Painted Bunting, Pittsfield, VT, March 2016

It wasn’t too long ago that the state listserves were THE place to share information on your bird sightings –for common birds and rarities alike.  But with more and more people using eBird, many sightings these days are only posted on eBird and never make it to the listserves.  As a result, I’ve set up an eBird Needs Alert for each New England state to supplement information appearing on the listserves.  But the eBird reports can often introduce another challenge – details on locations and tips to find a rarity are not requested by eBird and are often not included the way they are generally contained in posts on the listserves.  Plus there are many eBird users who are less experienced birders, potentially introducing identification problems especially for rarities.

Both of these challenges were evident in mid-March when an eBird Needs Alert from Vermont appeared in my inbox with a report of a Painted Bunting.  The location was simply posted as Pittsfield, VT.  It included a short summary of the sighting, including that it was a male, and that it was seen at their feeder in the morning and refound in a thicket that afternoon.  Although it would be difficult to misidentify a male Painted Bunting, because it is so rare in VT (only 3 previous records I believe), it would still be nice to confirm the sighting.  Plus of course the location would need to be nailed down if you were to chase after it.  And speaking of chasing – the town was about a 2 ½ hour drive from home, so it was within my typical range for chasing (unlike many other VT rarities that are 3+ hours away in the Champlain Valley).  So this was definitely a bird I wanted to try to see.

The next day a second eBird post came across with another sighting of the bird.  So the bird was still around, but the location on this second post was still quite vague.  Luckily a couple VT birders went out that afternoon and confirmed the sighting, plus posted a few details on the location on the listserve.  And with a call to local birder Ted Murin, I was able to get the details on the locations where it was being seen.  I called Denny Abbott who also needed this bird in VT (you know it’s a rarity when Denny needs it!), and we made plans to chase after it the next morning.

As we made our way to VT there were a couple positive posts on the listserve that the bird was seen at the same feeders where it was first spotted.  Then about 30 minutes before we arrived another listserve post came across stating that it was re-found a short distance away with very specific directions.  So we were very optimistic that we would find the bird.  However when we arrived, there were no birders in sight.  Had everyone seen the bird and already left?  But then I looked to the northeast and there were about a dozen birders 200 yards away with scopes and binoculars all pointed in the same direction.  Within a couple minutes Denny and I had walked over to the birders, and they told us the bird was in a small hedgerow in the distance.  I scanned the brush and didn’t see the bird.  Then they clarified that the bird was actually on the ground beneath the brush, and I quickly found the Bunting.  Although it was distant, I got this passable phonescoped photo of the bird.

We watched the bird for the next 5 minutes, and during most of that time it stayed motionless on the ground.  Eventually it flew a short distance and perched on a low stone wall before it dropped out of sight.  I don’t believe it was seen again later that day so we would have missed it if we had arrived just a few minutes later.  Boy were we lucky to have arrived when we did.  Plus the bird sure didn’t seem very healthy so I wondered if it would be re-found, although it was still seen in the area for the next 2 days.

Painted Bunting is #273 for me in VT which is my fourth New England state for this species which is prone to vagrancy.  I’ve also seen this species in MD as a rarity and in many of the states within its regular range across the south.

Caspian Tern and Hudsonian Godwit, Milford Point, CT, October 2015

Some of my favorite birding spots in CT are in Milford and Stratford, but I don’t get to that area often since it is beyond my self-imposed 2-hour drive limit to chase rarities.  So needless to say when a business trip to Milford came up, I decided to take advantage of being in southwest CT and added a vacation day for some local birding.  A couple days before the trip a Painted Bunting was re-found by Tina Green in Westport at the CT Audubon Tree Farm, so that would be an obvious place to start my day.  And then after trying for the Bunting I planned to go to the Quaker Ridge hawkwatch where a number of Golden Eagles had been seen so far this fall.  So that would give me two CT targets to shoot for.

