Western Meadowlark, Charlotte, VT, June 2015

Western Meadowlark – first record for VT!  Yet another amazing find in a string of exceptionally rare birds found in VT over the last couple years that have included species like Prairie Falcon, Garganey, Pink-footed Goose, Black-tailed Godwit, etc.  I haven’t chased after any of those recent birds because they were all in northwestern VT, much farther than my self-imposed chasing limit of a 2-hour drive from home.  But for some reason I decided to chase after this one.

The Meadowlark was first discovered on a Wednesday singing as if on territory in a field in Charlotte.  I was out of town at the time, and wouldn’t be able to give it a try until Saturday.  But I was hopeful that although not discovered until mid-June, it might well have been present since Spring looking for a mate.  And if that was the case, it would likely stick around for at least a couple more days.  Sure enough it was heard and seen by many both Thursday and Friday, so I was quite optimistic.  I called Denny Abbott and we made plans to make the long drive to northwestern VT early Saturday.

That morning while on our 3 ½ hour trek Denny and I spent a fair amount of time listening to the songs of the 2 Meadowlarks, to make sure we could tell the 2 species apart when we got to Charlotte.  We were very well prepared when we approached the field in question, and we could see a small group of birders already there.  Although the small parking area was full, one car appeared to be ready to back out when we arrived.  I lowered the window to ask the driver if he was leaving, and before my car had even stopped I heard the Western Meadowlark’s song.  That was easy!  Over the next hour we had almost continuous scope views of the bird as it sang from a pole in the middle of the field.  I tried to get phonescoped pictures of the Meadowlark, but it was far enough away that this was the best I could do.

Western Meadowlark was number 270 for my VT list, which is by far my smallest of all my New England lists.  Though undoubtedly I’d have a lot more in VT if I had chased after all those great birds that have been seen there lately. 

Western Meadowlark was also the 430th species I’ve seen anywhere in New England.  VT is the first state where I’ve seen this species as a rarity after seeing it throughout its normal range (see my statebird map below).

Black Vulture, Hinsdale, NH, June 2015

Black Vultures have been coming to a Vulture roost in Brattleboro, VT off and on for the last several years.  The roost has been a bit north of downtown Brattleboro, right on the edge of the Connecticut River, putting it just a few feet west of the VT/NH stateline.  I first saw the Black Vultures on the evening of 10/30/07 – that day there were 4 Blacks with quite a number of Turkeys.  They flew in from the west, circled a bit, and then came in to the roost.  They were new for my VT list at the time, but never passed into NH airspace (even though they settled into the roost less than 100 ft from NH!) so I couldn’t add them to my NH list.  A few days later I was back in the morning to watch the vultures leave the roost.  Again I saw the 4 Blacks fly out of the trees, circle overhead, and fly off to the west.  And again they never crossed over into NH.

Occasional Black Vulture sightings have continued in the area during the warmer months most every year since.  Most sightings were right in Brattleboro, or nearby along the Connecticut River.  And although most were in VT, several were in NH either right along the river or in southwestern Hinsdale.  Each time another NH sighting was posted it was if they were taunting me.  Since Brattleboro was just 90 minutes away, and one of my favorite VT birding locations, I would go there a couple times each year and always keep my eyes open for Black Vultures.  But I was never lucky enough to find them.  And despite a few unsuccessful searches closer to the coast (they are sometimes seen at a roost in Newmarket), Black Vulture continued to one of the most common birds in NH that I still needed for my statelist.

Fast forward to June 2015 - There were two Black Vulture sightings on consecutive days in NH along the Connecticut River – one just south of Brattleboro and one a few miles to the north.  At least 1 bird was back!  There were no other sightings for the next week so I didn’t give it much more thought.  But then there was a report of a possible Little Blue Heron in the Brattleboro Retreat Meadows.  Although there was a pretty good chance that the sighting might be incorrect, I thought it could be worthwhile to check it out, especially by incorporating it into a Black Vulture search.  So I decided to head there the next afternoon, bird the Brattleboro marshes in the late afternoon looking for the heron, and then spend the evening watching for vultures to come into the roost.  Not only was I hoping that a Black would be in the group, but of course I hoped that I would see it in NH airspace.

The next afternoon I took a route to Brattleboro through southwestern Hinsdale, NH to maximize my time looking for vultures.  I didn’t see any vultures along the way though I always kept an eye to the sky as I was driving along.  I was now just a few miles south of Brattleboro on NH 119 when I passed by a convenience store and thought about stopping to grab a soda.  For some reason I decided not to stop, and kept driving toward my destination instead.  Less than a mile further up the road I saw 3 vultures a short distance up ahead of me and a bit to the west of the road.  I assumed they were just going to be Turkeys, but of course I needed to check them out.  Then I noticed one was smaller than the other two – could it be a Black?  They were still a little distance away, so I drove a bit farther along until they were even with me to the west.  Luckily there was a bit of a shoulder and I pulled off and quickly jumped out of the car.  One was indeed a Black Vulture!  I watched them for about a minute as the 3 birds circled a bit to the west, then headed north and soon disappeared behind some trees.

