Birdwatching (birding) is
a multi-billion-dollar industry in the United States. All those billions of
dollars are pumped into the economy from the purchase of bird identification
guides, bird finding guides, binoculars, spotting scopes, ridiculous clothing
like funky hats and vests, and other necessities. I hope the calculation of
economic impact also includes airfare, rental cars, hotels, and food while
traveling especially when a rare bird has been seen on the other side of the
continent. If these categories are not included in the economic impact analysis
they should be!
Long ago in birding
history (I’m talking about the 1970s) news of a rare bird was painstakingly
difficult to find. Many local or regional bird groups maintained weekly telephone
recording updates of rare birds on a weekly updated message. Although useful
and helpful, these phone updates were not in real time. Let’s say a rare bird
alert was changed on Monday and a rare bird showed up on Tuesday. Unless you
had Superman’s eyes you wouldn’t find out about the bird for 6 long days and it
may very well have departed before the next update.
Two friends of mine, one
from Norfolk, Virginia, the other from the Maryland suburbs of Washington DC
discovered a way to cope with last minute sightings of rare birds. In those
days, when there were no penalties for cancelling flights, they booked flights
almost every Friday to San Francisco, Los Angeles, Tucson, Houston, and Miami. Then
they waited through the week to find out if any rarities had been discovered. If
a rarity was found in Southern California, then on Friday night these two flew
to Los Angeles and spent the weekend looking for the bird. If no rarities were
discovered during the week, they cancelled their reservations and waited for
something exciting the next weekend.
Later, an industrious man
in North Carolina developed NARBA – the North American Rare Bird Alert. This
subscription service allowed you to call a phone number and receive rare bird
updates almost in real time. I recall several times checking the alert in the
morning then calling back in the afternoon only to hear that a newly reported
bird had been added to the alert since my morning call. NARBA revolutionized
the art of chasing birds.
In contemporary society
the distribution of rare bird information is almost instantaneous. Platforms
like Twitter (screw Elon Musk – I refuse to call it “X”), Facebook Email, and
others now allow birders to find a rare bird and instantaneously distribute
information about its location. Many times, these updates are accompanied by
digital images of the bird confirming the identification. In 2010 I did a “Big
Year” in Florida to see how many species I could find inside the boundaries of
the state from January 1 to December 31. Courtesy of Facebook, one day I
learned about a Red-legged Thrush in Palm Beach County. This West Indies
endemic had never before been seen in North America so this was major news.
Learning about the bird I dropped everything and drove three hours across the
state to the birds location where I easily found the Red-legged Thrush. The next day the bird was gone never to be seen
again. Had it not been for electronic alerts I would never have participated in
the first record of this species in North America.
The Chase
All hell breaks loose when
a rare bird is discovered. Airline websites are scoured for the cheapest fare
to the airport closest to the bird. Rental car reservations are made, hotels
booked, and local contacts are contacted. Then you board a plane and fret for
an hour to six hours as you speed along at 40,000 feet worried with the passage
of each mile that the bird departed before your arrival. All manner of
scenarios run through your mind as the plane begins its descent. Safely on the
ground you grab a rental car, race to the bird’s location and if you believe in
the supernatural you pray that it has not departed.
I was sitting in my office
space in the United States Embassy in Nassau, Bahamas, when I learned about a
Bahama Mockingbird near Del Ray Beach in south Florida. I had seen gobs of
Bahama Mockingbirds while traveling throughout the Bahamas and Turks and Caicos
Islands that winter but I had never seen a Bahama Mockingbird in North America.
I was fortunate that the bird was discovered on my last day in Nassau so I
booked a flight to Fort Lauderdale for that afternoon. The following morning, I
was at the house in Del Ray where the bird had been found. So, also, was maybe
50 other bird watchers. We sat there all day and the Bahama Mockingbird never
appeared.
That same evening, I flew
from Fort Lauderdale to San Antonio, Texas, for a previously planned trip into
the Texas Hill Country. While we sat in the yard in Del Ray Beach, someone
found a Garganey, a Eurasian duck related to the Blue-winged Teal, on a wetland
south of Corpus Christi. Quickly changing plans, I drove down to the coast and
was parked on the road by the Garganey wetland at dawn the next morning. I sat
there all day and the duck never appeared. In late afternoon, an attorney from
Denver showed up at the wetland. He had been one of the 50 or so people waiting
for the Bahama Mockingbird the day before. Unlike me he gave it another day and
the Mockingbird appeared at dawn. The attorney then flew to Corpus Christi
hoping to find his second mega rarity of the day separated by 1,000 miles of
airspace.