I traded e-mails with Tina Green and she offered to meet me at the farm and show me the exact spot where she had been seeing the Painted Bunting.  Tina had seen the bird 2 consecutive days eating mile-a-minute berries at a location that was some of the first vegetation to be lit and warmed by the rising sun.  So she suggested we start at that spot at dawn and wait for the bird to appear to eat its favorite berries.  When we got there in the pre-dawn light I could see many plants with berries that the Bunting might like to eat.  I was now a bit concerned that this could become a needle-in-a-haystack kind of situation.  Most Painted Buntings seen in New England are birds that show up at feeders in winter, and many stick around for an extended time.  For that reason, CT Audubon had put out a feeder nearby in hopes that the bird would come to the seed.  So if we didn’t see the bird eating natural foods, maybe it might show up at the feeder.

Unfortunately dawn came and went without seeing the bird.  And the feeder had regular visits of Chickadees and Cardinals, but no Bunting.  I spent about 4 hours at the tree farm, and found 55 species at this very birdy spot, including only my second ever Orange-crowned Warbler in CT, but no Painted Bunting.  That was most disappointing given that I had not chased after a semi-reliable Bunting seen the previous winter at a feeder in Stamford – beyond my acceptable chasing distance.  And the winds were out of the south so there was no reason to try for eagles or other raptors at hawkwatches.  So with no other rarities to chase, and work commitments backing up, I decided to head to my Milford hotel early and get to work instead of taking more time off.

It was now late afternoon, and not only had I missed my target bird, but work wasn’t exactly going very well either.  I looked at my watch and it was 3:30.  Milford Point, my favorite birding spot in the area and one of my favorites in all of CT, was only about 15 minutes away.  I asked myself why I was sitting in my hotel room working on a vacation day instead of birding.  So I decided to make a quick run to Milford Point and just do a couple hours of late-day fun birding. 

I arrived at Milford Point and first went to the inland side of the park.  Tide was pretty high, and I didn’t see much except a small flock of Brant.  Then I headed over to the beach to see what gulls and late shorebirds might be around.  At this high tide all the birds were way out on distant sandbars.  I could see a couple birders out that way, so I headed out to join him.  It turned out to be Steve Spector, who I birded with back in February at Silver Sands State Park in Milford to find a stakeout Long-eared Owl, and his wife Charla.  First we spotted a flock of Horned Larks on the nearby spit but no Longspurs.  Then we turned our attention to the distant sandbars where there was a nice collection of shorebirds – principally Black-bellied Plovers, Sanderlings, and Dunlin, plus a nice flock of Oystercatchers.  And of course there were a number of Great Black-backed, Herring, and Laughing Gulls.  I was scanning through the shorebirds hoping to find something else when Charla asked what this gull was with a bright red bill.  It turned out to be a Caspian Tern – new for my CT list.  Thanks Charla!  I got this phonescoped picture of the bird as it rested on the sandbar.

Although Caspian Tern is not a super rarity in CT and is seen every year along the coast, I have never tried to chase after one.  The closest CT coastline is 2 hours away from home, so even if I got news of a sighting in real time, it would take me at least 2 hours to get to the right location.  And in that time the tidal conditions would have changed enough that the bird could well be long gone by the time I arrived.  Similarly, just as with this CT bird, the only Caspian Terns I’ve seen in MA and RI have been birds I’ve run into on my own rather than chasing after.  And I still need this species for ME (see my statebird map below).

Just a couple minutes after spotting the Caspian Tern all the birds suddenly took off, flushed by a Peregrine Falcon.  As the birds milled about looking for spots to land I scanned through them hoping to re-find the Caspian.  At one point a good-sized flock of shorebirds passed through my binocular field.  The flock was mostly Black-bellied Plovers and Dunlin, but then I noticed a larger bird with a white rump and black tail – Hudsonian Godwit!  Another new bird for my CT statelist - #323 for my CT list.  The bird eventually came in pretty close, where I was able to get these phonescoped photos. 

