Six Quebec Province Birds, but a Frustrating Experience with a Possible Lifebird, September, 2016

Two of the last three years there have been organized “pelagic” boat trips on Lake Champlain with key targets including Jaegers, Kittiwake, Sabine’s Gull, and the like.  I need all those birds for my VT (and NY) state lists so I’ve signed up for each trip when it has been scheduled.  This year a trip was scheduled for mid-September, the typical peak time for many of these species on Lake Champlain.  Within an hour I had registered and sent in my check. 

Since I don’t get to northwest VT very often, I planned to use the boat trip as an excuse to do some additional birding in the area.  As the trip neared I watched eBird and the listserve for potential targets, and salivated over a report of a Buff-breasted Sandpiper about a week before the trip.  The bird was found at the mouth of Dead Creek in Highgate in the far northwestern tip of VT, but was only reported one day.  Then again there were no subsequent negative reports, so I tried to be optimistic that a stop there a week later could be fruitful.  Plus an Orange-crowned Warbler was reported at Whitney Creek – one of the best spots in all of VT for that species and also for Connecticut Warbler.  So although the Orange-crown would certainly be long gone by the time I got there, maybe it could be replaced by another one.

With no other targets reported in VT, and the Buffie spot being in far northern VT just 3 miles from the Canadian border, I decided to check Quebec reports to see if there might be some targets there as well.  I was pretty happy with my existing Quebec list of 190.  So much so that when leaving Quebec after my last birding trip there I thought that my Quebec birding days were behind me.  But I’m glad I set up an eBird Quebec Needs Alert prior to this trip, because there were numerous shorebirds I needed that were reported from Baie Missisquoi just a short distance north of the US border, and less than 6 miles from Highgate as the sandpiper flies.  Apparently the region-wide drought had caused the lake level to drop enough to cause mudflats to form at the north end of the bay, attracting a diverse group shorebirds.  In the last couple days before my trip birders had spotted 10 species I needed for my list - 8 species of shorebirds, Caspian Tern, and Peregrine Falcon.  Plus there were a couple other targets like Solitary Sandpiper and Golden Plover reported recently a short distance to the north.  More than enough targets to justify yet another trip across the border into Quebec.

But just as I was getting excited about some Quebec province birding and a couple possible long shots in VT, I got an e-mail saying the boat trip was cancelled.  Although I was tempted to cancel my trip as well, I decided to keep the rest of my plans, and replace the boat trip with a lake watch from shore.  So my itinerary would begin with a stop at Highgate around midday of Day 1, followed by an afternoon in Quebec.  I would start Day 2 at dawn doing a lake watch from Charlotte Town Beach, and then make a stop at Whitney Creek to try for Orange-crowns and Connecticuts on the way home.

Day 1

Although I left the house a bit before 8 I didn’t make it to Highgate until close to noon.  Scoping the mudflats from Shipyard Road is quite a challenge as the flats are a ¼ to ½ mile away, complicated that day by quite a bit of heat shimmer.  I scanned the habitat for nearly an hour hoping against hope to find the Buff-breasted, but to no avail.  Though I did have some other pretty good shorebirds there– 4 Black-bellied Plovers, a Sanderling, and 2 Short-billed Dowitchers. 

I left at 1, and within 15 minutes I had passed through the border crossing and had made my way to Baie Missisquoi.  I wasn’t quite sure where to go to bird there, but soon realized I needed to make my way into a “campground” consisting of a number of mobile homes.  I checked in with the host of the park who spoke just barely enough English to explain where to park.  After a short walk I was at the edge of the extensive mudflats, only to see several people kiteboarding (flying kites connected to surfboards) right at the edge of the flats.  I did a quick look around and didn’t see any shorebirds at all.  Had the kiteboarders scared off all the shorebirds?  I then noticed a couple birders a short distance away and asked them for updates.  They said the numbers of birds had been way down from yesterday, though earlier there were at least a few around, including both Dowitchers, Stilt Sandpipers, and Red-necked Phalaropes.  But a Peregrine had come through and flushed all the birds away.  My heart sank – although the shorebirds had been great there for more than a week, they must have known I was coming and had moved on just in time for my trip.

