California Pelagics

The California trip - arranged at the last minute - was the last "scheduled" one of six trips in 2013 designed to push my USA list toward 700.  The other five were: TX, AZ, FL, NC, AZ and netted one to four life birds on each trip.  However pelagics have always been a weakness of mine - not unrelated to a propensity for seasickness - so the largest gaps on my list have been shearwaters, storm-petrels and alcids.

I reserved a pair of California pelagics - 9/8 out of Half Moon Bay and 9/10 out of Monterey - and ended up with five pelagic life birds.  The weather was good, with light winds, so the boat trips weren't as challenging as, say, the NC pelagic trip.  In addition I saw the newly minted Bell's Sparrow of the canescens race (the "intermediate" race) at the end of its range where it abuts the belli race of Bell's Sparrow.  A hunch is that canescens is a cline between A.belli and A.nevadensis (Sagebrush Sparrow), but seeing them close to A.b.belli's coastal ranges makes me a little more comfortable counting it.  The first life bird for the trip was Scripps's Murrelet (#692) and the last was Bell's Sparrow (#697).

The Half Moon Bay pelagic was longer and deeper water, with the Monterey Bay pelagic only having a subset of the first species but pelagics are notoriously variable.  However the Monterey pelagic also had Blue Whale and a remarkable number of Humpback Whales (50++) feeding in the bay, including breaching Humpbacks, which made for a memorable end to the wildlife for the trip.  Although land birding was limited I did complete the trasher grand slam for the year with California Thrasher, and saw other species I hadn't seen in over a decade.

Pelagic species:

Sooty Shearwater              
Great Shearwater              (California rarity)
Pink-footed Shearwater        
Flesh-footed Shearwater   (#696)     
Buller's Shearwater   (#693) 
Black-footed Albatross        
Ashy Storm-Petrel   (#694)
Black Storm-Petrel  (#695)            
Red Phalarope                  (last seen 2001)
Red-necked Phalarope          
Sanderling                    
Pomarine Jaeger              
Parasitic Jaeger              
Long-tailed Jaeger            
Rhinoceros Auklet              
Cassin's Auklet              
Scripps's Murrelet   (#692)             
Common Murre                  
Pigeon Guillemot

Notable terrestrial species:
Black Turnstone                
Surfbird                               (new for Lower 48, second+ one ever)
Prairie Falcon                
Yellow-billed Magpie          

Wrentit                                (last seen 2001)

California Thrasher             (last seen 2001)

California Towhee              (last seen 2001)
Bell's Sparrow (canescens)      (#697)

Brigantine/Forsythe NWR, September 1st and Allentown NJ shorebirds Sept 2nd

With Jamaica Bay being uninspiring I've been spending some time at Forsythe/Brigantine NWR although even here the shorebird diversity is starting to drop.  Semipalmated Sandpipers dominated the scene, but Eastern Willets and Whimbrels have left.  I was lucky to find two Stilt Sandpipers, which have become scarce.  What was nice to watch was a mixed flock of Long-billed and Short-billed Dowitchers - mostly Long-billed - giving good options to compare the structure of the two.  While individual birds remain tricky the side-by-side comparisons offer up the expected overall trend of the bulkier body of the Long-billed.  Brig and the rest of southern NJ is a pretty good place for this, and Long-billed remain rather scarcer in NY.

Although in all sorts of messy molt, terns put on a decent showing.  I haven't seen a Common Tern here all year but Least and Gull-billed Terns have been regular in small numbers, the Caspian Terns were in the double digits and I also had a Royal Tern for a pretty good selection.  Forster's Terns and Double-crested Cormorants were feasting on localized schools of fish in the tidal brackish impoundment.


