Graylag Goose, A “Definite Maybe”, East Providence, RI, December 2016

When a report of a Graylag Goose is published, most birders just dismiss it as a farm goose.  That too was my first thought when one was reported in RI at Watchemoket Cove in East Providence.  But the observer, Gabe Cohen-Glinck, mentioned that he thought it could be a wild Graylag.  I asked him for his pictures, and soon I was drooling over photos of what looked very much like a wild Graylag Goose.  I didn’t chase after the one that was seen near New Haven, CT back in 2009.  That bird was eventually accepted by the CT review committee, and then by the ABA as the first Lower 48 record (even though the bird stayed from the winter well into the summer).  I’ve kicked myself ever since.  So I didn’t want to pass on this one if it might be a “countable” bird.

The next day an eBird Needs Alert popped up and the Graylag was seen again, along with another photo, though the sighting was now a day old.  None of the “experts” had weighed in on this bird yet, but I had some spare time, and the trip to Watchemoket Cove was just a little more than an hour long.  Plus I’ve had good success chasing rarities at Watchemoket Cove in the past, with my first RI sightings of Mew Gull in 2006 and Black-headed Gull back in 1994 occurring there.  So I decided to give it a try. 

As I pulled up to the cove I could see a large flock of Canada Geese swimming about – maybe 400 birds.  So I was hopeful that the target bird was still there.  I did a quick scan with my binocs and one of the very first birds I spotted was this sleeping goose – without the black neck “sock” I was pretty sure I had the bird. 

A few minutes later it woke up and showed its characteristic orange bill – it was the Graylag.  It was a bit smaller than the Canadas, with no excessive heaviness of the neck/bill.  So it sure seemed like it could a wild bird to me. 

Now I needed some better views – it would especially be great if it would step out of the water and I could see its body shape.  As if on cue, just then it swam up to an exposed rock and perched up on it.  No pot belly look of a domestic goose!  And no bands on the legs.  Again it looked like a wild bird. 

While it stood on the rock it stretched its wings, and showed no excessive feather wear, or pinioned feathers.  (I didn’t get a photo though)  Others saw the bird in flight the day before, which again would be unlikely for a farm goose.  Everything was looking good for a wild bird.  One other feature for a bird that is in captivity is that some aviculturalists will clip the birds’ hind toes.  But check out this photo of the bird hopping off the rock - I just happened to snap it when its left leg was extended and you can see the hind toe on its left foot.  Others saw both hind toes when the bird was foraging on the adjacent golf course.

A bit later the Graylag swam to some shallows and stood on the bottom.  Though its legs were still in the water, it gave more views of the body shape, including a direct comparison with a nearby Canada that I was just barely able to squeeze into the frame.

Now that I felt good that this might actually be a wild bird, I called Rachel Farrell to tell her my opinions.  She too had noticed the earlier posts, but until then wasn’t quite ready to pass along the news.  But with at least one vote of a “definite maybe” that this could indeed be a countable Graylag Goose, she began to spread the word. 

The bird continued to be spotted the next day, but became less reliable thereafter.  During that time not surprisingly many birders weighed in on whether they thought it was a countable bird or not.  On the positive side –

• Not structurally like a farm goose – no pot belly, no long heavy neck, able to fly strongly
• Not at all tame – no more so than its 400 Canadian cousins it was swimming with
• No bands, pinioned flight feathers, excessive weather wear, or missing hind toes suggesting being in captivity
• Mixed in with migrant Canada Geese likely of races that could mix with Graylags in their breeding range
• Graylags are undergoing a population explosion in Iceland like the other Eurasian geese
• The numbers of Eurasian waterfowl (Pink-footed and Barnacle Geese and Shelducks) in the northeast this winter are the highest ever, with 30 birds at 28 locations in 2016 so far.  That compares to 18 birds at 16 sites in that same period in 2015.  And this includes record numbers of Pink-footed Geese.  (all based on eBird data)

However on the negative side, a couple birders with extensive knowledge of wild Graylags in Europe suggested the bird’s bill could be heavier, and neck thicker, than a wild bird.  They thought that maybe this could indicate there are some farm geese genes involved.

As I posted on the RI list serve, none of us should add this to our state and life lists until the RI review committee makes its decision.  But it sure would be nice to think about this being a new lifebird, especially as I close in on #750 for my ABA list.  I’ve actually flirted with that threshold all year.  Back in March I saw a Redwing in Hollis, NH as #748.  And then the ABA split the western Scrub Jays to give me #749 as an “armchair tick”.  But then the TX review committee decided not to accept the long-staying Striped Sparrow I saw there in 2015, so that dropped me back to #748. 

I guess I’ll have to wait to see if the Graylag Goose will become ABA #749.  Then again maybe I’ll reach #750 in the meantime with some additional “armchair ticks” as other splits occur.  That’s certainly more likely than actually seeing new species in the near term, but who knows.

