Wilson’s Phalarope, Succotash Marsh, Rhode Island, June 2014

The first of 2 e-mails came across early in the morning that there was a male Wilson’s Phalarope “in the usual big pond” in Succotash Marsh in RI.  A few minutes later the second e-mail was posted that the bird was “in the grass to the left of the main pond”.  I had some time to break away to go chasing after it, but I first needed to figure out exactly where this spot was.  Last summer a local RI birder showed me a salt pan in Succotash Marsh west of Succotash Road where Wilson’s Phalaropes had been reasonably regular in spring.  (The irony that day was that we had just come from birding the Charlestown Breachway in an unsuccessful search for a staked out Wilson’s Phalarope.)  So I thought that had to be the right spot.  But maybe the big pond could be the big tidal pool on the east side of the road.  I decided to make a couple calls from the road as I headed south to confirm the location.  The first call was to Rachel Farrell who compiles and posts these sightings and she said that no further description of the site that had been given by the observers.  My next call was to Jan St. Jean who agreed that the spot was likely the salt pan described to me last year, but didn’t know for sure.  So I decided to make the salt pan my first stop.

After my 2-hour drive I arrived at the marsh and headed right to the salt pan.  It was a warm summer day with lots of beachgoers around, so I was happy to find a place to park.  The tide was excessively high, and even the normally non-tidal salt pan was flooded.  I wondered if that would impact the phalarope.  I saw a Willet walking along the edge of the pond, a Black Duck, and a Snowy Egret, but nothing else in and around the pond.  I decided to get a closer look and walked down the slope to the marsh, but again no target bird, though I couldn’t see the grasses to the south (likely “the left” reported in the e-mail assuming I was in the right spot).  So I climbed back up to the road to get a different vantage point.  For some reason I stopped to look with my binocs one more time from the road and I noticed a small bird swimming at the edge of the pond.  I put my scope on it and it was indeed the Wilson’s Phalarope.  I watched for the next 30 seconds as it swam into and out of the grasses, going out of view at times.  And then it was gone, presumably feeding farther back in the grasses at the north edge of the pond.  Good thing I learned about this spot last year. 

Wilson’s Phalarope was # 313 for me in RI – exactly 100 over the old ABA reportable threshold.  RI was my 33^rd state for this species (see my statebird map below).  It was also my first New England statebird since March - hopefully that will break my dry spell.