Franklin’s Gull, Newburyport, MA, July 2016

I was puttering around the house early in the morning when I noticed an e-mail from Tom Wetmore on the Plum Island listserve (PIBirds) with this subject - “Franklin’s Gull!!!!!”.  And the body of the e-mail simply said – “At lot one now!!!!”.  Tom birds Plum Island all the time, especially in the early morning, and is great at finding rarities.  And just as importantly, he is great at reporting them right away – I subscribed to the PIBirds listserve just so I could get his posts.  The post came across at 6:24 AM and undoubtedly Tom sent it while he was looking at the bird in real time. 

All of that would be great news if it wasn’t for the fact that I didn’t see the post until an hour after it came out.  And since my drive time to Lot One on Plum Island is an hour and 15 minutes, along with a few minutes to get my gear ready, I wouldn’t be able to look for the bird until more than 2 hours had elapsed since the first sighting occurred.  What to do?  I quickly sent an e-mail back to Tom to ask if the bird was still being seen, but didn’t hear back from him right away.  Last fall I had chased after another Franklin’s Gull in MA only to find out that the bird had already flown away by the time the observer posted the sighting.  Would this be another example of looking for a Franklin’s Gull long after it had flown away?  I waited a couple more minutes but still no response from Tom.  But with all the birders likely to be on Plum Island in general, plus others heading there to look for the gull, I hoped that even if it had flown away it would be re-found nearby.  So I decided to take my chances and head to Lot One.

I finally arrived at Plum Island 2 ½ hours after Tom’s initial post.  Just as I was walking out the boardwalk toward the overlook at Lot One I received Tom’s reply to my earlier e-mail – “It flew north.”  Ugh.  Back in July 2014 I chased after a Sandwich Tern also found at Lot One only to find out that it too flew away before I arrived.  However, I was able to re-find that bird as it returned just a couple minutes later to its earlier roost on the beach beyond the Lot One platform.  So I hoped the Franklin’s Gull would do the same.  But several scans of the beach to the north and south came up empty for the target bird.  Though nesting Piping Plovers and Least Terns were nice consolations. 

Now what should I do?  There were no other birders around looking for the Franklin’s so I was on my own.  I was just about to throw in the towel and conclude I had missed yet another MA Franklin’s Gull by hours or less when I remembered one of my initial thoughts – even if the bird had flown from Lot One maybe it decided to head to another spot on the island.  Tom said it had flown north so I should probably focus my attention in that direction.  The tide was now quite low which meant sandbars would be exposed on the Merrimack River, so I thought that might be the best place to try.  It was a long shot, but I was already on the island, so why not.

I haven’t birded the north end of Plum Island north of the refuge very much, and I wasn’t sure exactly where to go to get a view of the river.  So I decided to head toward the northern tip of the island on Northern Boulevard to try to find some good vantage points.  When I got to the end of the road I found myself at a parking lot overlooking the mouth of the Merrimack River – perfect!  No sooner had I gotten out of the car did I notice a tidal island in the distance to the northwest in the middle of the river.  And there were a number of gulls milling about on the island!  I quickly set up the scope and began to scan.  There were several Black-backs and Herrings, and then I noticed a smaller gull –I thought I spotted the black ear patches of a non-breeding Franklin’s Gull, but the bird was pretty distant and I couldn’t be 100% sure.  I realized I could get a little closer to the island by walking to the end of a nearby fishing pier, so I memorized the part of the island where the potential Franklin’s was, and headed down the pier to try to get a better view. 

I set up my scope at this closer location but I couldn’t pick out the bird that could have been the Franklin’s.  And instead I found a small flock of Bonaparte’s that were molting out of breeding plumage, each with varying amounts of black on their heads.  Now I worried that my potential Franklin’s had been just a molting Bonie.  Then I scanned a bit to the left and realized I was actually looking at a different part of the island.  And now that I was looking in the right place, I quickly picked up the basic-plumaged Franklin’s Gull, roosting just a bit to the left of the Bonie flock. 

I was very happy to have re-found the bird 2 ½ hours after the initial sighting and about 2 miles to the north as the gull flies!

Franklin’s Gull was #411 for my MA list.  And MA was my 20th state for this species - of course most are out west in its regular range, and now I’ve seen it in 3 eastern states (along with NH and MD) as a rarity.

Franklin’s Gull Chase Yields Cave Swallow (but NO Franklin’s), Lynn, MA, November 2015

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.