Although Brig is winding down for shorebirds, the area north of Allentown NJ along Sharon Station Road, Herbert and Gordon Roads has been pulling in a nice variety of shorebirds in lower numbers.  On Sept 2nd I finally got lucky with my quest for American Golden-Plover with one seen in a flooded field along Sharon Station Road.  Later on that same pond held Pectoral, Solitary and Semipalmated Sandpipers. Killdeer are everywhere, with a few Semipalmated Plovers joining them, plus a small flock of Least Sandpipers commuting between the Herbert Road field and the ephemeral pond along Gordon Road.  Although I've missed the relative rarities (Buff-breasted Sandpiper and Baird's Sandpiper) here it's fairly close to home and an interesting area to rummage around.


Brig:
Double-crested Cormorant
Great Blue Heron
Great Egret
Snowy Egret
Glossy Ibis
Osprey
Clapper Rail
Black-bellied Plover
Semipalmated Plover
Greater Yellowlegs
Lesser Yellowlegs
Ruddy Turnstone
Semipalmated Sandpiper
Least Sandpiper
Stilt Sandpiper
Short-billed Dowitcher
Long-billed Dowitcher
Gull-billed Tern
Caspian Tern
Royal Tern
Forster's Tern
Least Tern
Black Skimmer
Tree Swallow
Barn Swallow
Saltmarsh Sparrow


Herbert/Sharon Station Rds
American Golden-Plover
Killdeer
Semipalmated Plover
Pectoral Sandpiper
Semipalmated Sandpiper
Least Sandpiper
Horned Lark

Jamaica Bay, August 19th

On what has turned out to be my only trip to Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge this year, I did a circumnavigation of the East Pond (northbound up the shoreline, southbound down the trail) which turned out to be ill-advised on a quite warm day, while wearing waders.  In common with the general trend this year the shorebird numbers were unimpressive, with relatively low diversity.

Hurricane Sandy did a little remodeling on the East Pond - there's a trench along the south side of the East Pond where the (now apparently trashed) home had cut back the phragmites, although it's traversable, and there's a filled cut on the east side parallel to the train tracks.  So the salinity has probably gone up somewhat in the pond in the short term.

Nevertheless Semipalmated Sandpipers, Semipalmated Plovers and Least Sandpipers were numerous here.  Both Semipalmateds were mostly adults, but I saw a lot of juvenile Least Sandpipers on the trek, as well as quite a few juvenile Short-billed Dowitchers.  Both Western Sandpiper and Long-billed Dowitcher are uncommon to rare at Jamaica Bay, and commoner further south at Brigantine, and I didn't see either of those.  I did manage to snag a first-of-year White-rumped Sandpiper at the south end of the East Pond, wading in the cut with Dowitchers.  I saw a few more of them for a total of ~6.  Shorebirds were fairly nervous, with a juvenile Peregrine hunting the ponds periodically.  Up at the north end I saw American Avocet, Wilson's Phalarope, a Stilt Sandpiper, Ruddy Turnstone and a large flock of Black-bellied Plovers to flesh out the list.  The only two noteworthy ducks were Gadwall and a single Northern Pintail but otherwise it's a large number of Mute Swans, Mallards and American Black Ducks.

Gadwall
Northern Pintail
Double-crested Cormorant
Great Egret
Snowy Egret
Black-crowned Night-Heron
Glossy Ibis
Osprey
Black-bellied Plover
Semipalmated Plover
American Avocet
Greater Yellowlegs
Lesser Yellowlegs
Spotted Sandpiper
Ruddy Turnstone
Semipalmated Sandpiper
Least Sandpiper
White-rumped Sandpiper
Stilt Sandpiper
Short-billed Dowitcher
Wilson's Phalarope
Forster's Tern
Black Skimmer
Barn Swallow
Yellow Warbler
Northern Waterthrush
Boat-tailed Grackle

Forsythe NWR (Brigantine), August 10th

My birding had gone through a lull after the 5 trips in the first half of 2013, so I was a little behind the curve on shorebirds when I went out to Brigantine on Saturday.  I had hopes of getting the more exotic triple of Pectoral-Stilt-White-rumped Sandpipers but came away with only one of those.  A couple of consolation prizes.