I then looked over to the east and saw 3 other birders with scopes walking toward us.  And with a quick binoc scan in that direction I noticed a distant group of Yellowlegs feeding in the shallow water.  So I started walking in that direction with the first 2 birders I talked with.  As we were heading in that direction a flock of about 30 shorebirds flew by looking for a place to land.  Even without binocs I picked out several Sanderlings in the flock (Quebec bird #1) as they wheeled past.  They landed right in front of us, and the small flock included 11 Sanderlings, and 6 White-rumped Sandpipers (#2) – both numbers were higher than reported in previous days.  Then I noticed a lone Red-necked Phalarope spinning in the shallows right next to them (#3).  Small numbers, but great to pick up 3 new birds nonetheless.

We then continued to walk toward the Yellowlegs flock to the east, and ran into another small flock of shorebirds which included 2 more Sanderlings, 8 more White-rumps, and another Red-necked Phalarope, along with our first Pectoral.  Then up ahead we spotted a flock of peeps on the rocky shoreline farther to the east.  Just as we were starting to look through that flock a Peregrine flew by low over the water (#4), flushing shorebirds from all around us.  A number of small peeps flew right past us, including one larger one that turned out to be a Baird’s Sandpiper (#5).  Baird’s was also new for my Canada list - #357.  Although I was initially unhappy to have the Peregrine flush the shorebirds, it was new for my list, plus it flushed another new species that we hadn’t spotted yet.  So not a bad thing afterall.

We looked back to the rocky shoreline where the peep flock had been and all those birds had hunkered down instead of flying when the Peregrine passed by.  Slowly they started to perk up and walk around again, and we counted 40 Leasts and Semi Sands, along with a Pectoral.  At that point, with all those small peeps around, I wondered why no one had reported a Western Sandpiper yet from this location.  And just then I spotted a small peep in the rocks with a drooping bill.  Only the head was visible (the rest of the bird was hidden by a rock) so I didn’t want to jump to any conclusions yet.  With a few more steps I got a different angle on the bird, seeing dark legs, and rusty scapulars on an otherwise brownish mantle – a Western Sandpiper (#6).  After I got the other birders on this bird, we all continued to walk toward the east and amazingly all these peeps, including the Western, walked within 10 feet of us.

Finally we were nearing the Yellowlegs flock and I set up my scope to scan through the birds.  One of the first birds I looked at had a much longer bill with a bit of a droop at the end.  With a bit of study the bird turned out to be the Long-billed Dowitcher reported earlier.  And the flock included 3 Stilt Sandpipers as well.  Though the Dowitcher and Stilts were rarities for Quebec, I had seen both of them a couple years earlier at Sainte-Martine, Quebec.  (I would have been happier if the Dowitcher had been the much more common Short-billed which I still need for my Quebec list.) 

As we returned to the cars I kept my eyes open for a Caspian Tern that might pass by.  And I kept watching for more little groups of shorebirds.  But I struck out on both.  Although both the total number of shorebirds, and number of species, were way down from reports earlier in the week, and even just the previous day, I was still happy to have seen 13 shorebird species at this location, including several rarities.  And of course it was great to add 6 new birds to my Quebec list – which is now at 196.

I spent the next couple hours making stops at other parts of the bay, and a couple places to the north, and only added Killdeer as my 14th shorebird species that day in Quebec.  And including the Black-bellied Plovers and Short-billed Dowitchers I had earlier in VT (wish I could have seen them in Quebec - I need both of them for my Quebec list!) that gave me 16 shorebirds for the day.  Very nice totals for these inland locations.

Day 2

I started the day at first light at Charlotte Town Beach, the recommended location from which to do a lake watch in VT.  Winds had been light out of the northwest the night before, but were dead calm now.  Not the best conditions to see pelagic birds in VT, since your best chances of seeing them are when there is a stiff breeze from the north or northwest.  But at least there weren’t winds from the south.  As the sun rose I got these spectacular views of the morning clouds and the NY mountains in the background.

