[CT Birds] Simsbury Farms Pine Grosbeaks

[Jan Collins]

3/5  Simsbury Farms  1:30 PM  12-15 PINE GROSBEAKS feeding with about that 
many Cedar Waxwings in 2 berry trees north of the ice rink.

Success at last!   After missing the grosbeaks on a couple trips to White 
Memorial and Norfolk, I finally found the flock at Simsbury Farms on Old 
Farms Rd.
Spent about an hour walking the property:  saw a lovely pair of bluebirds 
already staking out the bluebird house, few crows, a mockingbird, a 
white-throated sparrow, several killdeer, nice coopers hawk, turkey vulture, 
several robins and was about to give up when almost to the car I spotted 
what I thought might be the Northern Shrike that was reported in the area on 
Monday.  Grabbed the scope from the car to check it out for sure and got 
sidetracked by a large flock of birds landing in the fruit trees near the 
same site.  Turned out to be the Waxwings and the Grosbeaks.  Was able to 
scope them for about 10 minutes until some of the maintenance workers at the 
nearby maintenance garage banged something and they all took off to the east 
across the golf course.  But I had great looks of a life bird.  They all 
appeared to be females or juveniles as I did not see any that were reddish.