QUICK POST: I got out this morning into the early afternoon. I started at sunrise in a blind at the Shawangunk Grasslands, ran for the GREATER WHITE-FRONTED GOOSE in Wallkill, and then ended up in the black dirt. It was cold but for the most part the light was great for photos and the birds were pretty cooperative, which made for a nice day.
Since it’s the beginning of another year, I’ve spent some time this week thinking about what I want my birding to be like this year. To be honest, I don’t really know yet. Fortunately, I did not have to worry about it today (which happens to be my first day of birding of 2019). That’s because this week three excellent rarities were located in our area:
So, with rarities on our mind, Linda Scrima, Maria Loukeris, and I headed up to Delaware County early this morning. The Golden-crowned Sparrow had been seen most often early in the day, so we figured that would be a good place to start. Our timing was good and we got on the bird not long after our arrival. We had a brief, unsatisfactory look at first, but then after a little while the bird returned and we were able to get good looks and some photos too. The GCSP was a lifer for Linda and Maria and a NYS bird for me.
On our way back, we stopped at the feeding stations at Smith Road and Woodard Road in Liberty. We did well at both locations for EVENING GROSBEAKS. We had approximately 45 at Smith Road and just under 20 at Woodard. Linda also had a Red-breasted Nuthatch at Woodard, but I never got on that bird.
From there, we headed towards Sussex County to try for the BLACK PHOEBE. It had been reported consistently all morning, so we liked our chances. Again, our timing was quite good. The rain had been falling pretty heavily, but it slowed to a soft drizzle not long after we arrived. And, more importantly, the bird was still present. And what a bird it was – I really enjoyed seeing this bird – what a cool little bird. But, this might have been the most challenging bird I’ve ever tried to photograph. The bird was very vocal, which helped track it, but it was also very active. It barely stayed in one place for a second. And the habitat didn’t help; we were shooting through the brush the entire time. It was a really great bird to see, but getting pictures was tough. The BLPH was a lifer for all three of us, so that was exciting!
We made one final stop, at Wallkill River National Wildlife Refuge’s Winding Waters Trail to try for the SAYS PHOEBE. The bird had not been reported all day, so we left it for our last stop. We walked the trail and saw other birders searching for it. We tried for just under an hour, but unfortunately, our luck had run out. One of the birders, a guy from Long Island, was pretty sure he heard the bird vocalize, this gives me hope that the bird might still be around and was laying low. Just a sliver of hope. Anyways, as Meatloaf says, two out of three ain’t bad. This is especially true when it come to rare birds.
This morning I headed up to Sullivan County. All week John Haas and others had been reporting some really good birds in the Liberty area of SC. I was especially ready for some good birding after a pretty disappointing Saturday birding locally in Orange County. The day was saved by a single bird – a PINE SISKIN at Linda Scrima’s feeding station – thanks so much Linda!
I connected early with John and he met me at Rayano’s feeder station, where I was able to briefly get on a single EVENING GROSBEAK. It was my lifer EVGR, so I was pretty pumped (#415). I snapped a few distant, documentary shots before the bird flushed. And then, while we waited hoping the bird would return, Karen Miller called John to report that she had COMMON REDPOLLS on Clements Road. We raced over (and when I say raced, I mean it – I didn’t know the way and I was trying to keep up with John, who was on a mission! Let’s just say I’m glad I recently got new tires.). Fortunately the birds were still present. We had great looks and I tried for pics but they were just a bit out of range for good ones.
Afterwards, I headed back to Rayano’s, hoping for a better look and maybe some photos of the grosbeaks. Karen joined me, as did a trio of birders from Rockland County as well as Ken McDermott and Lisa O’Gorman. We all waited for a good while and I was the first to leave. I figured I’d check the feeders at Woodard Road before heading back, and I’m glad I did. When I arrived there were nearly a dozen EVENING GROSBEAKS at the feeder station. I put out the word and then took photos. The whole crew from Rayano’s joined me, but unfortunately the birds flushed just as they pulled up. I couldn’t believe it! I waited a little while, but the birds did not seem like they were coming back any time soon so I left. Ken notified me later that 16 EVGRs showed up not too long after I left and everyone got them. Excellent day of birding!
