-EYED JUNCO, WHITE-THROATED SPARROW, and TUFTED TITMOUSE. After birding, I got some super-cheap pizza at Pinocchio's in HARVARD Square, and then headed back to JP where I am now.