If only the birds were as spectacular.  I spent about 2 hours at the lake, and only spotted a few migrant flocks of Cormorants, a flock of Mallards, and 2 single Caspian Terns passing by.  (Where were those Caspians when I needed them in Quebec?)  Chances are even if the boat had gone out that morning we probably wouldn’t have seen much more.  Will I ever be able to time one of my fall trips to Lake Champlain to coincide with a good day of migration?  So with the lakewatch being so slow, I called it quits early at about 8 AM to head to Whitney Creek.  It was still early enough in the morning that maybe I could run into a few migrants there, not to mention my key targets - Orange-crowned and Connecticut Warblers. 

When I arrived at Whitney Creek another birder was just coming out of the trail.  I asked him how he did – he said it was a bit slow, but 15 minutes earlier he had had a brief glimpse of an Orange-crowned Warbler.  I spent the next 2 hours scouring the area with no luck.  If only I had left Charlotte a few minutes earlier.  Ugh…

But there was an even bigger disappointment to come…  That evening after getting back home I opened my most recent Quebec Needs Alert and saw that there were numerous reports of a Common Ringed Plover that day.  I figured they must have come from far northern Quebec, until I opened one of the reports and found that the bird was at Baie Missisquoi.  Not only had I birded this same spot the previous day, but the Plover had spent the entire day there no more than an hour’s drive north of where I birded most unsuccessfully that day in VT.  It would have been a life bird!  Then I started to wonder if the Ringed Plover was present the day I was there, but just overlooked.  But since most all of the birds I saw were not found there the next day when the Plover was spotted, I imagine the bird was just a 1-day wonder. 

So although I’m happy to have added 6 birds to my Quebec province list, with a slightly different “alignment of the stars” I not only could have added a bird to my VT list but a life bird as well. 

61 new Province Birds in Quebec, September 2015

The ABA’s “Total Ticks” reporting category includes one’s lists both in the US states (except Hawaii) as well as in the Canadian provinces.  Despite this broad geography, the vast majority of my efforts to work on my Total Ticks have been in the US.  Similarly, my life-long goal has been to get to the ABA reportable thresholds for all the US states, though not for the Canadian provinces.  As a result, although my Total Ticks are 13,284, the Canadian portion of that total (called All Territories and Provinces by the ABA) is only 415. 

But over the last couple years as my statelists have improved, the opportunity to increase my Total Ticks significantly by birding just in the US has diminished.  So recently I’ve done just a bit of birding in Canada.  For instance last year while birding in North Dakota I added brief 1-hour forays for my first visits ever to Manitoba and Saskatchewan adding 88 Total Ticks – not a lot but a start.  And last summer while birding in northern NH and ME, I added a morning in Quebec, picking up 63 birds during my first ever birding time in that province.  But my 415 ticks in Canada already includes those totals.  And since my only semi-respectable province total is Ontario at 181, I have lots of potential to add ticks in most any Canadian province.

As the summer of 2015 progressed I lamented not having taken what has turned out to be a nearly annual spring/summer statebirding trip this year.  So I started thinking about taking a short trip into a nearby province to add some relatively easy ticks in Canada.  Quebec is the closest province – a little less than 4 hours away along the northern VT border.  And with just 63 ticks on my province list, there was considerable potential to greatly increase that total.  I picked a 3-day vacation period in early September as a likely time to be able to focus on migrant passerines and shorebirds.  And since I wouldn’t likely get to Quebec too easily in winter, waterfowl would be a good focus as well.  So I started doing some research on-line to find the best birding hotspots not too far from the VT border.  Although many of the resources were in french, I was still able to use my very rusty high school French and an on-line translator to come up with a game plan.  And with the help of recent eBird data, I hoped for about 50 new birds for my province list.

