The Upstate Bohemian Life

Got up early and went out in search of Bohemian Waxwing.  Will and Besty had showed me a spot the evening before where they'd seen them, so I went back to the spot in the morning.  After a little searching I found a flock of about 300 Cedar Waxwings in an apple orchard, feeding off of crab apple trees.  I wasn't sure of the protocol, but no one seemed to be home so I walked back in the orchard and scoped the flock.  There were about 1/2 dozen Bohemians mixed in, and  got a bunch of photos (it was snowing, so they're not great photos, but they're photos).  Bohemians are beautiful birds, and we don't see them so easily in New York every year.  As I mentioned in a previous post, this is an irruptive year for winter finches, so we're seeing birds that might normally spend their winter in Canada.  The Bohemian is a beautiful bird...really knocks your eye out with it's bright markings...and I was glad to get it checked off, since these birds are also fairly nomadic, which means you never know where they're going to turn up.  

Next I checked Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge (near Rochester), where a Ross' Goose was reported the day before.  This is a variation of a Snow Goose, a beautiful white bird that can flock in the thousands.  In fact, that's exactly what they were doing at Montezuma -- there were several thousand Snow Geese on the lake, and from the observation tow

er it was

 magnificent to see.  Unfortunately, they were on the wrong side of the lake, which meant they were a little too far to pick out a Ross's, and even if I could I couldn't g

et a definitive photo.  (You distinguish between these species by  the Ross' is smaller size and it's beak / head shape, so a close look is important).   Here's a photo of a Snow Goose -- Snow Geese are usually white, but this is a dark morph variation. 

 Different types of birding create different challenges...yesterday it was trying to make out the fine details on a fast flying bird from a distance.  Here it was looking at a group of 10,000 birds and picking out the one that was different, kind of like a giant game of Where's Waldo.  Another birder did pick out a Greater White Fronted Goose out of the thousands of Canada Geese, which made the second GWFG I'd seen in the past two weeks.   

I wound up the day in Phoenix, which is on the SE edge of lake Ontario.  There's a great spot there with lots of g

ulls, and I was hoping for a Glaucous gull, which we hadn't seen in Niagara.  There were a number of Iceland Gulls, but no Glaucous that I saw.  That means a probable trip to Monticello,  where there's a good dump that the gulls congregate at.  Or I might find one on Jones Beach, since they're about to start dredging the channel there and that churns up lots of food for the gulls and attracts all kinds of birds.  Or maybe I'll get one on my next trip to Niagara...

Niagara Falls

I started my big trip up to Northern New York with Niagara Falls, in search of the Thayers Gull.   By its markings it falls somewhere between an Iceland and Herring Gull, and since there is a great deal of variation in each of those species, there is basically overlap in most if not all characteristics that would identify the Thayers.  Thayers wasn't distiguished as a separate species until about 35 years ago, and recently the work that established it as such has been challenged as potentially invalid.  In other words, Thayers may not exist.  But for now it's recognized as a separate bird, and so it's a species I'd like to see!  

I had a photo shoot at noon on Saturday that was supposed to end at one, but in fact ended at 3pm.  OK, no problem, except that as I started the eight hour drive upstate I realized I'd forgotten my passport.  Since a lot of the birding I was planning to do the next day was in Canada, I had to turn around and go back to Brooklyn for it.  I finally hit the road around 4:30...I dropped my dog Monkey off with my mother in Westchester, and drove north, and drove, and drove.  Got into Rochester around 11:30 and slept a few hours, and got up at 5 to meet Willie D'Anna and Betsy Potter at Niagara Falls at 7:30.  Will is one of real gull experts, and I knew if anyone could help nail down a Thayers it was him.  This is one of the most technical and difficult IDs in birding, and it consists of taking into consideration all aspects of the bird including wingtip pattern, bill and head shape, fleshy-part coloration, and eye color, all of which need to line up in order to have a positive ID.  I wouldn't dare make a definitive call on a bird like this without a real expert like Will helping me.

