Curlew Sandpiper, New Hampshire, September 2011

Another call from Len Medlock means another rarity – and this one is a real rarity – Curlew Sandpiper in NH!  Once again I dropped everything and drove to Plaice Cove to try for the bird.  When I arrived a veritable Who’s Who of NH birding was present – at least 15 birders staring at the bird feeding in the rack line among Sanderlings, white-rumps and others.  Amazingly excellent views!

A couple phone-scoped photos are below – one showing the bill profile while preening its chest, and the other showing the body in profile with a White-rumped.  My statebird map is at the bottom.  NH is now my 5^th state for Curlew Sandpiper. 

Wilson’s Phalarope, Exeter Wastewater Treatment Plant, NH, September 2011

When the cellphone rang, I looked at the screen and saw it was Len Medlock.  It must mean he’s got a good bird.  Sure enough a Wilson’s Phalarope had been found at the Exeter Wastewater Treatment Plant the day before, and was still present.  I dropped everything and headed out.  I keep a pair of good but small binoculars in the glovebox of the car for exactly these situations.  But as I headed up to Exeter I realized that a scope would likely be helpful if not necessary.  I called Len back to see if he might still be in Exeter looking at the bird, but he had already left the plant.  But Len graciously offered for me to pick up his scope en route to Exeter. 

With Len’s scope in hand, I arrived at the plant and went to the northeast lagoon per Len’s directions.  A quick scan with the binocs didn’t reveal any shorebirds at all.  So I started scanning with the scope more slowly right to left.  I got to the far left (NW) corner and there was the Phalarope – swimming close to the water’s edge.  (If I had started scanning from the left I would have seen the bird right away.)  I got a bit closer for a better look and very nice views.

My Wilson’s Phalarope map is inserted below.  In addition to the more typical western states, I’ve seen it now in a fair number of eastern states too.

Black Tern, New Hampshire Pelagic Trip, September 2011

Black Tern has been a real nemesis bird for me in NH.  Many years ago I saw a flock of 6 feeding in Herrick’s Cove in VT, no more than 50 feet from NH, but they wouldn’t cross the state line.  And then there was the report of 300 on the coast the day Irene passed (though my MA sightings that day were certainly a worthwhile tradeoff).  And there was even a belated post this fall of one in Hudson, NH (just 40 minutes away) that I looked for without luck.  Most NH sightings are of low numbers passing down the coast (seen from shore or on a pelagic trip), or on the Connecticut River, but they usually don’t stick around so not generally chaseable. 

I signed up for this year’s Fall NH Audubon pelagic trip with Black Tern as one of a pretty short list of realistically possible statebirds to hope for – Puffin would be the other key target in NH.  The initial part of the ride had a few good birds on the Isles of Shoals (Whimbrel, Lesser Black-black), but not much was being seen on the open ocean.  Most birds were found following fishing traulers, with fair numbers of shearwaters mixed in with the gulls.  Then a distant group of Common Terns caught everyone’s attention.  As we got closer the call went out that 3 Black Terns were in the flock.  We got great views of the birds, so no doubt on the ID of course.  The only question was which state they were in – a quick review of the GPS showed they were indeed in NH waters!  Finally!  As the day progressed I ended up seeing 4 other Black Terns – quite a number after missing them for so long in NH.

By far the best bird on the trip was an immature Long-tailed Jaeger – right next to the boat for several minutes.  And seeing nearly a dozen Lesser Black-backed Gulls among the Herring/GBB flocks was excellent too.  Puffin will have to wait for a future trip.

My statebird map for Black Tern is inserted below.  I’ve got it now in 5 of 6 New England states.  And it’s quite a common bird in much of the rest of the country – NH was my 38th state.

Black Skimmer and Buff-breasted Sandpiper, Maine, Sept 2011 (Irene Post #4)

After last year’s northeast hurricane, there were a number of Black Skimmers noted on the NH and southern ME coasts as much as a week or more after the hurricane.  I was able to get Skimmer on the NH coast during that time, but never went up to ME to pursue any of the ones spotted up there since they seemed to be just one day wonders (or even “one tide wonders”).  I was kicking myself that I didn’t go after them, not knowing when my next opportunity might be for Skimmer in ME.  So when several Skimmers were spotted after Irene’s passage, it really got my attention.  Then there were posts of at least one at Pine Point several days in a row – finally one that might stick around.  And just when I started to put plans together to head to Pine Point, a birder posted a group of 3 Buff-breasted Sandpipers nearby in South Portland at a playing field complex.  Two statebirds to go after!