Day 1

I left my hotel in Rutland, VT (after adding Yellow-crowned Night-Heron to my VT list the night before) in the early morning, and was at the QC/VT line by 9:30 AM.  By 10 I was at the Centre D'interprétation de la Nature du Lac-Boivin.  This eBird hotspot had considerable woodlands, marsh, and a lake, with quite a number of species reported there recently.  I spent 4 ½ hours there on foot, starting and ending with walks on woodland trails, with a couple stops at the lake and marsh.  It turned out to be a very birdy spot, getting 55 species, including 13 species of Warblers and 3 species of Vireos even though I couldn’t be there at dawn.  No real rarities, but lots of diversity.  Perhaps the highlight was the extremely tame Chickadees which were undoubtedly very used to being fed by hand along the trails – this Chickadee landed on my hand even though I had no seed with me.

With stops around the wetlands I added 6 species of waterfowl, Osprey, and cormorant.  When I left at 2:30 I was already nearly half way to my goal of 50 new province birds. 

The next stop was nearby Parc National de la Yamaska.  A brief visit at the reservoir yielded a large flock of Ring-billed Gulls (but no other gull species), and 3 extremely distant Redheads, but little else.  It was here that I ran into two very helpful birding couples who told me about a second location at the park, the alternate spillway for the reservoir, where they had shorebirds earlier in the day.  We all walked back to that spot and added 6 species of shorebirds though in very low numbers, along with 3 additional Warbler species I had not seen earlier. 

In route to my hotel in Drummondville I picked up a couple more new birds – Kestrel and Nighthawk – before calling it a day.  I ended up with 75 species for the day including 33 new birds for my QC list – a very nice start to the trip

The birders I met at Yamaska also told me about a spot not too far away where a couple rare shorebirds had been seen recently – Stilt Sandpiper and Long-billed Dowitcher.  It took a little time to figure out the location, but it turned out to be Domaine-de-la-Pêche-au-Saumon in Sainte-Martine southwest of Montreal.  That evening I went on eBird and saw that quite a number of possible new province birds were being seen there, so I decided to add it to my itinerary for the next day.

Day 2

I started at dawn in woodlands north of Drummondville along Riviere Saint-Francois, hoping for some early morning migrants.  But the woodlands were rather inaccessible and I only spent a few minutes there.  Despite the short trip I did pick up Cardinal at a suburban feeder, a singing Pine Warbler, and Gadwall in the river.

The next several stops were at or near the Saint Lawrence River, with several shorebird, waterfowl, and gull opportunities.  The first stop was at the Station D'épuration (sewage treatment ponds) at Baie-du-Febvre where lots of waterfowl had been reported recently on eBird.  The site did not disappoint, with 8 species of waterfowl including a nice group of lingering Snow Geese, Common Gallinule, Harrier, and Marsh Wren giving me 8 new province birds.  At the neighboring Etangs de la Defence I added Black-crowned Night-Heron, Merlin, Cooper’s Hawk, Semi Plover, and Pectoral Sandpiper for 5 more.  Unfortunately the shorebirds were seen flying into a spot in the marsh which was not visible – who knows what other shorebirds may have been in there.

The next stop was the little town of Commune de la Baie-du-Febvre on the river principally for landbird migrants.  Although I had almost no passerines here, I did pick up a lone Pintail and Herring Gull – the 50^th and 51^st new birds for my QC list.  I already exceeded my target and I still had more than a full day of QC birding ahead of me.

Next I was onto Parc Ecologique de l'Anse du Port, featuring an elevated boardwalk first though a swampy forest, then a marsh, ending at the Saint Lawrence.  Just about the only birds in the woodlands were several singing Pewees, though I played tape unsuccessfully for Barred Owl.  The marsh yielded a distant Virginia Rail that replied to tape.  The end of the boardwalk provided a great spot to scan the river and Lac-Saint-Pierre.  Here I picked out a lone late Common Tern, and several Great Black-backed Gulls (outnumbering the Ring-bills).  Four new province birds were nice for this midday stop.

The last stop along the River was at Quai Port-St-François, a pier that sticks out onto the lake.  I hoped for some shorebirds along the sandy beach but only found a Spotted Sand.  I then scanned the water in the distance but didn’t see a single bird.  But then I noticed a dark immature gull floating nearby picking at a dead fish on the surface.  Long wings, checkered back, all dark bill – a first-year Lesser Black-backed.  I got these phonescoped photos as the bird floated by. 

