Redwing – Life Bird and First State Record – Hollis, NH, March 2016

I had just gotten home from church Sunday morning and happened to check my e-mail – a Redwing was just spotted by Chris McPherson in Hollis, NH.  Not a Red-winged Blackbird mind you, but an actual Redwing!  And there were photos too.  That would be a North American lifer for me.  And the location was just 15 minutes from home in fields that are part of my Hollis Christmas Count territory.  Needless to say, I wanted to see this bird.  I had a bunch of family commitments that afternoon, but could squeeze in about an hour to try for the bird, so I dropped everything and headed to Hollis.

When I arrived at the Hollis High School Chris McPherson was there with a couple other birders.  No one had seen the Redwing since Chris found it a couple hours earlier.  He described that the Redwing was with a very large flock of Robins, at times feeding in the grass in the outfield of the high school baseball field, and at times perched in low brush and trees at the field edges.  I’m quite familiar with this spot having covered it on Christmas Counts for a number of years.  It is a very birdy location, with lots of sumac berries for frugivores to eat, and brush for birds to forage in.  Within a few minutes more birders began to arrive, and we fanned out to look for our target bird.

I started walking north and quickly heard Robin call notes, found a few Bluebirds, and then saw a couple Robins, but certainly not the large flock that Chris described.  I headed up to the ball fields behind the middle school and began to notice a few Robins feeding on worms in the field.  I got a bit closer and soon counted 100 Robins in the field, and another 15 feeding nearby on sumac berries.  Was this the critical mass that would attract the Redwing?  Despite my optimism it was not to be.  And my hour was now up so I needed to head out.  By that time the bird had not been refound despite lots of birders looking.

Reports later that afternoon were few and far between and all negative - typically negative news doesn’t travel very quickly.  So I figured that the bird was not spotted after the original sighting.  But that night there was a post that the bird was seen again briefly by just a couple birders at 3 and again at 6:30 as it likely headed to roost.  The bird was still around!  I decided to be there at dawn the next day and take the day off from work if need be to chase after this amazing rarity.

When I arrived at 7 AM the next morning there were already 15 birders there.  I was parked alongside the high school baseball field and there were no Robins in site, so I decided to head to the north where I had the Robin flock the day before.  Up ahead I could see a couple birders standing at the edge of the middle school fields.  All of a sudden I noticed them point their scopes down toward the field.  Did they have the Redwing?  I quickly got up to the birders just as they said the Redwing flew from the field – ugh - I missed it by seconds.  But then someone spotted the bird perched in a low tree nearby.  And there it was – the Redwing was sitting in a sumac just a short distance away.  Success!  I headed back to my car to get my scope and noticed several birders nearby but looking in the wrong direction.  I flagged them down and luckily was able to get them on the bird.

By the time I was back with my scope the bird had moved to some nearby trees, and then later flew down into the high school ball field to search for worms with a flock of Robins.  I got these phonescoped pictures of this most cooperative bird. 

By now there were at least 30 birders there getting great looks at this bird.  With the pressure off we all starting introducing ourselves and I met a pair of birders from Pennsylvania who left their home at 1 AM that morning to chase after this bird.  With so few sightings the day before that was quite a bit of optimism on their part.  By comparison, I can’t remember the last time I needed such a short drive to get a life bird.  The Redwing stayed in view almost the whole hour I was there, which is remarkable given how difficult it was to find the previous day.  And I was able to get to work on time without taking a vacation day.

One other reflection on the Redwing and other rare Turdus species – almost exactly 3 years earlier I saw a stakeout Fieldfare as a life bird in Concord, MA.  As with the Redwing it was in a large flock of Robins.  Definitely the right time of year to look through those Robin flocks in New England.

Not only was Redwing the second new bird in one month for my NH state list, but it was also the second new bird that month for the overall NH state list.  That gives me 360 for my NH statelist, and 434 in New England.  It was also ABA lifebird #748 and #725 for the Lower 48.