Before retirement, I did
some serious chasing. Luckily, I was living in the Washington DC suburbs maybe
5 miles from National Airport (never ever call it Reagan National). There were
numerous nonstops out of National each day and airfares were relatively cheap.
If some rare bird showed up on the other side of the continent or closer to DC,
I would book a flight, leave that evening, call in sick the next day, and chase the bird. Sometimes
I scored. Many other times I returned home with nothing except more frequent
flier miles. Three of my most memorable chases were a two-night trip to Alaska
for Great Spotted Woodpecker, a day trip from Nebraska to San Francisco for a
Brown Shrike, and a day trip in winter to Long Island for a Northern Lapwing. Those
chases are described in the verbiage below.
An old friend, commenting
on a recent post about birds said, “So many tales to tell from a life of chasing
birds.” His words, plus those in Jimmy
Buffett’s song “Stories You Can Tell” were the spark I needed to prepare this
blog post. My very first chase was a four-hour drive through a Wisconsin
snowstorm in 1972 hoping to find a Varied Thrush. My most recent chase was a
Red-flanked Bluetail in New Jersey. There have been hundreds of chases between
them. Below I describe 30 of the more memorable ones. These birds are each Category 4 or Category 5 according to the American Birding Association ranking of rarity. These two categories include the rarest of birds in the ABA area.
Some Birds Worth Chasing
Garganey
Not long after missing the
Garganey on a wetland near Corpus Christi, I learned about another one in the
desert of Arizona. Quickly booking a flight to Tucson I drove to the
appropriately named “Sweetwater” sewage treatment plant and found the Garganey
with a large flock of closely related Cinnamon Teal. Garganey remains a rarity
in North America and isn’t all that numerous in its native Europe and Asia. The
Arizona bird was the only one I have ever seen anywhere in North America
although I saw one on Oahu, Hawaii where it was really out of place!
Photo by David Radcliffe
Key West Quail-Dove
Mark Oberle called me in
Nebraska with the exciting news that a Key West Quail-Dove, endemic to the West
Indies, had been found on Vaca Key near Marathon in the Florida Keys. Mark was
bound for the airport in Atlanta after he hung up the phone and told me he had
reserved a room at a bed and breakfast in Marathon. I was welcome to stay with
him if I could make it. A few hours later I landed in Miami where I caught a
flight on Provincetown-Boston Airlines to Marathon. The aircraft was an ancient
DC-3. Flying through the Florida night while seated by the window over the wing
I noticed a steady stream of sparks blasting out of the engine. A bit alarmed I
told the pilot about it after we landed. He told me that the time to worry on a DC-3 is when
there aren’t any sparks flying out of the engine.
Early the next morning
Mark and I joined a large contingent of bird watchers lining the county highway
looking for the elusive skulking denizen of the underbrush of the West Indies.
Eventually one of the others found the bird, announced it to the assembled
masses, and we all were able to watch it slowly foraging on the forest floor.
My first Key West Quail-Dove was at Nassau in the Bahamas in 1984. Since then,
I have found it on six islands in the Bahamas, in Cuba and in the Dominican
Republic. The Florida Keys bird has been the only one I have seen in North
America.
Photo by Christoph Morning
Northern Lapwing
Quite common and
widespread in Europe, this cousin of the Killdeer is a mega-rarity in North
America. One shows up on this side of the Pond about every five years. On a
cold for Washington DC February morning word reached me that a Northern Lapwing
had been found and was easily seen about an hour east of New York City on Long
Island. American Airlines had reasonably priced flights from Washington
National airport to JFK airport in New York. There, securing my rental car the
next morning I headed east in the deliriously heavy commuter traffic until I
found the road leading to the Lapwing. This was before GPS was standard on cell
phones so navigation was by written description and a map. The Lapwing was
vigorously foraging just a few meters from the road when I arrived and everyone
enjoyed extended and convincing views of the bird. Everyone, that is, except
the numbskull who argued unconvincingly that the Lapwing was
in fact a Sandhill Crane. It wasn’t until someone showed him an image of a Northern Lapwing next to an image of a Sandhill Crane that he agreed on the species identity. Not everyone on a
bird chase has the same skill level!