Mute Swan, Yes – But, Austin, TX, December 2016

On December’s monthly trip to Houston my travels required me to take a 1-day side-trip to the Austin area.  I remembered from my past eBird Needs Alerts that Mute Swans are regularly reported in the Austin area, but since I don’t usually get to Austin I had never researched those sightings.  With just a bit of time on eBird I found quite a number of Mute Swan reports in Austin, most on the Colorado River as it passes through downtown.  I would have only a limited amount of time to squeeze in a try for this new statebird, but it looked like my chances were pretty good.

But before I got too excited about pursuing a possible new TX statebird, I needed to figure out if these birds would be “countable”.  The eBird records included birds being seen somewhat regularly in multiple Austin locations back to the early 2000’s, and in some cases to the 1990s.  So even if these birds were from an introduced population, they seemed to be part of a local population that was self-sustaining.  And in fact several records included reports of nesting and immatures.  So I thought I was safe.

Now I needed to figure out which location might give me the best shot at finding the Swans given my limited time window.  Although most locations were in the downtown area, perhaps the most reliable birds were those reported a bit upstream in the Tarrytown portion of Austin at an eBird hotspot called Laguna Gloria.  Recently there were nearly daily reports on eBird from this site with up to 3 individuals, including one immature. 

Now for the micro-directions.  The location of the Laguna Gloria hotspot was shown to be land not a wetland or waterway.  It was a peninsula with the Colorado River to the west and a quiet bay to the east.  Since “laguna” in Spanish is “lagoon”, I thought that the Swans were being seen in the “lagoon” to the east of the peninsula.  But the hotspot was the actual peninsula, not either waterway.  So then I checked notes included in recent posts, and found these remarks – “family pulled out on boat ramp”, “family off peninsula”, “family along peninsula”, and “family in laguna on bank”.  Although only one indicated the birds were in the lagoon, I decided to make that spot the focus of my search.

After a long early morning drive from Houston I finally pulled into Laguna Gloria.  I had about an hour before I had to get to work, so I was happy to be chasing after big white swimming birds that should be easy to find.  The peninsula was actually home to an art school, with a number of buildings, sculptures, and trails through some nice woodland habitat.  I quickly found a trail heading toward the lagoon, and soon was at the water’s edge fully expecting to find the Swans.  But no such luck.  So I headed a bit farther down the trail to get a different view, but still no Swans.  A couple minutes later I made it to the southern tip of the peninsula for my last view of the lagoon, but again no Swans.

As I headed back to my car, I started to wonder if I was on the wrong side of the peninsula.  After all I never did find a boat ramp that was mentioned in the one post.  If these birds were so prevalent at this spot, I had a feeling that the art school staff might be aware of them.  So I went into the main building and asked if they were familiar with the Swans.  Although both people I asked had seen them, neither could suggest where to look. 

I was starting to run out of time and needed to come up with a revised gameplan very quickly.  Maybe they were tucked in a portion of the lagoon that wasn’t visible from my vantage points.  Certainly possible.  But I thought the most likely answer was that the birds were in the river and not in the lagoon.  As I walked out of the school building I could see the river below to the west, so I decided to head in that direction.  And within a few seconds I noticed a Swan in the distance.  With a quick view in my binocs I confirmed an adult Mute Swan, and then found an immature a few feet away.  Two “swans a swimming” so to speak.  And a short distance upstream I found what was likely the boat ramp mentioned in the eBird post.  I guess I should have started looking in the river rather than the lagoon after all.  And despite the longer search than I expected I still made it to work with plenty of time to spare. 

Normally I close my blog posts with an update on my list for that state and a statebird map.  Unfortunately that’s not the case here.  It turns out that as I did a bit of research to write this post I checked the official TX statelist and alas Mute Swan isn’t even on the list.  So that means not only are the Austin birds not countable, but no Mute Swan anywhere in TX has ever been countable.  Ugh…  Not the first time I’ve lost a possible statebird due to decisions by the TX rare bird committee – I had to retroactively remove Tropical Mockingbird (seen in May 2012) and Striped Sparrow (seen in Feb. 2015) off my list after the committee decided they were not countable.  At least the Mute Swan wasn’t a possible lifebird.

Short-tailed Shearwater – New Lower 48 Species, Monterey, CA, November 2016

My work travels regularly take me to the San Francisco Bay Area, and on several recent trips I’ve squeezed in a bit of time to go birding.  On those trips my birding has been limited to brief stops nearby, typically to chase after a local rarity.  For instance on my July 2016 trip I was able to add Indigo Bunting to my CA state list – a bird that had been spotted just an hour’s drive away. 

