Birding Newfoundland with Dave Brown

For the Larophiles....

2011-12-13T02:41:00.002-03:30

I was just browsing some of the blogs I follow and I happened upon one from Nick Bonomo from CT. It will seem a very familiar conversation for any larophile. It made me think back to the days when I looked forward to spending Christmas day at the dump....

I've got an idea for a sequel that I might post later this week.

http://www.shorebirder.com/2010/11/gulling-at-landfill.html

Some Thoughts on the Separation of "white-winged" Kumlien's Iceland Gull from Nominate g.glaucoides Iceland Gull

2011-12-07T23:58:00.020-03:30

This is an article I've been threatening to write for some time. So now finally, at 12:01 tonight I decided to sit down get to work. Before I get into any discussion I should advise that I've never been to Greenland or Iceland and have no real life experience with g.glaucoides in their true range.So, feel free to take what I say with a grain of salt, should you decide to keep reading at all.Having said that I've seen a hell of a lot of Kumlien's Iceland Gulls, and have a good feeling for the limits of variation within that subspecies, if you want to call it that. Over the years, I have looked at every photo of g.glaucoides I could get my hands on, and and photographed a number of individuals in Newfoundland, some of which I will share in this article.

Throughout the course of this article I will discuss the variation in Kumlien's Iceland Gull and compare that to (what I think of) g.Glaucoides. I will discuss criteria for separating these two subspecies (based on a Newfoundland, or perhaps just my, perspective). I will limit my discussion to adult birds only,since I have not seen any reliable way of separating juveniles and fist winter birds. As birds get into their second, and especially third winter, they become easier to separate but as I said, I will concentrate on adult birds. I will give particular attention to those Kumlien's Gulls that could present a possible caveat for those wishing to identify g.glaucoides. Alternately, this may be of use to European birders, who endeavor to identify out of range Kumlien's Gulls.

Newfoundland seems to host the lion share of the winter population of Kumlien's Gulls.While they are very well represented throughout the Canadian Maritimes,with some into the mid west and Great Lakes and down the eastern seaboard into New England, I doubt there is anywhere else on earth one could witness the numbers and diversity of Kumlien's Gulls that we see in St.John's, Newfoundland in winter. This combined with the fact that I just don't have much else to do in winter has afforded me the opportunity to gain an intimate knowledge of Kumlien's Gulls over the last 10-12 years.

Over that time I've witnessed a number of characters that seem to separate Kumlien's from g.glaucoides. Among the more important of these are,

1) mantle shade- Kumliens slightly paler than smithsonianus HERG while g.glaucoides is as pale a Glaucous Gull or paler.

2) eye color- Kumliens can vary from very pale to very dark but ALWAYS has at least some dark peppering in the iris while g.glaucoides ALWAYS has a fully pale eye without dark peppering ranging pale to creamy yellow reminiscent of Glaucous Gull.( I'm open to revising this statement, if someone can provide me with conflicting evidence)

3) Primary coloration- Kumliens varies from having dark marking on as many as 6 outer primaries (though usually 4) to pure white wing tips with dark pigment restricted to the outer web of p10 (sometimes very faint) g.glaucoides never has dark markings or any kind in the wings as adult-- always pure white tips and lacking any dark marbling in the outer web of p 10.

4) structure- On average Kumlien's seem to appear larger billed,with less rounded head. Appear more menacing and bulky overall. The smallest g.glaucoides can appear very dainty with quite small, Dove-like heads.

While there may be other differences,I believe any Iceland combining all of the above characters, one way or the other, can be safely assigned to subspecies. Any Iceland Gull that appears extremely dainty, with a clear yellow eye, pure white wing tips and mantle color matching GLGU is probably, if not certainly a g.glaucoides. At times there are birds that have 3 of 4 of the above characters and are suggestive of g.glaucoides but I choose to leave these birds unidentified.

Example of g.glaucoides- like Kumlien's Gull. Structurally very reminiscent of g.glaucoides with smallish bill, rounded head, creating a dainty impression. Wings apparently pure white,lacking any dark markings. However, note mantle coloration same as surrounding Kumliens Gulls and dark eye. What does this mean??

MANTLE SHADE

Kumliens Gulls have a mantle shade just lighter than smithsonianus Herring Gull, but noticeably darker than any Glaucous Gull. In direct comparison with glaucoides Kumlien's appears at least a shade darker. See photos below.

Presumed g.glaucoides,St.John's, Newfoundland,December. Compare to Herring Gull on left and Kumliens Gulls on right and behind. Also note similarity in Kumlien's and Herring Gull mantle shade. Note this individual shows all four key features mentioned above, pale mantle, pure, pale eye,lacking dark peppering, pure white wings. Structurally this bird was a little bulky, so probably a male.

Presumed g.glaucoides, late January, St.John's, Newfoundland. Compare with Kumlieni to the left. There is less contrast between the primaries and mantle in glaucoides then even the whitest winged kumlieni.

EYE COLOR

Eye color is among the most variable of all Kumlien's traits. However, in my experience there are limits. There seem to be a couple of potential rules among the variability.

1) While KUM iris' can appear completely dark to completely pale,there is ALWAYS at least some dark peppering in the iris.

2) In adult g.glaucoides there is NEVER a large amount of dark peppering in the iris. The adult eye color is usually a clear creamy yellow and mostly lacking the more amber and golden tones shown by pale eyed Kumlien's. From what I can see most of the time it lacks any dark spots in the iris whatsoever,but perhaps some can show a few dark specs.

Below are a series of photos displaying the range of eye color possible in Kumlien's Gull with a few g.glaucoides thrown in.

3rd winter g.glaucoides,Newfoundland,January. Note the creamy-yellow color lacking dark peppering.

Adult Glaucous Gull, Newfoundland, January. Note similarity to the g.glaucoides above.

PRIMARY COLORATION

This is actually quite straightforward. While Kumlien's Gull can pretty much range from primary patters closely matching those of Thayer's Gull to almost pure white winged as in g.glaucoides. The whitest winged Kumliens have only a very small amount of dark coloration (sometimes limited to light gray marbling) on P10.

In contrast to Kumlien's, adult g.glaucoides NEVER has any dark coloration in the primaries.

Three dark-winged Kumlien's Gull's.

White-winged Kumlien's Gulls

While the above birds would never be mistaken for g.glaucoides there are some more confusing individuals. While some Kum's have dark marking on the outer 5-6 primaries ( usually grayish) there are others that can appear completely pure, white-winged. When you find an Iceland Gull that seems to lack any dark markings in the primaries, its important to remember the other criteria that distinguish Kumlien's and g.glaucoides, such as mantle shade and eye color. Then, if possible scrutinize the wings as closely as possible looking especially for any signs of darker markings on p10,mainly on the lower 2/3rd's of the feather in the outer web. Some examples of pale winged Kumlien's below.

STRUCTURE

Structurally Kumlien's can be quite variable. In general it has a smallish billed and more round headed (less sloping forehead)appearance when compared to Herring Gull. This creates a much more gentle expression and a more overall dainty feel to the bird. Among Iceland Gulls g.glaucoides tend to have an even more dainty appearance than Kumliens, often being shorter bill and having a steeper forehead. I don't have a complete understanding of the structural variability in g.glaucoides, but the individuals I've seen in Newfoundland have all been very short-billed round headed individuals. I'm sure there is much overlap with Kumlien's so this is just an accessory feature to be used along with mantle shade, eye color and primary coloration.

g.glaucoides Iceland Gull February, Newfoundland

g.glaucoides, Iceland Gull, January Newfoundland.
g.glaucoides Iceland Gull, January, Newfoundland. Note the steep forehead and very rounded crown, along with short bill creating gentle expression.

This article is not meant to be a definitive work on the separation of these two subspecies, but rather a discussion of some of my observations here in Newfoundland. As I continue to get a better grasp on the potential variation that exists in g.glaucoides I hope to update this article.We're still learning more about these birds every day!For now I'll leave you with one last photo that serves to accentuate the extreme variation found within this species.

Two Kumlien's Gulls, February, Newfoundland. These two individuals nicely display the extreme variation in primary coloration that exists within this species.

2nd Winter Thayer's Gull??

2011-12-03T14:48:00.005-03:30

Given the extreme variability we witness in Kumliens Gulls in Newfoundland, "real" Thayer's Gulls are extremely hard to pin down. I found this bird three days ago feeding at a sewage outflow with a few hundred Kumlien's Gulls. There are Herring Gulls and Greater Black-backed Gulls in the harbour but they rarely visit the sewage outflow. This bird was feeding among Iceland Gulls and feeding in a similar fashion, nervously pecking at the surface of the water. It was often in the middle of the action and aggressive. While generally the challenge here is to determine whether there is Kumlien's influence, the challenge with this bird seems to be differtiation from Herring Gull. Below I have a series of not great photos but hopefully it will be enough for those with extensive experience with Thayer's Gull. There were a few 2nd winter Kumlien's Gulls that looked very similar this bird but the wings were always paler with more extensive pale tips. As well, they tended to have a more short-billed, round headed impression in comparison to this bird, which looks to have a rather sloped forehead.

I appreciate any thoughts on the identification of this bird.

Update and FORK-TAILED FLYCATCHER!

2011-10-19T14:43:00.003-02:30

Ok so I'm a bit late in updating here but I've been kept busy birding and working and chasing Fork-tailed Flycatchers! I'll have more to say about that later.

So the last low pressure system did bring birds with it. We weren't inundated with hordes of southern warblers and vireos but there was a noticeable arrival of warblers on the Cape Race road at the extreme south eastern tip of the Avalon Peninsula. ( see map in previous post).

There is not much vegetation in this area and nothing much to hold deciduous tree loving migrants. In fact I don't think there is a single deciduous tree or shrub on the entire 21 km road. There might be a single small Mountain Ash but it could have died. What is there is tuckamoor. I'm planning on dedicating a post soon to "birding the tuck" as we call it. This refers to birders attempting to coax passerines from scattered,dense, tangly patches of stunted conifers. It's not an easy endevour but can produce some amazing results, but again that's for another time.

So, three of us hit the Cape Race road on Oct 9 and 10th. Our efforts resulted in 8 species of warblers and two Vireo species. Highlights included, Orange-crowned Warbler (3), Prairie Warbler (5),Palm Warblers (6-8),Nashville Warbler,Pine Warbler,Yellow-breasted Chat (2) and Warbling Vireo. There were also 6+ Yellow-billed Cuckoos, a bag of Baltimore Orioles and 6-7 Dickcissels.

So overall not bad for the area. On a standard day you could bird all of the Cape Race road in October and not see any passerines other than Savannah Sparrow. There was definitely an arrival.

So that was then and this is now. News broke yesterday of a Fork-tailed Flycatcher in Renews. In fact, I broke the news after opening an email from a contact down there. As soon as I opened my email and saw an email titled "stange bird" i got excited. I opened the email and was instantly floored! I never even opened the thumbnail images, it was already obvious that the bird pictured was an adult FORK-TAILED FLYCATCHER!!

I bolted from the couch with Jen asking what, what's going on. I muttered something while getting my coat on. Fo... led ly..catcher. "what? she said. FORK-TAILED FLYCATCHER!!, where are my keys!? Then, Jen says "We have to call people". Right..and when was the bird seen. In my excitement I had forgotten everything else. All I was thinking was, I have to get to Renews, now! I looked at the message again and it was apparent that it was seen very recently. I was now bordering on frantic. Before I could go I had to do a couple of things, I had to take the dog out and make some calls. I figured I'd combine these while Jen got ready. I was outside walking up the road with the dog trying to break the news on this bird.One by one, I either left messages or gave people the news. I returned home to find Jen ready and we hit the road. I had Jen make some other calls as I was driving.

Things were going well, I was swerving in and out of traffic, passing cars under questionable circumstances until we saw something up ahead- a police car, but was it? It was the right color the right model, it had an odd antenna thingy on top and some kind of white and blue reflective tape or something across the bumper, not to mention an RNC sticker on it!! There were two people in the car and one had obviously large aviator sunglasses on. That pretty much sealed it, we were behind a police car- great!

We were thinking what a great story it would be if we got pulled over by the cops, then somehow convinced them to give us a high speed escort right to the birds location. Since this was not likely to happen, we settled in and resigned to a slower than intended drive. Well, as it turns out these cops must have had somewhere to be because they were driving well over the speed limit and I was staying right behind them.I figured, they can't give me a speeding ticket to someone who is behind then right? Well, we tailed the cops almost all the way to Renews at about 25 km\hr over the speed limit and got there in almost record time. Now all we had to do was find the bird!

We made a pass through the area where it had been seen and nothing. We spoke to the discoverer and we were informed that it was on the wires directly above where we were standing only 15 minutes before we got there! Ok, we knew it was still around, it was only a matter of time. Soon, more birders arrived and we provided them with the info and split up. I took off in the car to broaden the search. Only about 5 minutes later my phone was ringing. I answered it and heard " we've got it, right where it was last seen!". I wasted no time getting there and finally on the wires, there it was, a perfect, adult Fork-tailed Flycatcher. This is a species I had chased in Newfoundland before but had not been successful and now here it was, it felt good, a big relief. It was a Newfoundland life bird and #264 on my current year list, putting me 17 species ahead of the previous record.

5th Fork-tailed Flycatcher for Newfoundland but the first that stuck around long enough to be viewed by numbers of birders. (as of Oct 18 the bird is still around)

Will There be Birds or Won't There be Birds That is the Question!

2011-10-07T19:46:00.007-02:30

Over the last few years I've been spending an inordinate amount of time studying weather maps and radars and then comparing those maps and radars to significant birding events in Newfoundland in an effort to better predict the types of weather patterns that lead to some of our fall outs of southern passerines. Predicting migration is no easy task in Newfoundland. Most places just wait for a cold front to pass through and they know that there will be bird movement on the back end of the low on NW winds. Actually I'm leaving a lot of stuff out there. Its not actually that easy at all but I'm not going to get into a detailed analysis of the conditions that favor bird migration just yet. I'll save that for later.

For now, I basically want to share some speculation with you all. After all, that's what birders do best- speculate. Speculate about their next year bird, the next life bird, county bird, province bird, ABA bird. You get the idea right? I'm speculating about bird migration, more appropriately reverse migration.

Now there is a term that is familiar to many birders but still completely foreign to others. Therefore, let me explain how I understand reverse migration. Lets start first by breaking down the term into its individual bits. First, lets take reverse. That should be easy enough. A common every day term. If you drive a vehicle you know it well as going backwards. This is true, for our purposes reverse will mean backwards or the opposite of what is commonly believed. Now migration. For our purposes we're only applying this to birds so lets say that migration is simply a movement of birds towards an INTENDED destination. What's important to note here is the terms movement and intended. Birds are moving and they are headed towards an intended destination.

So, now lets combine these two terms reverse and migration, as we have defined them. When we do that we can define reverse migration as "the movement of birds in a direction which is OPPOSITE to their intended or commonly believed destination." If you haven't guessed I'm feeling especially philosophical this evening. So more simply, if passerines are generally thought to undertake a North-South migration each fall,a group of passerines that have made a sudden movement south to north would be said to have undertaken a reverse migration.

Some people get all touchy over use of then term reverse migration, but most of these people are failing to apply the term comprehensively enough. Reverse migration takes in all reasons that birds might have to migrate away from their generally intended destination. Two of several reasons for reverse migration in birds, are weather and 180 degree misoriention. For example, a large flock of birds gets caught in a strong low pressure system and is swept north on SW winds. For an excellent example of this ,read this article about one of the most dramatic weather related reverse migrations ever!

Reverse Migrants in Nova Scotia

However,not all occurrences of off track birds, or reverse migrants can be explained by weather patterns. It is thought that some reverse migration in birds is due to a genetic defect that causes birds to migrate in the wrong direction by 180 degrees. Therefore, they go north when they should go south, west when they should go east etc. To my knowledge this is still somewhat theoretical but could explained some odd movement of birds. For example why are their Yellow-throated Warblers in St.John's every winter??

Anyway, lost in all of this rambling there was a point. I wanted to take a look at the weather maps over the past couple of days, compare them to the radar images of the same area and then actually get out in field to do some birding to see if any of this time spent analyzing this stuff actually pays off!

So lets start by looking at yesterday's weather map and the associated radar images for the eastern seaboard (for those who didn't know, we can see flocks of migrating birds on radar!!)

Weather Map for Oct 5- Notice the isobars running all along the NE Seaboard all the way south to North Carolina then turning NE and crossing Newfoundland

Radar Images for Eastern Seaboard for Oct 5

In watching the radar images note the large circular blobs that are growing and moving. Those are birds! Note that there are a large number of birds launching themselves out over the sea off of New York. Isn't it conceivable that some of those birds could get caught up in the south westerly flow and ride those isobars straight to Newfoundland?

Weather Map for Oct 6- Again the isobars are stacked around the eastern seaboard. This time they have moved a little father north and run basically from New York-Maine and wrap around straight to Newfoundland.

Radar Images for Eastern Seaboard for October 6

Once again we can see heavy migration all along the eastern seaboard. We also know that there is a pretty strong south westerly flow lying just off shore that is directing winds straight from New York to Newfoundland's Avalon Peninsula. Now look at those blobs on the radar. Notice how they bulge out over the coast in several places. These are birds moving out over the ocean in an effort to move south along the eastern seaboard. Once again its' possible that some could get out there and get caught up in the strong south westerly flow and engage in a reverse migration by following those south westerly winds all the way to Newfoundland

Tomorrow I'll be up well before dawn enroute to check out the migrant hot spots on the southern Avalon. There are four locations high on my list of places to check, Powles Head,Cape Pine,St.Shotts and Cape Race. See the maps below to get an idea of where these places are located.