Photo © Abhishek Das
European
Golden-Plover
Delaware may be tiny in
geographic area but it is a giant when it comes to attracting rare birds. We
can thank Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge and the abundance of bird
watchers who frequent it for so many records of species rare in North America
like European Golden-Plover.
I had flown from southern
California to Philadelphia to chase a White-winged Tern that had been found at
Bombay Hook. Standing on the main refuge road waiting for the White-winged Tern
to appear, a flock of shorebirds flew in and settled on an exposed mudflat. The
shorebirds were quite vocal and one person claimed to have heard the
distinctive and loud single note call of European Golden-Plover. Search for the
tern quickly vanished as everyone put their spotting scopes on the shorebirds
and found the wayward plover. Never having seen a European Golden-Plover before
I waited for someone who knew the species to identify it. As I waited I noticed
several plumage characteristics that were not carried by either American
Golden-Plover or Pacific Golden-Plover. I told myself “I bet that’s the bird”
and it was.
Photo by Ian Davies
Eurasian Dotterel
It is difficult to think
of a shorebird as being “pretty” but the Eurasian Dotterel really is. Another
ornithologist and I had been sent by helicopter 110 miles north of Nome,
Alaska, and dropped off on the tundra to do research on Bristle-thighed Curlew.
The plan was to spend five days at the first location then hook up with the
helicopter and be moved to another location where we would spend five more days
looking for the elusive curlew. Not long after setting up our tent home for the
next five days, a curiously squat-looking shorebird landed on the tundra maybe
20 meters from us. The bird began giving a call-note that reminded me of some
passerines but it was a call I had never heard before. Putting my binoculars on
it, the bird was easily identified as Eurasian Dotterel. Five years later I
saw one in Marin County, California not far from San Francisco. Despite being
widespread in western Europe and patchily distributed in Arctic Russia, these
are the only Eurasian Dotterel I have ever seen.
Little Curlew
A Berylline Hummingbird
had appeared in southeast Arizona and I flew to Tucson to begin my search for
the bird. While in Arizona word reached me that a Little Curlew, the smallest
of the curlew’s, and a species from East Asia, had been found in San Luis Obispo
County, California not far from Santa Barbara. Nonstop flights from Tucson to
Santa Barbara did not exist but flights to Los Angeles were numerous. I was on
the first one I could find after observing the wayward hummingbird. As with so
many chases of mega rarities one of the simplest navigational landmarks to the
bird is a group of people with binoculars swinging from their necks, all
pointing in the same direction. So, it was with the Little Curlew in California.
Five years later, while at Gambell on Saint Lawrence Island in the Bering Sea,
within sight of Russia, a Little Curlew descended through the clouds and landed
in front of a flock of stunned bird watchers. The Gambell bird and the one in
California are the only Little Curlew I have ever seen.
Eurasian Curlew
A highly unusual (for
North America) Eurasian Curlew showed up on Monomoy National Wildlife Refuge,
an island off the southern “elbow” of Cape Cod in Massachusetts. I was on Cape
Cod for a work-related meeting that lost all importance when
word of the curlew arrived. Access to Monomoy is restricted because of its
refuge status. About the only way to approach it is by boat and I had none. I didn’t feel confident in those days renting a boat and traversing even a small bit of open
ocean to reach the island. Instead, I visited Chatham airport and found a pilot
willing to fly me slowly over the beach of the island looking for the bird.
Most refuges in the system restrict air traffic to a flight level of 500 feet
or greater. This pilot broke the rules, dropped us down to 100 feet as we
slowly circled the island. It didn’t take long to find the curlew because of
its size and its giant scythe-like bill.
Photo by Kai Pflug
Spotted Redshank
A Spotted Redshank was
observed in Jefferson County of eastern Kansas while I was in Alaska for a
meeting. Quite by accident my return flight to Nebraska made a connection in
Kansas City. There I claimed I had missed my connection to Grand Island
and had to wait a day for another flight. Instead, I dashed over the state line
and found the species that was much more likely in Alaska where I had just
been. It was foraging in a prairie wetland with Dickcissels singing all around it.
