Mega Rare in Maine

Watching the ABA Rare Bird Alert is sometimes exciting, boring or frustrating. Exciting when a rare bird is reported close to home and "chaseable". Boring when the list contains birds that you've already seen. Frustrating when a mega rare bird shows up in a place that you cannot get to or at a time when you are not able to go see the bird. Such was the case of the Great Black Hawk this year.

The Great Black Hawk is a hawk of Central America that has never been recorded north of the Rio Grand river. In April, one showed up in Corpus Christi TX which is as close to Mexico as you can get without climbing over that stupid wall. It was a one-day-wonder. Seen, then gone assumingly back over the border. But then in August, the same  hawk was reported in Maine of all places. But again, it disappeared after just 2 days. In November, the bird was re-found in a city park in Portland Maine. This time, the bird found a suitable habitat and has been in or around the park for 2 months. I had to go see the bird but didn't have time with work and holiday travel obligations. I hoped that the bird would be around after New Year. It did.

I drove up to Maine with a birder that I haven't traveled with before. We had a great time. We left at 1:00 AM, arrived in Portland at 7:15 AM and had the bird by 7:30. Easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy. Sara did the research that said the bird was hanging out in trees across the street from the "Holy Donut" shop. Ta-da.

This bird is a juvenile hawk otherwise it would in fact be black. Honestly, I probably wouldn't have given this bird another look if I didn't know it was super rare. It looks like a lot of other common hawks. The bird is molting out his/her kid feathers and starting to grow the black ones. You can see a few popping in on the bird's back in this photo. 

The bird is definitely a celebrity in Portland. We had a few people stop to see the bird and talk to us about it including school children and teachers from the school on the corner, a guy that stops everyday, a woman whose blind boyfriend lives in the apartment where the hawk is hanging out, and even a panhandler wanted to know what we were looking at (and didn't ask us for money either). Other birders have watched the hawk catch squirrels and rats (reason that we didn't get a donut . . . ) but all the bird did when we were there is sit in the trees. He/she was even boring herself.

We were home by 3:30 PM with another mega rare bird on our list and a few fun stories.

UPDATE: Sadly, the Great Black Hawk succumbed to frost bite and was euthanized in February.

Sometimes You Get The Bird But Not The Photo

I got a text from Harvey yesterday - MEGA RARE  Black-tailed Godwit was found in a marsh in New Jersey. The bird is usually found in Europe. In fact, I saw dozens of them in Wales but there hasn't been one in NJ in 47 years. Harvey didn't find the bird, a guy named Jon found it and put it on social media. I couldn't get out to see the bird yesterday but as luck would have it, I was in the area for work today and . . .

Marty and Me

We got the bird! Marty and Barb were kind enough to wait for me and lend me their scopes for great views of this incredibly handsome bird. Unfortunately, I couldn't manage a nice photo. This is a digiscope photo. I dare you to try to find the bird ;-) (digiscope means that I used my iPhone camera on the scope which is why the photo is round)

Black-tailed Godwit

This mega rare bird sighting added one more bird to my ABA life list pushing it to 626 birds seen in North America.

Wanna Go To Canada for the Weekend? Why Not!

You may remember that before Christmas, Todd and I took a few days off of work and headed to Algonquin Park in Ontario. We saw some really cool birds and Pine Martens. What I didn't say was that we almost detoured from that trip to chase a MEGA RARE bird in New Brunswick Canada. Mega Rare as in first ever reported.

The bird was reported about a week before we were to make the trip to Algonquin. We discussed chasing it but decided to stick with our original plan. Well, it is 2 months later and the rare bird is still in New Brunswick. You know what's coming next right?

Oh yeah. We couldn't resist. We added Marty to our crew, rented a minivan and headed up to see the first ever recorded Mistle Thrush in North America. Marty and I left my house at 8:30 PM on Friday night after working a full day. We picked Todd up in NJ at 9:30 and drove all night through New England, Maine, and made it to the border just after sunrise on Saturday morning. We traded time in the back of the van to catch some shuteye which helped us make the overnight haul.