Map showing the locations of 4 excellent migrant traps on the southern Avalon Peninsula. From left to right St.Shotts, Cape Pine, Powles Head, Cape Race

A more local view of the migrant traps. The long 16 km road that leads to Cape Race can be particularly good for holding vagrant passerines

So there you have it. This is an example of how I might prepare for a day birding. Look at the weather maps, look at the radar,choose my route, then get out there and find some birds. Like I have said before,this is not a perfect science. It is easy to see that some birds definitely got swept out over the ocean over the last two nights but will they head towards Newfoundland. If they do, will they fall out at one of my intended birding sites. Even if all of the above works out I still have to locate and identify them in vast areas! When you consider all of this is seems like a miracle that we ever find any rarities at all!

More likely it means that the number of rarities present is actually far greater than we presume, we are just lucky enough to find a very small percentage of them!

I'll try to update tomorrow or the day after to let you all know how things worked out.

Page Under Construction

2011-10-07T19:06:00.002-02:30

I just wanted to say that the page is under construction, that's why it's looking a little messed up right now. I'm working on improving the header image and blog description as well as a number of other things.

I think I like this look compared to the old look. Feel free to comment and let me know which one you like better!

Also, should say that new content is coming soon,like very soon, like tonight. I'm working on a post right no. unfortunately for those who have asked its not the Ringed Plover article. It's another weather analysis style post chalk full with some useful insight and lots of idle speculation. Anyway, look for that soon!

ps: I promise the Ringed Plover article will happen :/

Comparing Two "Events"

2011-09-23T12:34:00.009-02:30

Well,not surprisingly Hurricane Maria was a bust for pelagic birds. The storm was not set up properly and the tremendous speed with which it spun through Newfoundland made for less then ideal circumstances for sending hurricane waifs to our shores. Although the center of the hurricane passed over the Avalon Peninsula the storm was partially torn apart by strong wind shear from days previous. It became warped further as it entered the cold waters surrounding Newfoundland. This meant that most of the storms force lay in the NE quadrant, which passed east of Newfoundland. Maria produced peak gusts at Cape Race of 108 km/hr. For those of you who know of and have birded Cape Race,this equates to just another windy day at the Cape.

In analyzing this storm during its approach I quickly became more exited by the low pressure system that was moving up the eastern seaboard (responsible for directing Maria towards NL, away from the Eastern Seaboard). In years past fast moving lows (that coincide with offshore tropical systems) that sweep up the eastern seaboard, or move in from the Great Lakes have produced large arrivals of passerines.It was my hope that the same thing might occur when I started looking at the weather maps for Thursday September 15th and Friday September 16th.

In the following paragraphs I'll compare Maria and her associated low with Tropical Storm Chantelle of September 2007 and a low pressure system that swallowed it up and passed over Newfoundland. There are some interesting similarities and differences in the two storms, but as we'll see both looked very similar on weather maps and both produced a fallout of passerines on the eastern Avalon Peninsula, namely on Bear Cove Pt Rd.

Geography

Bear Cove Pt Rd is located within the town of Renews about half way down the eastern shore of the Avalon Peninsula. There are two factors which I believe make this road an excellent migrant trap.

1) position- the end of the road is located at a headland which juts out from the coast,perhaps improving this location as landfall point. As well, there is a lighthouse at the point, which might serve as a beacon for wayward birds traveling in the dark. Light beams from lighthouses have long been thought to attract birds.

2) habitat- much of the coastline of the Avalon Peninsula is dominated by barrens and stunted conifers. This is not exactly th preferred habitat for Neotropical migrants. However,when these areas are disturbed by the building of roads there is often a flush of second growth that sprouts up along the roads. In many cases, in Newfoundland Alder bushes grow en mass along these coastal roads. Compared to the surrounding barrens and conifers these alders beds look like oasis' to weary migrating passerines.

zoomed out map showing the location of Bear Cove Pt in Newfoundland

Zoomed in map showing a more local view of Bear Cove Pt

So now that the location for the events has been explained, lets take a look at the weather that helped make it happen. On September 11 2007 there was a deep trough in the jet stream created by a deepening low pressure system over western Ontario. There are also two other low pressure systems located north of Hudson's Bay and Labrador.As you can see by looking at the weather map below there were winds blowing from the Great Lakes directly to Newfoundland. The following day the more northerly low pressure systems moved farther south creating a strong south westerly flow.On the third day Thursday,September 13th, this flow of air that had been SW of the Great Lakes on Tuesday,into Cape Cod and the Maritimes on Wednesday, was now flowing into Newfoundland. When looking at the weather maps pay special attention to the area where the isobars are tightly packed and notice how that tightly packed area moves west to east over the three days.

Fastforwarding 5 years we had a similar system (September 15-17) that brought a big influx of birds to the eastern Avalon Peninsula. Once again there was a deep trough in the jet stream caused by a low pressure system over Ontario and there was again corresponding low positioned to the north over Labrador and Northern Quebec. Looking at the weather map notice how tigtly packed the isobars are over the western Great Lakes, exactly as they were on September 14th, 2007. Once again, just as in 2007 the more northerly low advances south, this time combining with the low over the Great lakes to form a large, formidable low pressure system that was driving air from the southern Great Lakes towards Newfoundland.Between September 15th and 16th the winds whipped through Cape Cod and the Canadian Maritimes, just as they did from September 11th-13th of 2007. The winds made it to Newfoundland by Saturday, September 17th as strong Westerly and South westerlies. On the two days following the passage of the large numbers and a good diversity of passerines were found along Bear Cove Pt Rd.

It took each system three days to make it from the Great Lakes to Newfoundland and on the forth day a fallout of passerines was evident. Below I've paired the days 1,2 and 3 of the 2007 and the recent 2011 systems so you can see the similarities.

September 11th 2007 September 15th 2011

September 12th 2007 September 16th 2011

September 13th 2007 September 17th 2011

Included below that is a chart that compares the warbler species found after the passge of each system.

There is more to birding then just learning how to identify birds. Gaining an understanding of how weather drive patterns of vagrancy give a birder a significant edge when deciding when and where to concentrate their efforts. Sure anyone can go out and stumble into a rarity but the informed birder know what to expect, where to expect it and knows how to identify it. Of course, it's far from a perfect science and there is still a lot of guess work involved but the more time we spend analyzing weather and then comparing it to bird movements in our area the better we get at predicting events such as those described above.

Speculations About Maria

2011-09-14T12:53:00.003-02:30

Well it looks as though we are going to get hit by Tropical Storm/ Tropical Depression Maria. To be quite honest I'm not sure what to expect from this storm. The storm has never been that strong, with winds maxing out at Tropical Storm strength. It has lost many of its tropical characteristics, it does not have much in the way of surface rotation or spiral bands and it's not expected to intensify much, if at all, before it reaches us.

The storm has been out at sea the entire time only coming close to land near the Northern Antilles islands. Due to its pelagic nature its very unlikely that Maria will bring any land birds with it.However, it still might have the potential to carry a rare tern or two our way. It isn't the type of storm that will entraiin birds and drag them long distances, but it's moderately strong winds could certainly persuade some birds in our direction.

I'm still trying to develop a game plan for birding this storm. Right now it's expected that the storm will pass through eastern Newfoundland, somewhere near the Avalon Peninsula and the winds are forecast to be from the south. This isn't exactly the most productive direction to produce a movement of sea birds but southern facing points on the Avalon could be good, that is if it's not too foggy to see!

I'll probably try my luck at Cape Spear. This location is generally better in a N or NW wind, but I've seen some good sea bird movements on southerly winds here as well. If the winds get up to 60+km/hr sustained you can expect to see Storm Petrels and some other tubenoses going by.

If the storm tracks futher to the east and generates N or NE wrap around winds after it passes, then there could be a nice movement and birds like Leach's Storm Petrels and Jaegers will be pushed into Conception Bay. If this happens places like Kelligrews, Seal Cove and Holyrood will be worth checking.

The day after the storm passes it will be well worth checking all coves and beaches on the Avalon Peninsula for any tired storm birds. Possible species (no matter how unlikely) are Black Tern, Least Tern, Sooty Tern, Bridled Tern and Magnificent Frigatebird. Just look everywhere and at every tern. Photograph anything unfamiliar and get the word out if you think you have something unusual.

Good luck!!

#247 Bagged

2011-09-12T20:44:00.002-02:30

On September 11th I set off for a day birding with good friend Jarod Clarke. Jarod and I have had some good success birding together in recent years so the day was filled with promise. For example last October we put together a nice string of rarities that included, Blue Grosbeak,Indigo Bunting,Scarlet Tanager,Grasshopper Sparrow, Hooded Warbler and I know there were a couple of others that got away. The year before we managed to pull off a rare 5 species of Vireo day on the southern Avalon Peninsula. This might not seem overly impressive, but when you consider that there aren't any breeding Vireos in eastern Newfoundland, then you see how significant this was. Of particular note were a Warbling and Yellow-throated Vireo. Added to the Vireos were a Prairie Warbler, Yellow-breasted Chat and a Prothotary Warbler.Again not bad!

So we have a history of finding good birds, you get the picture. Since I was entering the day at 246 for the year ( only a single species from the NL year list record) I was feeling confident that the record would fall.

We decided to hit a well known migrant trap to start the day. We quickly found ourselves surrounded by warblers and sparrows. Before long we had Prairie Warbler- nice bird, but I already had seen one this year. We continued birding for migrants for the next couple of hours and added a few more interesting birds but nothing new for the year and after 3 hours digging in the alders we decided a change of scenery was in order. We headed for Bear Cove (100km S of St.John's),which was only a 7 minute drive from our location. The coastal deciduous shrubbery is well known among Newfoundland birders for its ability to collect weary migrants. The list of rarities that have been found there over the years is too long to mention but suffice to say that every Warbler and Vireo that breeds east of the Mississippi had been found there in the last decade! This was also the location of the Orchard Oriole and Golden-winged Warbler that I had found just two days earlier. To make a long story short, today was not the day to find a mega in Bear Cove. We were late getting there, the winds had picked up and the birds were keeping a low profile- no year birds here.

So, from there we headed South and I wasn't worried in the least since we were headed for Cape Race. I've mentioned Cape Race in previous posts. It's located at the extreme SE edge of the Avalon Peninsula and has a list of rarities that can compete with almost any birding location in North America. The Cape itself and the long dirt road leading to it have played host to some of the most extraordinary rarities in Newfoundland and North America, for that matter.

However, things were slow today. We pished the stunted trees along the coast hoping for an exhausted migrant, but nothing. We walked all around the grassy areas and the building at the Cape and again nothing. On our way out the road we were talking about how Cape Race had failed us when we flushed when Jarod yelled stop, what's that!! I slammed on the brakes and looked to the right, raising my bins at the same time. I got on a largish,plump passerine that was flying along side the car. It was immediately interesting, but what was it. We quickly went through the possibilities, Horned Lark, Pipit (the two most common possibilities). But wait it's bright below, Oriole, no that's not right. Then as the bird just passed by it clicked, Meadowlark!! We could not see the Black V as it flew by but the large size (for a passerine) the dumpy look, short tail with white outer tail feather, and pale sandy back and of course yellow under parts, all added up. The bird flew away with strong direct flight that consisted of a series of tight undulations. We watched it fly away, looking as though it wanted to land, but not landing. We lost it after about 100 meters and we failed to re find it.

So that was it, the Meadowlark was my 247th species of bird for Newfoundland this year and I was now co-owner of the Newfoundland year list record. We birded for another 4 hours without anything remarkable happening and got home around 9:00 pm to put an end to a 15 hour day.

It's 9:40 pm now and as I write this I'm thinking about tomorrow. I'll be birding the southern shore again and the next new species will give me sole ownership of the provincial year list record. I'll post an update tomorrow if I'm successful, otherwise it'll be a few days as I continue to work on the Ringed Plover article.

Katia Passes, Bring on Marie

2011-09-10T17:07:00.005-02:30

Well Hurricane Katia passed by south eastern Newfoundland today without coming within 300 miles of the nearest land at Cape Race. Due to this storms track far from land and it missing us by such a large margin its not thought that we will get any hurricane waifs from the storm. Having said that I'm still prepared to be surprised by a southern Tern or White-tailed Tropicbird. I'll be birding the Cape Race area tomorrow, so we'll see what's around then.

So Katia was a bust, but no worries there is a new storm that looks like it has some potential according to the latest model readings. This is the 95L that I alluded to the my last posting. It's fluctuated between Hurricane Marie and Tropical Storm Marie over the last couple of days. The storm is having trouble maintaining spin and organization and may in fact fizzle out to almost nothing before it even gets to us. However, it will be entering the warmer waters off the south eastern US in the next couple days and it could very well intensify. If Marie can get her act together and become a real Hurricane the current tracks suggest that it could head straight for eastern Newfoundland. Again, its not thought to get that close to the eastern seaboard, so even if we do get hit, it might not bring a birds. We'll have to wait and see. Here are what the current models are suggesting.

This shows the potential tracks that TS/Hurricane Marie might take over the next week. Tracks this far out are inherrently wrought with error, but the fact that all the models are suggesting a very similar course makes it quite likely that the actual track will be very similar to what's pictured here

BIG YEAR UPDATE

Over the last couple of days I added three new birds to my year list and picked up a a bonus bird when I realized that somehow I had forgotten to tick Common Redpoll. The other birds added were Dunlin, GOLDEN-WINGED WARBLER and ORCHARD ORIOLE.

The latter two species are extremely rare in the province. There are maybe 6-8 records of Golden-winged and perhaps just a single good record of Orchard Oriole and this was the second to be well documented and photographed in the province. The situation with Orchard Oriole in Newfoundland is an odd one because it seems to be underrepresented. The species is recorded several times annually in both New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, yes we have two records??!!The photos aren't among the best I've taken, but when your dealing with rarities documentation trumps aesthetics.

With the addition of the above mentioned species my current year total sits at 246. This is just one species short of the single year Newfoundland list record. My original goal of 260 species is well within reach. If I really go hard and we have an influx of good birds 270 might not be totally out of the question, although that's an almost unimaginable number. In fact, 247 was thought to be unbeatable and 260 was thought to be somewhat outlandish, so who knows!

I'm still working on the Common Ringed Plover piece. I need to dedicate a couple of hours to get it clued up. Look for it in the very near future.

Katia Update and Looking Ahead

2011-09-05T21:17:00.005-02:30

As promised here is an update on the track of Hurricane Katia. When I last posted a couple of days ago things were looking pretty exciting. The storm was forecast to track relatively close to the eastern seaboard then re curve to Newfoundland. Well, all of that has changed. Now it looks like Katia will come under the influence of a strong low pressure system ( remnants of TS Lee)which will steer it well off the coast of Newfoundland.

Note that all the models have Katia passing well east of Newfoundland. Good news for everyone but birders!

Having said that all is not lost. If the remnants of Lee remains relatively strong and sweeps up the coast combined with Katia, it could still bring us some stuff but will not have the potential to carry pelagic birds. If Katia gets within 200 miles of the eastern seaboard and then passes within 200 miles of Newfoundland it will still be worth looking for waifs that could have been carried in our general direction and then continued to our shores to rest.

Ok so it looks like Katia will be a bust but I'm an optimist. I'll just brush this let down aside and move on. While is this hugely disappointing my years of languishing as a Leafs and Cubs fan have taught me a thing or two about let downs and disappointment! So, just like there is always next season, there's always another storm. I guess its a toss as to what will happen first, a hurricane driven fallout of birds, a Toronto Maple Leahs Stanley Cup or a Cubs world series. Considering its been 54 years since our last hurricane fallout and 45 years since the Leafs last won the cup, it could be close! I won't even mention the Cubs!

Anyway, that next storm is on the horizon, well figuratively speaking. There is a system currently named 95L ( storms don't receive names until they reach tropical storm strength) that's developing off of Africa. This storm is already looking pretty organized with lots of heavy thunderstorms. Its in an area of extremely warm water and it looks to be destined to become a tropical storm and probably a hurricane. its' way too early to consider tracks but its forming south of where Katia formed,which will give it a better chance of getting close to the eastern seaboard. So I'll keep an eye on that one and update accordingly!

One can always hope!!

Look for something on Ringed Plover identification coming up. I found a juvenile Ringed Plover on the southern Avalon Peninsula two days ago. It's the 6th ( 3rd juvenile)I've found in Newfoundland and the 10th provincial record. As a juv its a bit tougher to id then an adult. I'll talk about some of the finer point of separating juvenile and Ringed and Semipalmated in the next update!

ps: the Ringed Plover was 239 on the year. This morning I added a Gnatcatcher for 240. That brings me within 8 birds of the Newfoundland big year record.

Keeping an Eye on Katia and Revisiting Some Old Storms

2011-09-01T22:01:00.011-02:30

It's been several months since I last updated this blog. I apologize to my regular readers for the lack of new content. I've gotten inordinately busy with work and life in general. But now that I'm back there are a couple of things I want to talk about.

My Newfoundland big year continues to chug along. It has been a great year for rarities and I'm accumulated a list of 238 species seen to date. This currently sits just 9 species short of the Newfoundland year list record. If there are even a few gettable rarities this fall I will likely have a shot at my goal of 260. In my next post I'll do a bit of a recap of my year so far and will include photos and discussion of some of the rarities.

As well,we are in the middle of the Atlantic hurricane season. It has been the second most active season on record and promises to continue to be exciting in the next couple of months. This is not a topic I take lightly. Hurricanes cause enormous damage and disrupt bird populations. However, for birders they can be very exciting because they have the potential to displace birds over vast distances. These storms have been happening since time immemorial and will continue to occur. They will continue to displace birds. If the birds are coming anyway, we might as well enjoy them.