Photo by Luka Hercigonja
Long-billed Murrelet
The startling find of a
Long-billed Murrelet from Asia, swimming around among the barges on the Ohio
River at Louisville, Kentucky, was too tempting to pass over. I called in sick
to work, caught an early morning nonstop from Washington National Airport to Louisville where I found the bird in late
afternoon energizing itself in the warm November sun.
Photo by Todd McGrath
White-winged Tern
Without doubt this was
and remains my most frustrating chase bird. I made one unsuccessful attempt
for this tern in Quebec, once in New Jersey and twice in Delaware before I
finally saw this Western Palearctic species. I found it on the same trip where
I saw the European Golden-Plover. Once the identity of the shorebird was
confirmed we returned to searching for the White-winged Tern. Eventually it
showed up on Shearness Pool completing several slow laps around the wetland's edge before
settling down in some emergent vegetation for the night.
Photo by Ian Davies
Roadside Hawk
Philip Olsen and I were
on a multi-species chase to the Lower Rio Grande Valley where we spent part of
one day traversing Bensten-Rio Grande State Park searching for a
Blue Bunting. On one of the laps on the wildlife drive we saw a medium-sized Buteo
type hawk land in a tree. Putting binoculars on it I said to Phil, “Well it’s
not a Broad-winged Hawk but I certainly don’t know what it is!” Some time with the Peterson Mexico bird guide
helped us pin down the identification as Roadside Hawk. Since this initial
sighting I have seen hundreds if not thousands of Roadside Hawks from Mexico
down to South America, however the Bensten-Rio Grande bird is the only one I’ve
seen in the ABA area.
Photo by Bradley Hacker
Great Spotted Woodpecker
This widespread Eurasian
woodpecker had been seen eight times in the largely inaccessible Aleutian
Islands before one was finally seen on the mainland. When one showed up it did
so in February at a bird feeder near Talkeetna, Alaska, about two hours north
of Anchorage. Hearing about the bird on Thursday I booked a roundtrip from
Washington National to Anchorage with a connection in Minneapolis. I arrived
late on Friday night in Anchorage and stayed at the Super 8 motel that has
since been condemned. Saturday morning, I drove to Talkeetna where a large
group of people stood in the kitchen of the family hosting the woodpecker. I
watched it for an hour, and began my return to Anchorage about 11 a.m. Back at
the airport about 1 pm I had nothing to do other than look at snow. I noticed on the Alaska Airlines departure
board that they had a flight leaving for Bethel, a Yupik village on the west
coast of Alaska. I needed the Bethel airport for my airport list plus the
village is inside the boundary of Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge, another
missing checkmark on my numerous lists. I bought a ticket to Bethel with a
return flight on the same plane an hour later. In Anchorage I caught a 9:00 pm
departure for Minneapolis, connected there early on Sunday morning and was home
in the DC suburbs by noon. Without doubt this chase holds the record for my longest distance chasing a bird in North America.
Red-footed Falcon
The spectacular sighting
of this Red-footed Falcon on Martha’s Vineyard had the internet rare bird alerts
and chat rooms on fire in August 2004. My first attempt was unsuccessful and I
returned to Washington DC. Some in the group
said the bird had departed but on my return home I learned that it had again been found. I was back on the Vineyard the next afternoon where I easily found it
because of all the birders pointing in the same direction over an open field.
Photo by Tom Heijnen
Variegated Flycatcher
I was still in graduate
school when a Variegated Flycatcher was found at Biddeford Pond in southern
Maine. A story about the sighting in American Birds was all the
encouragement I needed to begin collecting information on this funky-looking
flycatcher from South America. Following that introduction I have seen
Variegated Flycatcher hundreds of times in South America but no opportunity to
chase it occurred in North America until 2015 when one was found in a county park in
Fort Lauderdale. We were scheduled to depart Fort Lauderdale on a short 7-day
cruise to the West Indies but not until 5:00 p.m. We drove to Fort
Lauderdale the night before, stayed in a hotel, and were in the park shortly
after dawn. So too were about 30 other people who already had the bird located.
This was one of my easiest-ever chases.