By noon, we were on site in Miramichi, New Brunswick in the neighborhood where the bird has made it's winter home since December.

All reports said that the Mistle Thrush was hanging out in the neighborhood eating Mountain Ash berries. It moves between a few yards but has been mainly seen at 512 McKenna Avenue lately so that is where we began our search. After a few minutes of staring at the Mountain Ash without seeing the bird, we saw something move in the Spruce tree behind it. Yes. The Mistle Thrush was there. It flew up to the top of the Spruce tree.

It sat there for a few minutes where we got to study the field marks that set this bird apart from "our" thrushes. The main field marks are the size and the spotted breast.

And then, it had enough and flew to another part of the neighborhood. I caught a photo of the bird just as it took off. Interesting to see the spots go all the way to the tail.

We searched the neighborhood for the bird. I guess the residents are used to having cars with weird license plates cruising the neighborhood by now. We found the location where the bird was first reported and saw some other birds but no thrush so we drove back to where we saw it and waited. It only took a few minutes for the bird to return. Todd spotted it back in it's favorite hiding place - the Spruce tree. Then, it jumped into the Mountain Ash to chow down on some berries.

Photographing this bird is difficult due to the mass of branches, overcast sky and light snow. This is probably the best photo that I could manage and only after maneuvering the van a few feet at a time to get a clear view. I cropped the photo so that it shows one of the berry clumps that is keeping this bird fat and happy in Canada.

True Fact - this is NOT a life bird for me. I saw a few of these in England where the bird is supposed to be. Click here to read about that trip and see another photo of the Mistle Thrush. While not a lifer, this sighting does add another bird to my ABA list - now at 625!

A bonus for the trip is that Marty's sister lives in Bangor Maine and invited us to stay with her overnight. Boy, what a respite. She had pizza, beer, hospitality and beds all ready for us when we arrived at 7:30 PM on Saturday night. That was 23 hours after leaving my house! I was asleep before my head hit the pillow.

There's Rare, And Then There's Mega Rare

I have spent the past two weeks lamenting. You see, there is a rare gull in upstate New York. A juvenile Ross' Gull was found on Tupper Lake hanging around the ice fisherman waiting to feast on fish guts. This is a gull that is usually found in extreme arctic. People travel to the arctic and still don't see the bird. And here is one only 7 hours north. 7 hours seems easy until you can't find anyone to drive up there with you. The gull hung around for about a week and then couldn't be found. Needless to say, I didn't go to see the gull and I'm still regretting it.

Flash forward a few days. The Internet lit up on Friday with news of a Mega Rare bird being seen at bird feeders near Reading PA. Black-backed Orioles are only found in the mountains of Mexico which is nowhere close to Pennsylvania. This bird doesn't migrate. How did it get here? Who cares. I wasn't about to miss out on this one only an hour and a half away. Lori went with me. We arrived to masses of birders lining the sidewalk in this residential neighborhood. It was like a carnival atmosphere. The bird was easily seen but not close to the road. You can see it here hanging out with 2 Cardinals.

This bird is so famous that the neighbors have a guest book for people to sign. We met people from New Jersey, Maryland and West Virginia. People are coming from all over to see the first recorded Black-backed Oriole in the United States. By the end of the day, 197 people saw AND recorded their visit in eBird.

The jury is still out as to whether the bird will be "countable" in official records. In order to be legitimate, the records committee must be sure about the species - no doubt about that, and the provenance of the bird - big doubt about that. How did the bird get to Pennsylvania from Mexico? If the committee suspects that the bird got here by human hands - smuggled, accidentally transported by boat, plane or truck, or escaped from a cage - then the bird will not count as a wild bird and therefore will not be accepted on anyone's life list.

So why then would 200+ birders go to see the bird? 2 reasons. First, it's a pretty, orange bird in the middle of a gray winter. Second and more important, we all have the bird "in the bank" just in case the record committee accepts the bird as a wild vagrant. Check! Only time will tell.