CT Young Birders Club- Winter Waterbirds and lots of Owls

Today the Connecticut Young Birders' Club took a trip along the coast of Fairfield County, stopping at multiple spots along the way. Our first stop was Sherwood Island State Park, where some of the first birds that I saw were a large group of Horned Grebes. Finally!! The Horned Grebe had been my nemesis bird for a long time, and I was very happy to finally see some. Other birds of note were Canvasbacks, Goldeneye, Wigeons, and a nice Merlin. We stopped at a few other spots nearby, but did not see too much, so we headed to another location in Fairfield, where we were seeking owls. First, however, we spotted a pipit and a few more grebes (how can I not have seen them until now?!?) by the bathrooms. Heading from there to the owl grove, we had high hopes for multiple species, and were not disappointed.

Almost as soon as we entered the grove (the location of which, by the way, I am not allowed to disclose), Brian started gesturing excitedly and pointing. The reason? A beautiful Long-eared Owl perched virtually in full view, just off the path. After all the time I've spent trying to see a long-eared at Hunter Island, it was nice to get one so easily, and to get such good looks. Second lifer of the day, and a great one at that.

Long-eared Owl!

Brian wasn't done, however, and we had only walked a few more steps when he spotted a Great Horned Owl near the top of a tall pine. Cool owl #2.

I am not a good digiscoper. At all. But still, that is a Great Horned Owl.

For the finishing touch on hoped-for owl trio, Brian (the owl-whisperer) found a Saw-whet Owl perched in a smaller tree, and we had seen 3 owls in less than 10 minutes. It was probably closer to 5 minutes actually. 

The tiny Saw-whet Owl. It was a better view than this photo would suggest.

The owls were the clear highlight of the day, but we still found more birds after our Strigiform success- Ruddy Turnstones, Black-bellied Plovers, Brant, Red-throated Loon, Long-tailed Ducks, a Fox Sparrow in the parking lot, and a Bonaparte's Gull on the way home. 

It was a great morning of birding, especailly the grebes and owls. Two lifers, lots of year birds, lots of fun. Another young birder, Brendan Murtha also posted about it on his blog here, if you want to see more owl photos.

Good Birding! 

The Anatomy of a Chase (or, Dipping on a Lapwing)

A 10-step summary of a typical "twitch," from the perspective of my failed attempt at the Northern Lapwing in Connecticut on Sunday. A sort of how-to guide on missing incredible rarities. 

Step 1- Learn about where the bird is. This is generally done through a local Rare Bird Alert or state birding listserv. Example: "Wow, Lapwing in Connecticut! Awesome."

Step 2- Find out where the bird is. Google maps is your best friend in this step. Example: Doing a google search on Storrs, CT shows that it is nowhere near anything. That is a setback.

Step 3- Scheme. If you own a car and have a lot of free time, this step is unnecessary, but for young birders like myself, it is critical. Where will you be nearest to the bird? Would your parents be willing to make a detour? What is there that is close to where the bird is? Think shopping centers, museums, whatever. Example: "We have to drive back on Route 84 anyway, and the lapwing is just 24 minutes out of the way..."


Step 4- Hype up the bird. A lot. If it's an empid, good luck. Example: "It's a really rare plover from Ireland. Striking plumage. Very cool. And its the first one ever seen in Connecticut"


Step 5- Overcome the vast number of obstacles in your path. Examples: The thanksgiving traffic on the Mass Pike, the impending darkness, and the UCONN basketball game.

Step 6- Arrive at the rarity location, after getting lost a few times. There are now three options. Either the bird is there (go to Step 7), it's temporarily out of sight (go to Step 8), or just flew halfway across the continent five minutes before you arrived (go to Step 9)

Step 7- Rejoice, brag, and add the bird to your life list. Blog about how awesome it was, and how great it was to have seen it.

Step 8- Desperately search for the bird and pray your trip will not prove to be futile. Depending on the outcome, go to step 7 or 10.