Photo by Lorrie Lowrie
Brown Shrike
Although there had been
several records of Brown Shrike for North America they all had been in the
western Aleutian Islands of Alaska. That was until one showed up on Point Reyes
in Marin County, about an hour north of San Francisco. Airfare from Lincoln,
Nebraska (the nearest airport near my home town served by United Airlines) to San Francisco was
ridiculously expensive on short notice but a roundtrip ticket was available for
25,000 frequent flier miles if I made the trip in one day! I left Lincoln at
6:00 a.m. and made a quick connection at venerable old Stapleton airport in
Denver, arriving in San Francisco at 9:00 a.m. There I rented a car and took
off for Marin. The bird was easily found exactly where the directions said it
would be. I watched it 10 minutes then raced back to San Francisco. From there
I connected in Denver to the last flight of the day to Lincoln, arriving back
in the Cornhusker State at midnight. I made the roundtrip to the west coast in
a day and saw a memorable rare bird in the process.
Ayuwat Jearwattanakanok
Brown Jay
The loud and obnoxious
Brown Jay, a nearly crow-sized relative of the Blue Jay, was fairly regular in
the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas in the 1970s. It was regular enough that
Jim Lane wrote in his first bird finding guide to the valley that the bird
could be found fairly easily on a ranch west of McAllen. On arrival at the
ranch, Lane said to “raise your binoculars so the man sitting at the front
porch can see them, say “Pajaros,” pay him $1.00 and walk down to the Rio
Grande". By the 1980s Brown Jay had become increasingly
scarce along the Rio Grande but the Pajaro ranch was still the most likely
place to find one. In the valley chasing another species I decided to try for
the Jay. I said “Pajaros” (the Spanish word for bird) to the man (It was the first Spanish word I ever
spoke) I handed him $1.00 then followed the trail to the river where I was
overwhelmed by the heat. Leaving my car keys and wallet under a bush along the
bank, I walked out into the cooling waters of the Rio Grande holding my
binoculars over my head. Near the middle of the river with water up to my neck
I heard the distinctive “kleer, kleer, kleer” call of a Brown Jay. This, the
first bird species I ever recorded in Mexico, was sitting with three of its own
kind in a tree on the Mexican side of the river. Eventually the four of them
flew across the river, landed in Texas, and made a loud tick sound on my ABA
area life list. Since then, Brown Jay has become increasingly infrequent in the
Lower Rio Grande Valley although they are still common in Mexico. I’m glad I
saw it when I did because now to chase one, you’d have to deal with
tRump-loving “patriots” and other vigilantes trying to keep asylum seekers out
of legally entering the country. That and steroid soaked Texas Department of
Public Safety agents, nearly as well armed as the vigilante tRump supporters,
looking to fulfill Governor Abbott’s decree to throw the Constitution in the
garbage.
Photo by Joel Trick
Eurasian Jackdaw
A sizeable group of
Eurasian Jackdaws, a crow-like European bird, showed up on the grounds of a
prison in New Jersey. At almost the same time Jackdaw was also reported on
Nantucket Island off the coast of Massachusetts. Bob Ake and I were in New
England chasing after seabirds when we learned about the nearby Jackdaw. Our
first attempt was after taking a ferry from Hyannis to Nantucket then walking
the beach where the bird had been seen. We gave up about sunset and returned to
the mainland. There I decided I wanted to chase the bird again and called Gull
Air to book a flight the next morning because I didn’t want to waste time on a
ferry. When you think of Gull Air think of the old television series “Wings” –
same type of plane and same airport. I searched for several hours seeing lots
of gulls and loons but no Jackdaw. I took a break for lunch and when I returned
to the beach a group of birders from Washington DC had found the bird roosting
in the sand dunes along the shore. I am not aware of any
other Jackdaw being found in North America since the New Jersey and Nantucket
birds.
Gray Silky-flycatcher
A Fork-tailed Flycatcher
was found on Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge in South Texas. Having
failed to find it on several other chases along the East Coast I booked a
flight to Harlingen hoping to finally score. While looking at the flycatcher,
one of the assembled masses asked me “Have you seen the Silky-flycatcher”? This
was the first time I had heard of it. With directions written down I had little
trouble finding this denizen of the Mexican mountains sitting in a small tree
on the blazing hot coastal plain of South Texas. Considerable conjecture
erupted among the so-called experts who had not seen the bird regarding its
provenance. Certainly, a mountain bird on the Texas coastal plain had to be an
escaped bird they said. Apparently enough naysayers saw the bird to be
convinced it was not an escapee and the Texas Ornithological Society accepted
the sighting. Since then, there has been only one other report from north of
the border – a single bird near El Paso, Texas, several years later.