On Labor Day, David Deifik and I headed up to Maine to try both for the Skimmer and the Buff-breasteds.  Since the Buffies were at a soccer field, we thought we should hit that spot first before the first group of the day’s soccer players flushed them off.  Then we could go to Pine Point, where a high tide at dawn would be falling by early morning, and just starting to reveal some mudflats for the Skimmer to roost on.  And we could hopefully still get away before I-95 was backed up with all the vacationers coming home.

We arrived at the field complex, and had perfect directions where the Buffies were yesterday.  We hopped out of the car, and within seconds we could see at least 2 in the distance walking in the grass field among some Ring-billed Gulls.  We walked a bit closer, and got great scope views of all 3 Buff-breasted Sandpipers.  They aren’t usually that easy.

Then after a short drive we arrived at Pine Point.  The tide was falling but still very high, and there was just a bit of exposed mudflat.  I scoped the mud and found many gulls – Great Black-backed, Herring, and Bonaparte’s, a few Black-bellied Plovers, but not much else.  On my second scan of the same flat I found the immature Black Skimmer.  Another easy one!  Two Maine statebirds in just an hour.  Over the next 20 minutes or so, the Skimmer mostly just slept on the flats, but it did fly a couple times and even skimmed the surface once.  Several other birders arrived in this time and we were able to get them on it.  Now 8 days after Irene had passed and still there were birds on the coast displaced by the storm.

A Marbled Godwit had also been at Pine Point for the last couple weeks.  Although I didn’t need that one for Maine, David did.  We went over to the end of the pier to view the ever growing flats from there.  And after a little scanning I was able to pick out the godwit.  We stayed at Pine Point a little longer, picking out a broad array of the expected shorebirds along with 4 Red Knots – these are always special birds.  Interestingly there were no terns of any species.  Pine Point is one of my favorite Maine birding locations – and once again it lived up to its reputation.

By late morning we were heading south to beat the rush of tourists on the highway.  But on a whim we decided to make a quick stop at Seabrook Harbor in NH to try for Black Tern (both of us needed it for NH).  We had 80 Sterna terns including 10 Forster’s (a high number for NH), but alas no Black Tern.

Skimmer was my last Irene-related statebird.  Over 8 days I added at least 6 statebirds in 4 states that were associated with Irene – Tropicbird and Sooty Tern in MA, Sanderling in VT, Brown Pelican and Sooty Tern in RI, and now Skimmer in ME.

The Buff-breasted Sandpiper and Black Skimmer give me 315 now in Maine.  My statebird maps for these two species are quite different.  Most of my states with Buff-breasteds are in the northeast instead of the central part of the country where they are more typically found.  But in the northeast they are reasonably easy to chase even though they are in very low numbers.  The states where I’ve seen Skimmer are much more similar to the Skimmer range map, though northern New England is certainly not in their typical range.

Brown Pelican, Sooty Tern and More, Coastal Rhode Island, Sep 11 (Irene Post #3)

After 2 days of birding in the aftermath of Hurricane Irene and 3 new statebirds, it was tough to go back to work.  Especially with all the sightings of storm-blown birds still occurring, primarily from the CT and RI coastlines.  Numerous southern terns (Gull-billed and Sandwich) and tropical terns (a few Sootys) were seen daily, along with a few immature pelicans.  Then 1 more post of great birds on the RI coast (red-necked phalarope, pelican and sandwich tern) pushed me over the edge.  So I called Denny Abbott and we planned a day on the RI coast on Thursday, 4 days after the storm.  But did we wait too long?

I targeted starting at Moonstone Beach, because seemingly reliable red-necked phalaropes were nearby at Mud Pond, and many of the terns were being sighted on the coast there.  We arrived mid-morning and started scanning Mud Pond for the phalaropes.  Although they had been reliable for several days, we had no luck.  Rather disappointing – I was counting on that one.  Maybe they were tucked away in a portion of the Card's Pond wetlands that wasn’t visible. 

We then walked to Moonstone Beach and began to scan the water.  Within a minute of our arrival I saw an adult Brown Pelican quite close flying to the west paralleling the beach.  I think all the other pelicans reported after Irene had been immatures.  That was not only a statebird for me, but a key target of Denny’s, since he needed it for all the New England states.  Amazingly, birders to the west undoubtedly saw this same bird about 10 minutes later.  Reinvigorated, I kept scanning the waters to the south.  Numerous Common Terns were flying by, but nothing better.  Then I picked up a distant dark phase Jaeger.  Although very far out, you could see the characteristic flight and shape of a Jaeger.  I put it down as a Parastic because that is by far the most likely jaeger, but realistically I could not eliminate Pomarine.  Unfortunately it was too far away to get Denny on this bird.  Two statebirds for me! 

