Lapland Longspur, Hooper Lane, Henderson County, NC, January 4, 2020

I was surprised to find out that Lapland Longpsur is a rarity in western North Carolina.  After all, it was a regular bird in appropriate habitat during my trips to places like Memphis, TN, and neighboring portions of MS and AR, and even farther south in TX.  Since these areas are of more southern latitudes than the NC mountains, why wouldn’t they winter near my new home in western NC as well?  So every time I would find flocks of Pipits (and occasional Horned Larks in Upstate SC), I would listen intently for the rattle calls of a Longspur that might be mixed in.  Yet despite my efforts I had been unsuccessful in my quest to find a wintering Longspur near my new home.

That is until this January at Hooper Lane – one of my favorite new birding sites.  I had just left my car and started to walk east along the edge of one of the ditches through the sod fields when I heard a single soft “tu” call to the north.  I was unfamiliar with this call, and with all the birding by ear I do, chances are that an unfamiliar call could be something interesting.  I stopped to listen more intently and heard the “tu” call again from a different angle.  I was stumped - what was it?  Then I was excited to hear the typical rattle call of a Lapland Longspur that I was very familiar with.  The call was coming from the same direction as the “tu” call, and the bird was flying overhead.  In the next 30 seconds I heard the rattle call three more times, and the tu call a couple more times as well.  The calls were generally coming from the north, as if the bird was flying overhead either looking for a place to land, or just flying through the area.

I alerted the local birding community to the sighting, and soon was joined by another birder.  We spent the next 3 hours covering the area but never re-found the Longspur.  Though we did find a flock of about 125 Pipits in the same general area.  These birds were feeding in grass and would nearly disappear when feeding.  Perhaps the Longspur had joined that flock, or maybe the bird just kept on heading to the north and then left the fields altogether.

Now back to the calls – I’m very familiar with the rattle calls of Lapland Longspurs from my 25+ years of birding in New England (plus birding time elsewhere).  Lapland‘s will regularly mix in with winter flocks of Horned Larks, and I learned to listen for the Longspur calls mixed in with the Larks’ calls especially when the flocks were in flight.  But what about the mystery “tu” call that I was unfamiliar with?  Well it turns out that this call is a regular one for Longspurs as well.  On the website - xeno-canto.org – there is a recording of a similar set of calls.  The 7th recording down from the top, from Norway, which is 15 seconds long, includes typical rattle calls, and also the "tu" calls that I heard that day at Hooper Lane.  Wonder why I had never noticed that call before...

My statebird map for Lapland Longspur is inserted below – solid shaded states are those where I’ve seen this species; cross-hatched states are those where it is regular but I haven’t seen it yet.  Although I’ve seen it in 28 states, I still need it in almost 20 more states where it is a regular wintering species. 

Lapland Longspur was number 276 for my NC state list.  And along with American Bittern and Short-eared Owl, this was my third addition for my NC list from Hooper Lane that was not among the expected species.  Like I said – Hooper Lane is one of my favorite birding sites.