Common Loon, Red-necked Grebe, and Woodcock in West Virginia, April 2014

With another business trip to Pittsburgh I was able to take an afternoon off to head down into northern WV to work on my local statelist.  I had finally gotten my WV list over the old ABA reportable threshold with my last trip.  But I was just 8 over threshold, so I needed 7 more to get to my somewhat arbitrary goal of 15 over reportable.  I contacted local birder Terry Bronson and we came up with a plan to hit some local hotspots to search for my targets.

The first stop was Cheat Lake to try for waterfowl.  The first couple stops were pretty slow, picking up just a few dabblers and divers.  But on the next stop we simultaneously noticed a distant large diver – a Common Loon – statebird #187.  Common Loon is certainly not a rare species most anywhere in the northeast, but it’s not an easy bird for WV with the limited number of deep lakes in the state.  And WV fills a big gap in my statebird map below.

A couple stops later we were at a different part of Cheat Lake especially in search of wintering Red-necked Grebes.  Although this is typically a quite rare species in WV, there had been significant numbers in WV this winter presumably because their normal wintering area in the Great Lakes was frozen.  So this was a key target of mine that day, even though April was getting quite late for this species.  Soon after we arrived at the spot we noticed a bird dive just a short distance offshore.  And a minute later it popped up – it was a Red-necked Grebe.  We later saw a second bird at this same spot, and another at a different location.  I was able to get a couple distant phone-scoped photos of the first bird, which was starting to come into breeding plumage.

As shown in my statebird map below, I have seen Red-necked Grebe in many of its normal wintering areas on the coasts and on the Great Lakes, plus several western and Midwestern states where it is a breeder.

 

As the afternoon progressed we made several other stops looking for some less likely statebirds with no luck.  Eventually that left me with one more realistic statebird possibility at the end of the day – American Woodcock.  Terry took me to Little Indian Creek WMA where he had had numerous Woodcocks in the past.  As I was killing time waiting for dusk, I noticed two very distant birds flying north.  They were loons migrating north, but they seemed to have deep wingbeats.  I wish I had brought my scope as they were just too far away to ID for sure with binocs, but they could have been Red-throateds.  Oh well.  Finally, as dusk approached, I had two Woodcocks calling just as Terry had predicted.  That fills in a big gap in my statebird map below, though I still need this species in several of its normal eastern breeding area.

Woodcock was my third statebird of the day, giving me 189 in WV and 11 over reportable.  Just 4 more to go to reach my goal.

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?

Golden Eagle in Vernon, VT AND Hinsdale, NH, March 2014

A few years ago I missed the one and only record of Pink-footed Goose in NH, a bird in spring migration in the Connecticut River valley.  Ever since, I’ve watched the reports of the spring goose migration in New England in hopes of being around for the next NH record, and/or maybe the first record for VT.  So I was of course very excited to read posts of a Pink-footed being seen in MA in the Connecticut River valley.  After all, it has to go through NH or VT on the next leg of its migration, right?  That same day there was a post from Hector Galbraith of 3,000 Canada Geese in Vernon, VT right along the Connecticut River, just about 25 miles to the north as the Pink-footed Goose flies.  So there was great habitat for the target goose in VT should it decide to head north.  The next morning I checked the MA listserve and read an early morning post that the Pink-footed was not being seen in MA.  Minutes later I was heading out the door to hopefully find the first record of Pink-footed Goose in VT.

By the time I got to the cornfields in Vernon there was another post that the bird was being seen again in MA, so at least that one wasn’t going to be feasible in VT that day.  Maybe there would be others to look for.  Unfortunately, I didn’t see any geese of any type in the fields.  So I called Hector who suggested trying for them above the dam in Vernon.  He also told me to keep an eye out for the Golden Eagle he had seen the day before.  Although I read about it in his post, I didn’t really think that it might be a target since they are frequently one-day wonders.  But Hector thought it might not have been migrating through, and could actually stick around with all the ducks and geese as eagle food in the area.

When I got to the dam I ran into James Smith and another birder he was with, and we walked down to the water’s edge where we found at least 1,000 Canada Geese.  Despite our efforts we found nothing else of interest.  The three of us then went to another spot north of the dam but only had a few more geese there.  James then went down to the cornfields to chase down a Carolina Wren I had there earlier, and I decided to go back to the dam to try there again.  Just as I was arriving at the dam I got a call from Hector – James had just called him to say he had the Golden Eagle at the Carolina Wren spot, the same general area where Hector had the bird the day before.  It took me just 5 minutes to get where James was, but by then the bird had disappeared.  He said it was being dive-bombed by a Red-tail, and then took a steep dive down toward the river and out of sight.  I joked with James that since we were within a few feet of the NH/VT line, maybe I could get the Eagle for both statelists (I’ve never seen Golden Eagle in any New England state).  Though I lamented that it would be more likely that I wouldn’t get it in either state.  But since there were no rare geese to chase, I may as well spend some time looking for the Eagle.  So I selected a spot with a good view of the sky in most every direction, and started my vigil.