After some local scanning of the beach and nearby marsh at Card's Pond, I went back to scanning the ocean.  After a while I picked up a tern that wasn’t nearly as far out as the Jaeger, though distant.  All I could see was dark – no pale feathering anywhere.  I got Denny on this bird, and we watched it for several minutes.  It had a strong flight, and based on when it passed by a Herring Gull, was a mid-sized tern.  Denny and I spent a lot of time thinking about this bird afterwards, and came to the conclusion that it was an immature Sooty Tern.  Although an immature Sooty does have pale feathering on the belly, we felt that it was not feasible to see the light feathers at that distance.  And although most of the Sootys that were seen after Irene were adults, there were a few other immatures reported.  Statebird #3 for me and #2 for Denny!

After another hour or so, we left the beach and tried Mud Pond one more time for the phalaropes.  No luck again, though an adult Little Blue Heron had arrived.  We decided to drive over to Camp Cronin to check out the jetties there.  On a whim I decided to head east on Matunuck Schoolhouse Road instead of heading north on Moonstone Beach Road.  Wasn’t sure exactly how to get to Camp Cronin, so I was watching my map app on my I-Phone as we headed east on Matunuck.  Out of the corner of my eye I saw something white through the hedgerow in the field next to the road.  I pulled over, and through the brush I saw a herd of cows and a Cattle Egret.  Boy was I lucky – an extra second looking at the map and I would have missed it.  Plus, we almost took Moonstone Beach Road instead.  Statebird #4!  Not likely related to Irene though.  The Cattle Egret stuck around at this site for several days, with several birders spotting it.  Cattle Egrets are rather regular in RI in the Spring, with a number of posts coming from the Jamestown area most years.  But this is the first one I can remember in the fall.

Camp Cronin had lots of birds on the jetties, but they were way too distant.  At one point I went down to the beach to get a different angle, while Denny remained at the parking lot.  When I returned Denny said he thought he had a Gill-billed Tern fly right overhead.  Unfortunately I missed it.

Our last stop was at Watch Hill Point in Westerly.  After a brisk 30-minute walk I made it to the point where there was a nice collection of shorebirds including 1 Buff-breasted Sandpiper, 26 Knots, and 12 Oystercatchers, but no terns at all.  So no new statebirds there, but some good RI birds anyway.

An amazing day with 4 new RI statebirds, at least 2 of which were associated with Irene!

My statebird maps for Brown Pelican, Sooty Tern, and Cattle Egret are inserted below.  I’ve seen Brown Pelican in all the Pacific and Gulf states (plus inland at AZ), and on the Atlantic up to New Jersey.  And now of course RI.  The Sooty Tern map is now complete for post-Irene sightings – RI and MA this year plus the older FL and TN sightings.  And as for Cattle Egret, I’ve seen it throughout the southeast and much of the east, with a scattering of states in the interior west and midwest.  And now all the New England states – the 206^th species I’ve seen in all 6 New England states.

Sanderling in Vermont, August 2011 (Irene Post #2)

While traveling back from the the Quabbin Reservoir after seeing the Tropicbird and Sooty Tern, David Deifik and I strategized where the best birds might appear the next day.  Although we considered First Encounter Beach, we eventually focused on going back to central New England hoping for additional birds that had been blown inland by Hurricane Irene.  We thought the Connecticut River could be a great corridor storm birds might use to try to get back to the ocrean.  We chose the river at Hinsdale, NH, just above the Vernon Dam.  This spot provides an excellent view of nearly a mile of the river, which would give us lots of time to see all those great birds that might fly by.

We got to the dam at about 6:30 AM on the 29th and began to scan the river.  Several notable local birds were present, including an adult and immature Bald Eagle, which initially kept us on our toes.  But as the day progressed, we realized that we weren't likely to get many storm birds.  Our attention frequently moved to the river, where we watched an amazing stream of trees and brush filing past us.  As we looked closer at the floating debris, we began to notice refrigerators, propane tanks, coolers, kid's toys, and most anything else that could float.  We were hearing stories of horrendous flooding in the watershed upriver, and we were witnessing the results of the powerful flood waters that had rushed through peoples' yards. 