Dominant numbers were Semipalmated Sandpipers, all but one adults in worn breeding plumage.  Short-billed Dowitchers came in second (also one juvenile), with lesser numbers of Least Sandpipers, Semipalmated Plovers, both Yellowlegs species.  What was a surprise were a large number of Stilt Sandpipers, particularly in the freshwater pool, where a ball-park estimate of 100 means that's more than I remember seeing in any single day.  Nice additions were American Avocet (my first in NJ), Wilson's Phalarope, two Western Sandpipers with residual rufous scapulars showing in plumage fairly well-advanced into basic/nonbreeding, and a few Whimbrels including four fly-overs.  I did not see any Willets, and the Eastern ssp is probably vacating its breeding grounds, to be supplanted by the Western ssp later in the fall.  Gull-billed Terns were first-of-year for me - I had around 10 including at least 3 juveniles, with a few Least and Caspians but no Commons this time around.   Clapper Rails were also first of year, and I had two venturing cautiously out onto the open mud.

Apart from a full complement of Ospreys (all platforms occupied - I wonder if Hurricane Sandy took down all the dead trees coastally), I had a single Northern Harrier and no Peregrines, although they may have been around since the shorebirds were more than a little skittish.

Cupsogue Red-necked Stint on July 4th

One of the better ways to spend a morning on a sultry July 4th was getting good looks at a rare Asiatic/Alaskan vagrant shorebird - a Red-necked Stint.  Red-necked breed in far eastern Asia and far western Alaska (Seward Peninsula and thereabouts).  They usually winter in south-east Asia and Australasia but very infrequently wander down the wrong side of the Pacific and the wrong side of the continent.  (They are fairly rare in California, also).  One had been recently seen north east of Boston.

Getting to Cupsogue County Park required a 2hr40 drive in the early morning via that least desirable of roads - the Belt Parkway in NYC.  Nevertheless at 5am on July 4th the traffic moves fairly well and I was one of the first birders at Cupsogue, although by no means the first person in the parking lot - the bay side is also popular with fishermen.   It was extremely foggy, so I left the camera in the car and just took the scope.  While waiting for the fog to clear I was watching Short-billed Dowitchers, Willets, a Spotted Sandpiper, Common (many) and Black (1) Terns, and a hybrid Dunlin.  This hybrid had been named as a White-rumped x Dunlin hybrid.  To me while one parent was definitively Dunlin the other could have been White-rumped or Western especially since the hybrid showed some arrow-shaped spots on the flanks.  Nevertheless that hybrid is not unprecedented.

Adult Red-necked Stint, NY, July 4th 2013

Either way, despite being a very interesting bird, it wasn't the target species.  The Black Tern was good because that was a FOY bird for me.  Once the fog cleared somewhat I followed another birder wading knee deep across the channel and onto an adjacent muddy island where fortuitously I found the Red-necked Stint within 5 minutes of scoping.  The other birder set off to photograph it, but actually staying put had the upside that the stint got closer and closer until I had excellent looks at all features from less than 50 yards.  Still a little far for good photos under crappy light, but I had good looks at the clean unstreaked red-rufous face and upper breast, the dark brown necklace of spots bordering the red coloration, the short bill, and the absence of obvious webbing on the toes.  Not that the latter is by any means obvious on the Semipalmated Sandpiper, which is named for that feature.  The good thing about July shorebird rarities is that they are invariably adults in some version of alternate plumage - this stint was in worn alternate.  The above picture is something I don't normally do - digiscope using my iPhone 4, and I've obviously got a lot of optimization to do on that front although by some miracle it's actually identifiable from that shot.

An excellent look at a rare shorebird that I'd only seen once before as an orange dot on the far side of the East Pond at Jamaica Bay WR the same day that I found the adult Sharp-tailed Sandpiper (August 3rd 2008).  Given that we've had the wettest June on record, Jamaica Bay itself is going to take a very long time to draw down - long enough to perhaps eliminate chances for Asian shorebird vagrants there this year.