Niagara is the best place in North America for gulls.  Every year thousands upon thousands c

ollect at the falls and along the river, and more rare gulls show up here than anywhere.  We tried a number of locations, many in Canada looking back at the US (remember, the bird I see has to be in New York).  We'd find a vantage point, often several hundred feet up above the flying and perched birds, and then start scanning.  One of us would find a candidate, and then try to help the others see it, too, out of the hundreds of gliding and milling gulls.  This can take several minutes of calling out the location of the target bird in relation to some landmarks along the river.  We found at least four birds that might be Thayers, including one excellent candidate, but none of them was perfect.   This is the closest we got.  Really, it's got everything it should to be Thayers, but the mantle color (the grey on the back and wings) was just a little too light for our taste.  Again, in many people's books this would be a Thayers, but I really want as close to an unequivacable bird as possible.  

Next we moved down river, and Will got a call from a fellow birder tipping us off to some Little Gulls mixed in with a large flock of Bonapartes.  Little Gulls are the opposite of Thayers, ID-wise, since the black undersides of the adult bird's wing really stands out, even at a distance, and is completely diagnostic.  Here's an example of a Little Gull (we found 3 total) mixed in with Bonapartes.

Overall it was a fantastic day, despite not finding my perfect target bird.  It's always great to bird with someone who's much more experienced than you, and I think I doubled my gull knowledge in one day (2x0=?)   Will and Betsy, like a lot of the birders I met, were just great people, and I'm looking forward to going up again in search of that elusive Thayers!

De-Railed

Went out today to look for Virginia Rail and Long Billed Dowitcher at Massapequa Lake.  The weather was inclement, with a fair amount of fog and cold rain.  I found the Dowitcher right away, but unfortunately I did it by flushing them, so I only got flying views of the birds.  They did call, though, and the call is one of the best ways to distinguish Long and Short billed Dowitcher, so it was a good ID (along with the fact that these birds have been regulars at the lake).  I'm sure I'll get some photos at some point in the year.  The Rail was a lot more difficult, and for the second time I played Rail calls and didn't see the bird.  Not sure what I'm doing wrong (if anything), but I plan to try it again until I see it.  I did see a few new birds for the year, including this Winter Wren.  I spotted it in the brush and tried to get a photo, but it was being skulky (as they often are), so I played part of a call to see if he would come up.  I immediately regretted it when the bird not only came up, but began to hop around me from perch to perch, scolding and agitated.  I beat a retreat and felt poorly about interrupting the birds routine, and thoroughly chastised for it.  

Next I went out to Point Lookout for the Red Necked Grebe that was seen the day before. 

The fog was limiting, and visibility was only about 100 feet, so the bird may very well have been there and just out of sight.  I did find a group of Purple Sandpiper working in the same spot I'd seen Ruddy Turnstone the day before, though.   I find that regardless of the conditions, if you go out and work and area something always seems to turn up!

Solitaire Photos

I spent the day out at Jones again, looking for Saw Whet Owl, Red Necked Grebe, and anything else.  I did the full walk out to the point from the Coast Guard station, which takes about and hour and a half.  There were large rafts of Scoter off the point, numbering in the several thousand.  There was also a nice sized flock of Long Tailed Duck.  I also looked around for owl for a good 45 minutes, and was ready to give up when I ran into another birder.  We talked for a bit and I mentioned I was looking for owl.  He said, "I can show you", and pointed to a tree about 20 feet away, where the owl was perched at the top in plain view.   

It was getting later and I thought I'd try one more time for the Solitaire; although I'd finally seen it the day before, I really wanted a photo for the blog.  I went back for the fifth time to Oak Beach around 3pm, and met up with several other folks who had been looking for about an hour without luck.  They left a few minutes later, and the bird appeared almost immediately!  I

 called their cell phone and they raced back, and we all got these great looks at the bird that other birders had been reporting.  The Solitaire perched up on top of one tree, and then flew down and ate a berry, and then flew to another tree--I took a few hundred photos.   Here's one of them...accounting for the five days I put in, this is about a 17 hour exposure.

Montauk Reducks

I went out to Montauk again to look for the Pink Footed and Barnacle Geese that I had missed on the 3rd.  It was an amazing contrast to the freezing cold weather I had that day...balmy and sunny, probably up around 60F.  The geese were right where they should be at Deep Hollow Ranch, and I got a good look at both before moving on to Montauk Point, and then back towards Dune Road in Westhampton.  