In the next 2 hours I had quite a number of birds fly by, but no Golden Eagle.  At one point I got really excited when an adult Bald Eagle came into view until I realized it was right size but wrong species.  A distant Peregrine Falcon was nice, as were several Ravens both in VT and in NH.  And several Red-tails and Turkey Vultures were visible in both states as well.  I also had a number of singing landbirds like Red-bellied Woodpecker, Tufted Titmouse, and Cardinal – none of which would have been in this area a few decades ago.  A bit later Hector arrived to join me in the search.  Just minutes after he set up his scope we noticed a distant flock of 500+ Canada Geese to the south coming our way.  I put my binocs on the flock and noticed a very distant pair of raptors up above the geese – one was dive-bombing the other, and they were two different sizes.  Could this be the Golden Eagle?  I put my scope on it, and even though it was at least a mile away to the SSE, I could see the tail was white with a dark terminal band, there were white patches at the base of the primaries, and flat wings – it was the Golden Eagle.  Hector was on it too, and we both agreed it was in VT air space.  We watched it as it lazily made its way toward us traveling NNE.  As it got closer it eventually was almost directly east of us, and we both agreed it was now over Hinsdale, NH.  A little later we lost it behind some trees, and we gave each other high fives in celebration of some excellent sightings.  I can’t thank James Smith enough for trying to contact me about refinding the bird, and then Hector Galbraith for contacting me with the latest report.

This was my third time that I’ve been able to get two different state ticks by seeing one individual bird.  The first time was a Common Raven over the NC/TN state line in the Smoky Mountains.  The second time was right in this same spot in Vernon where I watched a group of four Cackling Geese fly back and forth between VT and NH.  It’s not important where you are standing – it’s where the bird is located that counts.

Golden Eagle was species number 424 for me in New England, and number 351 in NH and 260 in VT.  These two ticks give me 1,963 in the 6 New England states - I’m closing in on my 2,000 goal!  And my 9 New England ticks through March 2014 are an excellent pace so far.  I now have Golden Eagle in 4 Eastern states, where it can be a difficult bird to find, along with many of its regular states out west.

Painted Bunting, Newport, RI, March 2014

It was early on Monday morning when I received an e-mail from a birding buddy asking if I knew anything about a Painted Bunting that apparently had been reported in RI.  That certainly was news to me, so I sent e-mails to a few of my RI birding contacts to see if they knew anything about it.  Before I had received any responses, I noticed a post on the MASSBIRD listserve summarizing a MA Audubon trip to RI from the previous weekend.  A few sentences into the post they mentioned going to a feeder in Newport to see the stakeout Painted Bunting – they obviously knew something I didn’t.  A little later I was able to reach one of my RI contacts and sure enough she told me that a male Painted Bunting had been appearing at an urban feeder in Newport for over a month.  The homeowner didn’t want big crowds so she didn’t want it publicized, although many birders had heard about it by word of mouth and had seen this quite reliable bird reliable.  I guess I don’t operate in the right birding circles.  My contact said it was OK to go to look for it, and gave me explicit directions to the feeder.  So I called Denny Abbott, and the two of us hatched a plan to go for the Bunting the next day.

We were at the homeowner’s yard by 8 the next morning and started our vigil looking at a feeder in the front yard.  A few minutes later another birder arrived to join the search.  After about 30 minutes, and not seeing much of anything except some Juncos, I contacted another RI birder to get a few more details.  He mentioned that he thought the bird was mostly being seen in the afternoon.  And just as I was hanging up with him, the homeowner came out and welcomed us to her yard, and said that lately she was just seeing the bird near dusk.  Suddenly I wasn’t feeling very optimistic.  She also said it was either coming with Juncos to the feeder out front, or with House Sparrows to the feeder in the back.  We didn’t even know there was a feeder out back – did we miss it there?  Plus I wondered if we missed it in the Junco flock we saw earlier in the front.  So we re-positioned ourselves such that both feeders were almost visible, and continued our wait, ready to go well into the afternoon if needed.

After a few minutes of no activity, suddenly the yard was alive with both a flock of House Sparrows at the back feeder and a flock of Juncos at the front feeder, just as the homeowner described.  Now we needed the Bunting.  Our eyes went from one feeder to the other without luck.  And then I noticed some bright colors in a tree over the front feeder – it was the Painted Bunting!  In a couple minutes it came to the feeder and gave some great views.  I got these less-than-stellar photos of the bird while it was on the feeder.

Painted Bunting was #312 for me in RI.  RI is my fourth state with this species as a vagrant (MD, MA, ME, and now RI).  Unfortunately I’ve missed it a couple times at feeders in NH.  Plus of course I’ve seen it in most of the states in its regular range in the south (see my statebird map below).