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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