Short-eared Owl has been a nemesis bird for
me in VT for years. Not only because
I’ve tried for it twice unsuccessfully over the years – after all there are
lots of birds I’ve tried for but missed throughout New England. But more importantly, it is the most common
bird that I still need not only for my VT list, but for any of my 6 New England
statelists. Worst yet, since the bird is
regular in northwestern VT in the colder months, it appears in my eBird VT Needs
Alerts most every winter day. Every time
one of those Needs Alert e-mails show up in my in-box I cringe – It’s as if the
Owls are taunting me.
So if it’s that common, why haven’t I tried
for it more than I already have? The
problem lies in its location – the Short-eared Owl’s regular spot over the last
several years has been at Gage Road in Addison, VT. That’s a 3 ½ hour one-way drive from home –
well beyond my normal 2 ½ hour limit to chase after new ticks for New
England. The two times I have tried for
the Owl I’ve combined it with searches for other targets in the general area,
though that hasn’t exactly gotten me anywhere so far.
And that is what led to my next search for
my nemesis Short-eared Owl in March 2017.
It all started when I began to see posts about a Trumpeter Swan being
seen in Brandon, VT. My first thought
was to not pay any attention to it. Not
because I doubted the ID, but instead because it was about 3 hours away. Plus the bird was undoubtedly from the
introduced Ontario population that many states haven’t yet recognized as
countable birds. But then additional
posts mentioned the bird was not banded, and it was the second VT state
record. That meant that VT had already
accepted a previous record again likely from the introduced population. With that issue behind me, I quickly thought
about combining an attempt for the Swan with another try for the
Short-ear. A search on eBird showed no
reports of the Short-ears in about 2 weeks, but I wasn’t too worried about
whether they were still around. So
although it would be a lot of driving, I guess I could justify a trek to
northwestern VT given there were 2 targets for the trip.
Then again just a month earlier I made a
similar trip to the central coast of Maine – 2 targets each were farther away
than my typical chase distance. But
together I justified an overnight trip to give them a try. But I missed them both! Hopefully the results of my VT trip would be
better.
My plan was to leave home late morning, try
for the Swan early to mid-afternoon, then make my way north to Addison later in
the day for an attempt at the Owls at dusk.
The only potential complication was the weather. A strong arctic cold front was to arrive
overnight, but that would be well after I would leave Addison. So the temperature wasn’t the problem. Instead the issue was that there could be
snow squalls in the area in advance of the front, though the forecasts that
morning reduced the chance of any snow to just 40%. But I figured as long as I kept an eye on the
weather maps I’d be OK. Besides, if I
delayed my trip to the next day it would brutally cold and windy after the
front passed through, making a search for the Owls really difficult. So my plans were set.
I left my house on time, and arrived in
Brandon about 2 PM. The Swan was being
seen in a flooded field south of a railroad overpass along Route 73 just west
of “downtown” Brandon. With those pretty
specific directions I was confident I would quickly find the right
location. But as I crested the railroad
tracks all I could see to the south was trees.
Where was the flooded field? I
continued to slowly drive to the west down the overpass and only then looking
back could I see a wetlands with open water.
I parked on the west side of the overpass, and planned to walk back to
the east to get a closer view. As I was
getting the scope out of the car I looked back toward the wetlands and could
see a large white “lump” in the water. I
put it in my binocs and it was indeed a sleeping Swan. Undoubtedly it was my target bird, but I
wanted to get a better view.
I walked back to the east up the overpass
and set up my scope. But the Swan was
still sleeping – giving these not-so-photogenic views.
Luckily I had quite a bit of time to wait
for the bird to wake up. After a few
minutes the bird briefly picked up its head, and I was lucky to snap this
phonescoped picture confirming the ID as the second VT state record of
Trumpeter Swan.
VT is my 17th state for this
species, many of which are associated with reintroduction efforts across the
country (see my statebird map below).
It was only 2:30, and sunset wasn’t until
5:53. I was only about an hour’s drive
from the Owl location, and it was sunny and nearly 40 degrees. So everything was looking good. But as I started my drive north I could see
dark clouds up ahead, and the wind started picking up. A few minutes later it started to snow, and
then I hit a snow squall complete with limited visibility in heavy snow, which
was blowing horizontally and was now sticking to the roads. (What happened to that 40% chance of snow
forecast?) But squalls are typically
short-lived, and soon I was north of the narrow but strong snow band, and again
I wasn’t too worried about the weather.