It has been a long time since Newfoundland has seen a hurricane borne fallout of birds. Well, that's not entirely true. In late October of 2005 the remnants of Hurricane Wilma combined with the passage of a strong low pressure system and rained Chimney Swifts, Swallows, Terns and Yellow-billed Cuckoos all over Atlantic Canada. It was perhaps the single largest displacement of hurricane driven birds ever!! Unfortunately, we blew it big time!!! Newfoundland birders failed to organize and there was no concerted effort to look for storm driven strays beyond the Avalon Peninsula. There were a bunch of good birds found on the eastern edge of the Avalon including hundred of Chimney Swifts ( rare in Newfoundland),Gull-billed Tern, Sandwich Tern and a likely Royal tern that slipped through my fingers tips before I clinch the id!

A number of factors combined to make this an extraordinary event. First of all the storm formed very quickly and intensified to one of the strongest hurricanes on record. I believe it had the lowest central pressure of any hurricane ever! It formed during a time (mid October) and in an area (Gulf of Mexico)where huge numbers of birds were migrating at the time. Even though the storm fizzled out and never officially made land fall in Newfoundland it combined with an intense low pressure system that allowed it to entrain birds until they finally escaped near the coast of Atlantic Canada.

To give you an idea of the significance of the movement of Chimney Swifts. Prior to Wilma I had seen 8 Chimney Swifts in Newfoundland in 10 years. On a singe day after Wilma, I saw over 150! Anyway, enough talk of that. I've been trying to suppress the memories of how bad we ( birders) botched this storm.

So moving on. Aside from Wilma you have to go back 53 years to September of 1958, when Hurricane Helene rained storm driven strays all over Western Newfoundland.The most notable species involved in this event were Laughing Gulls ( many hundreds) and Black Skimmers ( 10's). I don't think we have any records of Black Skimmer since.

This exactly the type of hurricane we need to bring in exotic terns and seabirds. Most important is the storms track over Tern rich Cape Hatteras, the speed at which the storm was moving. Couple this with the fact that the storm managed to miss the rest of the eastern seaboard and hit Burgeo, Newfoundland directly as a H1 hurricane. It was the perfect storm for a wreck of exotic sea birds!!

A photo the day after the passage on Hurricane Helene. Taken from Burgeo Sept 29th 1958. This photo was borrowed from a great paper written by legendary Newfoundland Ornithologist, Les Tuck. it can be viewed here in its entirety. (http://elibrary.unm.edu/sora/JFO/v039n03/p0200-p0208.pdf)

Since 1958 we have had a few other storms that have gotten us excited, but none have produced a significant fall out of hurricane birds. When we do get direct or near direct hits from Hurricanes they are often storms that have been well out to sea for the duration of their existence, never getting close enough to the Tern rich areas from Florida to Cape Cod. These storms often form near the Cape Verde Islands in Africa, then track west, north of the Lesser Antilles. They then start to intensify into hurricanes as they enter the warmer water, but often encounter strong steering currents from low pressure systems sweeping out from the eastern US. This results in the storms re curving away from the US coast and towards Bermuda,sometimes tracking on to hit Newfoundland, but more often missing us entirely.

Its still worth birding these storms however,since they have brought us a few good birds. We have had a couple of Least Terns and a White-tailed Tropicbird that have been found after the passage of such storms. Other highly pelagic species such as Sooty and Bridled Tern may also be possible after such storms. Below are some examples of such storms from the last few years.

Hurricane Florence of 2006,classic Cape Verde storm that re curved around Bermuda and was extra-tropical when it passed off the Avalon Peninsula on September 12th. A Least Tern and a dead White-tailed Tropicbird were found after this storm.

This much anticipated late August storm failed to produce anything too exotic, but we did find a rare Least Tern at Grand Bank, Burin Peninsula and there was a noticeable influx of shorebirds into the area.

This utterly useless storm powered in to the Avalon Peninsula on the morning of September 21st. It's winds(that peaked at 173 km/hr) left a path of destruction in its wake and failed to bring a single vagrant sea bird. This is exactly the kind of storm we don't want. If we're going to get battered we should at least get a few avian rewards as compensation!

So all of the above is an incredibly long-winded way of saying I get excited about hurricanes and the exciting birding possibilities they create. All of this rambling is made more relevant by the fact that as I type this Cat 1 Hurricane Katia is spinning its way west, currently lying about 600 miles ENE of the Lesser Antilles. Like other storms and some of the examples above Katia is predicted to intensify as it passes the Caribbean and then re curve in a North Easterly direction around Bermuda towards Newfoundland.

I've been following this storm since its genesis off the west coast of Africa and as of now the various computer models are having a difficult time predicting the track that Katia will take. Its not thought that the storm will hit either the Eastern US or Bermuda, but rather pass somewhere between the two. After that its any ones guess,since predictions of hurricane tracks greater than 5 days out are wrought with error. Well known Hurricane guru Dr. Jeff Masters in his latestBLOG entry said " It is still unclear how much of a threat Katia may pose to the U.S., but it is becoming increasingly clear that Katia will pass uncomfortably close to the U.S. East Coast. The trough of low pressure currently steering Katia to the northwest will lift out early next week, and a ridge of high pressure is expected to build in, forcing Katia more to the west. This decreases the danger to Bermuda, but increases the danger to the U.S. A second trough of low pressure is expected to begin affecting Katia by the middle of next week, and will potentially re curve the storm out to sea before it hits the U.S."

If Katia should track more to the west and pass within a 100 miles or so of the eastern US then re curve towards Newfoundland (giving a track similar to Helene in 1958) we could experience some exciting birding. Storms that stay far out to sea have limited possibilities like Tropicbirds and maybe Sooty and Bridled Terns. When a storm gets close to the US coast a host of new possibilities come into play such as Brown Pelican, Sandwich Tern, Royal Tern, Forster's Tern, Least Tern and others!However, this is a big if! The extended forecast models have been flip flopping over the last few days showing Katia making landfall in Newfoundland as far west as Burgeo and currently show it passing about 100 miles east of Newfoundland.

This is the ensemble model forecast. It basically shows a bunch of possible tracks resulting from various environmental factors, then shows a track median ( the white line). Note that several of these tracks would be very favorable for bringing exotic southern strays to Newfoundland.

Shown here is the storm pulse track which currently shows the storm passing east of the Avalon Peninsula. It is way too early to make an accurate prediction about how close the storm will come to Newfoundland, or how intense it will be when/if it does make it here. Note that several of the models have the storm tracking ina slightly more westerly direction. Shift the median track 200- 300 miles miles to the east and Christmas will be coming early for Newfoundland birders around September 12th!!

So of course, all of this is nothing more than idle speculation, which is half then fun in birding. It's probably half the skill as well. Knowing what to expect, knowing what the possibilities are and where to look for them. Many times the identification is the easy part. The tough part is putting yourself in the right place at the right time and that's something you can't learn from a field guide.

I look forward to following this storm on my blog and updating everyone on my big year exploits. Sorry for the long absence, I'll try to keep the ball rolling with more regular posts this time!

Nary a Peent....

2011-05-04T17:17:00.002-02:30

Sorry, I haven't posted anything lately.I'm currently doing some bird surveying and have been incredibly busy. I thought I should post the result of my Woodcock adventure though, so as not to leave you all in suspense! Well, as the title suggests we did not hear any Woodcocks. This likley means that I will now not add American Woodcock to my year list. I will get back to the Codroy valley ( only known breeding location in NL) but not until the first week of June and it's unlikley they will be calling or displaying then- I will try though!

Having said that the trip wasn't a complete bust. The weather was decent the first night, so that can;t be blamed for our missing Woodcock. The second day however was a different story. We were faced with jurricane force winds (seriously!!)and horizontal rain, which made finding birds nearly impossible. Despite the weather we re able to pick up the Redhead that had ben reported fours previously.In many ways this makes up for missing Woodcock. Redhead is extremely rare in Newfoundland (only about 6 sightings ever!!) so I have to be happy with that. I was also able to pick up a few other odds and ends liek American Tree Sparrow (could have missed that for year!) and Pied-billed Grebe. The story of Pied-billed grebe in newfoundland is an odd one. There is one or two seen every fall on the eastern Avalon Peninsula between St.John's and Trepassey and they are known to breed in the province from only as single location, a small Pond in Loch Lomand, Codroy Valley. Every year there is asingle pair in the same small pond ( one year there was two pairs) sometimes they breed successfully and sometimes they don't, but there they are every year. It's quite amazing really since they have never even been seen in in suitable breeding habitat anywhere else in Newfoundland.Anyway, my point is it was nice to see cause you never know when they part might pack up and leave for good and reduce NL's breeding population of Pied-billed Grebes to zero!..

Allin all despite the weather the trip was worthwhile, I added 10 year birds and couple since to bring my year list to somewhere over 130, which is not bad.

Look for more content in the coming days. I promised to write something about weather and bird migration and vangrant probabilities, etc..etc..etc. So I'm hoping to get started on that tonight and maybe have it ready to post tomorrow.

See you then...

Woodcocks Await..errr Maybe

2011-04-26T13:28:00.002-02:30

One of the great things about doing a big year is it motivates, or perhaps forces one to do things that they might otherwise deem to be..well.. stupid!I found out a while ago that I would have the opportunity to go to Corner Brook
(600km W of St.John's) to participate in discussions about protecting some of Newfoundland's more vulnerable bird species. While that in itself is pretty cool, I immediately realized that trip trip would have a huge fringe benefit. It would put me within 190 km's of the Codroy Valley, the only place in Newfoundland where the elusive American Woodcock can be reliably seen..check that heard, they're almost never seen. Now the issue is I will have only a single evening to hear Woodcock. This might not seem like such a Herculean task if it weren't for the fact that A) Woodcock is a rare bird in Newfoundland and B) the weather forecast is horrible!! So, it seems the odds are definitely stacked against me, but the plans are made and I'm going to give it a try anyway.

So,I'll be attending a meeting on Wednesday until about 4:30, then bolting for the Codroy Valley asap, hopefully in time to orient myself,do some very quick scouting and then get set up and ready to hear a Woodcock during the small window of time when they display after sunset. Thankfully, I won't be alone during all of this. Fellow intrepid birder, Jared Clarke, has agreed to join me. He has yet to see American Woodcock in Newfoundland, so it wasn't that hard to convince him to take part in my misadventure!

I've just taken an opportunity to check the forecast for the Codroy area and it looks like we can expect winds between 20-50 km/hr along with up to 5 cm of snow and some rain, sounds great- NOT! Nevertheless, trips like this are part of doing big years. There are species you just must have and Woodcock is one of these. So in spite of snow, or rain, or hail, or wind, Jared and I will be out tomorrow night straining our ears, bracing against the wind, listening for that distinctive peent, peent. So think of us when your relaxing in nice warm homes and maybe even wish us some luck, because I think we'll need it.

Dip, Dip and More Dips!!

2011-04-22T13:20:00.003-02:30

For those who are unfamiliar with the word dip, it's a word that a birder and more appropriately a twitcher never wants to use. Basically it means searching for, but not seeing a rarity that was reported. Things have been heating up a bit on the birding front in Newfoundland (did things ever cool down?) with several good birds arriving from the south of the last week to ten days, unfortunately I've missed a couple of good ones.

Yesterday I searched in vain for several hours for a an immature male Summer Tanager.It had been seen feeding from a suet feeder and since it was snowing yesterday I figured it would surely still be attending the feeder, but no such luck. In the week before I has travelled to see a long staying Tree Sparrow and a newly arrived yellow-bellied Sapsucker and missed both of those.Not to mention I've failed to see the Rough-legged hawk that wintered near St.John's despite looking for about at least 5 times more than anyone else! Heck, even people visiting for just a single day saw this bird.

Anyway, I'll end my lament here and look ahead to the future. The next 10-15 days are bound to be very exciting since we are now getting into prime time for Euro rarities, southern vagrants and our own breeders will be heading back en masse over the next few weeks as well. All we need now is some weather. Ideally, we'll be looking for low pressure systems that move quickly from the south, bringing southern birds with them. Then after they drop off the southern vagrants they position themselves between Newfoundland and Iceland redirecting Icelandic breeders returning from the UK.

Though I'll be busy working and birding over the next few days, I plan on posting a much more detailed blog about the types of weather systems I mention above. I've also been doing some thinking about potential new birds that could be added to the Newfoundland list. I'll be posting a top ten soon to be found in Newfoundland list in the next week, so check back!

A Southern Blast- Weather and Birds/

2011-04-12T06:37:00.009-02:30

It's 6:30 am as I wrote this. I have just gotten in from a quick trip outside and man is it windy. Not only is it windy, it's damp and humid. It kind of feels like one of those early mornings we get in early September, when under the influence of a low pressure systems that was spawned in the Caribbean. I'm as usually borderline obsessive with my checking of approaching weather systems but somehow I had failed to even notice this one. SO the first thing I did when cam in was take look at the current forecast and the weather maps. According to The Weather Network it is currently 6C, rising to 11 by afternoon, with current winds gusting to 76km/hr from the SW. All of that looks like this on a weather map.

There are two things to notice about the above chart. First look how tight the isobars are packed around Newfoundland, this indicates that the winds will be rather intense. Secondly, note the origin of these isobars. They reach all the way to South Carolina and even Florida.

Another important point is where is the system itself originated. This system is actually a combination of a series of low pressure system's that only a day ago stretched from Texas to southern Ontario. This is the same system that brought strong wind, severe thunder storms and even a couple of Tornado warnings to Ontario. Here is the weather map from about 24 hours ago.

Note the line of low pressure stretching from Mexico to southern Ontario, with a low centered in Ontario. I wonder what if anything was dropped there after this storm?

Anyway, you can analyze weather maps until you are blue inteh face, but how does all this relate to birding? Well in order to answer that question a little background knowledge is needed. We need to have an idea of what birds are possible and we get this information two ways, or I do at least. first I check the birding list servs for the eastern seaboard to see what's on the move. For example, yesterday I noted that there was a flock of almost 30 Snowy Egrets in New York, apparently a one day high for the particular location. A little farther to the north in New Brunswick I saw that 100+ Brown-headed Cowbirds were seen at a feeder on a offshore island. By researching what's happening to our south, we can then get an idea about what fast moving systems that sweep through these areas could bring our way.

After you know what might be on it's way it never hurts to look at historical data from your own region. I do this by doing searching through the nf.bird ( our local bird list serv) archives. Doing this will give you can idea of what has happened in the past at this time of year, allowing you to form a precedent and get a further idea of what might be possible.

So, now that I have an idea of what might be headed our way there is only one thing left to do- go find some birds! So, today and tomorrow I'll be out checking the various hot spots, fields, marshes and feeders and hopefully my research and preparation will pay off!

Birder's: A Subculture??

2011-04-10T01:37:00.004-02:30

Ok, this is an obvious stall tactic, but hey what can you do. I've been busy editing photos and actually doing some birding lately, which has left me with little time to write (or finish half written) content for the blog. Therefore I'll leave you with a paper that i wrote for a Sociology class about 7-8 years ago. I haven't read it since, so if its brutally bad cut me some slack ;)It's kinda long, you might want some refreshments before setting in on this one...

Humankind has a long established affinity to those flying, feather-covered animals, known as birds. There is actually only one characteristic needed to qualify an animal as a bird, and that is the presence of feathers. However, where you find feathers you will indelibly find a host of other characteristics—hollow bones, lack of teeth etc. Curiously though, these defining characteristics are seldom mentioned in a discussion pertaining to why people “enjoy” birds. Roger Tory Peterson, inventor of the modern field guide—and perhaps the most celebrated birdwatcher of all time, refers to flight as the main reason for man’s attraction to birds. Therefore, it is not the characteristics themselves, but the product of their summation, which is important. It is true that the earliest designs for aircraft were derived from watching birds. However, it is not the act of flying itself that draws our attention, but rather what flight symbolizes—freedom. Birds of prey, and Bald Eagles in particular, are often felt to symbolize strength and courage and other important human values, but especially freedom. Based upon this it should be no coincidence that the United States, a country that purports to hold personal freedom above all else, selected a Bald Eagle as their national symbol. Listed among the other most popular reasons humans enjoy birds are their colorful appearance, and their beautiful voices. Birds appear in a rainbow of colors, with an almost endless number of combinations. Similarly, birds are renowned for their amazing vocal ability—they reside above all other animals in this category. However, many birds are not colorful, some have songs which consist of little more than a single chirp, and some, simply cannot, or chose not to fly, yet by their definition as a bird, they are a subject for human admiration—why? Throughout the rest of the paper I will attempt to address this question. In doing so, I will first provide a brief history of the activity of birdwatching, briefly exploring its scientific origins, and later showing that it gained momentum as a non-violent substitute for hunting. I will then proceed to split the bird watching world into a number of separate groups, highlighting the distinguishing features and motives of each group. The remainder of the paper will focus upon a single group: birders, who can be segregated from the other groups based upon they’re superior levels of knowledge, and commitment. I will argue that birders and are different enough from the other groups of bird enthusiasts, and society in general, that they constitute their own distinctive subculture. I will conclude with a brief summary, and suggested areas for further study

Henry David Thoreau was one of the greatest naturalists of the Nineteenth Century. In 1853 he remarked that, “it might be better to carry a spy- glass in order to watch shy birds such as Hawks and Ducks. In some respects, me thinks, it would be better than a gun”. — And so it began. Humans have been studying birds since, and probably before, the time of Pliny and Aristotle. One of the first truly great bird scientists was Dr. William Turner. He was referred to an the “father of Botany and is said to be the first ornithologist (one who partakes in the scientific study of birds) of the modern scientific spirit. In 1544 he published “Turner on Birds: A Short and Succinct History of the Principle Birds Studied by Pliny and Aristotle”. In this book he compared his personal studies with those of Pliny and Aristotle. The book was a remarkable achievement for its time and served as an impetus for further study. Following in his footsteps were the likes of John James Audubon, Alexander Wilson, and the afore mentioned, Henry Thoreau. These men made extraordinary accomplishments in the field of ornithology, particularly in the area of classification. During this early era, spanning approximately 1600- 1900, much emphasis was placed upon shooting birds for the purposes of careful study, and classification. In fact, there were really only two principle reasons for one’s interest in birds prior to the twentieth century: sport and science. Either way, both pursuits resulted in the death of many birds. Before the advent of high quality, portable optics, it was necessary to shoot a bird in order to study it. Over time, advancements in optical technology, and the field study of birds, meant few or no birds had to be killed to insure identification. The use of binoculars allowed the observer to get close looks at the bird, while maintaining a reasonable distance. The work of Roger Tory Peterson was invaluable in this vein— he is often hailed as the father of the modern field guide. He pioneered a system of bird identification based upon readily noticeable, species specific characteristics, which could be seen relatively easily using binoculars. In his guides he provided color illustrations of the birds with arrows pointing to the marks necessary for their identification. He was also emphasized the use of voice as a means of differentiating between similar species. The importance of optical advances (during the twentieth century) to birding cannot be overstated. This allowed for a much greater appreciation of birds, and was part of greater civilizing process that emerged following the feudal era. In the modern world of Ornithology, the shooting of a bird to procure a specimen—even if it is the only definitive means of ensuring an identification, is greatly frowned upon, and is illegal in most of the world. It remains however, perfectly legal to shoot many species of birds for sport, but that is a topic I will discuss in the following paragraph.

