8 Statebirds in DC and VA, January 2015

With an upcoming trip to visit relatives in the Mid-Atlantic states, I started to plan a day of statebirding to fill gaps in the local statelists.  My initial plan was to spend a day in VA since my VA statelist was just 7 over the old ABA threshold.  Though as I started to review my list and come up with possible VA targets, I realized that few (if any) of my target birds were really very likely.  So initially I thought that getting maybe 3 new VA statebirds would make for a successful trip.  But then as the trip neared, a number of rarities were being reported in the area that weren’t even on my target list – Clay-colored Sparrow, Cackling and White-fronted Geese, Lapland Longspur, and Snowy Owl.  And by combing through the eBird and listserve reports, there were no less than 6 other possible statebirds reported in northern VA the week before my trip.  Now maybe 6 or 7 new statebirds would be an appropriate goal to set. 

Complicating the situation was that there were recent eBird reports of a couple birds I needed for the DC list as well.  But before I get to the possible DC targets, a little background on the challenges of birding DC is in order.  First of all, the District is a very small area – no bigger than many counties.  And then of course it is very urbanized, with limited good habitat.  So although my DC list was a very small 175, it was actually 10 over the old ABA threshold, and the 8^th highest DC list reported on the ABA website.  As a result I’m probably prouder of my DC list than of any of my lists for the other states.  Now back to the trip at hand - since I would pass through DC in route to northern VA, it would be easy enough to make a couple quick side trips to try for some DC targets to start the day.  So I decided to squeeze in a couple brief stops in DC and then spend the rest of the day in VA.  It would be a full itinerary, but I outlined a plan with 3 DC targets (though only 1 was reported in the last week), and at least 11 VA targets.

As I got ready to leave the house that morning, I checked eBird one last time to see if there were any updates.  Nothing of note was reported in VA, but no less than 4 new targets were reported in DC from the previous day – Tree Sparrow, Meadowlark, Cackling Goose, and Orange-crowned Warbler.  Unfortunately, only the Goose was at a spot that was included in my original itinerary.  Maybe I could get to these other locations if the birds were really cooperative.  Then again, if I added these stops early in the day in DC I could end up running out of time at the end of the day in VA.  Since these newly reported birds would be tough to pass up, I decided to play it by ear and try all these additional locations, adjusting my timing as the day progressed.

I arrived at Kenilworth Park in DC a few minutes before sunrise.  This is the only location in DC with large grassy fields, and is the spot where I’ve gotten my only Grasshopper Sparrow, Blue Grosbeak, and Pipits for DC.  The previous day a pair of Tree Sparrows were reported there, with pretty specific micro-directions provided.  A Meadowlark was also found there the day before (this is THE spot for Meadowlarks in DC), though the location was not provided.  As I neared the entrance I saw a police car with its lights flashing blocking the gate – what did that mean?  At the very least I couldn’t drive in through the main entrance.  I drove along the side of the park and was lucky enough to find a spot where I could walk in, which amazingly happened to be close to the Tree Sparrow location.  After a short walk I was in a brushy area that sounded like where the sparrows were seen the day before.  And as I arrived I could hear some sparrow chips from a short distance away.  After a couple minutes of spishing some sparrows came into view, including obscured views of 2 American Tree Sparrows.  That was easy!  I’ve now seen Tree Sparrow throughout the northeast except for DE, and still need it in its wintering range in several western states (see my statebird map below).

I spent another 15 minutes in the park trying for the Meadowlark, but without success.  Though that wasn’t too surprising since I did not have specific location to search.

The next stop was the Anacostia Park where a Cackling Goose was reported the day before.  After just a minute I found 2 small flocks of Canadas in the water.  And within only a minute of searching I found the Cackling Goose in the first flock.  I got these two phonescoped photos of the bird, providing good comparisons with the Canadas.

