Painted Bunting, Pittsfield, VT, March 2016

It wasn’t too long ago that the state listserves were THE place to share information on your bird sightings –for common birds and rarities alike.  But with more and more people using eBird, many sightings these days are only posted on eBird and never make it to the listserves.  As a result, I’ve set up an eBird Needs Alert for each New England state to supplement information appearing on the listserves.  But the eBird reports can often introduce another challenge – details on locations and tips to find a rarity are not requested by eBird and are often not included the way they are generally contained in posts on the listserves.  Plus there are many eBird users who are less experienced birders, potentially introducing identification problems especially for rarities.

Both of these challenges were evident in mid-March when an eBird Needs Alert from Vermont appeared in my inbox with a report of a Painted Bunting.  The location was simply posted as Pittsfield, VT.  It included a short summary of the sighting, including that it was a male, and that it was seen at their feeder in the morning and refound in a thicket that afternoon.  Although it would be difficult to misidentify a male Painted Bunting, because it is so rare in VT (only 3 previous records I believe), it would still be nice to confirm the sighting.  Plus of course the location would need to be nailed down if you were to chase after it.  And speaking of chasing – the town was about a 2 ½ hour drive from home, so it was within my typical range for chasing (unlike many other VT rarities that are 3+ hours away in the Champlain Valley).  So this was definitely a bird I wanted to try to see.

The next day a second eBird post came across with another sighting of the bird.  So the bird was still around, but the location on this second post was still quite vague.  Luckily a couple VT birders went out that afternoon and confirmed the sighting, plus posted a few details on the location on the listserve.  And with a call to local birder Ted Murin, I was able to get the details on the locations where it was being seen.  I called Denny Abbott who also needed this bird in VT (you know it’s a rarity when Denny needs it!), and we made plans to chase after it the next morning.

As we made our way to VT there were a couple positive posts on the listserve that the bird was seen at the same feeders where it was first spotted.  Then about 30 minutes before we arrived another listserve post came across stating that it was re-found a short distance away with very specific directions.  So we were very optimistic that we would find the bird.  However when we arrived, there were no birders in sight.  Had everyone seen the bird and already left?  But then I looked to the northeast and there were about a dozen birders 200 yards away with scopes and binoculars all pointed in the same direction.  Within a couple minutes Denny and I had walked over to the birders, and they told us the bird was in a small hedgerow in the distance.  I scanned the brush and didn’t see the bird.  Then they clarified that the bird was actually on the ground beneath the brush, and I quickly found the Bunting.  Although it was distant, I got this passable phonescoped photo of the bird.

We watched the bird for the next 5 minutes, and during most of that time it stayed motionless on the ground.  Eventually it flew a short distance and perched on a low stone wall before it dropped out of sight.  I don’t believe it was seen again later that day so we would have missed it if we had arrived just a few minutes later.  Boy were we lucky to have arrived when we did.  Plus the bird sure didn’t seem very healthy so I wondered if it would be re-found, although it was still seen in the area for the next 2 days.

Painted Bunting is #273 for me in VT which is my fourth New England state for this species which is prone to vagrancy.  I’ve also seen this species in MD as a rarity and in many of the states within its regular range across the south.