I will take this opportunity to thoroughly ground my study of birdwatching, within the realm of sociological study, by incorporating the work of Norbert Elias. Widely regarded as one of the greatest sociologists of the twentieth century, Elias’ most famous work is perhaps “ The Civilizing Process”. He argued that there was an observable development that occurred in Europe, between feudal times, and the twentieth century. This process included such things as the refinement of manners, and social standards. People began to exercise greater control over their feelings and behavior, particularly with respect to physical functions such as, eating, sleeping, and defecation. One aspect of this process was the normative regulation of violence and aggression. People also exhibited a reduced propensity for gaining pleasure from seeing, or partaking in violent acts. Birdwatching therefore, came to serve as a replacement for the more violent act of hunting. In his article, “ Birdwatching, Sport, and the Civilizing Process” Kenneth Sheard argues that birdwatching is an activity of the mimetic type. Mimetic is a word borrowed from Elias, who used the word to describe the appeal of leisure activities. More specifically, it refers to leisure activities that elicit strong feelings and emotional response in those taking-part in them. Mimetic leisure activities allow participants to experience excitement resembling that produced in real life- situations, but without the associated risks and dangers. An obvious example of a mimetic activity is paintball. In essence, paintball is simulated warfare. It allows its participants to experience the intense feelings of battle, without the threat of being maimed or killed, because live rounds, are replaced by relatively harmless paint balls. A less obvious example of a mimetic activity is birdwatching. Just as paintball removes killing from warfare, birdwatching removes killing from hunting. While birdwatching a person can experience the thrill of the hunt, minus the kill. Birds are vagile animals, and it is often extremely difficult to get quality views of birds, which are needed for proper identification. Over time, the increased availability of quality cameras and the growing popularity of bird photography have enabled a type of simulated kill. The bird photograph can be seen as the civilized equivalent to the rack of Moose antlers. However, as mentioned earlier, different people have different motives for watching birds. In the following section I will segregate bird enthusiasts into different groups, which will more clearly demonstrate the mimetic activities involved in the pursuit of birds.

Past writers on the subject have divided the birdwatching world into as many as 8 sub-groups: scientist, ornithologist, bird-watcher, birdwatcher, birder, twitcher, dude, and robin stroker. However, for the purposes of this paper I will combine the categories of scientist and ornithologist because they are essentially one in the same. I will also include the bird-watchers and robin strokers in the category of birdwatcher, leaving five groups, ornithologist, birdwatcher, dude, birder and twitcher. These five groups are discernable, based upon differences in knowledge, motivation, and commitment.

Firstly, we have the ornithologist. Most ornithologists will hold a Ph.D. in biology, conservation or some related field. They are extremely knowledgeable but they tend to have a narrow window of interest, perhaps concentrating on one particular group of birds, or even just a single species. They often have an interest in the morphology or internal working of birds, something seldom found in the other groups. They spend much of their time analyzing data collected in the field to be published in scholarly journals. Studying birds is their passion and their livelihood therefore their level of commitment is extremely high. If the ornithologist is the most scientific of all bird enthusiasts then the birdwatcher is the least scientific.
Birdwatcher is a very broad term, which many people outside the birding world use to describe anyone with any interest in birds whatsoever. However I will use the term birdwatcher to describe those people who at best, have only a passive interest in birds, and in fact, passivity is the defining feature of this group. The term birdwatcher “ sounds so passive and voyeuristic that you’d probably be far more disinclined to take it up”. Birdwatchers tend to have a limited knowledge, which usually includes only the birds that visit their backyard bird feeders, or the birds they see on various other nature outings; birdwatchers rarely plan outings based solely upon the presence of birds. As well, many don’t even employ the use of binoculars, which is mainly, what keeps them from gaining knowledge. Stephen Kellert randomly interviewed 2455 random U.S. citizens in order to gauge opinions concerning knowledge and levels of commitment among birdwatchers. Only 30 percent of those who said they birdwatched had reported using binoculars, and just 4 percent reported using a field guide. Only 0.7 percent indicated they could identify between 61- 100 species and just 0.5 percent more than 100 species. These statistics should not be surprising as most birdwatchers (non-committed birdwatchers, I refer to committed birdwatchers as birders) watch birds because of their aesthetic appeal, i.e. birds are pretty to see, 58 percent, while 0 percent listed the desire to identify birds, as the reason for their interest. So, birdwatchers have a passive interest in birds, and are interested in watching birds, mainly because they find birds aesthetically appealing. If birdwatchers are defined by their passivity, then the third grouping known as dudes, are defined by their ignorance.

A dude is a person who claims to have a vast knowledge of birds, while realistically they know very little. Dude, in this context, is a term that implies much scorn and derision. Cocker aptly describes a dude as “ the most unwelcome character in any rigid hierarchy – the person with pretensions above his station…his central feature is ignorance…his perceived deficiency is expertise”. A dude is a person who “calls” (identifies) birds indiscriminately, prematurely, and above all else, incorrectly, on the majority of occasions. In some ways they are the bane of many birders and especially twitchers, the final two groups I will discuss.

The remainder of the paper will focus upon the two most interesting segments of the birdwatching world, birders and twitchers. To simplify things I will begin by defining the birder in relation to the birdwatcher, and then the twitcher in relation to the birder. A birder is seriously involved in studying, identifying, and collecting birds, but while he or she goes watching birds, he or she doesn’t go birdwatching – they go birding. Birding implies a much greater degree of conviction and expertise. I mentioned earlier, that in a study of American people who claimed to be birdwatchers only 0.5 percent could identify more than 100 species. A very good birder could very likely identify greater than 500 species without the aid of a field guide, and even an average birder can easily identify well over 100 species.

Birders do not wait for the birds to come to them; they actively seek out and find birds. This is exemplified in the activity of ‘alder bashing’. A non-birder could misconceive ‘alder bashing’ as a malicious act carried out by people who have a deep-seated hatred for alder trees. In actuality, it is a term coined by birders, which describes the act of looking for birds amidst a thick tangle of alder bushes. There is actually very little bashing at all, since that would scare the birds away. It mostly consists of wading into a 6-8 ft high stand of alders squatting low to the ground and ‘pishing.’ This is another curious word from the birders lexicon. Pishing is kind of difficult to describe in print. It’s a technique for getting hidden birds to come out of the underbrush by piquing their curiosity. Basically, pishing is just making a loud (as loud as you can) shhhhhhh sound. However, everyone does it a little differently. Interrupting the sound as in pshhh-pshhh-etc is one way to vary the sound and accounts for the name. Some birders manage to get a little humming or other musical tone into their pish. You can also vary the shape of your mouth to get a sort of shhwshhwshh effect (see appendix 1J & K).

Birders also display a much larger degree of commitment and plan activities solely for the purpose of finding and identifying birds. Birders do watch birds, however their first thought, and immediate goal when encountering a new bird, is towards identification. After the bird’s identity has been confirmed one can then “watch” the bird, i.e. appreciate the bird’s beauty, behavior etc. So therefore, I would argue that the primary motivation, the raison d’être for the birder, is identification. Identification is critical to birding because it is through identification that birds are collected. I will elaborate on this means of collecting birds through identification in a later section. So one may ask, why is identification so important to birding, and not as important to birdwatching ? The answer is, the list. Birders keep lists of the birds they see. There are day lists, season lists, year lists, provincial lists, country lists, and the all-important life list—all are a source of competition, which is a central feature among birders—but absolutely crucial to twitchers.

Quite simply, twitching is the pursuit of rare birds. One who pursues rare birds is therefore by definition, a twitcher. There is only clinal variation between birders and twitchers because the pursuit of rare birds, is central to both groups. Cocker echoes this in his description of twitching when he states, “ It would be wrong to suggest that absolutely everybody does it, but I would like to meet the keen birder who claims never to have done so. We all like to see rarities. As in any other activity which involves collecting it’s a central part of the pursuit”. Twitchers, I would argue are a form of debased birder. The most dedicated twitchers gain very little pleasure from common birds, and are interested only in adding birds to their list. Over time as their lists grow it becomes increasingly harder to add new birds, and the twitcher can become very disheartened, and therefore derives little pleasure from the pursuit. As well, twitchers themselves spend very little time in the field finding rare birds. In order to find a rare bird it often takes hours of searching amongst common birds. Since twitchers are interested only in birds they have not yet seen, they aren’t inclined to spend hours looking common birds at the off chance of finding a rarity, they more often are seen looking for rare birds that have been reported by others. However, when they get word of a rare bird their behavior borders on manic—it is not uncommon for such people to literally twitch or shake with anticipation, hence the name twitcher. Hard-core twitchers make up a very small percentage of any birding community, and can be seen as a radical group of birders who equate birds with nothing other than another tick on their list. I will explore the activity of twitching further in the following section, because as stated above it is a central feature of the birding culture.

Birders do form a distinctive subculture. The “Subcultures Reader” defines subcultures as, “social groups organized around shared interests and practices”. Birders, not only exhibit shared interests and practices, they aspire to achieve goals that have no meaning outside of their sub-cultural group—birders will sacrifice the normative goals of the larger society to achieve the normative goals ascribed to their subculture. It is on this basis, that I will seek to define the birding subculture. I will also provide the basis for one’s inclusion or exclusion from the birding subculture. However, before I explain exactly what the birding subculture is, I should first say something about how it arose as resistance to the routinization of birdwatching.

After WWII birdwatching really took off as a leisure activity. Ever-increasing numbers of birders led to the formation of bird societies such as The British Trust for Ornithology in Britain, and the Audubon Society in the United States. As numbers of birdwatchers increased, limits were placed upon their activities to insure the integrity of the habitats they visited in search of birds. Members of birdwatching groups such as those listed above could receive permits to visit reservoirs, and other areas where large numbers of birds congregated. Structures such as blinds (a small hut-like structure with a window) were constructed to allow the observer to get close to the birds without causing too much disturbance. Due to these types of constraints birders soon came to congregate in masses much like the birds they were looking for. The growing numbers of more casual birdwatchers increasingly constrained the birders to differentiate themselves from the less committed not only in name, but in the type of birding they found attractive. These birders came to liken the activity of visiting these popular birdwatching sites to visiting a zoo.

On way birders came to distinguish themselves from the less committed birdwatchers was through listing i.e. identifying all the birds which exist in a given area and placing them on a list. This could only be accomplished by spending more time birding in less popular areas where rare birds are likely to be found. While most birdwatchers were visiting the popular areas pioneering birders set off in search of what are now known as vagrant traps. A vagrant trap is an area of land where migrating birds congregate—more importantly an area where rare migrant birds, which have been blown off course, are found. These vagrant traps are usually coastal areas since exhausted birds will seek cover in the first land they see. In Newfoundland excellent migrant traps are found at Cape Spear, Cape Race, Renews, Ferryland, Ramea Codroy Valley and others, see map in Appendix 2. Some of these coastal areas are typical Newfoundland coastal habitats—a combination of low shrubs and grassy areas, with rugged rocky coastline. Very few birds breed in these inhospitable environments, but their juxtaposition to the sea makes them a point of landfall for “of-course” birds. These vagrant traps come to have special meaning for the birder that is not recognized by those outside of the birding culture. For example, every year birders flock to the string of Islands off of Alaska, known as the Aleutians. They do this because this is the closest a human can get to Asia while standing in North America, hence it’s the best place to find Asian vagrants during migration. The top twitchers in North America spend thousands of dollars each year to visit these islands with the hopes of finding rare Asian strays to add to their North American lists. These people would rather, visit the Aleutians with hope of seeing some stray Asian birds to add to their North American list, than visit Asia, where they would be guaranteed to see many birds of many species. This is testament to the lure of the list. List.

So how important are these rare birds to a birders list? Newfoundland’s bird list for example contains approximately 370 species, more than half the list is comprised of rarities found in coastal environments such as those listed above. It is not enough to visit these areas in hopes of finding rare birds. One must have knowledge of bird migration, and weather patterns, to determine when rare birds are likely to be found. After this much has been accomplished one must then have the ability to identify the birds they see. Based upon information such as that mentioned above, birders have an idea of what to expect in the way of rarities. For example it is known that the best time to see vagrants from the southeastern U.S. in Newfoundland is during the hurricane season. The hurricane season reaches its peak in September, remarkably coinciding with the peak of bird migration. For that reason, most rare birds found in Newfoundland are found during September and October-- Newfoundland birders know this, birdwatchers don’t. Birdwatchers aren’t concerned with listing or finding vagrants; therefore they don’t need the knowledge base that is required of a good birder.

So the birding subculture did arise as a means of resistance—not to the dominant culture, as is usually the case, but as a reaction to the routinization of the activity they loved. This created the birding subculture, as it is known today. All birders have certain things in common which differentiate them from the other groups of bird enthusiasts, and the rest of society. All birders are interested in finding and identifying birds, especially rare birds. They do this through the practice of birding, i.e. the act of seeking out birds to be identified and listed. This, in part, summarizes what it is to be a birder—the lure of the list. The list is at the heart of the birding culture. This is where the nexus between birder and twitcher becomes most evident. A 'birder' is actively involved in studying, identifying and collecting birds on his/her list. Most active 'birders' will identify themselves as such, yet to a layman they might be referred to as 'twitchers'. The dialect of a 'birder' is almost one of hatred towards being referred to as a 'twitcher', yet in many instances these two titles are interchangeable. If there is anything that can distinguish a 'twitcher' from a 'birder', then it is the philosophy of a 'twitcher'. For many birders the major thrill is to actually find a new or rare bird for themselves, the twitcher is more frequently to be found in pursuit of other people’s birds.

Either way the goal of just about every birder is too find and identify as many birds as possible in their province, country, etc. This can have serious implications for one’s work and family life. In this modern era of birding, information moves at light speed. When rare birds are found the word gets out quick. Just about every country, state and province in the world have RBA’s .i.e. RARE BIRD ALERT. These usually come in the form of Internet groups, pager systems, or telephone recordings. As mentioned previously, birds are vagile creatures and where rare birds are concerned, time is of the utmost importance, birds don’t wait to be seen by birders. Upon being informed of a rare bird a birders first thought is, ‘ when and how can I get there’. If this means skipping work, a date with your girlfriend, or picking your wife up at work, then so be it. As Cocker states, “ the problematic relationship for a birder isn’t usually to the boss, but to your spouse. Many keen birders never marry, probably for that reason.” Some birders are willing to risk their marriages and careers to twitch rare birds. In a study of British Birders, Richard Bosner questioned birders about their twitching habits, and found that even within this category of birdwatching, it is evident that there are some divisions, based on self-desire or competitive listing. There are thousands of birders, but out of those there's probably less than a hundred who are near on obsessive. Birding and especially twitching requires a much higher degree of dedication than many other leisure activities. Bosners’ research findings show the dedication of individuals to the cause. Many birders frame their whole life around the pursuit, including their place of work, habitude and only going on holiday at certain times of year when new species of bird are unlikely to be found. After interviewing 50 of Britain’s top birders he found that 70% listed work as their premiere sacrifice to birding, 16% cited marriage/partner sacrifices, 16 % said they made a variety of other sacrifices to go birding. This mentality can be provided by the notion that 'a lot of the time an everyday, normal life would be ideal but once you’ve got hooked and keep going for birds, it’s very difficult to stop'. This type of behavior may seem obsessive to non-birders, but it is entirely logical to birders, but what drives this obsession?

A common reference made by many birders is, “I’ve been bitten by the birding bug”. This is a reference to the obsessive aspects of birding, which motivates birders to travel hundreds of kilometers or more, at a moments notice to twitch a rare bird (see appendix 1a- h). Birders do this because internal competition is the force that drives the birding culture, and credibility is the glue that binds its members. But what is the source of this competition and how does one measure a birders credibility within the birding culture?