This is an eBird data query of RN Stint sightings for July-Sept in the last decade.

Other birds of interest: first summer Arctic Tern; Roseate Terns; several basic-plumaged Red Knot; Dunlin; Least Sandpiper; Semipalmated Sandpiper; Semipalmated Plover; Black-bellied Plover; Black Skimmer.  The Arctic Tern is a NY state list bird for me.

Then all that was necessary was a 2hr45 drive home via the Verrazano Bridge ($15 toll these days).

AZ trip May 30th - June 8th

The fifth trip of a projected six for 2013 was an AZ early summer trip, best discussed at length in a separate trip report.  The five trips were: TX, AZ (winter), FL, NC, AZ (summer) with the west coast pelagic(s) still to come.  The highlights of this AZ trip were Spotted Owl (USA #688), Northern Pygmy-Owl (#689), Buff-collared Nightjar (#690) and Mexican Whip-poor-will (#691), made all the more unusual by getting three of those on the first day.  Both owls were at well-known nest sites, with views of the nestlings.  (Mexican) Spotted Owl is an endangered species, and Buff-collared Nightjar a rare one but I even had two Nightjars after I found a second one of my own.  The commonest species of the four - the Whip-poor-will - was if anything hardest to find and I enlisted the help of a guide who got me exceptional looks as well as lucking into a Mountain Lion in the drive up into the Patagonia Mtns.

Other good birds included: White-eared Hummingbird (Miller Cyn), Elegant Trogon (South Fork Cave Creek), Buff-breasted Flycatcher (Carr Cyn), Thick-billed Kingbird (Patagonia), Common Black-Hawk (Sunflower).  Many of the same species, in fact, as my "big western flycatcher trip" of 2006 which covered many of the same sites but two weeks earlier.  Slightly different mix of birds, with basically none of the migrants in 2013 that I found in 2006.

AZ was especially dry and arid with little water in the canyons and some fairly ferocious mid-afternoon heat down in the desert (100+ for most of the 10 days).  Few fires yet, by no small miracle, but those monsoon rains will be especially welcome.

Baldpate Mtn (Mercer Co NJ), May 26th

After a 500 mile drive back from Hatteras NC the previous day, I lacked a little enthusiasm for another 90+ minute drive pre-dawn to Stirling Forest and elected to bird locally at Baldpate Mountain.  It was fairly productive, with Blue-winged Warbler singing at the upper parking lot, House Wrens and Eastern Phoebes at the old farm house with about the only thing putting in a lower-than-typical showing were Indigo Buntings.  It was fairly windy and cool (low 50's at the start) which probably suppressed a few things.  Multiple Red-eyed Vireos and two Yellow-throated Vireos, but no Scarlet Tanagers or Great Crested Flycatchers and only the one Eastern Wood-Pewee.  Warblers put in a decent showing: three Blue-winged Warblers, a male and female Hooded (likely a pair but not together), several Ovenbirds, Chestnut-sided, Common Yellowthroats, a female Canada, a female Blackpoll (these two likely migrants but the rest are local breeders).  What didn't show up or sound off was a Kentucky - rather notoriously difficult to find at Baldpate - although I may have heard a distant one singing.

Getting sea-sick in the Gulf Stream: Hatteras NC Pelagic

Black-capped Petrel in Gulf Stream off Hatteras

I originally scheduled two pelagic trips out of Hatteras NC for May 23rd and 25th with Brian Patteson.  Storms canceled the first one, I took the one on the following day (Friday) as a "make up" but elected to skip Saturday's pelagic because of higher winds.  That pelagic went, but at 25-30 knot winds I don't regret not putting myself through that sort of hell for 12 hours.  The return trip back to Hatteras on the Friday trip was quite enough rough water for one spring.

