Northern Lapwing, Cape Elizabeth, Maine, April 2014

The winter of 2012/2013 featured a major incursion of Northern Lapwings in the eastern US.  Many birders felt that they arrived as a consequence of Superstorm Sandy in October 2012 and its gigantic wind field which swept across Lapwings’ normal migration route as they were heading south.  As a result of this nearly unprecedented invasion, I was lucky enough to add Lapwing to my RI and MA statelists in the winter of 2012/2013, complementing the CT bird I saw in November 2010.  Unfortunately I missed two 1-day wonder sightings in Maine and another in New Hampshire.  Several of the birds overwintered staying well into Spring, with some of the last US sightings in Spring 2013 being of a group of 3 on Nantucket.  After first arriving on the island in October 2012, and going through some courtship-like activities in Spring, many wondered if the birds might actually stay to nest.  But they were gone in early April after a stay of 5 months.  And single May 2013 birds in Maine, Quebec, and New Brunswick were the last birds to leave North America.  Or were they…

It was now early April 2014 and Denny Abbott called me to say he just heard that a Lapwing was seen in a farmer’s field in Cape Elizabeth, Maine.  Even Denny as a long-time New England birder needed that one for his Maine list.  Early the next morning we were on the road, and as we pulled up to the target spot we could see at least a dozen cars and several birders with scopes all trained in the same direction.  We rushed out of the car and there was the Lapwing walking in the grassy field with a small flock of geese - #329 for me in Maine.  They should all be that easy.  Certainly makes up for the ones I missed in Maine the previous winter.  This Lapwing was only seen for 2 days, but was cooperative enough during that time that many birders got to see it. 

I took several phonescoped photos of the bird but they aren’t the best given the distance and the rainy and foggy conditions that morning.

So now the question is - when did it first arrive in North America?  As a late spring bird you might think it would likely be a north-bound migrant.  The normal wintering grounds for the westernmost Lapwings are in western Europe and northern Africa, so if this was a spring migrant that just arrived in North America, it would have had to stray off that route.  Perhaps a late spring Nor’easter blew it off course.  Instead, could it have arrived in Fall 2013 as a result of being blown off its southbound migration route, and just now be detected as it headed back north?  But there are no other Lapwing sightings in North America in e-bird since the May 2013 departures, so you wouldn’t think there were any birds newly arriving as fall migrants in 2013.  And what about the alternative that this bird was actually still in North America from the 2012-2013 invasion?  Of course it would have had to go undetected for about a year for that to be the case.  But with millions of acres of potential suitable habitat, one would think one bird could escape detection by birders for quite a while.  Of course we will never know for sure.  But it’s intriguing to think that the Maine bird in April 2014 may have actually been in North America for an extended period of time.  And if that was the case, could it have even nested in North America in 2013?

Northern Lapwing, Little Compton, Rhode Island, February 2013

As a next chapter to the amazing Lapwing story this winter following Superstorm Sandy, two Lapwings were reported in Little Compton, RI in early February.  Unfortunately they were reported by a worker at a farm within a very large complex of fields on private land with next to no access.  Birders were limited to viewing only a portion of these fields from the shoulder of SR-77.  Apparently the birds were principally being seen about a quarter mile from SR-77, in a portion of the fields which cannot be seen from the road.  So the lucky birders that saw these birds were those that happened to be along the public road during the rare times when the birds ventured into fields close to the road.  A couple days after they were first seen, my good birding buddy, Denny Abbott, and I decided to head down to Little Compton in hopes of being two of those lucky birders.  And just in case our luck wasn’t too good, we were prepared to spend the whole day there. 

We arrived at 9:30 with no Lapwings in site.  Worse than that, we were disappointed when we realized what little acreage was actually visible from the road.  Undaunted, we donned all our layers of winter clothes and were ready to wait them out.  At one point we had a flyby of 3 Killdeer - we got all excited because there had been a report that the Lapwings were with Killdeer.  But still no Lapwings.  A number of birders came and went during the day, including a couple that had seen 1 or 2 quite close to the road in previous days.  They were luckier than us.  But a couple others mentioned that the birds were not seen the previous day at all.  Ugh.  We finally called it quits at 4 PM and retreated to the car to warm up and head home.  That meant 2 consecutive days with no sightings – had they moved on?

The next day there was a report of a sighting from late in the day, so they were still around afterall.  So Denny and I decided to give it another try the following day, but only if there was a positive report.  And sure enough, around noon the next day, a report was posted of one Lapwing near the road.  So Denny and I instantly hit the road and were back at the spot by about 3 PM – but no Lapwings.  While we were there we talked to some local birders that came by and pieced together a timeline that showed that there were no sightings since at least 12:30.  Another disappointment.  Undeterred we continued our vigil.  We were about to leave at 4:20 when amazingly we were able to get one sighting of a Lapwing quite far from the road.  Perseverance, and a lot of luck, really paid off. 

That was my third New England state for Lapwing, and the second one (after MA) this winter.

