Several years ago I chased after a Wheatear
at a sod farm in Rhode Island. The bird
had been around for over a week when I was final able to get to the area. Unfortunately I was there the first day it
was not seen. So of course Wheatear in
Rhode Island has been a key target for me ever since.
Fast forward to 2013 – a Wheatear was found
at Peckham Farm in South Kingstown the day of my VT pelagic trip (see my
earlier post). Although I certainly
wouldn’t have wanted to skip the excellent pelagic trip to be able to go for
the Wheatear, I sure hoped it would stick around so I could do after it
later. And sure enough the bird was seen
again the next day, so I was off to southern RI for my second attempt at
Wheatear in the Ocean State.
I arrived at Peckham Farm and saw a birder
walking toward me. He had just had the
bird at the south end of the complex, so I got back in the car and drove to the
south where there were several cars and birders with scopes. There was the bird – feeding on the
ground. Interestingly this site turned
out to be a sod farm complex just like the location of the first RI Wheatear I
chased after. Luckily the results were
better this time.
I’ve now seen Wheatear in 5 New England
states plus Alaska (see my statebird map below). And Wheatear was number 310 for me in
RI.
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