I was watching my e-mail the morning that a post came across the listserve that a Western Grebe had just been found at Simpson’s Point Landing in Brunswick, ME. That would be “just” a 2 ½ hour drive for me, so I was definitely tempted to chase after it. But my success rate chasing new statebirds in ME north of Portland is really low. In fact that success rate gets worse as my driving distance increases – even though my success rate for birds in Portland and south is quite high. So mostly due to my past successes, or lack thereof, I decided to pass on this one.
Interestingly, this was the 3rd Western
Grebe to be spotted in New England in the past week. One had been hanging out on the NH coast for
several days (I saw that one though it was not a new statebird), and another
was a 1-day wonder on the CT coast a week earlier. I unfortunately decided not to chase after
that one even though I need Western Grebe for my CT list.
As the day progressed I kept seeing posts
of birders seeing the Grebe. And with
each successive post I kicked myself a little harder for not going after
it. Finally I decided to give it a try
the next day, but only if someone posted that the bird was refound. I wanted to make sure it would stick around
like the NH bird instead of just being seen the one day like the CT bird. A good strategy I thought to maximize my
chances of seeing the bird if I went after it.
I posted a request to the listserve for updates the next morning, and my
Maine friend Rob Speirs replied saying he was going there first thing in the
morning and would post his results. That
was the good news. The bad news was that
he tried for it the first day with no luck.
Then my NH friend Bob Crowley responded saying he missed the Grebe on
the first day as well. Suddenly the bird
wasn’t looking like quite the slam dunk as one would have thought just based on
the positive listserve posts. But I
decided to stick with my strategy after all.
The next morning I got up early and was
completely prepared to run out the door as soon as I got positive word from
Rob. And then at 7:30 Rob posted that
the bird was still there. No more than 5
minutes after his post I on the road, committing to the 5-hour round trip drive
to chase after a new bird for my ME list.
I arrived at Simpson’s Point Landing at
about 10 and there were 8 other birders already there. But as I drove up I noticed that everyone was
looking in different directions – not a good sign. Sure enough, no one had seen the Grebe since
Rob’s initial sighting earlier that morning.
Maine birder Louis Bevier was there and I compared notes with him – lots
of birds were present including a remarkable flock of Black Scoters that
numbered well into the thousands (some were even singing!), but no Western Grebe. While I was there I met Josh Fecteau, and
shared with him my less-than-stellar success rate for birds north of
Portland. I just had to laugh about it. Over time the other birders gave up, and
finally Josh and I threw in the towel at 1 PM after 3 hours of scanning the
bay.
On the way home I stopped to look at a
small flock of Bohemian Waxwings that I had spotted in route, which were only
my second for ME. And although I got these
passable phonescoped pictures of these most cooperative birds, it was a small consolation for yet
another central ME miss.
As luck would have it the Western Grebe was
spotted every day for the next 4 days.
Now the weekend was nearing and I would again have time to try for the
bird. Should I try for it yet
again? I decided to make the trek again on
Saturday if it was seen Friday afternoon.
And this time I would head out even earlier, since the bird appeared to
be a bit more reliable in the early morning.
There was a positive post from Friday afternoon from Noah Gibb who
mentioned the bird was “wicked faahh out”.
So I was on for the Saturday drive the next morning.
As I neared Brunswick skies were overcast with
a few showers and light winds. Cloudy
conditions and light winds would be ideal for looking for the Grebe, especially
if it was far in the distance. So my
optimism was increasing when I arrived at Simpson’s Point Landing at 8 and saw
that the water was nearly flat calm. Josh
was there again with another birder and I was hopeful that they could point the bird out to me. Alas, they reported that
they had not spotted the bird yet. Not
again! Josh and I joked that he shouldn’t
be there any day that I was trying for the target bird to avoid my bad
aura.
I started to scan the nearby water and came
up empty, though again there were many birds in the bay. Then I started to think that maybe I should
start looking farther in the distance.
Not only did Noah mention that it was far out the day before, but I
imagined that the other birders had spent a lot of time scanning all the closer
waters already that morning. And given
the excellent viewing conditions, we could truly check out the waters much
farther out than we could the first day I was there. So I put my scope on 50X and started to look
as far out as possible.
After some negative scanning I spotted a
sleeping bird way out that was likely a Common Loon, but I couldn’t be sure it
wasn’t a sleeping Western Grebe. I know
the 2 species aren’t that similar, but the distance was so great I couldn’t be
sure. So I mentioned this bird to the
others, and decided to just keep it in my scope hoping it would wake up. Then a couple minutes later another bird
popped up out of the water right in my scope field – good sized but smaller than
the sleeping bird, generally black and white, and with a long neck. It was the Western Grebe!!! I got the other 2 birders on the target bird
and there were high fives all around.
Over the next 30 minutes the Grebe swam
toward us, but was still extremely far away.
I got this miserable phone-scoped photo of the bird with the already distant Black Scoters in the foreground –
That evening with the help of Google Maps and
tried to decide exactly how far out the bird might have been. The best I can tell when we first spotted the
bird it was 6,500 ft or 1¼ miles away.
But remember the bird swam toward us for the next 30 minutes so it got closer
over time – though “closer” is all relative.
In the photo I took above the bird was still 5,000 feet away – nearly a
full mile. Pretty amazing. If the Grebe had been in this same general area
the first day I was there we never would have seen it given the glare off the
water in sunny skies and more normal light chop of the water.
Western Grebe was #339 for me in ME, and
maybe this will start a trend of an improved success rate chasing birds farther
north in ME. This was my the 4th New England
state for Western Grebe; I’ve also seen this species in WI and MD as a rarity,
plus of course many states out west (see my statebird map below).
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