My targets for the trip were lifers Black-capped Petrel and Band-rumped Storm-Petrel.  I got both of those but struck out totally on the "extras" I was hoping for like Fea's Petrel and Bridled Tern.  There was a decent showing of other shearwaters: mostly Cory's but also Sooty, Great and Audubon's along with good numbers of Wilson's Storm-Petrel.  In fact the one pelagic I went on had the fewest life birds of any of the ones that went out in that period.  C'est la vie.  Given the travel expense, lodging expense, and the fact that the pelagics are not cheap themselves it's not practical to do this sort of "double" again - I'd have to consult the marine forecast and do last minute bookings.  At the moment a west coast (Monterey) pelagic is more practical since there are quite a lot more semi-reliable pelagic species to be had over there in late-Sept/early-Oct.

On the rainy/stormy Thursday I visited Alligator River NWR where there were an absurd number of singing Prothonotary Warblers (several seen), many Indigo Buntings, Prairie Warblers, some Blue Grosbeaks, Black-throated Green Warblers, Common Yellowthroats, and a small handful of singing Hooded Warbler, Kentucky Warbler, Worm-eating Warbler (none of these seen).  The rain mostly negated photo ops.  I also visited Pea Island NWR on the way back down to Hatteras and notched up a few common sandpipers and plovers: Sanderling, Dunlin, Semipalmated Sandpiper, Semipalmated and Black-bellied Plovers, a few distant Red Knot.  Least Terns were fairly common here, Royal Terns less so, and I snagged my first Black Skimmer  for the year.  But the weather was still rather frustrating - I skipped out on attempting to find Chuck-will's-widow or Black Rail in local habitat because I wanted to get to sleep early ahead of the following morning's pelagic at 0515.

Nothing much of note on the 8.5 hour drive down, but on the return drive on Saturday I did see a Black Bear at Alligator River NWR and stopped at Bombay Hook NWR for a mis-timed visit at low tide that nevertheless did come up with a bunch of shorebirds (Short-billed Dowitcher still being a year bird at that point), Seaside Sparrow, Blue Grosbeak and Orchard Oriole.

Central Park Fri-Sat-Sun 17th-19th, 21 warbler species

With migration now moving along quickly I made what is likely to be my last spring migration CPK trip of 2013 as a Friday to Sunday triple.  Thursday was in fact the biggest migration day, but with birds left over on both Saturday and Sunday even if the weather on Sunday was quite wet.

Best birds: Olive-sided Flycatcher (Saturday), Black-billed Cuckoo (Friday), Tennessee Warblers (Sat, Sun: singing), a very late Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, late Prairie Warbler (Sat, Sun: singing).  The new first-of-year birds included me finally catching up with Cedar Waxwings.  I still maintained a perfect-miss record on Mourning and Kentucky, however.

On Monday morning, although a work day, migration was still humming along based on three warbler species (Blackpoll, Magnolia, Redstart) singing in my back yard, plus Red-eyed Vireo.




Double-crested Cormorant
Spotted Sandpiper (Sat)
Black-billed Cuckoo (Fri)
Chimney Swift
Northern Flicker
Cedar Waxwing
Olive-sided Flycatcher (Sat)
Least Flycatcher
Blue-headed Vireo
Red-eyed Vireo
Barn Swallow
House Wren
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher (Sat)
Veery
Gray-cheeked Thrush (Sun)
Swainson's Thrush
Hermit Thrush
Wood Thrush
Cedar Waxwing
Tennessee Warbler (Sat, Sun)
Northern Parula
Yellow Warbler
Chestnut-sided Warbler
Magnolia Warbler
Cape May Warbler (Fri, Sat)
Black-throated Blue Warbler
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Black-throated Green Warbler
Blackburnian Warbler (Fri, Sat)
Prairie Warbler (Sat, Sun)
Bay-breasted Warbler (Fri, Sat)
Blackpoll Warbler
Black-and-white Warbler
American Redstart
Ovenbird
Northern Waterthrush
Common Yellowthroat
Hooded Warbler (Sat)
Wilson's Warbler
Canada Warbler
Scarlet Tanager
White-crowned Sparrow (Fri)
Rose-breasted Grosbeak
Baltimore Oriole