I had to break tradition this year on Black Friday. Due to the recent substantial snowfall, Wildlife Drive at Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge was closed, so I decided to try a new spot. I headed to Onondaga Lake Park’s West Shore Trail to follow up on recent eBird reports of COMMON REDPOLLS there. I’d never been to the park; I found the parking area easily enough and as soon as I got out of my car, a local photographer named Tim was kind enough to give me the lay of the land. There is a network of trails that run along the shore of the lake and around the amphitheater. Tim went off on his own, but we met up not too much later and we ended up spending the rest of the day birding together. The trail was birdy with many of “the usuals”, with American Robins being the most prominent. Raptors were around in decent numbers; we had several Red-tailed Hawks, a couple of young Bald Eagles, and a Cooper’s Hawk (which I misidentified in the field as a Sharp-shinned Hawk) that did a very nice, close flyby. The lake didn’t have as much waterfowl as I’d hoped, but we did have six species, including a distant large flock of what looked to me like Scaup, but I’m not sure which one. We saw fresh Coyote tracks in the snow, as well as some scat; it would have been excellent to catch up with one of them!. The highlight of the day, however, was coming across a small flock of COMMON REDPOLLS just off the trail. It’s been a long while since I’ve seen them, back in 2013 at the Shawangunk Grasslands. I’ve seen one report this year already in Orange County, let’s hope they continue. It was a good day of birding, it was a cool, crisp day and we hiked maybe 5 miles and totaled 28 species.
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I would venture to say that See Life Paulagics‘ November 4th trip out of Brooklyn was not among their most productive in terms of seeing target birds. Unfortunately, it just comes with the territory. In spite of doing all the right things to find and attract birds, some days are just going to be better than others. Of the target species listed for the trip (Red Phalarope, Manx, Cory’s and Great Shearwaters, Northern Fulmar, Pomarine Jaeger, and Great Skua), we only saw Manx and Great Shearwaters. We did have all the expected gulls, scoters, and many Northern Gannets in every type of plumage you can imagine (they put on a real show, see below). Other good birds included: Black-legged Kittiwake (3-4), Lesser Black-backed Gull (3), Parasitic Jaeger (3), Bonaparte’s Gull (35+), and what I believe they eventually identified as Wilson’s Storm-Petrel (1 or 2). The Wilson’s Storm-Petrel was apparently a good find; they should have left the area by this time of year.
One of the more interesting things about the trip was the unbelievably large number of passerines we saw out there. By my count, we had at least 13 species of songbirds: Dark-eyed Junco, Purple Finch, Marsh Wren, Winter Wren, Brown-headed Cowbird, Red-winged Blackbird, Red-breasted Nuthatch, American Goldfinch, American Robin, Golden-crowned Kinglet, Yellow-rumped Warbler, White-throated Sparrow, and Pine Siskin! Add to that two bats! Apparently Saturday’s strong west winds blew many birds off course. The Paulagics crew came prepared for it, however. They brought two potted plants, some loose brush cuttings, plenty of bird seed, and water dishes. Some of the songbirds landed on the boat for a rest and to hopefully refuel. Unfortunately, others seemed too intimidated by all the humans on-board and would not land, or if they did it was only briefly. The Dark-eyed Junco made itself at home on the boat. When it landed, it was in dire straits. But after getting some water and food it was up and about, always under foot so you had to be very careful not to step on it. A Brown-headed Cowbird joined it; they both stayed for the duration, only flying once we were on land again. For me, it was sad to see these passerines out of their element and in potential peril, but it was also sweet to be able to help a few of them.
Later in the afternoon, we came across a large group of Northern Gannets actively feeding. It was pretty incredible to watch them diving repeatedly into one relatively small area. Then, the first whale appeared and then the Common Dolphins became apparent. In all there were two Humpback Whales and who-knows-how-many Common Dolphins. The dolphins were curious and spent much time swimming alongside the boat. It was a pretty incredible show to watch, but one that I found difficult to photograph. Part of my problem is that I didn’t know where to look – there was so much going on all around the boat. I tried to document it for a bit, but then stopped and just enjoyed the show. In my opinion, between the gannets and the cetaceans, this show saved the pelagic. As expected, the trip offered plenty of photo ops, so enjoy the pics.
Moments like these are like actual small miracles in my life. I will look back at them and draw on them for the rest of my days. Bobcat kitten, New York State, October 2018.
Last night and this morning I was having a feeling we might get a good bird in the county today. For some reason I was thinking it would happen at Turtle Bay, but instead it was at Skinner Lane, where I located a WHIMBREL in the rain around 7:30 this morning. I was super pumped; I put the word out and several birders were able to run for the bird. Rob Stone, John Haas, Karen Miller, Kathy Ashman, and Bruce Nott all saw the bird while I was still there; it was a lifer for both Kathy and Bruce. Clay Spencer reported the bird in the late morning as well. Whimbrel is a bird I have daydreamed of finding in our area for a while, and it is the 252nd bird on my Orange County life list.