But as my November 2016 trip neared quite a number of potential meetings fell through, and it turned out I had an entire day free.  Although I could have flown home a day earlier, incurring significant airline change fees, instead I decided to take the day off and bird somewhere in the Bay Area.  So I set up an eBird Needs Alert to see what possible new statebirds might be around.  Unfortunately nothing popped up locally.  Then I thought about maybe heading up to Point Reyes.  Although I hadn’t been there in many years, I fondly remembered birding the varied habitats at the National Seashore.  So maybe I could spend a day of casual birding there, doing an extended seawatch there as well.  Then there was a post of a Glaucous Gull seen on the peninsula, so there would be at least 1 possible statebird to chase after.  So I packed my scope and binocs and developed a plan to spend a day birding a short distance north at Point Reyes.

As my trip progressed and my vacation day approached, I started to notice numerous posts of several species I needed for my CA list from organized daily seawatches on the Monterey peninsula.  It was a longer drive than I had planned for, but the targets included one species that would be new for my Lower 48 list (Short-tailed Shearwater – seen once before in Alaska in 1987), and one potential Lifebird (Flesh-footed Shearwater).  Not to mention sightings of Manx Shearwater and Tufted Puffin “only” as potential CA statebirds.  Now it seemed that the potential targets justified the longer drive, so I changed my plans and decided to join the local counters for a day-long seawatch at Pt. Pinos in Monterey. 

I arrived at the point a bit before sunrise, and fondly remembered that I had birded here a couple times before – most recently in 1987.  It was sobering to think that my most “recent” trip here was nearly 30 years ago.  I snapped these 2 shots of the sunrise as I waited for the light to improve a bit.

A few minutes later I was joined by Skye Haas who was the counter for the seawatches.  Skye commented that the best migration flights have occurred with northwest winds.  Unfortunately that morning there was at best just a light breeze, and it was out of the northeast.  As a result the day started slowly, with just a few flocks of Pacific Loons passing overhead, along with the regular gulls, cormorants, and pelicans. 

I was especially focused on the more distant horizon to look for shearwaters, and soon started to pick up an occasional Black-vented Shearwater.  I had only seen this species once before on a seawatch near Los Angeles in 2008, so it was nice to see this species again.  We also began to see an occasional Fulmar pretty far out.  Most Pacific Fulmars are all dark birds which look a lot like Sooty Shearwaters, especially in the far distance.  By comparison, most Fulmars on the Atlantic are paler birds, making ID a lot easier.  Skye gave me some good tips for separating these 2 similar species here on the Pacific.  Occasional Red Phalaropes were nice too, but certainly to be expected on these seawatches. 

But all of this meant it was turning out to be a pretty slow day.  Several times Skye lamented how slow it was.  Just my luck – my only day available for the seawatch and the weather wasn’t cooperating.  That just meant I needed to look even harder for my target birds. 

It was now mid-morning and we still just had a few of the regular migrants passing by.  Then I noticed a larger dark shearwater flying south.  I got Skye on the bird which luckily wasn’t too far out so it gave us good views.  I saw some paleness in the wing linings, and since I thought Short-tails had all dark wing linings, I thought it was going to be a Sooty.  But Skye pointed out that Sooty’s have much paler wing linings, and this bird was actually a Short-tailed Shearwater.  After it passed by I went back to my Sibley guide and sure enough realized that the underwings of a Short-tailed are a bit paler than the body, though still a lot darker than a Sooty.  I guess if it had been farther out I wouldn’t have seen any paleness at all.  And soon thereafter a Sooty Shearwater passed by flashing its underwings which looked white by comparison.  A great study on these dark Pacific shearwaters – and many thanks to Skye for the ID tips.

During the slower times of the day I took a few breaks from the seawatch to take a couple photos of cooperative birds nearby.  These Brewer’s Blackbirds were occasionally joined by a male “Bi-colored” Blackbird.

This Western Gull was most cooperative.

And this was a nice collection of Brandt’s and Pelagic Cormorants on some nearby rocks.

Not to mention this nice scenery shot.

I stayed at Pt. Pinos until about 3 PM before calling it quits after more than 8 hours of seawatching.  Selected totals recorded during my stay included -

Pacific Loon - 1,620

Northern Fulmar - 14

Sooty Shearwater - 2

Short-tailed Shearwater - 2

Sooty/Short-tailed Shearwater - 1

Black-vented Shearwater - 276

Red Phalarope - 463

That was undoubtedly the most Pacific Loons and Red Phalaropes I’ve ever seen in one day, and only the second time I’ve ever seen Black-vented and Short-tailed Shearwaters.  And of course I was happy to have added Short-tailed Shearwater to my Lower 48 list (#727) and to my CA statelist (#384). 