Dune road runs along a barrier island, and has marsh and beach on either side.  It's a great place to see Bittern, Rail and other marsh birds.  I ran into Carl Starace, a birder who lives out on Long Island, and we looked together for the Snowy Owl that's been reported there.  Sure enough, we found it perched on top of one of the duck blinds on an island  in Shinnecock Bay.  Any owl that sits out in the day is ok by me, and this is an especially beautiful bird.  This particular Snowy was not fully adult, and had some dark markings in it's plumage.  Notably, there was a dark ring around its head that looked like a halo.  It was an angel for me:  my 100th bird of the year!  

I left Carl and drove very slowly down Dune Road with the windows open, hoping to flush an American Bittern.  These birds are masters of camoflauge, and when then stand still in a marsh they are almost indistinguishable from their surroundings.  I spotted this one before I came up on it, and then got out and got some shots before it flew off.  

Finally, I took another stab at the Townsends Solitaire in Oak Beach.  This was the fourth time I've been looking for this birds since January 1st.  I arrived around three and met with some other birders also looking for the Solitaire.  The bird has been hanging out at the end of a dead end road, and there were a lot of Sunday drivers out because of the unseasonable weather.  At around 3:30 a driver came up and made a U turn right where we were standing, and the Solitaire flushed out from some dense brush behind us and flew off to the top of a pine tree.  I quickly tried to locate it in my scope before it flew again, but wasn't fast enough and the bird flew west to a distant spot behind the pines.  I thought for sure that we wouldn't get another look, and was mentally resigning myself to coming back a fifth time to wait the bird out.  Luckily, fellow birder Jeannie Carillo was there and convinced me to stay until dark.  At sunset, the bird reappeared!  It flew back into a nearby tree, and Jeannie immediately ID-ed it.  Before I could get my glasses up it was gone again into the brush between two houses.  I was beginning to think I was jinxed with this bird!  We both moved around and tried to get a view of where it might be, and after ten tense minutes Jeannie re-found it perched on a dead limb.  I got one good look and a positive ID (but no photo) before it flew off again.  What a relief!  I'd like to have a photo, but the bird is unmistakable and seeing it was enough for me to count it as a "checkmark".   Thanks Jeannie!

Winter Finches

Since the Franklins and Sabines gull dissapeared from Dunkirk Harbour upstate, I've saved a trip there and have been able to focus locally.  Yesterday was Long Island, and today I went up to the lower Catskills for some of the winter finches that have been reported there.  Many of these birds are eruptive, meaning you won't see any in the area one year, and then the next they'll be everywhere.  This has been an "everywhere" year, with birds like Pine Siskin, Hoary Redpoll, Red Crossbill and Bohemian Waxwing all coming downstate, and even as far as New Jersey.  This is generally attributed to a crop failure in Canada (the crop refers to what the birds would normally eat), which forces the birds to move south and find food elsewhere.  As is so often the case, what's bad for the birds is good for the birders, and many people in our area are seeing there birds for the first time.  

I started at Curt McDermott's house in Orange County...he'd posted a Hoary Redpoll at his feeders, and has been extremely generous in accomo

dating all the birders who have come up to see it.  There are two general types of Redpoll, Common and Hoary, and the Hoary is by far the less Common.  It can be a little tricky to positively ID...the differences between the two species are relatively subtle, and there is some overlap between the two.   The main issue is finding clean undertail co

verts (as opposed to streaked), as well as a "punched in" look to the beak.  

The bird also has a frosty, grayish white tone (as opposed to a warmer brown), and less streaking on it's flanks.  This bird seems to fit all those criteria!

On the way to my next location I saw a huge bird fly across the road and new immediately that it was a Pileated Woodpecker.  These birds are incredible-their size is always

 surprising, and they have a bright red pointed head.  Not an uncommon bird upstate, but a great one t

o see.