This park can also be good for rare gulls and Turkeys, but brief looks came up empty.  So it was quickly on to the FDR Memorial where the Orange-crowned Warbler was seen the previous day.  Along the way I started to wonder if I had time to try for this bird, especially since directions were not too detailed.  And then along the way I made a wrong turn and found myself on a bridge heading across the Potomac out of DC.  So I decided to pass on the Warbler and instead headed to two locations in DC where Common Mergansers had been reported.  The first was the Georgetown Reservoir which you can bird in seconds right from your car.  I was really hopeful I would find the Merganser reported there the previous day since that would save me a lot of time, but unfortunately there were no Mergansers.  So the next stop was on the Potomac at Fletcher’s Boathouse (which I eventually got to despite driving the wrong way on a one-way street – oops).  Although this location was just a couple minutes away, it could mean some significant walking to look up and down river for the target birds.  But luckily I quickly found one male Common Merg sitting on rocks at the first river overlook.  My statebird map pretty well matches the normal range for this species except for OH and the Dakotas.

That gave me 3 of 4 likely target birds for DC (though I didn’t try for the Warbler), increasing my list to 178 for the District.  And 2 of the 3 new birds were rarities needing details on eBird. 

I was now 15 minutes ahead of schedule and headed to my first stop in VA.  The first VA targets were White-fronted and Cackling Geese and Lesser Black-backed Gull seen from several locations along the Potomac waterfront in northern Fairfax County.  I was able to pick out the White-fronted quite quickly, even though it was backlit and sleeping at the time (I picked it out based on the horizontal white stripes where the sides and wing coverts come together).  The bird later flew to the Hunting Creek bridge area and gave excellent views.

I’ve seen this species in quite a number of eastern states where it is rare but regular – in fact my coverage for this species in the east is better than in its regular range in the central and western states.

I spent the next hour or so pouring through the Canada Geese looking for the minima Cackling that had been seen just a couple days earlier.  Although I never found that bird, I found at least 20 noticeably smaller geese – most were likely parvipes Canada Geese that had necks and bills that were smaller than the Canadas but with similar proportions to the larger Canadas.  But I also found at least two other smaller geese that had shorter bills and necks that with smaller proportions than for the larger Canadas.  I believe these would be taverner’s Cackling Geese.  And another of the smaller geese had a significant white band at the base of the black collar.  Not clear if that one was a parvipes or a taverner’s.

Several times I took breaks from staring at the Geese to look through the numerous gulls present along the river but to no avail.  But I had several other spots to try for the rarer gulls later in the day.  So 2 getting out of 3 targets here wasn’t bad.

I was now about 15 minutes behind schedule, and off to Woodbridge where the Clay-colored Sparrow had been reported.  Some posts from this spot had White-crowned Sparrows, and one had a Lincoln’s Sparrow and a Merlin – all targets for me.  I arrived at the CCSP spot and the first bird I saw was a Cooper’s Hawk perched low nearby.  Not surprisingly there was no activity there.  So I started working a short distance away and ran into many sparrows but no CCSP, nor any other targets.  I even tried across the road, finding more sparrows, but again no targets.  I had just about given up, and lamented that I had missed all my targets, when a White-crowned Sparrow popped into the open – at least I got 1 new statebird here.  That fills one of the last gaps in my statebird map – I only need it in 3 more states and DC.

Later in the day a birder posted to the listserve that he saw the CCSP about 30 minutes before I arrived – probably before the Cooper’s appeared.  And he saw a Lesser Black-backed Gull a bit farther down the road as well.   

The next stop was at nearby Neabsco Creek to try for recently reported Lesser Black-backed and Iceland Gulls.  There were quite a number of gulls there, but nothing of interest. 

Then on to the Prince William Landfill for one more chance for the rarer gulls.  But I couldn’t talk myself into the active part of the landfill, and could only view the active fill area from a distance.  A quick scan did not reveal any targets.  Then a loud sound from the landfill made all the gulls fly off and away from the landfill complex.  Rather than waiting for them to return, I decided to head out and conserve some time for my last 2 stops of the day.  But that meant I dipped on all the rarer gulls for the day.