But although those might seem like nice totals, it’s all relative.  Check out these totals from two days earlier, in just one hour of seawatching from this same spot –

Pacific Loon – 2,274

Northern Fulmar - 43

Sooty Shearwater - 17

Short-tailed Shearwater - 22

Sooty/Short-tailed Shearwater - 23

Black-vented Shearwater - 257

Red Phalarope - 32

Plus –

Black-footed Albatross - 1

Pink-footed Shearwater – 2

Shearwater sp. – 75

Tufted Puffin – 1

If only there had been a bit of northwest wind the day I was there…

Prothonotary Warbler, North Hampton, NH, November 2016

Earlier in the month I had an excellent birding trip to WA where I saw many rarities including finding a Prothonotary Warbler – only the 4^th for the state.  And amazingly a few days later came a report of a Prothonotary on the NH coast, with photos of the bird foraging in boulders right on the coast in North Hampton.  Although the species is not nearly as rare in NH as it is in WA, there are still only a handful of records for NH – there are only 8 accepted NH records since 1950 (according to The Birds of New Hampshire by Keith and Fox) and no prior reports in eBird.  Not surprisingly it’s one I needed for my NH list.  But the bird was not re-found the next couple of days so it appeared to be just a one-day wonder. 

Later that week I sent a note off to a couple of the folks I had birded with in WA to tell them of yet another very late Prothonotary, this one closer to home.  I was just hitting the send button when a text came across that the NH bird was re-found in almost the exact same spot it was seen 4 days earlier!  I wanted to run right out the door, but had commitments through early afternoon and wouldn't be able to make it there until mid-afternoon at the earliest.  But I wasn’t too worried.  After all it had stuck around for 4 days, so I was cautiously optimistic that it would remain until that afternoon.

I continued to check my phone as the morning progressed, and several positive updates came through.  But by noon the updates stopped.  I guess most everyone who wanted to see the bird must have already seen it.  So by the time I was finally able to head to the NH coast it had been a couple hours since the last report.  I tried to remain positive…

When I arrived at North Hampton State Beach I met up with local birder David Donsker.  He told me that apparently no one had seen the bird for a while, but it looked like a couple birders a few hundred yards up ahead might be acting like they had just re-found it.  I ran maybe a quarter mile north up the walkway and as I got to the birders they said they just had the bird down in the rocks.  Another minute later I got the first glimpse of the bird as if foraged for insects way down in the boulders.  The bird would disappear for a few minutes and then reappear near the surface a few rocks farther away – apparently the same thing it had been doing all day long.

After getting great looks at the Prothonotary as it hopped among the boulders we watched the bird fly out to the seaweed-covered rocks by the water line.  It was now near low tide, so it was pretty far out.  But even at that distance the bright orangey bird was very easy to pick out among the dark rocks.  At that point we left the spot and headed back to the cars.  Little did we know that we would be among the last birders to see the warbler, as it was not re-found after it headed out toward the water.  Boy was I lucky – a few minutes later and I would have missed it.

Prothonotary Warbler was number 362 for my NH list.  I’ve now seen this species in CT, MA, RI, and NH in New England, along with most of the states in its regular range in the southeast and central US, and of course in WA as a vagrant.  Interesting that in 2002 I had a singing Prothonotary Warbler in good breeding habitat in my hometown of Pepperell, MA just 3 miles from NH.  It took all these years until I finally got one north of the NH state line.

And a few thoughts on vagrancy in Prothonotary Warblers –

Interesting that both the WA and NH birds were seen at about the same time, as was one posted on eBird in northern CA.  This early- to mid-November timeframe is generally a couple months after birds have left their breeding grounds.  Throughout their regular breeding range there are only a handful of sightings in October – and most of these are in early October.  But there are actually a fair number of late October, November, and even December records scattered across the country.  Similarly, the three prior WA records were all from the fall, though averaging a bit earlier with one each in August, September, and October.  So it seems October/November could be a time to look for Prothonotary Warbler as an extreme rarity. 

It is also of note that the pattern for vagrancy in Prothonotary’s in New England and eastern Canada is a bit different.  Although there are a few fall records in the northeast in late fall, the bird is more likely to be found as a vagrant in Spring, likely as an overshoot of its regular southeast breeding grounds.  Plus Prothonotary’s are found occasionally as a breeder in the southern part of New England.  There was even a male Prothonotary that sang as if on territory this year in southern VT.

And one other thought on the 2016 sightings – the WA, NH, and CA birds are all at roughly the same latitude, though obviously on opposite coasts.  Additionally, the normal range for Prothonotary Warbler in the central US is roughly equidistant between the locations of the WA/CA sightings and the NH sighting.  Could these November, 2016 vagrants have been from the same population - with the NH bird taking about the same amount of time to get to its northeast location as the WA/CA birds needed to travel northwest to the Pacific coast?  Wonder where they might have been in the last couple months after leaving their breeding grounds.