Upland Sandpiper, Richmond, RI, May 2019

Upland Sandpiper is a rare migrant through New England, and a recent nester only in a few grassland locations in MA, NH, and ME.  In RI, this species is rare in migration, with just 3 eBird sightings in the last decade – one in spring and 2 in fall.  Most sightings occur at the sod farms in the southern part of the state, along with the slightly more likely Buff-breasted Sandpipers and regular (in fall) Golden Plovers.  I’ve been able to catch up with Buff-breasts and Golden Plovers in RI over the years.  But the Uplands have been a different story – not only are they rare but most sightings have been one-day wonders which I didn’t chase after.  And the only one I did go for was seen for just 2 days – I tried for it on day 3. 

Then on April 24, 2019 came a report of an Upland at the sod fields in Slocum, RI.  Although this bird was once again only seen for that one day, there was a report of another Upland on the 25th along Heaton Orchard Road in Richmond.  (Or I guess there was a chance that this was the same bird visiting the 2 sites 7 miles apart “as the Sandpiper flies”.)  I wasn’t thinking about chasing after this one since it too was likely to be a one-day wonder.  But then came reports that the bird was continuing the next day, and then the next.  Unfortunately, I was super busy at home with no time to try for one of the few truly chaseable Upland Sandpipers in RI in recent memory.

I finally had a window of opportunity to try for the Upland on May 2nd or 3rd.  I had planned a birding trip to eastern CT on the 2nd and RI on the 3rd with birding friend Blair Bernson of WA.  Blair was on a quest to see 50 species in each of the 50 states, and I was helping him out in CT and RI.  In theory I could swing by the sod farms either of those days, but wasn’t too optimistic that this bird would still be around by the time I could finally get to the area – 7 or 8 days after it was first reported.  However, amazingly, the sightings continued and the bird was apparently quite reliable.  So I crossed my fingers that I could successfully add a stop at the Heaton Orchard Road sod farms to my pre-planned CT/RI trip itinerary.

Our CT birding on the 2nd went exceptionally well – in fact better than expected.  We ended our day at Hammonasset Beach State Park where a planned brief stop turned into a 3-hour visit as we ran into a tremendous fallout of migrant passerines, giving us well over 100 species on the day.  But that cut into my time to try for the Upland.  I only had time for a brief stop there that evening, but would have much more time the next day.  Not wanting to take a chance on whether the bird would stay yet another day, I decided to head to Richmond for a brief stop on evening of the 2nd to give it a go.

Several posts mentioned that the bird was being seen in the fields east of telephone poles 43, 44, and 45 – can’t get much more specific than that.  So as I pulled onto Heaton Orchard Road from the north I started scanning the numbers on the poles, and pulled over between poles 44 and 45 to start my search.  A quick binocular scan to the east netted no birds at all.  I suddenly remembered how big the sod farms were – roughly a square mile of likely habitat.  A sinking feeling started to set in as I started to wonder whether I would actually be able to find this one bird in so many acres of habitat.  But then I remembered one post that the bird was frequenting the taller grass – which was actually in the closer fields.  I had been looking farther out which happened to be the shorter grass.  So I changed my focus to these nearer fields, and with the next scan I quickly found the target Upland Sandpiper no more than 100 feet from me.  I got this phonescoped photo of this most cooperative bird.

This bird continued to be seen in this same sod farm through May 4th – 10 consecutive days.  During most of this time the weather was cool, gray, often rainy, and rarely with any southerly winds.  Maybe that’s why it decided to make such a long stop in RI on its way to a breeding site somewhere to the north.

Upland Sandpiper was #333 for my RI list.  In my statebird map below the 31 dark-shaded states are those where I’ve seen this species; the cross-hatched states are those where Upland is regular though not yet on my statelists.