The next hot spot was the turf farms near Remington where for some time numerous Lapland Longspurs had been feeding with Horned Larks.  And in the last couple days, another of my targets, American Pipit, was reported there too.  Even including a report from that morning.  When I arrived I popped out of the car and instantly heard a flock of Larks overhead including at least 1 Longspur.  Over the next 20 minutes there were frequent flocks of Larks calling overhead, and most had 1 or more Longspurs.  And at one point a flock of 4 Longspurs flew overhead.  I later found a flock of 60 Larks and 3 Longspurs feeding in one field.  So I estimated I had at least 12 Longspurs during my hour at the turf farms.  I still need this species in a number of states in its winter range.
 

I kept on hoping that I would hear Pipits overhead given all the Lark and Longspur activity, but to no avail. 

My final stop of the day was just outside Reagan National Airport where a very white Snowy Owl had been seen 12 consecutive evenings.  Most every day the bird would first appear on a perch within the airport complex, with the only viewing point being a very distant Gravelly Point.  The Owl typically first appears around sunset each night, which allowed me more time to hit the other spots.  I arrived at Gravelly Point just before sunset and quickly joined a group of about 50 birders and on-lookers looking toward the airport.  The Snowy Owl was already in sight, sitting on a distant windsock at the airport.  I took this phonescoped photo of the bird in the distance –

And then heavily cropped -

VA was only my 11^th state for this widespread bird.  Similar to my statebird map for the Lapland Longspur, I'm missing a lot of states in its wintering range.  I guess I don’t bird much in northern states in the winter.

That gave me 5 new VA statebirds, for a total of 244, or 12 over the old ABA threshold.  And although I missed a few of my VA targets (including 3 seen by others that day), I got 4 of the 5 rarities that had been seen recently.  Those are the most important ones to find – the others can come later.

And for the day, I added 1 new statebirds in each of 8 stops – only missing statebirds on 3 other stops.  A very good start to the 2015 birding year.

Long-eared Owl, Saw-whet Owl, and Thayer’s Gull, Rhode Island, December 2014

That’s not exactly a trio of species you would typically get on one trip into RI.  But this wasn’t a typical trip.  It all centered around my first ever winter pelagic trip, to depart out of Galilee, RI at 7 AM.  With such an early departure I reserved a hotel room the night before in southern RI just 15 minutes from the dock.  And since I would be there the night before, why not bird in RI the day before as well?  There were two potential statebirds for me that had been reported from RI recently - a Long-eared Owl and a Saw-whet Owl.  The Long-ear was found in the black pines of East Beach on the west coast.  Although these birds are likely present there every winter, they are very difficult to find and not exactly reliable.  The Saw-whet was heard on a Christmas Count at the Norman Bird Sanctuary.  And with a couple e-mails I got excellent directions of the location of that bird.  I then contacted RI birder Laura Carberry to see if she wanted to come along, and we planned to spend a morning trudging through the scrubby East Beach pines to try for the Long-ear (I would be on my own to try for the Saw-whet that evening). 

We arrived at the East Beach parking lot at 9 and started walking east into the pines.  I was disappointed to see that a significant number of the trees were dead or dying, meaning that the owl habitat was a bit reduced.  We spent more than an hour peering into the thicker pines, making it about a mile from the parking lot, without seeing any owls or pellets or whitewash in the trees.  And the woods were pretty quiet, except for a significant number of Hairy and Downy Woodpeckers taking advantage of all this new habitat.  So we decided to end our needle-in-a-haystack search and head back down the trail to the cars.  We had only walked a short distance when we both saw a medium-sized raptor cross the trail.  We spent the next couple minutes trying to decide what we just saw.  Although it was just a brief view we both saw these field marks – mostly brown, short tail, owl-like body structure, direct flight.  If it were an Accipter, Buteo, or Harrier it would have had a longer tail.  Plus the bird seemed too brown for most of these options.  And if we could indeed eliminate hawks, that left the owls as possibilities.  It was too small for a Great Horned and Barred, and didn’t have the moth-like flight of a Short-eared.  We looked at each other and somewhat reluctantly realized that we had just seen a Long-eared Owl.  I say reluctantly because we sure wish we had had a better view.  We spent the next several minutes looking through the pines where the bird may have landed, but without success.  But I guess a quick view is better than no view at all.

