A late May and early June 2021 trip to the Mid-Atlantic and
New England states gave me an opportunity to add a few species to my statelists
in the region. Although the primary
focus was to visit relatives, there’s always time to squeeze in at least a
little birding. Since I used to live in
the area my statelists there are pretty good, but there are usually at least a few
targets to hope for – often there is a rarity or two that might be around when
I’m in town, and occasionally a few remaining regular species that I haven’t
yet run into.
After our first stop in PA it was on to visit relatives in
Rhode Island. I had recently spent the
last 25 years birding extensively throughout New England so I had a very good
list in RI. As a result I wasn’t too surprised
that no targets popped up on my eBird RI Needs Alert. But that didn’t stop me from making a couple
quick trips to the coast with the family just to see the regular coastal birds
that I’ve missed so much since moving to the NC mountains a couple years ago.
But without a doubt the greatest opportunity for RI birding
on the trip was on our ferry rides to and from Block Island on June 1. I have taken the Block Island ferry many
times over the years, always perched near the bow hoping to see some pelagic
species passing by. I’ve called it “a
poor man’s pelagic trip” because your chances are limited to hoping that the
path of the ferry comes close to a passing pelagic bird for what is likely to
be an oh so brief observation. Despite
these long odds, I’ve been successful over the years in seeing 3 Shearwater species,
both Storm-Petrels, and 3 Alcid species from the ferry. On this trip the chances of getting a new
statebird were remote at best, so I just realistically hoped to see one pelagic
bird of any type – another opportunity to re-acquaint myself with species I
hadn’t seen in a couple years.
The boat trip to Block Island started well enough with a
small flock of Laughing Gulls just outside Galilee Harbor. Plus a couple Common Loons and several
Gannets flew by as we motored south. But
otherwise, bird sightings were limited to just a few Herring and Great
Black-backed Gulls and several Common Terns.
And then on one of my scans far to the east I picked up a small dark
bird with rapid wing beats flying southwest generally toward the boat. It was an Alcid of some type – seemingly one
of the smaller species. I kept my
binoculars trained on the bird as it approached. As it got closer I could confirm it was one
of the smaller Alcids, and could now see the two-toned dark above and white
below look. And finally, as it crossed
right in front of the bow of the boat I could see a white face, black chest
band, and the clincher – large triangular orange bill. Amazingly I had an Atlantic Puffin! An exceptionally rare RI bird in winter and the
first summer RI record in eBird. My
thoughts instantly went to my late birding friend Denny Abbott who spent his
entire life focused on birding throughout New England. He saw all the Alcid species in RI except for
Puffin, and we made several winter trips together on the ferry where Denny’s
sole target was the Atlantic Puffin. Alas
he was never able to add it to his RI statelist.
It was my only pelagic species on the trip but it sure was a
great one!
Atlantic Puffin was #335 for my RI state list – my 3rd state along with ME and MA for this species.
No comments:
Post a Comment