Long-eared Owl, Saw-whet Owl, and Thayer’s Gull, Rhode Island, December 2014

That’s not exactly a trio of species you would typically get on one trip into RI.  But this wasn’t a typical trip.  It all centered around my first ever winter pelagic trip, to depart out of Galilee, RI at 7 AM.  With such an early departure I reserved a hotel room the night before in southern RI just 15 minutes from the dock.  And since I would be there the night before, why not bird in RI the day before as well?  There were two potential statebirds for me that had been reported from RI recently - a Long-eared Owl and a Saw-whet Owl.  The Long-ear was found in the black pines of East Beach on the west coast.  Although these birds are likely present there every winter, they are very difficult to find and not exactly reliable.  The Saw-whet was heard on a Christmas Count at the Norman Bird Sanctuary.  And with a couple e-mails I got excellent directions of the location of that bird.  I then contacted RI birder Laura Carberry to see if she wanted to come along, and we planned to spend a morning trudging through the scrubby East Beach pines to try for the Long-ear (I would be on my own to try for the Saw-whet that evening). 

We arrived at the East Beach parking lot at 9 and started walking east into the pines.  I was disappointed to see that a significant number of the trees were dead or dying, meaning that the owl habitat was a bit reduced.  We spent more than an hour peering into the thicker pines, making it about a mile from the parking lot, without seeing any owls or pellets or whitewash in the trees.  And the woods were pretty quiet, except for a significant number of Hairy and Downy Woodpeckers taking advantage of all this new habitat.  So we decided to end our needle-in-a-haystack search and head back down the trail to the cars.  We had only walked a short distance when we both saw a medium-sized raptor cross the trail.  We spent the next couple minutes trying to decide what we just saw.  Although it was just a brief view we both saw these field marks – mostly brown, short tail, owl-like body structure, direct flight.  If it were an Accipter, Buteo, or Harrier it would have had a longer tail.  Plus the bird seemed too brown for most of these options.  And if we could indeed eliminate hawks, that left the owls as possibilities.  It was too small for a Great Horned and Barred, and didn’t have the moth-like flight of a Short-eared.  We looked at each other and somewhat reluctantly realized that we had just seen a Long-eared Owl.  I say reluctantly because we sure wish we had had a better view.  We spent the next several minutes looking through the pines where the bird may have landed, but without success.  But I guess a quick view is better than no view at all.

Long-eared Owl was #316 for me in RI, and only my 6^th state for this species.  Needless to say, my statebird map below shows pretty spotty coverage for this elusive but widespread species.

By late afternoon I made my way to the Norman Bird Sanctuary to try for the Saw-whet.  In fact in the last week no less than 6 species of owls had been heard at the Sanctuary.  I birded the area a bit, with the best sighting being a Woodcock which I saw fly overhead interestingly at treetop level.  By dusk I got to the location where the Saw-whet was heard earlier in the week, and despite playing quite a bit of tape, I couldn’t get any response.  Or at least that was what I thought at the time.  Several times after I played a taped call I heard a single very soft toot of similar quality of the string of toots included in the typical Saw-what call.  But the call was almost inaudible, and I've never heard Saw-whets give single toots. A few days later I noticed a post from a RI birder who had several Saw-whets pre-dawn one morning, including several giving single, very soft toots.  Sounds just like the ones I heard.  Given the fact that Saw-whets really can make the calls I heard, and the lack of other feasible options, I decided that I actually heard one (or more) Saw-whets.

The next morning I was at the Frances Fleet dock at 6:45 anxiously awaiting the pelagic trip.  The weather and seas were predicted to be remarkably nice, especially for winter – partly sunny, highs in the upper 30’s, winds from the NW at 5-10 mph, and seas no more than 2 ft.  And there was a recent report of several Fulmars, Dovekies, and a Thick-billed Murre in the area – 3 possible statebirds for me.  In fact, I had heard that Fulmars and Dovekies were very likely in the RI offshore waters, especially beyond Block Island.  So I was quite optimistic about the upcoming day. 