It was snowing lightly when I reached the
western end of Gage Road, and I began to reacquaint myself with the area. Gage Road dead-ends in a set of farmers’
fields, some planted in pasture grass and some in corn, with just an occasional
hedgerow, and an old barn complex a short distance to the north. With the exception of a few shallow ditches,
the area is very flat, allowing for a nearly unobstructed 360 degree view of
200 acres of potential Short-eared Owl feeding area. And past reports have mentioned the Owls
throughout the area. So as sunlight
waned you would need to scan the entire area for foraging Owls.
But sunset was still nearly 2 hours
away. Rather than going to bird
somewhere else nearby, I instead decided to stay at the Gage Road fields to see
if I could find an Owl before dusk. Short-ears
will spend the daylight hours roosting on the ground, especially in protected
areas such as ditches. So I decided to
walk along some of the shallow ditches in the area in hopes of finding one at
its roosting location. It seemed like
the best location might be a dry stream bed just southeast of the barn toward
the north. But that area was posted, and
I didn’t want to push my luck. In fact
most all the fields in the area were posted.
That meant I was limited to just walking right along Gage Road. About 30minutes later I had walked the shallow
ditches adjacent to the entire length of the road, but with no luck. Though on my walk I did have 3 Rough-legged
Hawks (including 1 dark phase), 2 Red-tails, and a Harrier.
The Harrier is important because they fill
almost the exact same ecological niche as Short-ears, only of course at a
different time of day. Plus both species
will roost in the same locations. So a
field over which a Harrier is flying at dusk could well be the same one from
which a Short-ear will emerge a few minutes later.
Another tidbit on finding Short-eared Owls
is that with overcast skies Short-ears will come out earlier than normal. So with the cloudy skies I decided to sit in
my car and start scanning the fields, even though it was still 90 minutes
before sunset. It continued to snow at
various rates the entire time, only occasionally heavy enough to reduce
visibility, so the weather wasn’t likely to create any issues for me. Despite dozens of 360 degree scans I couldn’t
find an Owl. As it was getting close to
sunset I noticed a Harrier in the distance just north of the barn. I quickly drove up there to get a closer look
but the Harrier was gone. Had it sat
down for the night? And if it did, was
there going to be a Short-ear appearing in the same area? I was thinking of relocating to the barn area
for my sunset search, but the barn buildings would block about a third of the
fields I had hoped to scan, so I went back to my original spot.
It was now 15 minutes before sunset so time
to scan in earnest. No more of that
wimpy scanning from the warmth of my car.
The wind had died down a bit (10-15 mph from the northwest), the temp
was in the upper 20s, and it was only flurrying. So all things considered, not too bad for
early March. But scan after scan yielded
no birds at all, except for a pair of Ravens passing by. When I reached sunset I started to worry a
bit. Then it was 10 minutes after sunset
and I worried some more. Was this going
to be yet another negative search for my nemesis bird in VT?
Then at 15 minutes past sunset on a scan to
the north I noticed some movement low over the ground immediately east of the
barn. A few seconds later I got a second
look at the floppy moth-like flight of a Short-eared Owl! I continued to watch it fly around the dry
stream bed near the barn that had caught my attention earlier. And this was next to the field where the
Harrier had likely roosted for the night.
My initial thoughts to find this bird were confirmed. I watched the bird forage low over the field
east of the barn, and then followed it as it moved north and east farther
away. After about 5 minutes I lost the
bird in the distance – now a third of a mile to the north in the waning light. I had finally gotten my VT (and New England)
nemesis bird!
The Trumpeter Swan and Short-eared Owl were
#276 and #277 for my VT statelist. Plus
the Owl was the 243rd species I’ve seen in each of the 6 New England
states. My statebird map for the Owl is
quite spotty – I still need this species in many states within its range. Though in FL I have seen the Caribbean race
of Short-eared Owl – maybe it will be split into a separate species someday.
As a postscript – Although the snow didn’t cause any problems
for me in finding the Owl, I changed my route home to a somewhat longer one on
I-89 rather than taking the back roads likely to be snowy or icy. But it turns out even the interstate was
quite treacherous, with 2 large accidents that closed the highway along my
route back. What could have been a 3 ½
hour drive home turned out to be 5 hours instead. It would have been even worse sitting in
those backups if I hadn’t seen both of my targets.
Unfortunately I have a lot of experience on
long drives home after not seeing my target(s).
Earlier I mentioned a recent trip to ME where I justified a trip beyond
my normal 2 ½ hour chasing distance because, just like this VT trip, there were
2 targets to chase. However, unlike this
trip, I came up empty in my search for both of my ME targets (Bullock’s Oriole
and Mew Gull). For whatever reason, my
success rate for the longer distance chases in ME is miserable – only 43%. By comparison, chases in VT over those
similar distances have a success rate of 72%.
Another point of comparison is that my hit rate for all of New England
over the last 2 years has been 68%. What’s
with those distant ME birds?