Once again we must turn to the list. All birders keep lists. Listing is not only a way for the individual to keep track of the birds they’ve seen, it also acts as a measuring stick to show a birder how they measure up against the best birders in their area. Every birder strives to be the best birder they can—one does this by amassing a large list, while simultaneously maintaining, or gaining credibility. Advances in technology have taken much of the skill out of birding. Now all a birder really needs to amass a large list, is money and free time. A person can sit home and call the RBA hotline to check on where the rare birds are—go to the location, find the bird, and tick, another bird on the list. This of course, is assuming they have no prior commitments, and can afford to drive or fly to the bird’s location. These are the people I have referred to as twitchers. These birders have very little credibility because they are seen to lack skill and conviction, since they never find and identify any rare birds themselves. “The act of independent discovery (of a rarity) has been elevated almost to the status of a principle, which often forms the basis of opposition to twitching”. Remember identification skills are sacred in the birding culture, and if one truly wants to establish credibility within the birding culture they must above all else, prove their identification skills. The fastest way to do this is by birding with a number of good birders in your area. However that is easier said than done, since members of a local birding community don’t readily accept newcomers, who haven’t proven themselves. So how does one prove they are worthy of inclusion in the birding culture? The answer, find a rarity—but not just any rarity, a mega- rarity. There are different levels of rarities. For example, in Newfoundland birds seen less than annually usually constitute a rarity. A mega would be a first record, or a bird that hasn’t been seen in many years. This happened a couple of years ago when a Corn Crake was found at Cape Race, Newfoundland (see appendix 1G, A Mythical Mega Falls). A mega-rarity is a bird of almost mythic status. It could be a bird that is high up on a birder’s wish list, or a bird no one thinks could ever turn up in a given area. However, finding rarities is a double-edged sword. If your rarities are re-found, and confirmed by other birders, your in the clear. As Cocker states “ it’s best to let others know (about the rarity) quickly so they can share in the experience. Most people, in fact, want to proclaim the discovery to the world as loudly as possible because the real buzz is gathering the torrent of acclaim which pours your way”. So if all one needs to gain credibility in the birding culture is the discovery of a few rarities, what’s to stop one from just falsely reporting birds? Nothing and everything. There’s nothing to stop someone from lying about the birds they see. But if you do report birds that don’t exist, you run the risk of losing everything that it means to belong to the birding subculture. That paradox is at the very core of the birding culture. If for example over the course of a year a birder reports 10 rare birds (a high number), if less than 8 are re-found, other birders would probably start to get a little suspicious. The true measure of a birder's credibility is the average of rare birds reported, to rare birds accepted. Non-birders frequently assume that a birders rank is measured by the length of their list, however “ even top birders acknowledge that the number of species seen is secondary, if not immaterial, to your reputation.” Credibility is not something that can be gained quickly. One gains acceptance to the birding subculture by proving themselves over and over again, through the finding and documentation of ‘twitchable’ rarities, i.e. rare birds that are re-found by other birders. Birders who have gained a reputation of reporting ‘suspicious birds’ are labeled as stringers. Once a birder's reputation is tarnished in this manner, they are effectively excluded from the birding culture. Regardless of how talented a birder is, if their reports can’t be trusted, they will never be accepted into the birding subculture. Some stringers have resorted to photographing hand-carved, bird replicas, of mega-rarities in an attempt to regain their credibility. However, such records are usually easily detectable, since the birds are obviously never re-found and confirmed. As well, there is already an aura of suspicion surrounding stringers, so every report made by such individuals are met with the harshest scrutiny, which usually results to the finding of flaws in the replica or the photograph. Such an act is the equivalent of a capital offense in the birding culture, and it is not uncommon for shamed stringers to leave the province or country, with the hopes of gaining acceptance in another sector of the birding culture.

My intention in writing this paper was to shed some light on the complexities of the birdwatching world, specifically the group I defined as birders. I have shown that birdwatching was the product of the civilizing process that took place in Europe between the feudal era and the twentieth century. It was also shown that the subculture of birding grew out of resistance to the routinization of birdwatching, spawning a type of ‘super-birdwatcher’—the birder. In relation to the other groups defined, birders have highest combination of knowledge, commitment, and motivation. I have argued that birders constitute a recognizable subculture based upon shared interests, practices, and goals, which differentiate them from all other groups of bird enthusiasts, and the rest of society in general. The subculture of birding is driven by internal competition where its members strive to attain a high list of birds seen, while simultaneously striving to attain a high level of credibility. Many non-birders believe that trust forms the foundation upon which the birding subculture stands. To an extent this may be true, but as I have shown trust is closely tied to the more complex concept of credibility. Credibility is the glue that binds the birding subculture, without it there would be no way to monitor the internal competition, which motivates its members. To remove credibility would undermine the hierarchy of the birding subculture, leaving birders with nothing to strive for, and no way of comparing themselves to other birders. Therefore the subculture of birding is a hierarchical one, driven by internal competition and, bound by the credibility of its members.

There has been a relative paucity of work done in relation to the birding culture. In fact I could find no previous work which treated birders as a separate subculture, which in my opinion it clearly is. For that reason I think a more extensive treatment of birding in this fashion is needed. As well, the majority of birders are middle-aged white males, most of which, have post-secondary education. This is arguably the most dominant sector of any community. It would be useful to try to account for the lack of female, and minority group representation within the birding subculture. Also, birding is one of the fastest growing leisure activities in the world. It will be interesting to see what implications, if any, this will have for the birding culture. The rise in popularity, and subsequent routinization of birdwatching following WWII led to the creation of birding. Will the popularization of birding result in its routinization—will it evolve into something new? These are questions that await answers. However, they are proof that there is still much to learn about the social and cultural aspects of birding.

I'm back!...and Photos

2011-04-06T01:00:00.008-02:30

Well, I bet you all thought I had disappeared again. I've actually been working kinda hard writing material for the blog, i just haven't been finishing anything. I've also been experimenting with taking video footage. Today I got some footage of the long staying Black-tailed Gull and even got it performing it's long call. This bird is really starting to look good now. It's now mainly white headed and now has a brilliant red orbital ring. The red on the bill tip even seems brighter. Not bad for a gull that was run over by a truck! Here's a photo of the BTGU calling to assert his dominance over the near by Ring-billed Gulls.

I'm hoping to add some video footage of this guy in a few days once I get that whole scene figured out ;/

While the BTGU is starting to brighten up some species such as Great Cormorant have been looking pretty snazzy for a while now. This species has managed to effectively elude my camera lens all winter until a couple days ago. I finally caught up to a nice alternate plumaged bird on the remains of a dilapidated wharf in the St.John's harbour. It was rewarding to finally get some good photo ops with these guys after chasing them around the harbour so much this winter but never connecting with them when there were in convenient locations.

Along with the Shags another photo nemesis bird fell this winter- Wood Duck. Too be specific female Wood Duck. While the male of this species tends to garner most of the attention I find myself considerably more enamoured with the female.It lacks the riot of colors of the male Wood Duck, but makes up for that with a more subtle, less flamboyant beauty. I find myself especially drawn to the ye low orbital ring. That could just be me though, I have a thing for orbital rings. I won't get into that too much though or I'll ruin a future post. Anyway, you can see what I mean...

Since I'm on the topic of birds making the switch from simple basic plumage to their more flash alternate dress, I would be inept if I failed to mention Black-headed Gull. About 75-100 BHGU's winter in St.John's each winter and every year local birders eagerly wait for them to acquire their black..eh hemm.. I mean brown heads. yea, Black-headed Gull is a bit of a misnomer. I guess they do look kinda black headed from a distance on an overcast day?? Anyway, I'll finish this quick post with a few BHGU's.

Looking ahead, I've got a number of things planned for future blog articles. I'm knee deep ina discussion about possible ways of separating nominate glaucoides Iceland Gulls from apparently <<< key word<<< pure, white winged Kumliens Gulls. I also eluded to a future post about orbital rings. However before all of that I'll have something to say about the weather and what we might have to look forward to.
Look at this weather map. This is happening right now...

Right now birds displaced from the southern US are probably arriving on Newfoundland shores... but I'll have more to say about that tomorrow.

Oh and I almost forgot..added three new year birds today. Northern Fulmar, Ruffed Grouse and Thick-billed Murre. None of these are surprises. What was a surprise was the Great Egret that was reported. I did refind this bird. Unfortunately it was face down and not at all alive! Too bad, I hate seeing this happen,but such are the perils of migration. After the above system passes, I'd expect more Egrets!

2011 Newfoundland Winter Birding Summary

2011-03-19T14:13:00.015-02:30

Since I'm writing a summary of Newfoundland winter birding, one would be tempted to think that winter was in fact over and in most places that would seems a logical conclusion. However, anyone who knows anything about Newfoundland weather knows logical is an adjective that simply doesn't apply.In fact, as I write this we are in the midst of a major snowfall. So while the calendar might say spring, the weather says winter!However, since techically it is spring,I guess this is a good time for a review of what has been one of the most exciting winter birding seasons in the history of Newfoundland birding.

Things got off with a bang on December 1st, when I discovered the provinces 2nd ever Black-tailed Gull at the sewage outfall in downtown St.John's.

later that same day a Slaty-backed Gull was discovered at Quidi Vidi lake. Slaty-backs are annual in St.John's now and along with California, St.John's is probably the msot reliable place to see this species outside of Alaska!! Just last week I discovered a second Slaty-backed Gull at the St.John's landfill, unofrtunately it was far away and behind a chain linked fence, but definitely a different bird based on it's bright yellow bill.

Rounding out the gull action on December 1st were a Yellow-legged Gull and an adult Thayer's Gull,to make for a 14 species gull day in the city.

About a week later the Lapwings started to arrive. During the last half of November through december Western Europe was experiencing extreme winter conditions with heavy snow fall and freezing conditions. In an effort to escape the sudden onset of winter many birds began to migrate from the Nothern UK ad other parts of western Europe into the southern most parts of the UL, France and probably Spain. When this happens we know there is potential for some birds such as Lapwings ( a common cold weather migrant) to turn up in Eastern Newfoundland. It`s hard to put a final tally on the number of Lappers we had in Newfoundland, but I`d guess it was at least 7-10 and probably many more that went unseen. Lapwings were seen off and on until late January.

As we were getting excited by the Lapwing arrivals news broke about a GREYLAG GOOSE that was photographed 180 miles off the NE coast of the island. This represents the second record for Newfoundland (the other on an offshore oil patform a couple years ago)and perhaps only the third for North America. Just a few days later Cliff Doran(Cape Race light keeper) found an Upland Sandpiper at Trepassey. UPSA is a big time rarity in Newfoundland and is practically unheard of in North America in December, aside from maybe a few records in teh some of the more southerly regions of the US. Over the next couple of week we kept ourselves busy looking for Lapwings when suddenly during the last few days of December Killdeer stared to arrive.

Now these were not migrants. Killdeers are not normally found within about 700+ miles of Newfoundland in winter, not to mention being uncommon in all seasons in the province. There were 56 seen on the Cape Race CBC alone. There must have been many hundreds in the province. Unfortunately all seem to have perished as of late February.

Just when we figured things wre about as good as they were going to get news broke on the Anna's Humingbird. Now, this was totally insane. The bird as visiting a hummingbird feeder in teh small community of Brownsdale, Trinty Bay, NW of St.John`s. Although this was completely shocking the record does make sense, since there has been a movement of Anna`s Hummingbirds into the east this winter, with several states and provinces getting their first or 2nd records including, Ontario, Quebec,Pennsylvania and North Carolina.
Photo by Jared Clarke

As January came to end we moved in the doldrums of winter. Well thats what would ahve happened ina normal year, but this year was anything but normal. February turned out to be one of the msot exciting months I've experienced in my dozen years of serious birding in Newfoundland. The month was kicked off with a Common Moorhen. After some careful evaluation it was determined that the bird was most likley a American Common Moohen, although we will never know for sure.

Photo by Jared Clarke

Hot on the heels of the Moorhen came the third North American mega-raity of the winter in the form of a Common Chaffinch. As I wrote earlier there are very few "good" records of Common Chaffinch in North America but we felt this bird was a genuine vagrant.

Not long after the Chaffinch, the Redwing reports started. Well there were actually 3 or 4 individuals, including one that seems to have hung around Portugal Cove South for about three weeks. There were probably more Redwings that went unseen. We generally find Redwing among Robin flocks feeding on Mountain Ash berries. This year there were essentially no Mountain Ash, or Dogberries as we call them, so the Robins were spread out feeding on Cranberries and Patridge berries on the barrens, making it much harder to sort through them and consequently more difficult to find vagrant Thrushes that might be hiding among them.

While Redwings are exciting birds and a huge rarity for most North American birders and in fact Newfoundland is about the the only place in North America where a birder would get more excited over a Long-eared Owl than a Redwing. That was exactly the case for myself and two other birders as we made our way home froma day birding on the southern Avalon in mid February. Long-eared owl is extremely rare in Newfoundland, with just three records. The bird we had in Ferryland was the first to have been seen in the wild by Newfoundland birders. The others were found injured.

Thw LEOW was a great bird and a major Newfoundland rarity, but not of great significance to North American birders, since they are relatively common across much of the continent. However, something much bigger was about to happen. Whil out looking for the LWOW on February 14th a local birder found a small group of three Snipe feeding in small puddle of open water. He photographed them briefly and moved on. It was not until he looked at the photos 6 days later that he realized that one of those Snipe was a JACK SNIPE!!!

Before news broke on the Jack Snipe Newfoundland birders were already in Snipe hunting mode because we had discovered seeral COMMON SNIPE. Common Snipe had been recorded in eastern North America only once previously and that was a single specimen collected in Labrador in 1927. Coincidentaly that year Newfoundland saw
1000's of Northern Lapwings, which were no doubt fleeing unusually bad weather in western Europe.

Aside from all the rarities there has been plenty of good winter birding in Newfoundland as well. We are startin to see good szed flocks of Common Eiders, including a few Kings. There are goodnumbers of Purple Sandpipers present and finches are beginning to stage a bit of an influx. Earlier in teh winter there were moderate numners of Dovekies t be found, which was nice after their inexplicable absence last winter. Throw in a bit of an ivasion of Boreal and Northern Saw-whet Owls into St.John's in February and that tops off a great winter of birding in one of North America's premier birding destinations!

NOTE I will be offering Newfoundland Winter biring tour next January. We will focus on rare gulls,finches and European rarities. It will probably be significantly less expensive that similar tours offered. I'll be posting details on this tour when I get them finalized in about a month. If you think you might be intersted send me an email at dave.browne@gmail.com and I'll give you some advanced iformation.

Tufted X Ring-necked Duck Hybrid

2011-03-18T07:25:00.005-02:30

One of the benefits of doing a big year, is it gets you to places you would otherwise not go. A few days ago I made the 160 km trip to Clarenville ( stopping in Arnold's Cove on the way) to add Harlequin Duck and Gadwall to my yer list. Both are birds that I will likely see again later in the year, but in a big year a bird in the hand etc etc....

Anyway, while I was looking for the Harlequin Duck in Clarenville I came across this hybrid Tufted X Ring-necked Duck.

Notice the intermediate features, such as the stubby tuft, the RNDU style white around the base of the bill and at the tip and the gray washed flanks, which are gleaming white in adult male TUDU.

Compare to this adult Tufted Duck

Also worth noting is the wing pattern,which is intermediate between the two species.

TUDU X RNDU Hybrid showing primary pattern intermediate between the two species.

Normally TUDU's show bright white secondaries, with the white extending well into the outer primaries. While RNDU shows greyish primaries and secondaries. When you combine the two it seems you get a pattern similar to that seen in Lesser Scaup,with bright white restricted mainly to the secondaries. Although note in this hybrid the first few primaries show some white as well.

This individual was found a couple of months ago by Bruce Mactavish and I had completely forgotten about it existence,so it was a nice surprise when I saw it. This is a rare hybrid on this side of the Atlantic and is more often seen in Europe. However, over the course of te last decade the number of wintering Tufted Ducks in Newfoundland has increased dramatically, with 35+ in St.John's alone, at one point this winter. There are probably;y that many again, spread out over the rest of the island. If these numbers continue to grow, I wouldn't be surprised to see more of these hybrids. Equally likely and a more appealing option would be the first discovery of Tufted Ducks breeding in Newfoundland. It would seem to make sense to stick around rather than fly all the way back to Iceland each spring. Black-headed Gulls started out kind of like this and they have now established a small breeding colony in western Newfoundland, so maybe Tufted Duck will be next!?

Gyrfalcon Dreams and Ecstasy in Ivory

2011-03-14T02:23:00.011-02:30

Well it's been about ten days since I started my Gyr search and I'm still Gyrless!Today aside from looking for Gyrs I went to look for a single King Eider that has been associating with over 3000 Common Eider. When I got to the location the birds we way off shore. I got to looking around the area. I was perched atop a high cliff face. Opposite me were steep cliffs that would soon be covered in nesting Black-legged Kittiwakes, this was a great spot for a Gyrfalcon- we know they've been seen here before.

Anyway, the point of all this is I finally realized that if the Gyrs aren't going to come to me, then I'm going to go to them and so it was decided. I'm going to make the 1050 km drive to the northernmost tip of Nefoundland. This is not a place where you see a random Gyrfalcon, it is within their regular winter range. They are seen there this time of year perched on cliff faces waiting for an opportunity to take some unsuspecting gull or duck. I saw photos taken last year of a Gyr taking an Ivory Gull from this exact location. If I see that, it will be the closest thing to a religious experience I have ever had. To see that scene play out is the pinnacle of birding. I was supposed to be there, but I couldn't make it at the time and I've regretted it ever since.

So, I'll be departing St.John's early on the morning of March 24th, hopefully with a few more people, since I've offered this as tour. With any luck early on the morning of the 25th we'll have our first Gyr,hopefully to be followed by several others.