Bahama Mockingbird
The Bahama Mockingbird in
Del Ray Beach. Florida, mentioned in the introduction to this story, was my
first attempt to get the species for my ABA list and I failed. This failure
occurred in 1985. It wasn’t until 1992 when I was on a detail to the Florida
Keys National Wildlife Refuges that I had another chance. This time I was lucky.
The bird was found in a city park in Key West not far from the ocean. It was easily
found and for much of the rest of the summer each time I was in Key West (about
every other day) I would check on the bird and report its status to the North
American Rare Bird Alert. Since then, Bahama Mockingbird has occurred almost
yearly in Florida and always as single birds. One was found as far north as
Tampa Bay.
Photo by Arturo Kirkconnell Jr
Dusky Thrush
I was in Portland Oregon
interviewing for a position in Ventura, California, when I learned about a
Dusky Thrush near Vancouver, British Columbia. To my knowledge this was the
first observation of Dusky Thrush in North America away from Alaska. Plus, it
was only a few hours up the road and the Portland office had paid for my
fully-refundable and changeable ticket back to Grand Island, Nebraska. Alaska
Airlines deposited me in Bellingham, Washington early the next frigid morning. There
I rented a car, cleared Canadian customs (without a passport in those days!)
and quickly found the house where the thrush was putting on a show. Once I
found the Fern Ridge neighborhood all I had to do was look for a large
congregation of cars to know I had found the correct home. There I stood in the
biting cold waiting for the thrush to arrive. The homeowner felt sorry for us
and invited us in for coffee and warmth. Eventually the thrush showed up,
everyone made a check mark on their various lists and we all departed for
home.
Fieldfare
A Fieldfare, a Eurasian
cousin of the American Robin, was found in late November not far from Grand
Marais, Minnesota, along the North Shore of Lake Superior. For it I flew from
Nebraska to Duluth, Minnesota, rented a car and raced up Minnesota Highway 61
two hours to just outside Grand Marais. There in the late November afternoon
sun I found a large group of birdwatchers standing by the side of the highway
pointing into the forest. Exiting my car at 4:00 p.m., I followed the pointing
fingers and saw the Fieldfare in a spruce tree. My view was brief but
convincing. Sunset was about 4:15 p.m. and I planned to return in the morning
the next day for a hopefully longer and more satisfying view. The same group of
birdwatchers from yesterday afternoon was back at the spot. We stayed there all day. The Fieldfare was never seen again.
Photo by Ivan Sjögren
Redwing
I traveled to Iceland with
the most recent mistake in my life at the time. We flew to Reykjavik on an
overnight flight and on arrival she crawled in bed to get much needed sleep.
Excited about being in a new country and continent, I went outside to look for
birds. My very first entry on my Europe bird list was a stunningly attractive
Redwing skulking in some bushes near the hotel entrance. I saw more Redwing on
subsequent trips to England, Scotland and France but didn’t have an opportunity
for North America until one was found in northeastern New Brunswick. The nearest
airport I could afford to fly to was Halifax, Nova Scotia, a scenic five-hour
drive from the Redwing. Being a thrush it was not surprising that it was a bit
more difficult to find than most other chases. I spent two full days looking
for it and finally scored. So far it’s my only North America observation.
Photo by Gina Sheridan
Siberian Accentor
A Siberian Accentor was
found near Sun Valley, Idaho, while I was “nearby” in Tucson, Arizona for a
meeting. Usually found in North America only in Alaska, I quickly decided it
would be much cheaper to Sun Valley than to buy a ticket to Siberia. As much as
I despise Delta Airlines they had the cheapest short-notice fare from Tucson to
Sun Valley. I was northbound from the desert at 7:00 a.m. the next morning. Finding
the bird was relatively easy, again using the method of looking for a
congregation of bird watchers. So too was the case with the Idaho accentor. Despite
having traveled extensively in eastern Asia where it occurs most frequently,
this was the only Siberian Accentor I have seen.
Photo by Greg Scyphers
Common Chaffinch
If it sounds by now that I
took advantage of my employment with the Federal government to score a lot of
life birds you are correct. I did. Luckily, Federal government rules allowed travelers to take time off while on official duty. I took advantage of
that rule when I was in Bangor, Maine for a meeting with the US Air Force. While
I was there, a Common Chaffinch from Europe was found in a cemetery near
downtown Halifax, Nova Scotia.
