Lifer

The Scene: Scanning the waves across the street from my beach house, looking at scoters and hoping for alcids.

The Bird: A pale cream gull, soaring by on the wind.

The ID: First cycle gull, with an all dark bill. Glaucous would have more pink on the bill, and be bulkier, as per my new Birds of Europe guide.

The Lifer: Iceland Gull

Merry Christmas and good birding!

A Taste of Winter Birding

I went to my beach house in Massachusetts this weekend, which allow me to freeze my fingers off looking for cold-weather birds that would be tricky to find closer to home. Typing on a blackberry, as I am doing now, precludes a full report, but some of the highlights included Great Cormerant, Long-tailed Duck, eiders, Surf Scoters, Bonaparte's Gulls, and great looks at gannets. From a non-birding perspective, 4 seals were fun to see. It's not winter yet, and birding from the same spot at Christmas will be more productive, but an early start and a pair of year birds (GRCO and LTDU) were both good.

A Rained-out Beach Day...

...is still a good day if you can see gannets, my favorite bird, while lying down in bed.

And tomorrow could be even better, since I'm headed to Manomet Point for some more stormbirding.

Triskaidekaphobia

Triskaidekaphobia-the fear of the number 13

On Friday, August 13th (8/13), at 8:13, 13 birders set out from the North River Audubon in Marshfield, MA, for a morning of birding. Superstious anyone?

Our first stop was Third cliff beach in Scituate. Shorebirds numbers were low, hightlighted by a White-rumped Sandpiper and a few Piping Plovers. Other good birds were a pair of Bonaparte's Gulls, a gannet, 2 coopers hawks, and a peregrine.

Even better was the next stop, Scituate reservoir. There we found a Stilt Sandpiper and a Pectoral Sandpiper in the same field of view, with a snipe and a few more white rumps nearby.

I finished the morning with 63 species, 3 year birds, and 3 state birds. Who says Friday the Thirteenth is unlucky?

One Good Tern...

(Arctic Terns, Plymouth Beach, MA, 7/8)

... Deserves another.  However, in this case, there was not just one other good tern, but 4. On a trip to Cupsogue, a great birding location on Long Island, I saw Gull-billed, Roseate, Sandwich, and Royal Terns. A lengthy trip report will be posted as soon as I write it, which might, unfortunately, be a while.

Memorial Day Sedge Wren

Sorry I haven't posted in a while- I've had finals, and been away for the past 3 weekends. The first of those three, Memorial Day, I went to my beach house in Massachusetts. I was lucky, and there had been a Sedge Wren, rare in MA and difficult to see anywhere, at the local wildlife sanctuary, Daniel Webster Audubon.

So as soon as we arrived, I went to the sanctuary to see if I could find it. There were Bobolinks and Purple Martins everywhere- Daniel Webster is primarily a grassland (good for bobolinks) and there is a large martin colony there. A Willow Flycatcher, Great Egret, and Osprey were also notable.

I made my way to the Fox Hill observation platform, where the wren had been seen. There were two people there. Thee wren had not been seen or heard in 30 minutes, they said. After 15 minutes of waiting and listening, the wren sang, then flew directly towards us, landing in a clump of grass, then perching near the top to sing- great looks. It dove back into the grass, and emerged a ways to the right, and slightly closer. It moved around a bit more, then flew even closer, giving great looks from 10-15 feet away, before sinking into the brush again, and falling silent. Great looks at a life bird, and one the is apparently not prone to giving great looks, ever.

No shots of the Sedge Wren, but some miscellaneous photos from the short trip:

Flicker-

Bobolink-

Bobolink Paradise (I know there is one in this photo, but I can't find it. Can you?)-

And finally, a difficult (I think) if not impossible quiz. I think the bloggers at 10000birds have the "diabolical quiz" thing trademarked, but this is one. Post your guess as a comment-

Good Birding!

Christmas Weekend Birds, Bird Gifts, and some Fog

Sunrise at my beach house. ^

My supplies of birding equipment and bird stuff get a huge boost every christmas. This year I got Kingbird Highway, which I already wrote about, the Sibley Guide to Trees, two bird calenders, and, best of all, a new camera. With 12x zoom and 10 megapixels, it is a lot better than my other camera. As a result, most of the photos here are going to be my own, including all here (except for the camera below.)

I spent Christmas weekend at my beach house in Massachusetts, so I spend a fair amount of time birding, especially seawatching, even though the weather was bad.

Observations by day:

Friday- Looked at the ocean for a little across the road from my house. Very cold. Got Scoter, Eiders. That's about it.

Saturday- More Seawatching, same spot. Added White-winged scoter and confirmed surf scoter. Still bad weather.

Sunday- We braved driving rain to go birding. At one spot, I saw red-breasted mergansers, my year common goldeneye, more scoters, eiders, some purple sandpipers, and a possible black guillemot. On the way back, I saw my life Great Cormorant on a dock. Later in the day, I went to duxbury beach. We were buried in fog, but I still found Snow Buntings, "Ispwich" Sparrows, Tree Sparrows, and more eiders.

Snow Buntings- The answer to the quiz below- five in each photo.

The rest are some fog shots:

Memorial Day Weekend in Massachusetts

                                                              (again, not my photo)

For memorial day weekend I went up to our beach house on the south shore of Massachusetts. I started the weekend by going to Wompatuck State Park on Saturday. There had been Acadian Flycatcher, Cerulean Warbler, and Worm-Eating Warbler reported from there. I missed on all three. Acadian Flycatcher I might have heard, but I am not sure. Cerulean and Worm-eating were total failures. Oh well. I did see 4 flycatchers (but not the one that mattered)- Pewee, Phoebe, Kingbird, Great-Crested. On the way out, we paused by a house with a hummingbird feeder, just in time to see 3-5 hummingbirds flying around and feeding. One male was even doing his u-dive display flight. 

Later that day, on the beach, I saw least and common terns, greater yellowlegs, willet, BB Plover, Killdeer, and Semi Sandpiper. One house along the beach is abandoned, and there is a huge swallow colony there. Mostly barn, but I did see one small brown swallow that I think was a bank swallow but I didn't get a long enough look to be sure. 

On Sunday, I took a brief trip to the local Audubon, Daniel Webster Nature Sanctuary. It contains on of the largest colonies of Purple Martins in the state. The highlights of the trip were hundreds of martins, a little blue heron, yellow warblers and yellowthroat, GC Flycatcher, Green Heron, Little Blue Heron, oriole, and my personal favorite, dozens of Bobolinks. They were obviously in the peak of the mating season, as all the males were noisily singing and chasing each other. Many flew right past us, and one perched ~15 away singing. Very cool and beautiful birds. They and the martins are the specialty of that sanctuary, and are very likely to see every time you go there. 

Good Birding,

Corbett