 

It was now early afternoon as I headed toward Sainte-Martine for a stop at Domaine-de-la-Pêche-au-Saumon.  I started to realize that not only had I already exceeded my goal of 50 new province birds, but I was starting to run out of possibilities.  Sure I was only at 119 for the province so there were many more possibilities, but they would be few and far between now.  Plus many of the next set of targets at a planned stop at the Phillipsburg Sanctuary the morning of Day 3 were nesting birds that barely get into QC.  I wondered how many might still be around, and thought that maybe the better approach would be to come back to southern QC in May or June to try for them while they were nesting.  If I made the next shorebird stop at Sainte-Martine as my last stop of the trip, I could head back home one day early.  But how many new birds would I miss?  I had just decided to call it quits after Sainte-Martine when a Turkey Vulture flew by - #120.  I wasn’t sure if I should look at that as confirmation that I should leave QC early because there was one less bird to try for the next day, or that it was an omen that I should keep birding to try to pick off additional birds even if they would be one at a time.

From photos I saw on-line, Domaine-de-la-Pêche-au-Saumon was a river downstream of a low dam, with a number of exposed rocks and shallow puddles.  It looked like a really nice spot, but I wondered how I might gain access to the areas where the shorebirds had been spotted.  But just after I arrived at 3 PM I noticed 3 birders on the rocks below, so I made my way down to their location.  Within seconds I added Great Egret and American Wigeon to my list.  And no more than a minute later I had the Long-billed Dowitcher practically at my feet, and the Stilt Sandpiper. 

A few minutes later I found a second Stilt Sandpiper – not bad for a rare species in the province.  Although I only saw 14 species at this stop 4 were new for my list.  It was a great way to end the trip, and given my focus on shorebirds, adding a couple rarer species was great.  Many thanks to those birders who told me about this spot.  I had 71 species on Day 2, dominated by waterfowl and shorebirds.

I ended up with 61 new birds for my province list, giving me 124 total for QC.  I had 109 species for the trip, including 14 waterfowl species, 11 shorebird species and 19 warbler species in a bit under 2 days of birding.  Some very respectable totals.

Looking to the future, my greatest potential for additional birds in the southern part of the province would be in the early winter before freeze up for diving ducks, raptors, field birds, and winter finches; and in late spring/early summer for nesting woodland birds.  With two short trips over the next year maybe I could get close to 200 in Quebec.

And now a postscript -  By coming home a day early I was able to take a ferry out of New London, CT the next day where I added Pomarine Jaeger to both my CT and NY lists (detailed in my earlier blog post).  Along with the Night-Heron on VT, that gave me 64 state/province birds in 3 states and 1 province in 4 consecutive days.  Nice results for a 3-day vacation.

Sedge Wren, Stilt Sandpiper, and Ruddy Turnstone in Vermont, September, 2014

As the Summer of 2014 progressed a number of possible statebirds were reported in northwest VT.  First came the report of a pair of Sedge Wrens likely nesting in Middlebury.  Then came word of a drawdown of one impoundment at Dead Creek with 1 and then 2 Stilt Sandpipers – and who knows what other rare shorebirds that might be attracted to these flats in the future.  Then there was the big news of a Brown Booby on Lake Champlain.  Unfortunately the Booby disappeared (more accurately became unreliable though still on the Lake) before I could get there.  Finally came repeated reports of a pair of Ruddy Turnstones in St. Albans.  That was more than enough critical mass to make the 3 ½ hour trek to the northwest part of VT.  This time, unlike most of my other trips, I decided to get a motel room in the area the night before my birding day to avoid having to make the 7-hour round-trip drive in one day. 