The distance from Bangor
to Halifax looked close on a map. In reality it was 426 miles (685 kilometers)
one way. Driving at a normal speed the bird in Halifax was about 10 hours away
from me when I stepped off the plane in Bangor. I was young, foolish, and had
only been to Nova Scotia once before – the ferry terminal in Digby. It seemed
logical to chase after this Chaffinch since I was relatively close.
The bird was much farther
away than I originally calculated especially when I left Bangor airport at 3:00
pm eastern time. Sunset came around 4:00 pm at this northeasterly location, and
Halifax was one hour ahead of Maine. It’s much farther from the Bangor Maine
airport to Halifax Nova Scotia than the map suggests. That's especially true in
the middle of the night in the middle of December.
I finally arrived in
Halifax at 3:30 a.m. Nova Scotia time. I had considered stopping in Truro, Nova
Scotia and crashing in a hotel but continued on since coffee was keeping me
fortified and the bird was closer with each passing mile. Finding the cemetery
in the middle of the night (it was the one where many victims of the sinking of
the Titanic were buried) I parked under a tree, curled up in the backseat, and
slept a fitful sleep.
About 8:00 a.m. there was
a loud banging on my window. Each window was covered with frost from my breath
against the frozen night and I expected the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to be
checking out this strange person with Maine license plates parked overnight in
a cemetery. However, it wasn’t the Mounties. A group of local bird watchers had
descended on the cemetery to look for the Chaffinch. One of them opened my door
and asked if I was ok. Feeling a bit churlish I said I had traveled there to
look for the Chaffinch. The man smiled, pointed straight up from my car, and
said “Check here friend!”
I had parked directly
beneath the tree that the Chaffinch chose to roost in for the night. From the
time I woke up until I had my new bird probably took 20 seconds. I wish all
bird chases were that easy.
Photo by Santiago Caballero Carrera
Eurasian Bullfinch
I have seen some beautiful
birds in my travels. A Resplendent Quetzal in Costa Rica. A Bornean Tree-pie in
Malaysian Borneo. A stunning Crab Plover in the United Arab Emirates. A Crested
Barbet in South Africa. They have all been beautiful but none has been as
striking as Eurasian Bullfinch. I first saw it in 1989. That comment is still
valid today.
My flight from Nome,
Alaska, arrived at Gambell on St. Lawrence Island almost on time which for
western Alaska is a miracle in itself. Walking from the landing strip (it’s not
really an airport) to the house rented for us, I found a group of bird watchers
including Dwight Lee in what’s called the “West Bone Yard.” I asked Dwight what everyone was looking at.
He just pointed at eye level and said “Look!”
Pointing my binoculars in the direction everyone else was pointing I
remember gasping when this brilliantly colored male Eurasian Bullfinch turned
to face us. My first thought when I saw it was that whomever invented the color
salmon did so after looking at a Eurasian Bullfinch. This was life bird #700
for the ABA area, a milestone level most bird watchers sought until Hawaii was
added to the counting area. I have seen Eurasian Bullfinch in almost every
European country I have visited (26 of them) and each time they take my breath
away just like the Gambell bird did.
Photo by Ivan Sjögren
Little Bunting
Far from as colorful and
gawdy as the Eurasian Bullfinch, the Little Bunting was a major find. One of
the few North American records at the time away from Alaska, a Little Bunting
was found at Cabrillo National Monument near the harbor entrance in San Diego.
I was in Denver for the start of a yearlong training program when I found out
about the bird. We put in long hours during the week and it would have been
frowned on if I blew off the expensive training program to chase a bird. Instead, I booked
a flight from Denver to San Diego for late on Friday night with a return on
Sunday. Arising early on Saturday morning I waited for the gates of the
National Monument to open and found the Little Bunting right where
everyone said it would be. Rather than spend more money on a hotel, food, and a
rental car, I drove to the airport. United Airlines was generous enough in those days to
change my return to Denver a day early without any penalties. I was back in the hotel the
government put me up in along Union Boulevard in Denver 20 hours after I left
the day before.
