Friday, July 29, 2016

Franklin’s Gull, Newburyport, MA, July 2016



I was puttering around the house early in the morning when I noticed an e-mail from Tom Wetmore on the Plum Island listserve (PIBirds) with this subject - “Franklin’s Gull!!!!!”.  And the body of the e-mail simply said – “At lot one now!!!!”.  Tom birds Plum Island all the time, especially in the early morning, and is great at finding rarities.  And just as importantly, he is great at reporting them right away – I subscribed to the PIBirds listserve just so I could get his posts.  The post came across at 6:24 AM and undoubtedly Tom sent it while he was looking at the bird in real time. 

All of that would be great news if it wasn’t for the fact that I didn’t see the post until an hour after it came out.  And since my drive time to Lot One on Plum Island is an hour and 15 minutes, along with a few minutes to get my gear ready, I wouldn’t be able to look for the bird until more than 2 hours had elapsed since the first sighting occurred.  What to do?  I quickly sent an e-mail back to Tom to ask if the bird was still being seen, but didn’t hear back from him right away.  Last fall I had chased after another Franklin’s Gull in MA only to find out that the bird had already flown away by the time the observer posted the sighting.  Would this be another example of looking for a Franklin’s Gull long after it had flown away?  I waited a couple more minutes but still no response from Tom.  But with all the birders likely to be on Plum Island in general, plus others heading there to look for the gull, I hoped that even if it had flown away it would be re-found nearby.  So I decided to take my chances and head to Lot One.

I finally arrived at Plum Island 2 ½ hours after Tom’s initial post.  Just as I was walking out the boardwalk toward the overlook at Lot One I received Tom’s reply to my earlier e-mail – “It flew north.”  Ugh.  Back in July 2014 I chased after a Sandwich Tern also found at Lot One only to find out that it too flew away before I arrived.  However, I was able to re-find that bird as it returned just a couple minutes later to its earlier roost on the beach beyond the Lot One platform.  So I hoped the Franklin’s Gull would do the same.  But several scans of the beach to the north and south came up empty for the target bird.  Though nesting Piping Plovers and Least Terns were nice consolations. 

Now what should I do?  There were no other birders around looking for the Franklin’s so I was on my own.  I was just about to throw in the towel and conclude I had missed yet another MA Franklin’s Gull by hours or less when I remembered one of my initial thoughts – even if the bird had flown from Lot One maybe it decided to head to another spot on the island.  Tom said it had flown north so I should probably focus my attention in that direction.  The tide was now quite low which meant sandbars would be exposed on the Merrimack River, so I thought that might be the best place to try.  It was a long shot, but I was already on the island, so why not.

I haven’t birded the north end of Plum Island north of the refuge very much, and I wasn’t sure exactly where to go to get a view of the river.  So I decided to head toward the northern tip of the island on Northern Boulevard to try to find some good vantage points.  When I got to the end of the road I found myself at a parking lot overlooking the mouth of the Merrimack River – perfect!  No sooner had I gotten out of the car did I notice a tidal island in the distance to the northwest in the middle of the river.  And there were a number of gulls milling about on the island!  I quickly set up the scope and began to scan.  There were several Black-backs and Herrings, and then I noticed a smaller gull –I thought I spotted the black ear patches of a non-breeding Franklin’s Gull, but the bird was pretty distant and I couldn’t be 100% sure.  I realized I could get a little closer to the island by walking to the end of a nearby fishing pier, so I memorized the part of the island where the potential Franklin’s was, and headed down the pier to try to get a better view. 

I set up my scope at this closer location but I couldn’t pick out the bird that could have been the Franklin’s.  And instead I found a small flock of Bonaparte’s that were molting out of breeding plumage, each with varying amounts of black on their heads.  Now I worried that my potential Franklin’s had been just a molting Bonie.  Then I scanned a bit to the left and realized I was actually looking at a different part of the island.  And now that I was looking in the right place, I quickly picked up the basic-plumaged Franklin’s Gull, roosting just a bit to the left of the Bonie flock. 

I was very happy to have re-found the bird 2 ½ hours after the initial sighting and about 2 miles to the north as the gull flies!

Franklin’s Gull was #411 for my MA list.  And MA was my 20th state for this species - of course most are out west in its regular range, and now I’ve seen it in 3 eastern states (along with NH and MD) as a rarity.



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