I had timed my trip to be a day before the next front in hopes that the shorebirds wouldn’t have moved on yet.  And I received excellent details from VT birders for locations for the Wren, Stilt, and Turnstone.  So I was pretty optimistic that I might get the Stilt and Turnstone.  The Wren, however, was another story.  It was last reported 11 days earlier, and it was getting really late for even these late nesters to still be sticking around their apparent nesting spot.  Sedge Wrens are reported in late summer in northwest VT most every year, and although I had tried for them twice before, I waited too long both times.  I was worried that I might be too late for this third try as well.

I was able to leave early enough to get to the Wren location in the evening of the first day.  With perfect directions I quickly found the correct tall grass field where they had spent the latter half of the summer.  It was very still and quiet, so I listened intently for their characteristic call and song, but with no luck.  So I walked off the road to get to the edge of the “their” field and listened some more, but only heard a distant Red-bellied Woodpecker.  I know Sedge Wrens are very tape-responsive, so I made a couple short imitations of their call note, and almost instantly heard one note coming from the field.  Then I heard another call from a short distance away.  This second bird popped out in the open at the field’s edge and gave me distant but good looks.  Success!  VT is only my fourth New England state for Sedge Wren.  My statebird map below also shows that I have a number of gaps in this species’ normal summering and wintering ranges.

The next morning I met up with long-time birding friend Hank Kaestner and we headed to the Brilyea Access portion of Dead Creek WMA to try for the Stilt Sandpipers.  After a short walk we were at the upper reaches of the impoundment where the drawdown was occurring.  There wasn’t a lot of habitat, but we quickly found numerous Yellowlegs (almost all Lessers), a handful of peeps, and a couple Semi Plovers - though no Stilts.  We walked off the trail to get a different view of the flats but still no Stilts.  We continued walking east to get different views, and tried really hard to turn the Yellowlegs into Stilts, but to no avail.  We finally made it to a point of land and the farthest east we could walk to get a final view of the flats.  We were now looking almost directly into the sun, so viewing wasn’t the best.  Despite the glare I spotted a Stilt Sandpiper in the distance, along with a second bird and then a third one.  A pair of Short-billed Dowitchers were feeding with them, along with some of the ever-present Lesser Yellowlegs.  A nice group of birds for comparisons of size and shape, as well as feeding habits.  VT was my last New England state for this species - my 228^th in each of the 6 states.  I’ve seen Stilt Sandpiper in most of its regular US range as a migrant, and a couple states as a rarity.

Hank and I next went on to Charlotte Town Beach for another shorebird search, and also for a quick lake watch.  There were 40 Killdeer and 1 Semi Sand on the shore, but nothing else.  We spent a bit of time looking over the lake but the sole highlights were a small number of Common Terns and Bonaparte’s Gulls flying down the lake.  The skies were starting to look threatening, so rather than continue on the lake watch, I decided to head north to the St. Albans Bay Town Park to try for the Turnstones.

After a short drive I arrived in St. Albans which is about as far northwest as you can get and still be in VT, and in the US for that matter.  There is a sandy beach at the Town Park which apparently is normally favored by swimmers and dog walkers.  But this year an algae bloom had fouled the beach and caused the town to close it.  As a result, not only were there no people and dogs to bother the shorebirds, but the decaying algae on the beach had attracted lots of shorebird food.  There had been good numbers of shorebirds there for several weeks, including the 2 Ruddy Turnstones.  I got to the edge of the beach and began to scan the narrow patch of habitat with my binocs.  I found a number of Yellowlegs and a couple flocks of peeps, but no Turnstones.  Then on another scan I noticed a large dark shorebird just a short distance away – a winter plumaged Ruddy Turnstone.  Another scan revealed a second bird, along with 2 Baird’s Sandpipers that hadn’t been reported there in the past.  I got these phonescoped photos of one of the Turnstones.

Not so easy to pick out the brown bird amongst the brown algae

Easier to spot in profile

Like the Stilt Sand, VT was the last of the New England states for me for Turnstone – number 229.  And VT was my second inland state for this otherwise common coastal species.  Though I still need it in OR.

With 3 VT statebirds on the trip that gives me 264 for VT, and 1,980 for New England.  I’m closing in on the magic 2,000!