Grasslands, Nightjars, and Pine Barrens: A New Hampshire Birding Tour

Grasslands, Nightjars, and Pine Barrens: A New Hampshire Birding Tour Five stops across New Hampshire, each holding a completely different bird community — airport grassland, converted wastewater ponds, forever-wild marsh, mixed hardwood forest, and a globally rare pine barrens. Started at Pease International Tradeport on Short Street in Newington, one of the largest remaining grassland patches on the Seacoast. American Kestrel, Eastern Meadowlark, and Vesper Sparrow are all regulars here, and Grasshopper Sparrow — state-threatened, with only 30–40 pairs left statewide — was singing from the field. No luck on Upland Sandpiper this time. Next up, Pickering Ponds in Rochester, former settling basins from the city's wastewater treatment plant that now rank among the best birding spots in the state. Picked up Northern Shoveler on the ponds behind the fence. From there to the Alice Bemis Thompson Wildlife Sanctuary in Sandwich, a forever-wild property with close to 100 acres of marsh along Atwood Brook. American Bittern, Marsh Wren, and Red-winged Blackbird were all working the wetland. Freedom Town Forest was next — 2,660 acres of woods, fields, and ponds with a bird list to match. Scarlet Tanager and Ovenbird held the mature canopy, Black-and-white Warbler worked the trunks, and Veery and Hermit Thrush sang from the understory. The edges and second growth brought Chestnut-sided Warbler, Prairie Warbler, Eastern Towhee, Alder Flycatcher, Cedar Waxwing, Chipping Sparrow, Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, and Pine Warbler. Inside that same forest, an old, never-completed airstrip clearing — the reason this land got conserved in the first place — held Vesper Sparrow and Whip-poor-will in the open ground. Last stop was the Ossipee Pine Barrens, the last intact pitch pine–scrub oak habitat left in New Hampshire. Went in after dark for Whip-poor-will (heard) and Common Nighthawk (heard and seen, including one of their wing-boom display dives caught on the recorder). Daylight birding turned up Pine Warbler, Prairie Warbler, Chestnut-sided Warbler, Black-and-white Warbler, Eastern Towhee, Field Sparrow, Chipping Sparrow, Veery, Least Flycatcher, Broad-winged Hawk, a single Red Crossbill, and Dark-eyed Junco, which is present in the barrens year-round. 📷 Nikon Z6III + Z 600mm f/6.3