Several times we had small flocks of shorebirds fly south generally over our heads.  Interestly, these shorebirds weren't flying down river, intead they were riding the debris down the river.  Then as the debris neared the dam, they would take off, circle a bit, then gain altitude and make their way off to the south.  One of those flocks consisted of 4 Sanderlings - spending some time in NH airspace and some time in VT airspace - a new one for my VT list.  These are certainly good birds for the Connecticut River valley, and perhaps affected by Irene.  We also had one semi sandpiper, one yellowlegs, and several unidentified small and mid-sized peeps.

My statebird map for Sanderling is inserted below.  Most birders probably think of Sanderling as a coastal bird, and of course it is common on the coasts.  But it is also a rather regular migrant through the middle of the country; I've seen it in 13 inland states.  Interestingly, even when they are away from the coast, they are more likely to be on sandy or rocky beaches than on mudflats.

White-tailed Tropicbird and Sooty Tern, Quabbin Reservoir, MA August 2011 (Irene Post #1)

As Hurricane Irene approached with a likely landfall somewhere in New England on August 28th, I had made plans to go birding with David Deifik the day after the storm passed on the 29^th.  Perhaps heading to First Encounter Beach on the Cape as that is typically one of the best places to head the day after a hurricane.  But as the morning of the 28^th arrived, it was obvious that the hurricane was taking a more inland track through western CT, with less than expected wind and rain near the east-facing New England coastline.  So now maybe western MA would be the best place to try for storm-driven birds.  And in western MA the large reservoirs might be the places to try.  Watching the morning radars it was obvious that much of the rain east of the storm in MA would be winding down by noon – much earlier than expected.  So instead of First Encounter Beach on the 29^th, I called David to talk him into heading to Quabbin Reservoir on the afternoon of the 28^th.

On our 90-minute ride through central MA we encountered a few small branches in the road, and many leaves (carpeting the roads in places), but no downed trees or flooding.  By the time we reached the Quabbin, winds were rather light from the south with only intermittent drizzle.  We arrived at about 2 PM at the dam to see 6 or 8 birders already there – some had been there since the early morning and had had a couple jaegers and some migrant shorebirds including Hudsonian Godwits, but no megararities.  Over the next couple hours we continuously scanned the reservoir typically seeing nothing at all.  Key locations on the far side of the reservoir were an island which was 2.9 miles away, and a boat ramp which was 3.5 miles away.  Needless to say, anything flying around on the far side would be little more than a speck.  On one of my scans I picked out 3 distant black terns, and was able to get most of the other birders on them.  Later we had a brief look at a flock of mid-sized shorebirds – but too brief for an ID.

Then around 4 PM several of us saw 2 very distant all dark birds which went down as Jaeger, sp.  Then just a minute later one birder yelled – “I’ve got something good” (or something like that).  A couple seconds later another birder yelled – “White-tailed Tropicbird!”.  It took me a few seconds to get on the bird (which seemed like hours), but I eventually saw the bird fly by, and even at a distance of about 3 miles I could see the very white bird with the long tail feathers.  Then the bird turned and starting flying directly towards us.  Eventually it landed on the water much closer – relatively speaking that is – about a mile away.  With high magnification you could pick out the tail feathers sticking straight up, and the mostly white bird.  As I stretched the limits of my scope (and my eyesight) to try to pick out further field marks, another birder yelled – “Sooty Tern!”  Again it took me an agonizingly long several seconds to find the bird, but then got excellent looks at the adult tern as it made its way closer and closer to us.  Eventually it was just a few hundred yards away, and I watched it continuously for 5+ minutes as it flew and even fed on the water surface at times, seeing all the salient field marks.  Then it soared and circled up over the reservoir, and flew south over the trees, hopefully making its way back to salt water somewhere.  The jaegers, tropicbird, and tern all appeared in a space of 5 minutes or less.  We went back to looking at the tropicbird, and realized that the wind was causing it to slowly drift away.  About an hour later it was little more than a white speck on the water, barely recognizable among the whitecaps.  A small flock of Turnstones flew by a bit later, but that was all the storm-related birds to be had.  So in 4 hours of scanning the reservoir, I saw storm-related birds for about 10 minutes, but they sure were good ones.

I’ve only seen White-tailed Tropicbird once before – on the Dry Tortugas in Florida.  I’ve seen Sooty Tern on my several trips to the Dry Tortugas, and also in Tennessee on the day that Hurricane Katrina passed through the central part of the state.  (I also had Band-rumped Storm-Petrel that day – but that’s another story.)  Needless to say, they are great birds for New England!  Numbers 393 and 394 for MA.  And this would be just the beginning of my Irene birding experience…