And now for a little speculation on the Lapwings this winter.  Many feel that these birds were blown off-course from their normal Europe-to-Africa migration by the huge wind field of Superstorm Sandy.  Since Sandy’s passage, Lapwings have been reported in the US in ME, MA (initially 5 and still 2 remain on Nantucket), RI (2), NY (2), NJ (3), MD, VA, and GA, and in Canada in NS and NL.  Plus who knows how many more are around that haven’t been spotted yet by birders.  It seems a bit odd that these RI birds would have first showed up in the area in February.  With the hundreds and hundreds of acres of pasture in Little Compton alone, they could have easily been somewhere in the town since last Fall but not reported till now.  And the next question is whether Lapwings might actually end up breeding somewhere in the US or Canada this year.  I found the following information on the timing of their breeding season from http://www.arkive.org/lapwing/vanellus-vanellus -  During February, males begin to perform display flights over breeding territories in which they climb steeply upwards before tumbling down close to the ground. Between March and early July, three or four well-camouflaged eggs are laid in a scrape on the ground.  Maybe we should start watching for them to start their display flights soon.  Time will tell.

Northern Lapwing, Bridgewater, MA, November 2012

Shortly after Superstorm Sandy came through, a small number of Northern Lapwings were found in the northeast, especially in MA.  These included 1 on Cape Cod and 2 on Nantucket discovered the day after the storm, and 1 seen briefly in southern Maine a couple days later.  Although the Cape Cod and Maine birds were just one-day wonders, the 2 on Nantucket are still being seen weeks later.  I sure wished I could go after the Nantucket birds, though getting to Nantucket is not a trivial endeavor consisting of a 2-hour drive to Hyannis and then an hour boat ride.  And then you still have to get transportation while on the island.  So I decided that I wouldn’t chase the Nantucket birds, despite the nearly daily posts of how reliable they are.

Then came posts on the MA listserve that 2 different Lapwings were discovered on the same day very close to each other in southeastern MA (on the mainland!) in farm fields in Bridgewater and Middleboro.  However, these posts came across the day I left for a 5-day business trip – the same business trip described in my previous post on the RI Mountain Bluebird.  So there were two mega-rarities being seen in New England that I couldn’t chase because of work.  Would the mainland Lapwings stick around till I got back like the Nantucket birds, or would they move on like the Cape Cod and Maine birds?  Both birds continued to be seen through the first 3 days of the trip.  But on day 4, there were no posts at all – negative or positive.  It’s not often that birders post negative news, so it seemed like no news was bad news.  Prompted by a request I put out on the listserve, there were two responses that no one saw the birds on day 4.  And there was negative news on day 5 as well, so the birds had likely moved on, or at least moved to other undiscovered locations.  And there had been no news on the Nantucket birds for several days.  But in this latter case, no news was just no news.  I called birders on the island and the birds were still being seen, and offers were made to pick me up on the island to get me to the lapwing spot if I came out.  That was all I needed – I made arrangements to head to Nantucket in 2 days.

The day before heading to Nantucket was my day to chase after the RI Mountain Bluebird.  After finding it in the morning, I headed over to Allen’s Pond in Dartmouth, MA to try for MA Cave Swallows.  I arrived there about noon and planned to spend a couple hours on the beach hoping for a flyby, before having to leave to get home for family commitments.  Shortly after I arrived a swallow approached me from the west – as it flew over my head I got clear views of a Tree Swallow.  Not a Cave, but any swallow in mid November is a good bird.  A couple minutes later I happened to check e-mails on my phone and someone had just posted that the Bridgewater Lapwing had just been refound!!  Instantly I started to run back to the car – or as best as you can run with a scope, binocs and camera, and wearing wellies.  But did I have enough time to get to Bridgewater, look for the bird, and still make it home on time?  On my way back to the car I plotted directions to the spot, and directions back home – I had about 90 minutes to look for the bird.  So the chase was on!

I arrived at the Bridgewater spot at 1:10 – about 50 minutes after leaving Allen’s Pond and 75 minutes after the bird was re-spotted.  There were 2 cars on the side of the road and 3 people a short distance out in the field with scopes.  A minute later I was with the birders who said they thought it was still out there behind a small rise, but hadn’t seen the bird for a couple minutes.  With a bit of repositioning there was the bird – feeding in a wet field with Ring-billed Gulls.  I snapped off a couple phone-scoped pictures of the distant bird, including one next to a Ring-bill for size comparisons.  It was great to watch it feed somewhat plover-like, including seeing the orange undertail coverts.

About 20 minutes later there was some kind of comotion off to the left and the Lapwing and most of the Ring-bills took off to the north.  I had great views of the bird in flight, seeing the black wing linings on the broad wings, and deep wingbeats that reminded me somewhat of a Green Heron or Short-eared Owl in flight.  Amazing views!  The bird dropped into the next field to the north over a tree line out of view.

That saved me the trip out to Nantucket!  Since seeng the Bridgewater bird it has once again become reliable, and the Nantucket birds continue as well.  Plus another Lapwing has been discovered in Virginia.

That was my second ever Northern Lapwing in the ABA - the first was in CT in November 2010.