Internet Photo

I can see it happening like this. A white morph Gyr perched on a rockface with snow covered cliffs in the background. I'm almost salivating , just thinking about it.I do not know the artist but I figure if I'm going to use the painting I should link to his site. It can be purchased here.

Ok, so it's obvious I love Gyrs, but you know that's only half the equation. There is only one bird that for me can rival Gyrfalcon in it's mystic appeal to birders- Ivory Gull. Bruce Mactavish said of Ivory Gull "its the only bird that looks better every time you see it". Ivory Gull will not be a guarentee on my trip and Gyrfalcon is probably more likely. However, I have reason to be optimistic about the possibilities of seeing these Arctic ghosts.

Above Photos property of Bruce Mactavish

Starting around March 18th a pretty strong weather system originating in northern Canada is going to move over northern Newfoundland and looking at the isobars it looks like there is going to be some fairly strong northerly winds associated with ths system. Ivory Gulls loungin on the pack ice in the Labrador sea could be encouraged to move south to northern Newfoundland.

Note the tightly packed isobars over Newfondland bringing winds from the Labrador Sea and hopefully Ivory Gulls to Northern Newfoundland.

Things calm down for a couple days then another system moves in from the southern US and looks like it will itensify offshore, growing as it approaches NL. Looking at the maps, it looks like this system is big and might continue north. If it does it will generate more fierce winds with a northern component- Again good for IVGU and GYR!

I'll end this posting with a series of excellent photos taken by Bruce Mactavish in late February 2010 at the tail end of an Ivory Gull invasion into Northern Newfoundland. Well over 100 Ivory Gulls were seen in that week. I'm not asking for that many, a few will do. Heck even a great experience with one!

All IVGU photos courtesy of Bruce Mactavish

2011 Newfoundland Big Year- Here We Go Again!

2011-03-13T20:24:00.003-02:30

If you've been following my blog for a while you might remember that I kind of did a half-assed big year in 2010. I started off guns blazing, then slowed down and stopped entirely mid summer, before hitting the gas pedal again in the fall. The end result was I finished at 243 species for the year. That's a good total for year in Newfoundland and just 4 species short of the record, but my list should have been much higher. For example I had some very blatant misses, such as Dovekie, Great Shearwater, all three jaegers and both Skuas. On a real big year you should have all of these. As well I never travelled to get any of the tough to get Newfoundland breeders like Northern Hawk Owl, Rock Ptarmigan or Spruce Grouse. On top of that I never really chased any rarities. So in fact I guess it wasn't much of a big year at all. I basically just birded a lot and kept a list, but never did what was needed to really accumulate a big total.

This year things are different, well for now at least. I stated outright in my first blog post of the year that I was NOT doing another big year, well here we are in early march and things have changed. I made the decision about two weeks ago when I was thinking about al of the great rarities that was been seen this past winter. Then I got to think I don't really want to work a real job this year. So the decision was made, one more year dedicated to non-stop birding, then I have to make something of myself ;)

So far I'm at 110 for the year. That's a decent start, but really the number isn't important. What;s important is the number of rarities. Rarities will make or break my big year effort. Newfoundland being an island stuck out in the north Atlantic has only about 150 species. That means if I'm going to get to 260 for the year I'm going to need about 110 vagrant species- that will not be easy, but no worthwhile goal is is easily achievable. So far this year I have added 5 new birds to my Newfoundland list,considering I'm at 326 for the province it's not easy to add new birds. that will give you an idea as to how good the birding has been so far in 2011.

Aside from the legitimate rarities there are some what I will call " must haves" if I'm going to hit 260 this year. This list is comprised of birds that are uncommon breeders, difficult to see birds or bird that are seen on an annual or semi annual basis. So far I'm missing three of these birds, Gyrfalcon, Snowy Owl and Ivory Gull. It's quite possible that I could get GYR and Snowy Owl late this fall or in early winter, but if I don;t get an Ivory Gull in the next 3 weeks Ican forget that one. I plan on putting myself in the best possible position to see one by getting to the Northern tip of the island in a couple of weeks, where with any luck there wll be a few Ivory Gulls to be found not that the pack ice has reached that part of the island.

I'll be posting updates about my big year progress periodically and especially after significant finds or misses. If you'd like to have a look at my current list it can be found in the link immediately under the blog title, or by following this link.

Yesterday while looking for a Harlequin Duck that had been reported I stumbled upon a hybrid Tufted X Ring-necked Duck that was first discovered by Bruce Mactavish in January. That will be the topic of my next blog posting. Look for it tomorrow!

New Content Soon!

2011-03-10T22:31:00.002-03:30

Hey everyone. I was really hoping to have some new content to Post tonight, but I'm afraid its going to have to wait until tomorrow. I'm dog tired after a 12 hours birding day on the southern Avalon. I've spent the last three days birding with John Vanderpoel who is doing an ABA big year this year. he came to Newfoundland to pick up a few of our lingering rarities. We did well over three days scoring Black-tailed Gull, Slaty-backed Gull, Yellow-legged Gull and Common Snipe. We dipped on Redwing and Chaffinch, but those weren't really expected at this point. If you'd like to track John's progress on his big year you can visit his blog here John Vanderpoel Big year

I now have a couple of days off from guiding, but doesn't mean I won`t be birding. I`m doing a big year of my on this year. A Newfoundland big year and this year I`m not taking any time off. My goal is 260 species. Anyway, I`ll have more to say about that and much much more, including an article on YLGU`s vs. hybrids, more Iceland Gulls and lots of new photos. So please keep checking back and I`m sorry for letting the blog slip for a few days.

Gyr Search- Day 1

2011-03-02T06:27:00.005-03:30

If your a regular reader of my blog, you've probably noticed me lamenting the dearth of Gyrfalcons on the Avalon Peninsula. Late last night, while working on an article discussing the separation of Yellow-legged Gull from similar Lesser-Black-backed Gull X Herring Gull hybrids, I had a bit of a brainstorm. Could I be part of the problem hereÉ Tht is could I be contributing to my own severe case of Gyrlessness?

That got me thinking. I was trying to remember the last time I actually went off in search of Gyrfalcon. I have never travelled specifically to see them and moreover I've hardly put any effort into increasing my luck around the Avalon. I could drive the 1000+ km's to the tip of the Northern Peninsula nd be virtually guaranteed to see Gyrs and while I'm not ruling that out, it's not in the cards for the next couple of weeks at least.

For now, my plan is to head out to Cape Spear every morning for the first hour or two of day light and try my luck out there. Historically this has been good pace to see Gyrs, especially after a few days of winds with a northern component. Since there isn't any sea ice at all around the Avalon Peninsula any wandering Gyrs will have to find land. Occasionally this happens at head lands such as Cape Spear, where they are sit and wait and hunt unsuspecting sea ducks and other sea birds from the rocky out crops that line the coast.

Ok, well dawn is approaching, so I'd better get going. I'm not loving the idea of having to get into that ice box out in my driveway, but it's a small price to pay for a chance at Gyr nirvana. If I see a Gyr this morning you'll know it. Wish me luck!

I'll leave you with this. Amazing footage yet again of the world's coolest bird...

Separation of YLGU and LBBG X HERG Hybrids

2011-03-01T19:46:00.017-03:30

Since the last post was quite long I thought it better to devote a separate post for this topic. In this post I will cover the separation of Yellow-legged Gull from the very similar Herring X Lesser-Black-backed Gull hybrids. For the purposes of this discussion I will be focusing only on adult birds and the comparison will be made between atlantis subspecies Yellow-legged Gulls and Herring (unknown ssp) X Lesser-Black-backed Gull (presumed Graellsi)hybrids.

This problem of HERG X LBBG hybrids is becoming increasingly relevant as the numbers of LBBG's in North America continue to increase. We have already had several instances of hybridization between graellsi LBBG's and Smithsonianus HERG's. A very well documented example and some nice discussion by Kirk Zufelt can be found here The Expansion of LBBG Some discussion about the discovery of a LBBG paired with a HERG on Appledore Island NH an be found here Appledore Gull As well,there have been several documented insyances of suspect LBBG X HERG hybrids getting friendly with Herring Gulls in Labrador,but no evidence of mating. The issue of HERG X LBBG hybrids is problematic enough, when you consider what a LBBG X HERG paired with a HERG would produce....well I don't even want to think about it!

Anyway, I'm getting off track , the purpose of this article is to discuss the separation of atlantis YLGU's from HERG X LBBG hybrids, so lets get started on that. I'm going to compare Yellow-legged Gull and HERG X LBBG hybrids based on their main points of separation, namely, mantle color, winter head streaking, bare parts coloration and wing tip pattern. I will not make any inferences about moult timing, since for hybrids,this is at best poorly understood,but from my experience most HERG X LBBG hybrids seem to follow a predominantly LBBG type moult schedule.

Mantle Color

This is often the first thing I look for when searching for YLGU's among mixed gull flocks in St.John's. When I'm guiding and I can't find a YLGU for my client I will sometimes seek out a LBBGXHERG hybrid to show them the mantle color we are looking for. This works great because atlantis YLGU's and HERGXLBBG hybrids seem to have identical mantle shades.

Not surpriseingly hybrid HERG XLBBG's have a mantle shade that is pretty much perfectly intermediate between those two species. Incidentally, atlantis YLGU's happen to shade that very same shade of gray. One small difference may be that the hybrids can look a little bluer. That could just be the way I see them.

Winter head Streaking

One of the most well known feature of YLGU's are their tendency to be purely white headed in winter. They are usually not free of the last remnants of winter head streaking until early January, although it's probably possible in December. This is when separating YLGU's from potential hybrids is much easier because the potential pitfall hybrid combos will have head streaking lae into winter and some even early spring. I saw two hybrid LBBG's yesterday and both still had extensive head streaking while the YLGU near by was completely and beautifully white headed and has been that way for almost two months.

HERG X LBBG hybrid- Photographed St.John's Jan 28th

Note the extensive head streaking, even extending down onto the breast. This manner of head streaking would never be possible in YLGU,especially so late into winter.

YLGU- Photographd St.John's Jan 30th

This is what every YLGU should look like by the second or even the first week of Jauary. If there are any remnants of winter head streaking it will be restricted to the lores and forehead. After the first week of jan any YLGU with extensive Head streaking, isn't a YLGU!

Bare Parts

In winter separating YLGU from LBBG hybrids is relatively straightforward. I have never seen a LBBG hybrid show bright yellow legs in winter. In summer all bets are off, the legs get scary bright on these things, but in winter they tend to show at best yellowish or maybe straw colored legs. Often times the legs appear flesh colored with yellowish spots, mainly around the knee joints. By contrast YLGU's ALWAYS have yellow legs. That is except for a very small percentage of apparently fleshy colored individuals. All the YLGU's we've identified in NL, have had nice yellow legs in all seasons, getting brighter as winter progresses. In my experience they are NEVER yellowish, pale yellow, greenish or any other permutation of yellow. If you see a YLGU that doesn't have pure yellow legs, it probably isn't a YLGU!

Note leg color and mantle color compared to immature LBBG to the right. Photographed at St.John's Feb,2009.

In my experience this is about as yellow as LBBG hybrid legs get in winter. These will probably be bright yellow in late spring.early summer. Photographed in St.John's Jan 2009.

Another example of standard leg color for HERG X LBBG hybrid.

Here is YLGU showing probably as dull yellow legs as you will see. Note while they are a dullish yellow, they are still a pure yellow without any greyish, greenish or flesh tones. These become bright yellow by mid December. Photographed in St.John's mid October 2010.

Aside from leg color, there are also differences in orbital ring color and to a lesser extent bill coloration. LBBG hybrids commonly show an orangy yellow or orange orbital ring, while YLGU orbitaj rings are usually deep red. As stated in the previous article, in early fall when at the height of basic plumage some YLGU's can show an orangy red orbital ring. Therefore its important to consider the date of obsevation when separating YLGU's from potential hybrids.

Note: Standard lookng head of HERG X LBBG hybrid in mid winter. Lots of head streaking, extra concentrated around the eye. Orange orbital ring,pale, clear eye and bill with decent sized gony spot with some subterminal black markings in the bill. In my expereince most LBBG hybrids show these black markings in the bill in winter, while only a minority of YLGU's will.

Typical YLGU from late December onwards.Pure white head, deep crimson orbital ring,large red gonys (does not need to bleed into upper mandible), clear, ple eye and clean bill, lacking black markings.Many will also show an extensively red gape line.

Even when streaking headed in latesummer and early fall YLGU's will never show streaking onto the breast and lower nape lik most HERG X LBBG hybrids do.

Primary Pattern.

Separating YLGU's from possible hybrids based on primary pattern is not exactly strightforward, especially since they can show the same general pattern of black on the outer 6 primaries, p5-p10, with a single mirror on p10 only and a black band on p5. Upon closer inspection though there are some differences to be noticed.

While generally quite close to YLGU, ths wing tip shows several differences. Notes especially the reduced black on p8 and the grey tongues eating into the blakc on p6 and p7. As well,there is extremely minimal black on p5, barely forming a thin broken band on only one wing. That smal mirror on p9 on the right wing also is a strike against YLGU.

This wing tip is closer to YLGU than the one above but notes especially the reduced black on the inner webs particularly on p6 and p7. Even more important are the pale moons lie between the blak and gry on p5-p7. These are not seen on YLGU. This is pretty sibtle though and you'd probably want a photo to show them.

Pehaps the most YLGU type wing possible in a HERGXLBBG hybrid. In fact this primary pattern is probably inseparable from msot atlantis YLGU's in the field. There are a couple of differences to note- based on my experience. The pale moons on p5-p7 are still there, much rduced, but still visible. As well,the black sub terminal band on p1 is considerable. In my experience out YKGU's generally show a thinner subterminal band on p10. Ofte when our YKGU's show a subterminal band this thick on p10,they will also have a black mark on p4. Compare teh above wing tips with the YLGU wings below.

Note the thin subterminal band on p10 (no black on p4. Compare p5-p7 with the above birds, notice the lack of pale white moons where the black meets the grey areas on the primaries.

Note the thicke subterminal band paired with black mark on p4. Also lacking pale moons p5-p7. The blakc on mark on p4 is critcal here. According to Olsen and Larssen only %25 of atlantis have a mark on p4. I have never seen a HERGX LBBG hybrid with a mark on p4. Doesn't mean it can't happen, but it's probably pretty unusual.

When identifying YLGU out fo range and especially when ruling out hybrid combinations it's critically important to consider multiple characters and avoid jumping to conclusions based ona singe trait such as leg or mantle color. As you cna see above there is some overlap between YLGU and HERG X LBBG hybrids in many traits and one should be very careful to first rule out this hybrid combination before claiming any YKGU out of range.

Yellow-legged Gulls of Newfoundland

2011-02-26T20:29:00.021-03:30

Let me preface this post by saying this is not meant to be a treatise on the identification of Yellow-legged Gulls,there has already been lots written on that topic and better presented than I'm capable of doing here. I'm writing this purely to show what our Yellow-legged Gulls look like in hopes that it might assist other birders in finding Yellow-legged Gulls outside Newfoundland. I'll present evidence to demonstrate that Newfoundland YLGU's are likely of the subspecies atlantis and will also include criteria for separation from possible hybrid look-alikes such as HERG X LBBG. Even though its nice having the monopoly on this species for North America,I suspect a few YLGU's are flying under the radar of east coast birder in other provinces and states.

Most of what we know about Yellow-legged Gull in North America comes from the hard work done by the 'Godfather' of Newfoundland gulling, Bruce Mactavish. Bruce had been finding these mysterious Yellow-legged, dark mantled birds for years before they were ever considered a separate species and long before anyone else cared about them. When I got on the gull watching scene around 2000 a lot of the ground work was already done.

Over the course of the last decade St.John's has seen at least one or two Yellow-legged Gulls every winter. At one point last fall we were able to identify 4 different individuals residing in St.John's in October,which is probably an all time high. Currently there are two individuals in town.

I often get questioned by visiting birders and even locals about what subspecies our YLGU's belong to. Well we kind of assume ours are atlantis(probably from the Azores). I say assume because maybe we can't be 100% certain, but we do have some good supporting evidence to support such a claim. Features of Azorean atlantis( also useful for separation from similar species) displayed by typical Newfoundland YLGU's include the following:

1) mantle color (The rare shade of gray)between Herring Gull and graellsi Lesser Black-backed Gull, but tending closer to LBBG. However, this can change dramatically depending on light conditions and the background substrate, i.e. grass,water, snow.

YLGU in back. Compare mantle color intermediate between HERG in front and LBBG in middle. Also note the head shapes of the three birds- photographed St.John's Oct 14,2010.

Looking quite dark mantled in late day sun. Notice pure white headed from a distance and typical blunt ended "butter knife" shaped bill, created by a steeply curved upper mandible. Photographed St.John's Dec 2/2009.

Here with Herring Gull.Compare difference in mantle shade. Also, note pure white head,deep red orbital ring and gape and thick yellow legs. Photographed St.John's Feb 01,2010.

2) extensive head streaking(late summer-late fall)- over the last few years we have been finding YLGU's in late summer (August). This has allowed us to see the dense head streaking characteristic of atlantis and Azorean birds in particular. The streaking is most dense around the eye as in LBBG and is mainly restricted to the head, rarely a few spots reaching the nape or throat- NEVER the breast as in some LBBG, HERG and LBBG X HERG hybrids.

Head fully streaked appearing more dense around eye (streaking appeared darker in life). Also note active moult state with all primaries either growing or replaced, with only p10 retained. LBBG's seen on the same day still had a number of unmoulted primaries. Photographed Aug 30/2010 at St.John's.