Of course it was easy to identify the Black Vulture.  The more difficult issue was determining which state these birds were in.  The stretch of NH 119 I was on at the time is immediately east of the Connecticut River, with very little land in NH between the road and the river.  The other key factor is the river itself is all in NH.  So that means there is at least a little NH airspace west of NH 119.  Thinking back to when I first spotted all 3 birds, they were just a bit west of the road, which most likely put them in NH airspace, though just barely.  Then as I watched them after I stopped, although they were to the west of me, I think they were close enough to still be in NH, likely over the river.  And then eventually they circled farther west into VT.  When they disappeared to the north I’m not sure which state they were in.  But in any case, I can definitely say I saw the Black Vulture in NH airspace at least for a little while.

Since the birds were only in view for a couple minutes it’s a good thing I didn’t stop to buy a soda.  Or for that matter, I’m lucky that I didn’t leave the house a few minutes earlier or a few minutes later.  Usually luck doesn’t play too much of a factor in finding new statebirds – but this time I was really lucky to find this bird.  Though my luck didn’t carry over to my search for the Little Blue Heron – I came up empty on that one.

Black Vulture was #356 for my NH list.  Although I’ve seen more species in a few other states, my NH statelist is definitely my best at 89 percent of the total ever seen in that state.  I’ve now seen Black Vulture in 30 states – virtually its entire range (see my statebird map below).  Though it is seen as a vagrant in a number of other states including Maine – the last New England state in which I still need this southeastern bird.

And one postscript – just a couple weeks earlier I finally added American Oystercatcher to my NH list.  At the time I remarked that the two most common birds I still needed for my NH list were the Oystercatcher and Black Vulture.  Nice to get both in the same month especially after so many attempts.  The next most common birds I still need for NH are Long-eared Owl and Atlantic Puffin.  Both are in NH most every year (Long-eareds undoubtedly nest somewhere), but are only rarely reported. 

American Oystercatcher, Seabrook Harbor, NH, June 2015

Oystercatcher has been somewhat of a nemesis bird for me in NH.  Although they do not nest in NH, they are regular but rare in NH especially as they pass by in route to their nearest nesting site a short distance up the coast at Stratton Island, ME.  Most NH birds are seen either as fly-bys along the coast, or on-shore especially at the mussel beds in Seabrook Harbor.  And even when they do land in NH their locations are very tide dependent, so they are typically not very chaseable.  The closest I’ve been to seeing them in NH was one I missed by a few minutes as a fly by on the coast (though I did see the Sabine’s Gull that day!), and a pair I missed by less than an hour that amazingly showed up inland at the Rochester sewage treatment plant.  The bottom line is that American Oystercatcher is the most common bird I still need for my NH statelist.  Then again maybe it’s tied with Black Vulture for that auspicious title.

So needless to say I was very excited when a post came across the NH listserve one early June morning that a pair of Oystercatchers were spotted in Seabrook Harbor from the Yankee Co-op.  The birder posted the sighting nearly real-time from the field, and since I noticed the e-mail just a couple minutes after it was was posted, this was all within 10 minutes of his sighting.  Five minutes later I was out of the house and heading to Seabrook, which would put me at the harbor within 90 minutes of the sighting.  That was pretty fast, but would it be fast enough?  The mudflats could change significantly in an hour and a half, so I could only hope that the birds might still be around when I arrived.

As I neared the coast I drove over the Blackwater River in Seabrook and saw that the tide was pretty low but rising.  Hopefully the mussel beds were still exposed.  Five minutes later I pulled into the co-op parking lot and the mussels were still above the rising waters, so I was optimistic.  I quickly scanned the mussel beds with my binoculars but there were no Oystercatchers.  I then pulled out my scope to check more closely but again I came up empty.  Suddenly my optimism was waning.  I then expanded my search to the mudflats to the south, and then the mudflats to the north, but still no Oystercatchers.  Then I looked even farther to the north and saw two distant dark dots on the flats.  I zoomed in and there were the pair of Oystercatchers – perhaps a ½ mile off.  Good thing they are big showy birds. 

I kept an eye on them because I knew other birders were on their way.  At times they would disappear behind a small rise in the mudflats and I got a bit worried, but they would soon reappear a short distance away.  Within a few minutes 8 or 9 other birders arrived and all got good looks at the birds.  At one point they flew in a bit closer, and I got this still very distant phone-scoped picture.

