Date: 12/20/25 7:02 pm From: Larry Alden via groups.io <overlook...> Subject: [hmbirds] Schenectady CBC Sector D
I don’t usually post the results of my particular sector unless I get something good - and today we got something good, then something even better!
I covered my territory in the area between Voorheesville and Altamont with Cindy and Chris Edwardson.
Outside of Black Creek Marsh WMA, we had a bird fly out of a roadside tangle and off into the adjacent field. It looked about the size of a mockingbird, but instead turned out to be a northern shrike! It was a ways off, but actively flicking its tail and acting shrike-like.
Later in the afternoon we encountered a group of black-capped chickadees and other species in a brushy area beneath some power lines, and in with them was a boreal chickadee!! This species was completely off our radar, but the three of us all saw it very well, without requiring our binoculars, at a distance of about 15 feet. We easily saw the chocolate-brown cap and orange-buff sides. Chris went back to the car to get his camera, but the bird flew away before he got back and we couldn’t relocate it.
I checked the count composite list and see that boreal chickadee is NOT new to the count, so that’s a tiny letdown, but otherwise we were completely stoked over the sighting.
Overall we ended up with a respectable (for this territory) 40 species.
