Arctic Loon in California, Lower 48 Life Bird, July 2013

In summer 2012 I was able to see several breeding plumaged Arctic Loons in Nome, AK.  But I’ve never seen one in the Lower 48 – at least not one that I’ve counted.  Some years ago while birding on the WA coast I briefly saw a Pacific-type loon that had the classic white flank patch of an Arctic.  Although my view was only for a few seconds before it dove, it was a scope view at less than 100 yards on smooth water.  So pretty conclusive just too brief.  Unfortunately I never refound the bird, so I was hesitant to count it especially as a life bird.

Fast forward to 2013 – an Arctic Loon was being reliably seen on the CA coast in the Monterey area in January.  Unfortunately it was first found the week of one of my San Francisco business trips and I couldn’t break free to try for it.  And it disappeared right before my next San Francisco trip, so I missed the chance to add it on my Lower 48 list.  Then came posts that another Arctic Loon was amazingly spotted on an inland lake, at Bonelli Regional Park east of Los Angeles, in late May.  I wouldn’t be surprised if both a summer sighting and an inland location are unprecedented in CA.  But was this one just passing through, or would it stick around long enough for my next CA business trip?  Miraculously it not only stuck around, but was becoming very reliable.  So as my July trip to CA neared, I traded e-mails with local birder Rod Higbie to get the best microdirections to find the bird, and he agreed to meet me at the park to help look for it. 

I arrived at Bonelli Park late in the day and within 5 minutes Rod joined me on the search for the loon.  He took me right to the bird’s favorite portion of the lake and there it was – one of the easiest lifebirds I’ve ever had.  The bird was actively diving, and not unlike other Arctic/Pacific Loons, would return to the surface quite a distance from where it dove.  But eventually the bird stopped feeding, and spent a considerable time preening.  I was able to get several somewhat marginal phone-scoped photos of the bird, though the bird was pretty far out on the lake by now (much farther than my WA bird).  Some of my photos show the classic white flank patch while some others showed almost completely white sides.

And then there's this really bad photo of the bird when it was much closer.  Although I didn't get the head in the photo, the flank patch is especially easy to see.

I was lucky enough to take one photo while the bird had its wings spread, and it looked like it was missing the tip of its left wing.  Otherwise the primaries and secondaries seemed to be in pretty shape.  Loons need a considerable amount of lift to take off.  So given this bird’s wing damage it may not be able to fly again, and may be destined to stay on the lake at Bonelli Park for some time to come. 

Arctic Loon is #713 on my Lower 48 life list, and #355 for my CA list.  And now that I have seen Arctic Loon in the Lower 48, I’ve decided to go back and add the WA bird to that state list as well - #251.  Not sure if that’s the best logic, but the only reason I didn’t count the WA bird in the first place was that I didn’t feel good about adding a bird to my life list with such a limited view. 

Sooty Shearwater, Rhode Island, July 2013

Pelagic birding represents one of my single best opportunities to add statebirds to my RI list.  That’s mostly because real pelagic birding has mostly been out of reach for me.  Although a group of RI birders organize a few pelagic trips into RI waters each year, my schedule has never allowed me to go on one (though I signed up for a pelagic in March this year that got cancelled).  As a result, my pelagic birding efforts have been restricted to a few ferry rides on the Block Island Ferry out of Galilee, plus several hours of seawatches from places like Point Judith.  Although there is always potential for pelagics from these near-shore locations, the best birds are typically south of Block Island.  Despite these limited opportunities, I’ve developed a pretty good list of RI pelagics over the years like 3 shearwaters (Great, Manx, Cory’s), both Wilson’s and Leach’s Storm-Petrels, Parasitic Jaeger, Kittiwake, Razorbill, and Common Murre. 

A key bird missing from my RI pelagic list is Sooty Shearwater, which is a reasonably common shearwater, especially in mid-summer.  A couple recent pelagics out of Chatham, MA had over 1,500 Sootys, so I decided to take another Block Island Ferry ride to give it a try in nearby RI waters.  With good weather and reasonably calm seas, I headed out on an early July day with much optimism.  But all I could find was 3 Wilson’s Storm-Petrels - though a fly-by flock of 5 Knots was a nice consolation.  That evening I checked the reports and was shocked to see that a group of birders went on a whale watch trip out of Galilee that same afternoon and had all 4 shearwaters and Pomarine Jaegers.  I’m embarrassed to say that I didn’t even know that a whale watch existed out of RI!  With a little web research I found the boat company which runs 4 or 5 afternoon whale watches each week in summer, and the next trip was the very next day.  So I decided to give it a try – putting me on the water 2 days in a row off the RI coast. 

I arrived at the dock early that next day to beat the beach traffic.  As the departure time approached I was surprised to see 7 other birders on the boat – all local RI birders.  The more eyes the better!  We motored to an area southeast of Block Island where the birding and whales are best, though whales are still a pretty rare site.  And sure enough, when we arrived in the area where the shearwaters were seen the previous day, we started to see some activity.  First was a fly-by Great Shearwater, then a Sooty Shearwater sitting on the water.  Success!  We ended up seeing 5-10 Sooty, Great, and Cory’s, plus 1 Wilson’s Storm-Petrel, all within a pretty small area.  I was told this was typical for RI waters.  So although this is certainly nothing like Stellwagen Bank, it’s the place for pelagics in RI.  A couple marginal photos of one of the Sooty’s are inserted below.

And we even had a humpback whale on the trip – the first whale of any type from the boat for several years.  That is unfortunate since we all would have received a voucher for a free trip on the boat if no whales were seen.  It put on quite a show logging and diving right next to the boat.

Now that I know that the whale watch exists, I’m hoping to head back out there in late summer and early fall to try for some of the rarer pelagics.  Nice to expand my birding horizons in RI. 

Sooty Shearwater was #306 for my RI list.  As shown on my statebird map, I’ve seen this species in 4 New England states (ME, NH, MA, and RI), and all the Pacific coast states.  Haven’t done much in the way of pelagic birding elsewhere on the east coast so I need virtually all the shearwaters in the remaining Atlantic coast states.