We left Galilee and headed southeast with the wind, so it felt almost calm as I stood out on the bow, and seas were less than a foot as predicted.  Skies were overcast meaning no sun glare, with temps around 30.  So far so good.  Before we reached Block Island we had a number of Razorbills as flybys, and a couple Common Murres cooperatively sitting on the water near the boat.  But in general the birding was a bit slow.  As we headed beyond Block Island to the southeast I noticed the skies had darkened and we were heading toward an area of precipitation.  Within a few minutes it started to snow on us, and soon it was snowing hard enough to reduce visibility a bit.  More importantly, my binocs and glasses had water spots which certainly complicated things.  And the deckhands had to put down salt on the decks to avoid icy spots.  Except for a few flyby Razorbills and Gannets, birding was pretty slow.

We eventually got well offshore where a number of commercial fishing boats were working.  The ones pulling out their nets were surrounded by a flock of gulls which were feeding on the off-catch.  Here we hoped for Fulmars mixed in those flocks.  The snow had now turned to rain, and we were starting to get pretty wet.  We all scanned through each flock, but could only pick out an occasional Black-legged Kittiwake.  Then I heard someone call “Dovekie” from the upper deck, but without a location or direction.  I was down on the bow, and all I could do was quickly scan the water directly ahead of me, but to no avail.  But it was still early and everyone said there would be more Dovekies – so I didn’t worry too much.  Unfortunately, there was only one more Dovekie sighting on the trip, and that story was about the same.  Again I was on the bow, and they were spotted by birders on the upper deck.  And again, no directions were given as a flock of 4 birds flew by.  And as before, I was not lucky enough to be looking in the correct direction as they passed by.  Very frustrating, but pelagic birding can be that way.

Later in the day I heard rumors of a possible Thayer’s Gull flying around one of the fishing boats.  I have to admit that my first thought was to be skeptical – I didn’t know who reported the bird, and of course identification of a distant bird is difficult especially from a bouncing boat with wet optics.  The buzz about the bird disappeared, so I went inside to put on my rain suit.  As I came back out to the bow, there were some very manner-of-fact comments about the Thayer’s Gull still being around.  It took a while, but I found out that it was circling one of the boats to our port side – amazingly one of only 3 birds circling that boat.  I quickly picked out the bird which was an adult, and first noticed a small unmarked bill.  Then as it circled overhead I could easily see the limited black coloration under the wingtips.  Lots of photos were taken, and I was able to see photos taken by the birder next to me, right on his camera screen, that confirmed the identification.  Amazing – an adult Thayer’s Gull in New England!  Certainly not one of my targets for this trip.

Thayer’s Gull was #318 for me in RI, and RI is my 5^th New England state for this species – though all the others have been first year birds.  That gives me 1,993 total ticks in New England.  Interestingly, earlier in 2014 I also added Thayer’s Gull to my statelists in ME, NH, and CT.  I’ve now seen this species in all 3 of its regular Pacific coastal states, a number of Mountain and Midwestern states where it is a rare but regular wintering bird, as well as in MD and New England as a vagrant. 

Soon after seeing the Thayer’s Gull we started our 3-hour trip back to land.  Although the rain had stopped, we were now heading into the wind, meaning an effective wind speed of about 20 mph.  The only way to continue to bird was to get out of the wind, which meant standing at the stern and looking just behind the boat.  A few more Kittiwakes and Gannets was all I found.  By the time we returned I was felling quite hypothermic, and happy to be back.  Although our weather conditions were better than average for a winter pelagic, it was still quite challenging.  I can’t imagine successfully birding in more typical colder, windier, and rougher conditions.

Although I missed the more likely statebirds on the pelagic trip (Dovekie and Fulmar), the Thayer’s Gull is certainly much rarer in RI.  Maybe I’ll get Dovekie and Fulmar from shore some time, or on a Block Island ferry ride, or maybe even during a seawatch from Block Island.