Next was the Pine Grosbeaks,

 seen at a crab apple orchard for the past week.  Crabapple trees are a source of food for many birds in the winter, and are a good place to check for unusual winter birds like the Pine Grosbeak and Bohemian Waxwing.  I saw about 20 birds in this flock...they were surprisingly quiet compared to other big flocks, and several came within 10 feet of me to feed on the apples.  They remind me of parrots in their mannerisms, and there coloration is equally exquisite, if subtler in tone.  

Next I j

oin

ed up with a New Jersey birder and we cruised some of the local roads.  She spotted a Northern Shrike perched up in a tree, and I saw a fl

ock of Wild Turkey roaming a fallow field.  It always help

s to have extra eyes when you're looking for b

irds!

Finally I went to Shawangunk NWR to look for Short Eared Owl and Rough Legged Hawk.  The hawks were in strong evidence, with four separate birds perched around the grassland area (Shawangunk is an old airport that has gone to seed), and there were nine Northern Harriers that I saw, including five adults.  The adult Harrier is sometimes called the Gray Ghost because of it's beautiful gray and white plumage.  I've only seen a couple in all of last year, but here were five circling and cruising the meadow for prey.  The only thing missing was a Short Eared Owl.  I saw eight here about a month ago, but none today.  Still, I can't complain...it was a great day in the Catskills!

Chats and Kings

I had a wedding to shoot yesterday, so I squeezed in an hour of birding at Prospect Park at sunrise. There's a Yellow Breasted Chat which has been hanging around for several weeks. Remarkably, it's one of two chats that are probably in the park, one near the Boathouse and another in the Botanical Gardens. Chats are notorious for their skulkiness and secretive behavior, so it was a great relief to spot it almost immediately as I came into the park. I got some excellent views (Chat-wise), and a number of photos. Then back to my house by 8:30 to go to Bethlehem, PA, to shoot a cool wedding at the art center there. While we were doing portraits outside a large flock of crows began to fly overhead. An hour later, the flock was still streaming over...thousands of birds silently moving across the sky.

We got back to Brooklyn and in bed by 1am, and then up at 6am to go again for the Townsends Solitaire that's eluded me twice. I spent four hours at Oak Beach from sunrise to around 11:30, and got skunked again. The bird was seen yesterday, so I know it's still around (I was worried I might be killed or driven out by the frigid weather on Thursday), but it's been very uncooperative, and it's taking up a lot of the hours I'd like to spend looking for other birds. This is the rarest bird in NY right now--I believe this is only the 8th Solitaire to be seen in NY State--and it probably won't show up again this year, so I have to keep trying. At 11:30 I decided to go for a few other birds on the North Shore of Long Island that would also be great additions. I met up with Seth Austubel who is a much more experienced birder than I, and he helped me spot the Barrow's Goldeneye that was drifiting in a flock of Common Goldeneye off Oyster Bay (by Centre Island). The birds were so far away that they were almost invisible to the naked eye, but through the scope I could clearly make out the different head shape, the different sized and shaped white spot on the face, and most importantly the black streak that goes from the shoulder to the waterline that differentiates Barrow's from Common. It was too far for a photo, but I hope to return in the next few weeks and get a shot if the bird comes closer to shore. This duck has been returning to this area for a number of years, and should hang out for a bit. Seth also tipped me off to a King Eider nearby, and I drove down the road to look for it. The King can be a tough bird to find, and the females can be hard to differentiate from Common Eider without a great view. I couldn't find the birds at first but then located them a few hundred yards down the beach from where Seth had seen them. Luckily, this King Eider is an immature male, so he's pretty distinctive from the Common Eider he was with.

Next I went to Sunken Meadow State Park. It was 2pm and daylight was getting short, but this turned out to be a very easy bird to spot. The Black Headed Gull that has been seen here for several days was happily darting around a pond at the end of Parking Lot 3, picking up little bits of food out of the water. Gulls can be very hard to ID, but this one was very clear...it looks like a Bonapartes Gull, but with a bright red bill and legs. A few minutes for photos (and for my dog Monkey to stretch his legs), and we were back on the Sagiponack Parkway towards the South Shore to get the last hour of daylight looking for the Solitaire again. I met some birders from the North Fork of Long Island, who told me someone had seen the bird at 12:30, an hour after I gave up. And again, no bird, so now I've logged about 13 hours over 3 days on this bird. Aaaarrrggg!