Almost appearing hooded from a distance is characteristic of Azorean YLGU's.Dark marking son bill are probably acquired as a result of basic plumage since there are no other apparent signs of lingering immaturity. dark markings in the bill seem rare in our brand of YLGU. Also notice active moult state with p9 and p10 still growing. Photographed St.John's Oct 08,2006, by Bruce Mactavish

Another photo displaying extensive winter head streaking. Photographed St.John's Oct 11/2010

Photo displaying remnants of winter head streaking. When YLGU's lose head streaking they tend to retain it in the lores and forehead the longest. Seen here on Dec 28/2010. Most Newfoundland YLGU's are white headed by early January or late December. Birds such as this can appear to be pure white headed from a distance.

3) primary pattern- extensive black on outer 4 primaries, p6-p10. Always a black band of varying width(often thinish) on p5 and occasionally a black mark on p4 on the inner web only. This is purely a guess but I'd say that <20% show a black mark on p4. Also potentially of note is the primary spacing on the closed wing. Olsen and Larssen states that adult Michahellis will fully grown primaries show evenly spaces apical spots on the closed wing. The YLGU's we get have anything but evenly spaced apical spots. In fact they all display a typical pattern of p5-p6 moderately spaced , p6-p7 being a little closer, p7-p8 most widely separated, p8-p9 very narrowly separated and p9-p10 almost lying over on another. Spacing of primary is based on personal observation and may not be reliable for separating YLGU subspecies.

Note extensive black in wing tips and sharp demarcation of black primaries against grey portions of the flight feathers. Mirror on p10 only,black in p9 and p10 reaching primary coverts and full band on p10 typical of atlantis YLGU's. Also a mark on p4 restricted to just outer web.Based on my research this seems more typical of Azorean YLGU's, but many Azores birds do not not have it. When it is there it seems to be restricted to the inner web. Photographed at St.John's Nov 11,2010.

Similar wingtip as above. Photographed at St.John's Dec 02.2009

This is the more common primary pattern for Newfoundland YLGU's,with black in outer six primaries ,mirror on p10 only, with a thinnish band on p5. To my knowledge we have never had a YLGU with a mirror on p9. This would seem to be supporting evidence of the Azores being the point of origin for out YLGU's since according to Olsen and Larssen <2% of Azorean YKGU's have a mirror on p9. Photographed St.John's Oct 17,2010.

Another typical primary pattern for Newfoundland YLGU's. The thickness of the band on p5 can vary,but its always there and when thin is always thicker on the outer web. Photographed Jan 14/2008 Bruce Mactavish

4) structure- Newfoundland YLGU's tend to present as a fairly compact bird, relatively short and seeming powerful, thick legs, with a full breast and wide shoulders. The head tends to show a sloping forehead with a flat crown and angular nape. In certain postures YLGU's can show a somewhat unique flat topped head with a sharply squared crown. Our YLGU's often look slightly smaller that Smithsonianus Herring Gull. They are equally chesty, but their seemingly shorter legs may create this impression.

Showing typical head shape with sloped foreheard,flat toped head and angular crown. Note also the hunched appearance of this individual, this might be a subtle jizz feature for our YLGU's. Photographed at St.John's,Oct 11/2009.

Here showing the extreme flat head and angular crown that which is is typical of the species, but especially atlantis. Note this bird apepared a little darker in life, but in certain lighting YLGU's mantle shade can be close only a couple shades darker than Smithsonianus Herring Gull. Note also the intensity of the deep red orbital ring. Photographed Feb1é2010,St,John`s.

Some atlantic YLGU's can appear more round headed especially when alert. This bird is quite white headsed for the date. Photographed Oct 11/2009 St.John`s.

Another typical fall YLGU,with extensive hood of streaking restricted to the head,showing characteristic head shape, deep red orbital ring and blunt tipped bill all characteristic. Photographed Oct 08/2006 Bruce Mactavish.

Bart Parts- As it`s name suggest YLGU`s have yellow legs as adults. Apparrently a small minority can have flesh colored legs, but all of the YLGU`s we`ve identified in Newfoundland have had dull to bright yellow legs. Along with leg color orbital ring color is another importan tfeature in YLGU. In alternate plumage all YLGU have brightédeep red orbital rings. IN basic plumage the orbital ring tends to take on varying amounts of orange coloration. Bill color and shape are also good markers in YLGU. The species is known for having a thick bill with a sharpely curved culmen,creating a blunt tipped bill. There is repots in the literature of YLGU`s gony spot bleeding into teh upper mandible. While I`ve seen this feature in some of our YLGU`s, this is not the case for all of them. Below are a few head shots featuring orbital ring and bill coloration and shape. Leg color acan be seen well in the previous images.

Photographed Oct 14/2009 at St.John's

Photographed September 2006 at St.John's, Bruce Mactavish

Two individuals showing characteristic basic plumage bare parts coloration. Note orbital ring and gony orange/red- red. By late December into January both the orbital ring, gony spot and gape of these birds starts to turn a much deeper red. See the next photo for an example.

Note the much deeper red orbital ring and gony spot of this alternate plumaged YLGU. Photographed Feb 01/2010 at St.John's.

Essentialy nominate Michahellis should be a little larger, slightly paler mantled,have less head streaking in late summer/fall (not appearing hooded), appearing longer legged and stand a greater chance of having a mirror on p9, with almost 50% of nominate Michahellis showing this feature. I can't recall a single Newfoundland YLGU ever showing a mirror on p9. If around 30-50% of Michahellis have a mirror on p9 (according to Olsen and larrsen) one would think we would have seen one that displayed that feature by now.

Circumstantial evidence that supports my claim that Newfoundland Yellow-legged Gulls originate in the Azores is provided by a couple of immature birds that have been identififed as being of Azorean stock. These include a 3rd winter bird from 2008 that seems ot have been widely accepted as an Azorean atlantis. As well, there is a 2nd winter bird from 2007 that seems (to me at least)a shoe in for an Azorean atlantis.

So, for the gull watching trying to find a YLGU, look for a Herring Sized gull with a mantle color between Herring Gull and graellsi LBBG,with a white or mostly white head (after mid December). It must have bright yellow legs, red orbital ring and gony spot (noticeable at some distance). The wings have a great deal of black on the primaries which is sharply demarcated from teh grey portions of the wing. It will most likley have a single mirror on p10 only and must have a complete black band on
p5. after you see al this, take as many photos as you can, call you friends then go home and celebrate a terrific bird!

NOTE: The hybrid discussion and photos are yet to come.

Coming Soon

2011-02-24T20:56:00.013-03:30

I just finished my last of 6 days of combined touring with a Z Birding Tours group and a private client and I have to say I'm pretty exhausted. Therefore, I'm not going to have much to say right now except to lay out what's coming.Before all these Snipe madness started I was planning on writing a few blog posts featuring the extreme variability of Kumlien's Iceland Gull. I did get the 1st winter birds covered but still have to cover the 2nd, 3rd years and adults. As well, I was involved in a discussion of Yellow-legged Gulls on the frontiers of bird identification newsgroup and will be posting a nice selection of Newfoundland Yellow-legged Gulls with some discussion as a follow up to that post.

Other that than that I plan on writing some other identification pieces including one on separating wigeons(its not as easy as youn think!) and scaups. I will probably also have something else to say about Snipes.

Aside from identification articles I will be posting a trip report and a general overview of what birding in Newfoundland has been like this winter. After all that is done, if I have anything left I will announce next winters tour and a 2012, mega Newfoundland Birding adventure. I'm really excited about that. There is some potential for some great birds. I am still in the early logistical stages, but I'm looking at something like a 10-12 day tour spanning a good part of the island.

For now I leave you with this video. I was simply in awe when I watched it. I could hardly believe it. Not sure I agree with the whole practice and kinda feel bad for the Wolves, but man those Eagles are awesome!!

Jack Snipe Video

2011-02-22T11:14:00.020-03:30

NOTE: this is not video of the NL Jack Snipe***

This has been a busy week with leading a tour group, teaching gull workshop and documenting cryptic Euro mega rarities. Due to this I don't have much time to prepare material for posting. In fact, I'm heading out again with Paul Linegar (finder of the jack Snipe) to do a little "Sniping". Is that even a word? Probably not, well who cares. The point is we are in the midst of an unpredented influx of European birds. It certainly appears that there are multiple Common Snipes and why couldn't there be more than one Jack Snipe?!

Anyway, I'm on my way out, so I'll leave you with this video of a Jack Snipe. This is very much like we hope to see here. Feeding in a wet patch of open ground during a cold snap. Hopefully I'll be seeing this in life very soon!

Jack Snipe

JACK SNIPE

2011-02-20T21:16:00.003-03:30

Something extraordinary is happening in Newfoundland right now! The list of european rarities we have been getting this winter is practically unprecedented. Now you can add Jack Snipe to the list. I received confirming photos of a bird photographed 6 days ago. I will be posting photos, I'm just waiting for permission from Paul Linegar who found the bird when it was just about dark. He thought it looked odd but it as really hard to get any detail in the poor light. It then flew and he got another photo. The photos show a perfectly amazing JACK SNIPE!!

I'm dropping tied now after a long day of guiding in which we bagged our target bird for the group, Common Chaffinch. Tomorrow we go Snipe Hunting!!!

Photo taken at dusk on an already dark day. Still though,leaves little to the imagination!! Found and photographed by Paul Linegar

COMMON SNIPE

2011-02-19T14:45:00.010-03:30

A couple of days ago I got a photo of a pale Snipe found by Bruce Mactavish.He of course was suspicious, as we all were but was not able to get the supporting evidence needed for an ID. It turned out to be the bird documented below as a Common Snipe.

I've had an interest in the Gallinago Snipe complex for a couple of years. Earlier this winter I had seen a Snipe that I was suspicious of being a Common, but I never had a camera with me at the time, so couldn't document any critical details.

Separating Wilson's and Common Snipe is no easy task. At this point I guess it's proper to say the final identification of this bird is pending, but I'm about 99.9% sure. We're just awaiting reply from some European birders who are familiar with the species. Basically it's on my list. It's ticked, I'm counting it. It's a Common Snipe and it will take a large body of contradicting evidence to prove otherwise at this point.

Update experts have weighed in- this is a Common Snipe!!!

When I mentioned continental mega in my previous post it really does accurately describe the status of this bird. It's currently listed as an ABA code 4 species but is essentially unknown from the vast majority of North America. It is recorded regularly from the islands off Alaska and perhaps the mainland as well. I believe it is known to breed in parts of Alaska in small numbers. Aside from that I think there is maybe a record for California, maybe one from British Columbia and that's it. There is an old record from Labrador during the massive Northern Lapwing invasion of 1927, when Jack Snipe was also collected from the same location. This bird represents the first modern day record for eastern North America and is perhaps the first record away from the Pacific Coast.

This record should not be terribly surprising to anyone who has followed my blog or the Newfoundland bird list recently. There was a huge cold weather movement of birds in the UK in the late fall and early winter. This is perhaps what brought us about a dozen Northern Lapwings, Common Chaffinch, unusual numbers of Common Teal (about 3X average) and more Common Gulls than usual. Right, almost forgot and 3 Redwings!!All of the afore mentioned birds were moving in big numbers out of Britain to points further south at that time and it looks like some decided to fly a little further east.

As i said,identifying a Common Snipe is no easy task. It was really only made possible this time because the bird is ina perfect area to be photographed. It is feeding in a wet area on the side of the road in a small community,together with a Wilson's Snipe. If you are incredibly patient you can sit in your car on the opposite side of the road and photograph it. The good thing about Snipe is they like to preen and they like to stretch their wings. Over 3.5 hours yesterday both the Common and Wilson's Snipe did some preening and stretching, which allowed me to capture critical field marks.

It seems that separation of these species is still in its infancy and maybe there is more to be learned.However,the Europeans have the jump on us and have developed a list of useful feature for separating the two. The following is my account of what I saw, my impressions and my reasoning for claiming this bird as a Common Snipe. All photographs were taken by me unless stated otherwise.

Compared to the Wilson's Snipe with which it was associating, the Common was much paler,overall, seemingly lacking the contrasting appearance shown by Wilson's. When seeing the two together or even the Common on it's own, it appears strikingly buff, especially on the breast and on the upper portion of the flanks. When compared directly with the Wilson's Snipe the Common appeared to be much more patterned overall, with more rufous internal markings in most feather groups but particularly the scapulars and tertials. Other general features noted were an apparently longer bill and tail. Both of these features were actually quite noticeable at times. As well, the lines across the back and the edges of the scapulars were very thick and chunky and much buffier than I'm used to seeing in Wilson's Snipe and were obviously different that the one Wilson's Snipe present in the area. Crucial field marks noted and photographed, included the following.

Axillaries and under wing coverts- the axillaries were mostly white with relatively thin white bars,that seemed almost washed out. In comparasion to Wilson's which always has at least as much black as white in the axillaries and looks very dark. The median and greater underwing coverts appear to be mostly white, which seems to be impossible for Wilson's Snipe based on current knowledge, which always shows extensive black barring in these areas creating a much darker underwing.

Secondary tips- easily compared when the birds stretched their wings side by side. The white tips were barely visible on the secondaries of the Wilson's,while they appeared thick and very obvious on the Common, creating the impression of a thick white line.

Tail- Excellent tail shots were obtained by Paul Linegar, showing the spread tail.It shows very well the characteristic outer tail feather pattern of Common Snipe, being much less barred than Wilson's. The COSN had only a singe bar on the outer portion of the tail feather, then a thick white bar followed by a long thick black area. Wilson's Snipe typically has a completely barred out tail feather. As well, you can see that the tips of the tail feathers are rather rounded, which should be diagnostic for Common Snipe.It's somewhat difficult to count the tail feathers, but based on the spread tail shot I count 12. There should be a couple more tucked away, unseen. Wilson's Snipe almost always have 16 tail feathers, which Common usually have 14, but may occasionally have 16 or 18.

Photographic Evidence:

Notice the overall buffy coloration of this bird compared with the Wilson's Snipe below. The scapulars and wing coverts appear much paler due to more and thicker internal markings. Notice the thicker and buffier lines across the back and the scapular edges. Also evident is the relative lack and less apparent flank streaking shown by the Common Snipe above. The streaking almost looks washed out and not as dense.

The photos are not quite to scale, the birds were actually pretty much the same size. Occasionally the COSN seemed a little large to me. The thicker buffier scapular edges are apparent, as well the over all more contrasty and darker tones of Wilson's. Also a hint of the longer tail shown by Common.

Note the darker based tertials shown by Wilson, with very small pale transverse bars.By contrast COSN showing as much rufous barring as black, if not more and appearing much brighter and more well patterned.

Photos displaying axxilary and under wing covert pattern:

Note: axillaries are mainly white with thin, well separated, black bars. Notice the typical WISN axillary pattern of tightly packed, thick black bars visible in the comparison shot. The underwing coverts of the COSN show a great deal of white, especially in the median and greater underwing coverts. This is beyond what is possible for a WISN, which is fully barred black in these areas and is not known to be variable. See the photo below for typical WISN underwing coverts.

Secondary Tips

Note the COSN in front with the much thicker white secondary tips. It is difficult to see any white in the secondary tips of the WISN in the back, which is typical.

Tail and outer tail feather.

Outer tail feather with just a single bar towards the tip. Compare to the photo below showing a typical WISN outer tail feather which is much more barred over the entire length of the feather.

Photo- Paul Linegar

Web Photo

As stated above, if accepted this would constitute the first record of Common Snipe for insular Newfoundland, the first record away from the Pacific coast and possibly just the 2nd or third outside Alaska.

BIG NEWS COMING SOON!!!!!!!!

2011-02-19T03:29:00.002-03:30

That's all I can say for now. But prepare for the announcement of a continental mega!! News could break tomorrow. Just awaiting confirmation right now, since the identification is tricky.Check back for updates....

The Coolest Bird on Earth

2011-02-18T00:09:00.010-03:30

If a post like this looks like I'm stalling for time, it's because I am! I'm still sorting photos and have a busy week of guiding and a gull workshop ahead of me. I spent all day preparing for the workshop tomorrow night and getting ready for a a day of guiding with American guest Larry Haugh. after that I will be co leading a tour with Jared Clarke for Z Birding Tours We'll be looking to clean up on lingering European and Asian vagrants and Newfoundland winter specialties. Hopefully we turn up a new bird or two along the way.

Anyway, enough rambling. The bird I'm referring to in the title is the Gyrfalcon. I refer to myself as being ina state of severe Gyr deprivation. It's a condition brought on by extended periods of Gyrlessness (yes that's a word, I just coined it!. I keep hearing stories from some of my eh hem "older" Newfoundland birding friends about the days when it wasn't a question of whether or not you were going to see a Gyr, but rather how many and what color morph they would be! I can only imagine. Gyrfalcons have been tough to come by on the Avalon Peninsula over the last ten years. In fact I've only seen 4. I remember each and every one of them. The last one being two years ago. It was a short encounter of a dark morph bird chasing a Herring Gull in mid October at Bear Cove on the southern Avalon.

This poor photo doesn't do the bird justice. I was looking over videos on you tube today and thought I would post this one of a white Gyr taking a Willow Ptarmigan.Partly, I'm posting this is because this is something I'm actually hoping to witness someday.I'll be looking for Willow Ptarmigan tomorrow and there just so happens to have been a White Gyr seen in the same area recently. It would be the the ultimate cure to my Gyr deprivation. I'll let you know tomorrow evening if it happened or not, cross your fingers for me ;) Just a heads up,you might want to have the mute button ready to go, just in case this music doesn't suit your taste.

How Far Would You Go??