This is when they flew in "closer" - imagine how far away they were when I first spotted them

About 40 minutes after I arrived the Oystercatchers started to fly around the flats a bit, likely due to the rising tide.  And a couple minutes later they were gone, about 2 hours after the initial observation.  Sure was great that the initial sighting was posted so quickly.  Interestingly, they never landed in the mussel beds while I was there.

American Oystercatcher was # 355 for me in NH.  I’ve now seen this species in each Atlantic Coast state and each Gulf Coast state except for MS (see my statebird map below).

Seven Statebirds in Reno/Carson City, NV, and One in the San Francisco Bay Area, May 2015

My work travels take me to the San Francisco Bay Area frequently, and on several of those trips I’ve added a vacation day to either chase after a rarity (Falcated Duck no less than 5 times - all unsuccessfully) or pursue other statebirds.  Twice I’ve headed east to NV to work on that statelist, specifically to the greater Reno/Carson City area.  There I’ve teamed up with local birder Rob Lowry who really knows the local area, and has given me some excellent advice to help me find my targets.  Since I still need a number of birds for my NV statelist that summer in that area, I thought I’d add a day during my upcoming May trip to the Bay Area to try to fill in some of those gaps.

Before this trip I had 242 species in NV which is exactly the old ABA reporting threshold, last updated in 2010.  The most recent NV checklist published on-line (as of March 2015) by the Nevada Bird Records Committee is 492.  Using the old ABA formula that the threshold is half of the total statelist, the new threshold for NV would be 246.  So saying I’ve reached the old ABA threshold is a rather hollow victory in NV, and a good example of why I’ve set a somewhat arbitrary goal of being 15 over the old ABA thresholds in each state.  So with a number of potential targets, advice from Rob, and a lot of research on eBird, I was optimistic that I could make good progress on reaching the “Reportable Plus 15” goal for NV.  Realistically I hoped for at least 5 new statebirds on the trip.

The first stop was in the little town of Verdi just barely east of the CA/NV border to try for Acorn Woodpeckers.  There were several recent sightings with a pretty specific location given (the Bridge St. bridge over the Truckee River).  But a 45-minute stop yielded only a pair of Red-breasted Sapsuckers and a pair Flickers nesting in the dead cottonwood snags.  And even a quick stop at a nearby patch of woods where one was seen the day before was unsuccessful.  Interestingly, I never saw a single oak tree at these locations.  Not a very good start to the day.

Then it was on to Pyramid Lake to try for a number of waterbirds and migrants.  The route to the lake passed through some desert which had had a number of recent Golden Eagle sightings.  Although most appeared to be just lucky sightings of birds passing through the area, there was one eBird post of a pair carrying food at a nest.  A specific location was given, though of course you never know how accurate the eBird locations are.  I got to the reported nest location and scanned the mountainside with my binoculars, but did not see a nest.  But then I noticed a bump on one of the rocks, and with a scope view confirmed it was an adult Golden Eagle – statebird #1.  Hats off to the eBirder for putting in a very accurate location of the nesting spot!  I’ve now seen this species in 15 western states but only 4 states in the east.  (see my statebird map below)

The next stop was a spot called The Willows on the west shore of Pyramid Lake.  This is an oasis consisting of a thick stand of mature willow trees that can be quite a magnet for migrants.  I spent about 90 minutes there and found a number of passerine migrants, but they were all the regulars – like Wilson’s, MacGillivray’s, Yellow-rumped (both Audubon’s and Myrtle), and Yellow Warblers; Dusky and Ash-throated Flycatchers, Western Pewee, and Black-headed Grosbeaks.  Nothing new here, though a Great Horned Owl was nice.  Then I spent some time at the lake where late Greater Scaup and a Red-necked Grebe had been reported a couple weeks earlier.  But they were long gone, though the lake was teaming with Western Grebes. 

Then it was on to the southern end of Pyramid Lake in hopes of Long-billed Curlew and other shorebirds.  Although there had been no recent Curlew sightings here or elsewhere in the area, this had been a location for several sightings at this time last year.  But no luck here – the only shorebirds were 4 Red-necked Phalaropes.  I’ve looked for Curlew on all 3 of my trips to this area without success.  I also spent some time trying to find a summering odd gull but could only find California and Ring-billed.  On a brighter note a rare Common Tern mixed in with the Forster’s and Caspian Terns was nice. 

It was now past noon, and I only had 1 statebird in four stops.  Things had to pick up, right?

Then I was on to Mira Loma Pond in the Reno suburbs where a Common Goldeneye had been reported 2 weeks earlier.  Of course there was a good chance that this was a late migrant duck that was long gone (like the Greater Scaup and Red-necked Grebe at Pyramid Lake).  But over the years I’ve picked up a number of normally wintering waterfowl as statebirds during summer, so I was hopeful that this bird too might have decided not to migrate north for the summer.  And besides, this was a small pond and right on my route to the next location so it would be a quick stop.  When I arrived I scanned the far side and got some nice dabblers, a late Bufflehead, and several families of Canada Geese, but no Goldeneye.  Then I noticed a small group of waterfowl practically at my feet and there was the female Common Goldeneye (statebird #2).  I’ve now seen this species in 43 states across the country.