As the sun set I drove down the beach to a spot where a Barn Owl had been called out a week ago. I tried playing a call for a few minutes, but no response. It's the exciting thing about birding...even though it didn't work this time, some day I'll do that and there will be a loud scream back (Barn Owls make a call like someone is getting murdered), or I might even have a big, all white raptor silently swoop down and flash in front of me.

Geese

I had to do a photo shoot today, but before I did I went out to Staten Island to see the reported Greater White Fronted Goose. I found him on the resevoir off of Victory Road, along with several hundred Canada Geese. He was a little tricky to spot, since he had his head tucked, as you can see in this photo with a Canada. Two differences are its slightly smaller size and a white horizontal line along its side just above the water line. During the next hour he did bring up his head, and I also got a look at his tail. The tail has a white band which is important in separating this goose from the barnyard or Greylag goose, which is a common domestic goose.  This is apparently a know Greater White Fronted that has returned over several winters, so that helps confirm the ID as well. I can say this is the first "rare" bird I've seen, with hopefully a lot more to come!

Townsends Solitaire

I can't believe it's only day 3! I've been going non-stop to pick up the rarities in the area, but I'm afraid my luck has turned a bit. I went out first thing on the 1st for the Townsend's Solitaire at Oak Beach, and spent an hour in the freezing rain with no result. I did spot an Iceland Gull, which may actually be an Iceland/Thayers hybrid. These gulls can be tricky to separate, and it takes a lot of care (and good photos) to ID one for sure (and they're not all ID-able). The next day I came out and stood in the snow and cold for 7 hours (!) waiting for the Townsend's Solitaire to pop up, again without result.  So I headed up to Montauk and where some friends had very generously offered me a place to stay. Got there around 9pm and got up at 6, ready to pick up the Barnacle Goose and the Pink Footed Goose, both of which I'd already seen at Deep Hollow Ranch (in Montauk), and which have been hanging out for many weeks. Well, it looks like the sub-zero temperatures drove even the geese away, and I missed both of them as well. I spent a few frigid hours on the cliffs of Montauk Point looking at the thousands of scoter which were sheltering there, trying to find a King Eider. Again, no dice, though I did get Common Eider, and there was a Harlequin Duck bobbing around the rocks. I also got a quick look at a group of 10 or 20 Common Redpoll who seemed eager to keep moving in the cold weather and high winds.  Next I tried Hook Pond, which can be a good spot for Tundra Swans...this time the pond was completely frozen over, so no Tundras. I did wind up seeing two Lesser Black Backed Gulls, one at Lazy Point ("Larry", a regular there) and another on Dune Road in a parking lot where someone was feeding the gulls. As the sun went down on Dune Road the gulls flew up and flashed yellow on the blue sky...a really nice way to end the day.

Big Year Day 1

Wow!  That was a long day.  Up at 5:45am, out to Jones Beach to try and get the Townsend's Solitaire that's been lingering there.  Well, I got dirstracted at the Coast Guard Station and thought I might get a gull or two, and then wound up hunting for a long-eared owl, and didn't get to Oak Beach (where the Solitaire is) until 10am.  Spent some time in the freezing rain looking with no luck, and found out later it had been seen there around 8am.  This means I go out again tomorrow and try it earlier, like I had planned for today!  Rushed over to Massapequa Lake for Eurasion Wigeon, Lesser Scaup, Canvasback, Redhead, Common Merganser, and other assorted waterfowl, and then back to Park Slope to do my food co-op shift at 1pm.  Helped people with groceries until 3:45, and then flew over to Prospect Park to get the pintail that's been there for weeks.  No time for a Chat (there are two in the park right now), and no sign of the Goshawk.  Wound up with 41 species for the day, including a possible Iceland Gull at Jones Beach (I'm just making sure from the photos).  Then home to process 1200 photos (not all from today, but still...) and get everything posted.  This is a full time job!  I'm figuring it will slow down once I finish this early, frantic rarity collecting, and once I get my list for the year a little more full.  I'm posting photos of every species I see this year here, so check them out.  Tomorrow it's out to Montauk and the next day possibly upstate for a reported Hoary Redpoll.  Yikes!