Golden-crowned
Warbler
Jon Andrew was the manager
of the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuges complex when I arrived
in the McAllen airport. The plan was for Jon and I to spend a few days looking for Maroon-fronted
Parrot and other elusive species in the mountains of northeast Mexico. That
plan changed when I walked into the refuge headquarters and Jon said, “Did you
hear about the Golden-crowned Warbler?” This was the first
time I had heard about it. I had seen this warbler 5 years earlier in Costa Rica. The Rio Grande bird would be new for my ABA list. I left the headquarters building and found the trail to the warbler, but didn’t find the
bird before sunset. Returning the following morning at sunrise I heard the
warbler singing before I saw it then coaxed it out of the undergrowth. With
Golden-crowned Warbler safely on my ABA list we left for the mountains of
Mexico.
Photo by Chris Wood
Blue Bunting
The subject of several
chases to the Rio Grande Valley, I finally met up with this bunting that is so
blue it looks almost black from a distance. Dwight Lee met me in the McAllen
airport for a previously scheduled chase up the Rio Grande to near Laredo where
we wanted to look for Gray-crowned Yellowthroat and what was then called
White-collared Seedeater. While Dwight waited for my plane to arrive he learned
of the discovery that morning of a stunning male Blue Bunting at nearby Bensten-Rio
Grande State Park. Quickly changing plans, we secured our rental car and dashed
up the highway to the park. There with a minimum of effort we found the bird
feeder behind the pickup camper where it was seen that morning. Waiting only a
few minutes the Blue Bunting arrived to the relief of all those assembled. Dwight
and I then left for Laredo and hopefully two more lifers.
Photo by Shailesh Pinto
Bananaquit
If you spend much time in
the Bahamas eventually you hear people talking about “de banana bird, mon.” De
banana bird, mon, is the Bananaquit, a widespread and abundant bird on most
of the West Indian islands south to South America. Just fifty miles west of the
Bahamas, along the Florida coast, its exceedingly rare and worthy of a chase when one shows up. My North American bird was at Bill Baggs State Park on
Virginia Key within sight of the skyscrapers in downtown Miami. I was there
looking for a Key West Quail-Dove someone reported when a young woman walked up
to me and asked, “Do you know bird sounds?”
Well, yes I do. She said, “There’s this bird over here making weird noises.
It has a black back, yellow stomach, and a curved bill.” As I suspected it was a Banana bird, my
first and only for North America. Before this sighting I had flown down to
Miami three earlier occasions chasing a Bananaquit and returned home empty
handed each time. Now I finally saw one and I wasn’t even looking for it.
Black-faced
Grassquit
The first bird I added to
my Bahamas list was a Black-faced Grassquit “singing” from the security fence
bordering the Nassau airport. This was my first trip to the Bahamas and many
birds would be new. At first they were exciting but after four days of
grassquits competing with Bananaquits for the title of “Most Abundant Species”
the grassquits became old and commonplace. In February 1985 I took a weekend
off from bird research in the Bahamas and flew to Miami to explore Everglades National Park. By this time, I had seen more Black-faced
Grassquits than I could count so I wasn’t completely surprised when I found one
in the grass along the park road not far north of Flamingo. At first I thought
“oh, another grassquit.” Then it dawned
on me that I was in Florida not in the Bahamas. I drove to the National Park
Service station in Flamingo and told a biologist there the exciting news that I
had found a Black-faced Grassquit. She said, “No you didn’t!” Paul Lehman said the same three words when I
told him I saw a Wilson’s Plover at the Point Mugu National Weapons Station
near Oxnard, California. When I sent him a picture of the bird he never
replied.
Rather than argue I
invited the Park Service biologist to come with me and we returned to the spot
where 30 minutes earlier I found the bird. Parking and exiting the car we both
heard the grassquit singing its distinctive song. Then it flew up on the stem
of some salt marsh vegetation where it sang loudly and displayed. The
experience was almost as if the grassquit knew about the Park Service employees
doubts and wanted her to be doubly sure I knew what I was talking about. Watching
the bird display a few minutes the Park Service biologist said, “Well I guess
you’re right.”
Photo by Larry Therrien
After more than 50 years chasing rare birds in North America, my ABA area (continental United States, Canada, St.
Pierre et Miquelon and for some strange reason, Hawaii) list is 942 species. My
original ABA list, from before Hawaii was added, is 878 species. Sadly, I don’t
have another 50 years left to chase birds. Instead, I will be content with
those I have seen. I will check electronic sources daily and if something good
shows up I will be on the next plane out of Sarasota headed in its direction.
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