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.
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