Long-eared Owl was #316 for me in RI, and only my 6^th state for this species.  Needless to say, my statebird map below shows pretty spotty coverage for this elusive but widespread species.

By late afternoon I made my way to the Norman Bird Sanctuary to try for the Saw-whet.  In fact in the last week no less than 6 species of owls had been heard at the Sanctuary.  I birded the area a bit, with the best sighting being a Woodcock which I saw fly overhead interestingly at treetop level.  By dusk I got to the location where the Saw-whet was heard earlier in the week, and despite playing quite a bit of tape, I couldn’t get any response.  Or at least that was what I thought at the time.  Several times after I played a taped call I heard a single very soft toot of similar quality of the string of toots included in the typical Saw-what call.  But the call was almost inaudible, and I've never heard Saw-whets give single toots. A few days later I noticed a post from a RI birder who had several Saw-whets pre-dawn one morning, including several giving single, very soft toots.  Sounds just like the ones I heard.  Given the fact that Saw-whets really can make the calls I heard, and the lack of other feasible options, I decided that I actually heard one (or more) Saw-whets.

The next morning I was at the Frances Fleet dock at 6:45 anxiously awaiting the pelagic trip.  The weather and seas were predicted to be remarkably nice, especially for winter – partly sunny, highs in the upper 30’s, winds from the NW at 5-10 mph, and seas no more than 2 ft.  And there was a recent report of several Fulmars, Dovekies, and a Thick-billed Murre in the area – 3 possible statebirds for me.  In fact, I had heard that Fulmars and Dovekies were very likely in the RI offshore waters, especially beyond Block Island.  So I was quite optimistic about the upcoming day. 

We left Galilee and headed southeast with the wind, so it felt almost calm as I stood out on the bow, and seas were less than a foot as predicted.  Skies were overcast meaning no sun glare, with temps around 30.  So far so good.  Before we reached Block Island we had a number of Razorbills as flybys, and a couple Common Murres cooperatively sitting on the water near the boat.  But in general the birding was a bit slow.  As we headed beyond Block Island to the southeast I noticed the skies had darkened and we were heading toward an area of precipitation.  Within a few minutes it started to snow on us, and soon it was snowing hard enough to reduce visibility a bit.  More importantly, my binocs and glasses had water spots which certainly complicated things.  And the deckhands had to put down salt on the decks to avoid icy spots.  Except for a few flyby Razorbills and Gannets, birding was pretty slow.

We eventually got well offshore where a number of commercial fishing boats were working.  The ones pulling out their nets were surrounded by a flock of gulls which were feeding on the off-catch.  Here we hoped for Fulmars mixed in those flocks.  The snow had now turned to rain, and we were starting to get pretty wet.  We all scanned through each flock, but could only pick out an occasional Black-legged Kittiwake.  Then I heard someone call “Dovekie” from the upper deck, but without a location or direction.  I was down on the bow, and all I could do was quickly scan the water directly ahead of me, but to no avail.  But it was still early and everyone said there would be more Dovekies – so I didn’t worry too much.  Unfortunately, there was only one more Dovekie sighting on the trip, and that story was about the same.  Again I was on the bow, and they were spotted by birders on the upper deck.  And again, no directions were given as a flock of 4 birds flew by.  And as before, I was not lucky enough to be looking in the correct direction as they passed by.  Very frustrating, but pelagic birding can be that way.