Step 9- "Oh, you just missed it. Yeah, it flew that way, and kept going. It's probably back in Ireland by now. Nope, absolutely no chance it's coming back." Go to step 10.

Step 10- Despair. Having now wasted a fair amount of time for a great bird that you are not going to see, the Barnacle and White-fronted Geese nearby are small consolation. Yes, the Barnacle Goose is a Code 4 bird too, and the White-front is a lifer, but neither of them are lapwings. Go home, and instead of posting photos of lapwings on your blog, bore your readers to death with a long-winded tale of your failed search.

Can you guess what route I took? And seriously, the geese were good to see. That's not to say they make up for missing the lapwing, but it was not as bad as I portrayed it above. I'll have another chance to see a Lapwing in North America. Maybe. If I move to Newfoundland. 

Excellent Birds with the Connecticut Young Birders' Club

Where can you see a South American Fork-tailed Flycatcher, a Mexican Cave Swallow, and Canadian  Common Eiders and Lapland Longspurs, all on the same day? Why, Connecticut, of course!

The first field trip of the recently created CT Young Birders' Club was on Sunday, to Hammonasset State Park in Madison, with possibly a few other stops thrown in, time permitting.

Our first stop was the parking lot of Hammonasset, which held a large flock of Horned Larks (including some with very white eyebrows- lark subspecies id, anyone?), a slightly smaller flock of Snow Buntings, and 2 Lapland Longspurs, all birds that are easy to see at Hammo, but, especially in the case of the Longspur, tricky to see at most places. The yellow-and-black faces and odd running gait of the larks, the huge white wing patches of the buntings, and the bold striped pattern of the longspurs make this trifecta fun to watch.

At the water, we scoped out many Common and Red-throated Loons, a Surf Scoter, two White-winged Scoters, 8 Common Eiders. Shorebirds were common on the rocks and jetties, with one Purple Sandpiper along with the more common Dunlin, Sanderlings, Black-bellied Plover, and Ruddy Turnstones.

Land birds in the thickets and brush were somewhat scarce, but included Yellow-rumped Warbler, American Tree Sparrow, and Hermit Thrush.

Leaving Hammonasset, we headed to a Sewage Treatment Plant (sewage = good birds) in New Haven, at East Shore Park. There are more insects there than anywhere else at this time of year (the warmth from the plant, I think), and as a result there are often late warblers and swallows, insectivores that would not usually be around this late in the year.

Our targets were Cave Swallows, a bird that breeds in Texas, Arizona, and Mexico, and winters in  Central America. That is, most winter in Central America. Some end up on the east coast, where they find food at places like East Shore Park. And sure enough, there were two Cave Swallows swirling overhead not long after we arrived- a life bird for me. There were also a lot of warblers around for the time of year. In addition to the expected Yellow-rumped, there were an American Redstart, Blackpoll Warbler, and 2 Pine Warblers. Others had seen Blue-headed Vireo, Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, and a couple more warblers earlier in the day.

Everyone would have been satisfied with the Cave Swallows and the other good birds, but we made one last stop on the way back to Greenwich- Cove Island Park, new home of the Fork-tailed Flycatcher, a South American bird 3000 miles from where it should be.

I had seen the forktail Saturday, but it was nice to see it again, and I actually got better looks this time. An excellent bird, and a great way to end an extremely successful first field trip.

I didn't really take many photos,(Alex Burdo and Benjamin Van Doren did though- check out their blogs here and here)but here is a very bad photo of both of the Cave Swallows overhead:

I'm weighing whether that can even be considered a record shot - if I hadn't labeled it, would you be able to id the birds? I'm not a photographer, and the good bird, awful photo tradeoff is fine with me.

Fork-tailed Flycatcher

A usually South American Fork-tailed Flycatcher was found a couple of days ago at Cove Island Park in Stamford, just a half hour from my house. I was hopeful it would stay around until the weekend, and it did, so I went today to see it. A great bird. I got very good looks at it. Photos were less good. Two digiscoped shots-