It’s interesting that my pursuit of Hudsonian Godwit in CT has been quite similar to Caspian Tern.  The Godwit is rare but regular as a migrant on the CT coast, but I’ve never chased after one in CT given the same time and tide challenges that I’ve had trying to go after Caspians.  I’ve now seen Hudsonian Godwit in 10 states in the northeast (though I still need it in RI) as a fall migrant, 3 Plains states as a spring migrant, in AK as a breeder, and in WA as a rarity.

Steve made some calls to local birders and several were able to see the bird before nightfall, including ironically Tina Green with whom I started my day in a failed attempt for the Painted Bunting.  Interestingly, the Caspian Tern did not stick around - another one that wouldn't have been chaseable.  Sure didn’t think I would get one, let alone two, new CT statebirds after missing my key target bird.  And not bad for a little light birding late in the day.  Once again Milford Point lives up to its reputation as one of my favorite CT birding spots.  

And one last postscript on the day - although Painted Bunting is much rare than Caspian Tern and Hudsonian Godwit in CT, it is likely the easiest of the 3 to chase after.  I just have to hope that one has an extended stay at a feeder somewhere in eastern CT.

Painted Bunting, Newport, RI, March 2014

It was early on Monday morning when I received an e-mail from a birding buddy asking if I knew anything about a Painted Bunting that apparently had been reported in RI.  That certainly was news to me, so I sent e-mails to a few of my RI birding contacts to see if they knew anything about it.  Before I had received any responses, I noticed a post on the MASSBIRD listserve summarizing a MA Audubon trip to RI from the previous weekend.  A few sentences into the post they mentioned going to a feeder in Newport to see the stakeout Painted Bunting – they obviously knew something I didn’t.  A little later I was able to reach one of my RI contacts and sure enough she told me that a male Painted Bunting had been appearing at an urban feeder in Newport for over a month.  The homeowner didn’t want big crowds so she didn’t want it publicized, although many birders had heard about it by word of mouth and had seen this quite reliable bird reliable.  I guess I don’t operate in the right birding circles.  My contact said it was OK to go to look for it, and gave me explicit directions to the feeder.  So I called Denny Abbott, and the two of us hatched a plan to go for the Bunting the next day.

We were at the homeowner’s yard by 8 the next morning and started our vigil looking at a feeder in the front yard.  A few minutes later another birder arrived to join the search.  After about 30 minutes, and not seeing much of anything except some Juncos, I contacted another RI birder to get a few more details.  He mentioned that he thought the bird was mostly being seen in the afternoon.  And just as I was hanging up with him, the homeowner came out and welcomed us to her yard, and said that lately she was just seeing the bird near dusk.  Suddenly I wasn’t feeling very optimistic.  She also said it was either coming with Juncos to the feeder out front, or with House Sparrows to the feeder in the back.  We didn’t even know there was a feeder out back – did we miss it there?  Plus I wondered if we missed it in the Junco flock we saw earlier in the front.  So we re-positioned ourselves such that both feeders were almost visible, and continued our wait, ready to go well into the afternoon if needed.

After a few minutes of no activity, suddenly the yard was alive with both a flock of House Sparrows at the back feeder and a flock of Juncos at the front feeder, just as the homeowner described.  Now we needed the Bunting.  Our eyes went from one feeder to the other without luck.  And then I noticed some bright colors in a tree over the front feeder – it was the Painted Bunting!  In a couple minutes it came to the feeder and gave some great views.  I got these less-than-stellar photos of the bird while it was on the feeder.

Painted Bunting was #312 for me in RI.  RI is my fourth state with this species as a vagrant (MD, MA, ME, and now RI).  Unfortunately I’ve missed it a couple times at feeders in NH.  Plus of course I’ve seen it in most of the states in its regular range in the south (see my statebird map below).