November is the month for rarities
in New England, and 2015 was no exception.
First there was the discovery of a Common Ground-Dove in MA – only the
second state record. And as reports of
that bird lit up the MA listserve, reports of Franklin’s Gulls started to
appear on the CT listserve. By the
afternoon flocks of Franklin’s Gulls were reported on the southwest CT coast,
with several also on Block Island, RI, and a couple on the south shore and
western MA. A convergence of weather
patterns had resulted in an unprecedented invasion of Franklin’s Gulls
throughout southern New England!
NH is my only New England state with
Franklin’s Gull, so I had visions of adding this species to multiple
statelists. But there were two key
challenges – first, I was extremely busy at work and would struggle to break
free to chase after them even on the weekend.
And secondly, all the birds were reported from quite a distance away –
the CT birds would require at least a 2 ½ hour drive and the RI birds weren’t
even on the mainland. The MA birds were
closer, but would they (and any of the others) stick around?
What to do?
The initial discoveries were on a Friday, so initially I thought about
heading out first thing Saturday morning so that I could be on the southwest CT
coast just after dawn. That would put me
in the prime area as the first sightings came in. But then I worried that I might make the
5-hour round-trip purely on speculation only to find out that all the birds had
left. And of course that would take a
huge amount of time away from work. So
instead I decided to watch the listserves and only head out if more Franklin’s
were reported.
Saturday morning arrived and I packed all
my gear to be able to head out as soon as the first report came in. Although I certainly wanted to see these
rarities, I had huge work deadlines ahead of me. So it was bittersweet news when the first
positive post came across the CT listserve at about 7:30 AM. A few minutes later I was out the door
heading to Seaside Park in CT. One
little problem though – in my haste I headed east out of my road (as if heading
to Boston) instead of west towards CT.
Another senior moment… I didn’t
realize my error until I was about 25 minutes from home, meaning I added at
least 30 minutes to my drive to CT. But
then I checked my e-mails and saw that a Franklin’s was just reported at Lynn
Beach on the northshore of MA. Lynn is
just over an hour from home, and even closer to where I was at the time given
my wrong turn to the east. I pulled over
and thought through the options - since the drive to Lynn was so much shorter,
I could try for that bird and get back home and back to work much sooner than if
I continued to head to CT. So I decided
to forego a possible CT Franklin’s for a possible MA Franklin’s, and headed to
Lynn.
While sitting at red lights in Lynn and
just a few minutes from Lynn Beach I sent an e-mail to the birder who discovered
the bird asking if he still had it. The
good news was that he sent me a quick response.
The bad news was that he mentioned the bird had flown away to the south
an hour ago – an important detail he had not included in his earlier post. Ugh.
But ever the optimist, I knew the beaches at Lynn and neighboring Nahant
to the south attract many gulls this time of year, so I hoped that perhaps the
bird was still around and I’d be able to re-find it.
When I arrived at Lynn Beach there were
already 2 other birders there looking for the Franklin’s Gull, but with no
success. We all checked the numerous
Bonaparte’s, Ring-bills, Herrings, and Black-backs, but couldn’t come up with a
Franklin’s. At one point our attention
diverted to some grebes offshore, and just as I was putting my scope on them
one of the birders yelled – “Swallows!”.
I looked up to see a group of 5 dark-backed swallows flyby just a few
feet away. We all watched them continue
flying south for at least 20 seconds, hoping they would circle back, but to no
avail. I could see that they had short
square tails, were pale below, and I think I saw a pale rump on one, but never
saw any of them well. Of course that
time of year a flock of 5 swallows on the MA coast are most probably Caves, but
could we be sure? A couple minutes later
I walked north up the beach to see if the swallows might be hiding out of the
wind among some tall condos. There I ran
into another birder who said he just had 5 Cave Swallows flying south. He later posted a photo of 3 of the birds on
eBird showing pale rumps and pale below.
Although the throat color wasn’t evident, 5 Cliff Swallows in mid-November
would be next to impossible. So I feel
good saying that I could add Cave Swallow to my MA list. With Ground-Dove the day before, that was two
consecutive days with a new statebird in MA!
Later I checked out the beaches in Nahant,
and re-checked the Lynn beaches, but found no Franklin’s. A distant Laughing Gull briefly got me
excited, but I couldn’t turn it into its western cousin. So although I dipped on Franklin’s Gull in
MA, Cave Swallow was a nice consolation, and I was able to get back to work in
the early afternoon. Then again –
Franklin’s Gulls were seen throughout the day at Seaside Park which was my
initial CT destination. And one was seen
on-shore throughout the afternoon in RI.
So if I had headed to CT I might well have added Franklin’s Gull to my
CT list, and then gotten the RI bird on the way back home. But that would have consumed almost the
entire day and limited my work time. Tough
to have conflicting priorities…
Cave Swallow is #407 for me in MA and my fourth
New England state for this species. As
shown in my statebird map below, I have also seen the Mexican race in TX and NM,
and the Caribbean race in FL.
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