This past weekend, Kyle Dudgeon joined me in what has become a yearly trip for me to the Adirondacks to photograph Common Loons. We arrived Saturday afternoon, set up camp, and we were heading out in our kayaks onto Follensby Clear Pond by early evening. Moments after I got in the water, a Common Loon popped up right next to my kayak, checked me out for a minute or so, and then dove under. We spent the evening on the pond with several cooperative adult birds; the weather was great and we had some decent light for photos.
We timed the trip so that we might be able to see some loon chicks. When the sun had set on Saturday evening, we were questioning our timing since we’d seen only adults.
Over dinner, I double checked when I’d had chicks there in the past – our timing seemed okay, and when we woke up Sunday morning at our campsite there was an adult with a chick on the pond about 75 yards out. Unfortunately the weather had taken a turn for the worse, and it was a rainy, dark, morning. We enjoyed seeing the adult feeding the chick and we had some real excitement when an intruder loon came into the area and “our” adult tangled pretty good with the intruder, eventually forcing him/her out of the area. The chick, in the meantime, hid itself along the shore. We knew where it was, but only because we saw it go there – it was REALLY well camouflaged. Eventually the adult came back and the two were reunited. It wasn’t long after that when the second adult arrived and the two adults took turns feeding the chick. It was pretty cool stuff to see, even though the distance and lack of light limited the number of decent photos.
Kyle was determined to get into the water and photograph the loons using a boogie board to prop his camera on.
The idea is to get as low of an angle as possible, which always seems desirable for bird photography. On Saturday, at first, he tried it in deeper water and struggle to keep the camera from getting wet. Later he tried where he could stand and he had much more success. He couldn’t convince me to get out of the kayak and try it (I’ve had enough camera issues recently, I don’t need to drop one in the pond!), but he ended up swimming with the loons both days and I have to say I love the low angle he achieved:
It was a brief, but excellent weekend with the loons. It would be interesting to spend a summer with these birds – you would learn so much and the photo ops would be insane. Until that happens, I’ll try to keep up the yearly visits. Here are some more of my favorite shots from the weekend:
This morning I joined John Haas and Karen Miller on a trip to Nickerson Beach on Long Island; we were hoping to see some of the great terns that have been reported there in recent days. It was my first time to Nickerson Beach, and I didn’t really know what to expect. There are nesting colonies of Common Terns, Least Terns, and Black Skimmers – all in a relatively small area, so the shear number of birds is absolutely incredible. Our timing was good for tern chicks and we saw plenty of both Least and Common Tern chicks. We spent much of our time between the Common Tern colony and the ocean, and it was remarkable to see how well the terns were doing feeding; there was a steady stream of COTEs heading out to the ocean and coming back with fish in their bills to feed young.
We were hoping that some larger groups of terns would loaf on the beach, this would increase our chances of seeing some different terns, but this never materialized to any great extent. Whenever a larger group of terns would start to develop, sure enough a walker or jogger would come through and flush the birds. It was a perfect “beach day” after all! Apparently we had missed a Royal Tern do a fly-by while we were checking out the Least Tern colony, but we did get lucky with four GULL-BILLED TERNS which spent a good amount of time flying above and through the Common Tern colony. I was excited because of all the likely terns, this is the one I wanted to get shot of – they are a beautiful clean, sharp looking tern and they are distinctly whiter than the Commons that they were flying among. Unfortunately, we left without getting a couple of our targets – Arctic Tern and Roseate Tern. It was a great morning of birding, and getting out super early, we beat the heat for the most part.
This evening I met up with Linda Scrima and Maria Loukeris at the Wallkill River National Wildlife Refuge’s Liberty Marsh. We were following up on a second hand report by Ken McDermott, from earlier in the day, of a CATTLE EGRET at the marsh. We had a pretty fabulous night of birding, with 4 species of shorebirds being seen right along Oil City Road (Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs, Wilson’s Snipe, and Solitary Sandpiper). An American Bittern called as soon as I got out of the car, and Linda got a sweet shot of one in flight (see below). Sora could be heard calling from just east of the viewing platform. And then, the CATTLE EGRET flew out of the marsh and right over the platform! It headed north and settled down just off of Liberty Lane. It didn’t stay there for long, however, it picked up and, lucky for us, put down about 100 yards out from the viewing platform. Excellent, lucky night of birding!