 

The next stop was Davis Creek Regional Park which is the spot for Calliope Hummingbird in the area.  It seems a male Calliope likes to perch on one specific bare branch where the nature trail crosses the road near the group picnic area.  That sure is a specific set of directions – though when I was in the area last year I spent over an hour at this spot without finding the bird.  So I gave myself at least an hour to try for the bird this time.  I arrived at the spot and didn’t see the bird at first, but then looked a few feet away and noticed what almost looked like a small bump on a nearby bare branch.  With binoculars it was obviously the very tiny Calliope Hummingbird (#3).  I go this phone-scoped picture of this most cooperative bird – where was it last year?

And then the bird flew off and was replaced by this bird with a remarkable gorget.

I still need Calliope in OR and MT in its regular breeding range, though I’ve seen it in four eastern and central states as a vagrant.

Then I was off to meet up with Rob Lowry so he could take me to a nest box southeast of Carson City where he had a Western Screech-Owl nesting.  After a short walk we arrived at the nest box, and Rob opened a panel of the box to reveal an owlet inside the box (#4).  Very cute.  A nice addition to my statebird map, but I still have several gaps for this species.

 

The last stop of the day was at Mason Valley WMA which was about a 90-minute drive to the southeast.  A couple weeks earlier Rob had had two of my targets there – American Bittern and Black Tern.  He gave me excellent directions to the two locations of these birds, but I wondered if they were just migrants and likely long gone, or would they be nesting locally.  Rob’s hand-drawn map to the spot was perfect, and I first went to the marsh where the American Bittern had been seen.  I’ve never had much luck getting bitterns to reply to taped calls, so I wasn’t sure how this one would go.  I started playing tape but got no response.  While I waited I noticed several terns flying around the marsh, but they were all Forster’s.  Now I wondered if I would miss both birds.  I walked a little bit farther along the marsh and played some more tape – still no response.  Then I thought I heard a faint call in the distance.  I turned off the tape and sure enough it was a distant calling American Bittern (#5).   

Now I needed to focus on the terns. This time I did a more thorough scan of the marsh but once again only came up with Forster’s.  But then I re-checked Rob’s map and realized he actually had the Black Terns in an adjacent marsh, not the one I was looking at.  So I redirected my attention to the neighboring marsh and instantly saw 3 Black Terns flying over the reeds (#6).  Things usually turn out better when you follow directions!  I’ve now seen this species in 41 states across the US, with the biggest gaps being in the Midwest. 

 

The next morning I woke up early to try for a pair of owls recently reported nearby – Flammulated and Saw-whet.  Both were reported more than 2 weeks earlier pre-dawn at Chimney Beach along the eastern shore of Lake Tahoe, barely in NV.  This is the spot where last year I got Pacific Wren and Pileated Woodpecker – two great birds for NV.  I arrived a bit before 4 and walked a short distance to the north to get into the conifers.  It was extremely quiet with no wind, so conditions were great.  Soon after arriving I started to hear Poor-wills calling – likely 3 different birds.  But there were no owls.  I started to play Flammulated tape and within a minute one was calling back (#7).  It continued to call the entire time I was there.  That was only my 3rd time hearing a Flammulated (CA and UT are my other states); I’ve still never seen one.  I also played some tape of Saw-whet but couldn’t coax one into responding.

That gave me 7 new NV statebirds and 90 species for this brief outing - a most successful trip.  And now with a statelist of 249 in NV, I’m 7 over the old ABA threshold and well on my way to “Reportable Plus 15”.  Or more accurately, I’m 3 over the calculated threshold based on the recently published NV statelist.  I’m tentatively planning a trip to northeast NV in summer 2016 to look for the Himalayan Snowcock and spend at least a day working on my NV statelist.  I’m hoping that after that trip I’ll be over the threshold to stay.

And now onto California –

After my mini-vacation in NV I returned to the Bay Area for my business trip.  One morning I had a couple free hours so I checked the eBird CA Needs Alert for local possibilities.  I keyed in on nearby Coyote Hills Regional Park which regularly had reports of American Bittern, and recently had a report of Black Rail.  I spent 2 hours there early that morning, and although I dipped on Black Rail, I did have a flyover American Bittern - #376 for me in CA.  I really like the eBird Needs Alerts!  Even after adding American Bittern in CA and NV my coverage for this species is still very spotty - like I said I've not had a lot of luck getting bitterns to respond to tapes.