Later in the day I heard rumors of a possible Thayer’s Gull flying around one of the fishing boats.  I have to admit that my first thought was to be skeptical – I didn’t know who reported the bird, and of course identification of a distant bird is difficult especially from a bouncing boat with wet optics.  The buzz about the bird disappeared, so I went inside to put on my rain suit.  As I came back out to the bow, there were some very manner-of-fact comments about the Thayer’s Gull still being around.  It took a while, but I found out that it was circling one of the boats to our port side – amazingly one of only 3 birds circling that boat.  I quickly picked out the bird which was an adult, and first noticed a small unmarked bill.  Then as it circled overhead I could easily see the limited black coloration under the wingtips.  Lots of photos were taken, and I was able to see photos taken by the birder next to me, right on his camera screen, that confirmed the identification.  Amazing – an adult Thayer’s Gull in New England!  Certainly not one of my targets for this trip.

Thayer’s Gull was #318 for me in RI, and RI is my 5^th New England state for this species – though all the others have been first year birds.  That gives me 1,993 total ticks in New England.  Interestingly, earlier in 2014 I also added Thayer’s Gull to my statelists in ME, NH, and CT.  I’ve now seen this species in all 3 of its regular Pacific coastal states, a number of Mountain and Midwestern states where it is a rare but regular wintering bird, as well as in MD and New England as a vagrant. 

Soon after seeing the Thayer’s Gull we started our 3-hour trip back to land.  Although the rain had stopped, we were now heading into the wind, meaning an effective wind speed of about 20 mph.  The only way to continue to bird was to get out of the wind, which meant standing at the stern and looking just behind the boat.  A few more Kittiwakes and Gannets was all I found.  By the time we returned I was felling quite hypothermic, and happy to be back.  Although our weather conditions were better than average for a winter pelagic, it was still quite challenging.  I can’t imagine successfully birding in more typical colder, windier, and rougher conditions.

Although I missed the more likely statebirds on the pelagic trip (Dovekie and Fulmar), the Thayer’s Gull is certainly much rarer in RI.  Maybe I’ll get Dovekie and Fulmar from shore some time, or on a Block Island ferry ride, or maybe even during a seawatch from Block Island.

Townsend’s Solitaire, Florida Lake, Freeport, Maine, November 2014

The excitement of adding Pacific Loon to my ME list had barely faded when a report of a Townsend’s Solitaire in Freeport came across the listserve.  In fact, the Solitaire was first spotted the same day I saw the Loon, though the news didn’t get out till the next day.  I couldn’t get out for a couple days, but was hopeful the bird would stick around for a while as many New England Solitaires tend to do.  Then again, I should say that at least the MA and NH Solitaire’s tend to hang around.  By comparison, there have been many fewer Solitaires reported lately in the other New England states, and many have not been readily chaseable.  But luckily, this bird was still being reported 2 days after the initial sighting, and was being quite reliable. 

On my drive up to Freeport I wondered if the target bird would be difficult to find.  Solitaires can be challenging to find sometimes since they like to sit very still for extended periods of time.  I only had a few hours of free time to try for it, so I hoped that it would be cooperative.  I arrived at the Florida Lake parking lot, and started the short walk down the trail to head to the winterberry bushes which were the Solitaire’s preferred feeding area.  I hadn’t quite reached this key spot when I noticed a thrush-like bird flying up ahead which landed at the top of a maple tree just a short distance away.  Although my first thought was that it was a Robin, I quickly wondered if this was the Solitaire.  I put my binocs on it, and sure enough it was the Townsend’s Solitaire.  It was the first bird I saw after getting out of my car!  If only they were all this easy.  A bit later it flew lower down to the brush and afforded excellent views.  I was able to get these two pretty nice phone-scoped photos.

The Solitaire was my fourth New England statebird for November 2014.  Once again November has turned out to be the month for rarities here.  And it was #335 for me in ME, giving me 1,990 in New England – just 10 more to go!  Townsend’s Solitaire is known for its vagrancy, and not surprisingly I’ve seen it in 5 states as a vagrant (ME, NH, MA, NJ, IL) along with 12 states out west in its normal range.