2011-02-16T23:10:00.004-03:30

Pople bird for different reasons. Some just liek getting out in nature, others live for the thrill of the chase or the adreneline rush that comes when you find a mega rarity. Then there are others who live for the praise and acclaim they receive from fellow birdser for some amazing find. It's true, it feels good to get a pat on the back for uncovering an overdue first record, bit how far would you go? There are those amonung us who need that praise and acclaim so bad that they are willing to falsly claim rare birds just to get it! However, tehre is a problem with this system. After a birder reports a bunch of big rarities that never get refound, people start getting suspicious and soon people start to ignore the reports. The birder is quickly dubbed astringer and people move on.

I was looking over the surfbirds forums yesterday and found something remarkable, not overly surprising but remarkable. Some Armenian birder (appears to have) actually planted a prepared specimen in a tree and claimed it as a rare bird!!Said person then proceeded to photograph the bird and even completed a write up documenting it as a first occurence for the country!! This is birding fraud!! If it's not illegal it's shameful and ridiculous. I have been wondering if in this digital age we would see people doctoring photos in an effort to claim rare birds,but this is taking things to a while new level. Clcik the link below for the actual report and the photo what sure looks like a no longer living, Black-winged Kite.

Black-winged Kite in Armenia

Iceland Gulls Part 1- Juv/1st winter

2011-02-15T23:20:00.008-03:30

This blog will include exact what the title suggests, lots of juv and 1st winter Iceland Gulls. I'm not going to say much about them right now because it's late and I've learned not to get into anything that requires too much thought late in the night ;) So, for now you'll have to be content with photos of 25 juv and 1st winter Iceland Gulls. All of the birds in this post are Kumlien's Iceland Gulls. However, I'll be the first to admit I never scrutinized every one feather by geather, so if you think you see a g.glaucoides in there let me know.

So for the initiated here's the breakdown in the Iceland Gull scene in St.John's, Newfoundland. We have the largest wintering populations of Kumlien's Gulls in the world. In any given day it's possible to see several hundred without even leaving your vehicle, all at close range. As a general rule all Iceland Gull in Newfoundland are Kumliens, until proven other wise.

In case your new to the whole Iceland Gull scene and Iceland Gulls in particular, this is your chance to bail out now before things get ugly! There are currently two accepted subspecies of Iceland Gull, Larus Glaucoides glaucoides and Larus glaucoides kumlieni. This is something which could change in the future, since we really aren't sure what to make of Kumlien's Gulls. One common line of thought is they evolved as a hybrid swarm between Thayer's and Iceland Gulls. Others believe they are just a subspecies of Iceland Gull or Thayer's Gull, outright. I'm not going to state where I stand on the issue, but when you see the amazing and seemingly random variability of traits in Kumlien's Gulls, that hybrid swarm theory seems to make some sense. Anyway, before I bore you with too much, here are the photos. As I said all of these birds are though to be either juvenile or 1st winter Kumlien's Gulls. All bird were photographed between November 25 and the second week of February. I'll try to include dates in the captions at some point.

As you can see from the selection of photos above the variation is pretty great. A couple of these birds push the limits of the currently accepted view of Kuimliens Gull and you can see where lines that separate Kumliens from nominate glaucoides and from Thayer's Gull get blurred. Tomorrow, I hope to add some comments to each of the photos and I'll get around to adding some 2nd and 3 winter birds. I probably won't get to the adults for a couple days. That's when you'll really see the astonishing variability in these gulls. Please check back over the next few days. Also if you search or look through the older posts, I did write a blog about Kumlien's Gulls last winter that some of you might find interesting.

Iceland Gulls Coming Soon!

2011-02-15T05:13:00.006-03:30

As I was looking through my gull photos in an effort to write something about variability in Iceland Gulls, I realized what a disorganized mess my files were in. So for the past day or so I've been sorting through thousands of gull photos and assigning each species its own folder in an effort to achieve some semblence of organization. Well I'm about 80%vdone but not quite finiahed yet. I decided to finish sorting before I wrote anything so, unfortunately that means a delay in the Iceland Gull article.

Since I don't have much new to talk about right now I'll leave you with a video of my Newfoundland fall big day team. With a team like this is there any surprise we destroyed the competition ;)

Long-eared Owl (and other winter birds)

2011-02-13T08:13:00.008-03:30

It is starting to become apparent that something is happening with Owls on the Avalon Peninsula of Newfoundland. Many years we have between 0-1 species of Owls on our winter list. This year we have 6!! Over the last three days there have been 2 Boreal and 2 Saw-whet Owls in St.John's. There have been a couple more "small Owls" and a couple of Short-eared Owls on the southern Avalon at Cape Race, I wonder what's happening?

Its possible we're in the midst of a bit of an Owl influx? This happens occasionally, if there has been a particularly good breeding season the summer before and if we happen to have a harsh winter. Well, this winter has been anything but harsh, but, we had large accumulations of snow over the last two weeks and temperatures have dropped significantly. Could this have pushed these Owls to the Avalon from points farther north or west?It's all speculation for now, but I wouldn't be surprised if the reports of Owls (especially Boreal and saw-whet)continue to come in.

Anyway, enough speculation, lets get to the title of the post. We had a LONG-EARED OWL yesterday!! Unfortunately there aren't any photos, but three of us saw the bird well at fairly close range. The following is the incident described in Bruce Mactavish's words as posted on our local RBA,

John Wells, Dave Brown and I were coming back from a nice winter's day
of birding down the Southern Shore. It was getting pretty dark as we
came through Ferryland. Street lights weren't quite on when an owl
flew out from some spruce trees. It hung in the wind briefly then
landed on a telephone wire. We were excited and assumed it was a
Short-eared Owl based on size etc. It was light enough to see the dark
wrist patches on the under side of the wing. We stopped the car and
looked at it for a minute or minute and half sitting ont he wire. The
rounded head soon began to grow bumps. 'Oh look you can see the ears',
something you don't see often on a Short-eared Owl. The nubs continued
to grow until they were pencils sticking out of the head. There wasn't
an overall scream of euphoria because were still thinking this was a
Short-eared Owl. But the long ears were very disturbing. I know
sometimes you can see little ear tufts on a Short-eared Owl, something
like you can also see little tufts on the head of Snowy Owls. The fact
that when the bird first landed the head was rounded reinforced the
original Short-eared identification.It was too dark to see much detail
of the head and breast.

The bird flew along the shore behind the houses. We followed and found
it again. It was riding the wind in a gliding mode. It hung semi-
motionless over a tree top for a while but didn’t land. Then it
vanished flying away from us. We drove around looking in vain in the
darkness for it. We were all kind of quiet on the rest of the drive
home. Those long ears were very disturbing. Some quick research in
some books made the case of the long ear tufts being beyond what a
Short-eared owl could ever show. And the fact that a Long-eared could
have a tuftless head for a period of time was important. It isn’t
much to go on for a bird so rare in Newfoundland, but the length of
the long narrow ear tufts on an owl that size is trademark for Long-
eared Owl. There is barely a handful of records for Long-eared Owl in
Newfoundland.

There are rumours that the local dump has closed and rats have moved
into Ferryland. We heard this from locals when we birded there in the
morning. We didn't see any rat tracks on the fresh snow. How can
this bird be refound? Good question. Being extremely noctournal it
seems like a needle in a haystack it will be refound. That is not
saying we aren't going to try.

That's pretty much how it happened. A few birders are headed back down this morning in an effort to refind the bird roosting. As Bruce said there seems to be limited roost sites available for a LEOW in the area, so maybe there issome hope of refinding it.

Aside from the Long-eared it was a really nice day of winter birding. We had hoped to catch up with the two Redwings that were reported from Portugal Cove South, no luck there, but we did have some great experiences with other Newfoundland winter birds and even a few mammals.

Aside from that mind blowing LEOW we enjoyed a beautifully calm, crisp, sunny winter day,with some great winter scenery and nice winter species. We enjoyed prolonged looks at several groups of Willow Ptarmigan. I'm always amazed how these birds seem to thrive in such a harsh environment. They were sure looking nice in their winter plumage against the newly fallen snow.

Not far from the Ptarmigan we encounted a true Avalon nomad, the Woodland Caribou.The herd of 55 that we saw today are part of the southernmost population of these animals in the world. Here is a portion of that herd.

Although we missed a couple of winter birds that we were hoping for, like Hoary Redpoll, I finally connected with another Newfoundland winter denizen, the Northern Shrike.My photo was so bad that I'm not going to post it. Instead, here is another not so good photo from a few years ago, of a juv close to the location where we had yesterdays bird.

So there you have it. Great weather, great scenery, great birds. That's pretty much winter on the Avalon Peninsula in a nutshell. Well maybe we got lucky with the weather, but the scenery and the birds never disappoint.

If you love Iceland Gulls half as much as I do, you won't want to miss the next posting!! Until then...

Multiple Owl Species- IN MY YARD!!!

2011-02-12T01:01:00.007-03:30

One of the great things about birding is that you never know what is going to happen from one day to the next. The sheer unpredictability of the endevour is a large part of the attraction for me and today was a perfect example.

By all accounts, today was a(birding)write off up to 4:30. Generally, I drop my fiancee,(Jen) off to work then head to the sewage outflow and Quidi Vidi lake for some gull watching. Well, for the first time in a while today the sun came out. Sun and gull watching, on a snow and ice coverd lake, don't mix well. Therefore, I decided to stay home edit some photos, try to publicize the blog a little and leave the birding to someone else for a change.

At around 4:00 I looked at the clock and thought, well maybe I'll leave early for Jen and drop by the sewage outflow to see what's happening for a half hour before I get her at 5:00. I got dressed, grabbed my camera and bins and headed out. Upon opening the door I could immediately hear a series of sharp chip notes. I looked and down at the back of the house there were a few Juncos giving alarm calls and flitting about in a large Spruce tree. Now here is where a little background information is beneficial. I choose the current location of my home based on it's birding potential. The first year we moved in we had Newfoundland's one and only Bullock's Oriole at our feeder,so I felt good about the decision. Also, since we moved I have had a habit of checking the large trees that border out property for roosting Owls in the winter.

On occasion small Owls will move into St.John's in winter, presumably because their rodent prey is getting harder to find after heavy snow falls. The city can be a good place to find a meal of mouse if your a hungry Owl.Anyway, given my habit of checking the property for Owls and the knowledge that Owls could be on the way, the Juncos behavior seemed a bit unusual. Sure enough when I got a little closer to investigate the birds behavior, I was pleasantly surprised to find a Boreal Owl tucked on a cracked off branch,right against the trunk, about 12 feet off the ground- WOW! We just don't see many Owls in Newfoundland. We hear them in spring, but seeing them, especially a small Owl, is a really special experience.

I quickly grabbed my camera and fired off a couple dozen shots. My shutter speed was horrible because it was about 30 minutes before sunset and the Owl was in a deeply shaded area. Here is one of the best photos I could manage.

I knew this is a bird that other birders would want to see. The problem is I had forgotten my phone at my folks house a few nights previous. I decided to speed off and get Jen and call birders on the way back to the house. I arrived at Jen's work after a 7 minute drive that felt like an hour, popped my head in the door, shouted Boreal Owl in our yard!! That was enough to get to to leave 15 minutes early. I started calling birders.

I arrived home and after a short time a few birders came by to see the Owl now sitting with it's head tucked firmly under its wing and enjoying a nice snooze,despite the growing crowd beneath him. After about 30 minutes there were just four of us left,including fellow birders Gene Herzberg and his wife Karen. As we were talking about our good fortune in seeing this amazing bird, Gene almost got struck by what seemed to be bird droppings. This was odd because the Boreal Owl was not in the tree directly above us. Could there be another Owl??!! Then almost immediately Karen leaned a little and said, "there's another Owl up there". What..impossible!! One Owl is amazing,2 would be unbelievable. I moved over and peered up into the tree beside the Boreal to see a Northern Saw-whet Owl staring back at me. WOW!!!!!. I could hardly believe my eyes. Even now it doesn't seem quite real. Its like one of those dreams you have where you stumble upon this massive fall outs of rarities, or you find an Eskimo Curlew at your local patch, I was waiting to wake up disappointed, but it never happened, this is real. Two species of small owls in my yard, simply amazing!!

Photo- Gene Herzberg

I immediately called back all the birders that had left telling them to return for Owling part II. I went inside to get my camera, but when I came back out I was told the Owls had flown and that was that.

Perhaps some places this would not have been that big a deal, but in the practically Owl-less city of St.John's and for Owl starved birders this was big, very big. This evening in my yard will no doubt go down in Newfoundland bird lore as one of those talked about moments that birders reminisce about. It brings smiles to the faces of those that were there and those who missed the event make a quick run for the bath room, or try to change the subject in an effort to quell the pain. Most birders can relate, we've been on both sides of the fence, I'm just happy that this time I was one the right side.

Avalon Peninsula Rarity Round Up

2011-02-10T22:31:00.010-03:30

I've been trying for about two hours now to figure out google maps so I could show a fancy map of all the rarities currently residing on the Avalon peninsula of Newfoundland right now, but it seems it doesn't want to cooperate right now, so I guess everyone will have to settle for a write up and some photos, and use your imaginations for the map.

Newfoundland is a well known for hosting unusual combinations of birds from time to time, but currently there is a truly bizarre mix,which covers species from three continents. The list goes something like this, Northern Lapwing,Black-tailed Gull, Slaty-backed Gull, Yellow-legged Gull,Common Moorhen, Redwing,Yellow-throated Warbler and Common Chaffinch. At first look Common Moorhen seems out of place on this list but believe it or not it's a actually a much rarer bird in Newfoundland than any of the other birds on the list aside from Black-tailed Gull. That of course is assuming this is an American Common Moorhen and not the European subspecies.

Anyway, in my efforts to create a map showing these rarities I calculated the distance Newfoundland birder would have to travel round trip to see the birds listed above and came up with a rather ridiculous 22,500 km's or 14,000+ miles!!! That means leaving St.John's flying to England for Redwing,Northern lapwing and Common Chaffinch, then leaving there and jetting off to teh Azores for Yellow-legged Gull (ours are presumed atlantis ssp.). From there off to Florida for Common moorhen and Yellow-throated Warbler. After basking in the Florida sun you fly to Vancouver to tick Anna's Hummingbird,finishing your trip with a stop in Japan for Black-tailed and Slaty-backed Gulls, before the flying across the world back to where you start in St.John's-- talk about jet lag! Of course, currently one could potentially see all of these birds in a single day on the Avalon Peninsula in a 500 km round trip- pretty amazing!

Just to enhance the visual, here a re a selection of photos of the birds mentioned.

Yellow-legged Gull- atlantis ssp, probbaly from Azorean population.

Black-tailed Gull- 2nd record for NL. Lack record in spring of 1998.

Gotta love that bill!!

Slaty-backed Gull- Annual since our first record in 2006. This is about the 14th individual for NL.

Common Moorhen- Oddly rare in NL. Just the third in the last decade.

Redwing- there was a time when Fieldfare was easier than Redwing in NL. Now Redwing is annual with most records December- February.

Yellow-throated warbler- Annual in NL in late fall. Thi sis oe of three this fall/winter

Anna's Hummingbird- 1st record for NL. There was a rash of Anna's Hummers in mid west and east with many states and provinces getting 1st records. An individual into Fegruary in NL is almost ridiculous!

Photo- Jared Clarke

Common Chaffinch- 2nd record for NL.Last recorded at a feeder in Middle cove, north of St.John's in 1994? With the numbers of Northern Lapwings, Redwings and way above average numbers of Common Teal, this is about as "wild" a Chaffinch as your ever goning to get in North America.

I'm going to add photos of the Northern lapwing and Anna's Hummingbird tomorrow. I have to process my lapwing photos and have to get permission to add a shot of the Anna's since I didn't photograph that bird. I was too busy soaking in knee buckling views at 60X mag from 30 feet! Also, my camera was broken ;)

I know I keep saying I'm going to write something about gulls, but I really have to be in the right head space to get in depth with gulls and this wasn't the night for that. So maybe I'll get around to it tomorrow. I'm teaching gull identification workshops for the next two weekends so I might as well get warmed up.

Plans for tomorrow...It's a toss up between the usual QV Lake stake out,or I'm considering travelling around in search of wet areas that might be holding Euro Turds, Euro Snipes, Woodcocks, who knows, we dream big here. Then again when you consider the list of birds featured above,it's not that unrealistic.

Making Sense of Moorhens

2011-02-09T09:08:00.007-03:30

About two weeks ago now the St.John's biridng community was alerted to the presence of a Common Moorhen in the Community of Chapels Cove, west of St.John's on the Avalon Peninsula. Common Moorhen has been surprisingly rare in the last decade with possibly just two reports that I can think of, so this was cause for some excitement.

This Moorhen would be even more exciting if it turned out to be the Eurasian subspecies G. c. chloropus, rather than the North American, G. c. cachinnans. The European chloropus has been recored just once in North America, it was an immature bird collected on Shemya, a tiny island off the coast of Alaska. Given Newfoundland's history of producing Eurasian rarities, one can never be too careful with a bird like this,so we wanted ot make sure we could rule out the Eurasian subspecies of Common Moorhen.

Currently there are 12 Moorhen subspecies world wide. However, there is good reason to think that most or all of these forms will be granted full species status in the not too distant future,therby making a "European Moorhen" infinitely more appealing to a North American birder. The catylast for these splits will likley be a study,which showed that populations of Moorhens differed markedly in their vocalizations. In fact, it has already been proposed to some records committees, that the splits get underway. You can get more infomation regarding this proposal here, http://www.museum.lsu.edu/~remsen/SACCprop416.html

So, the vocalizations are different, great, but our bird was not calling. It's barely clinging to life in sub zero temperatures, in small open patches of ground keep open by a small stream, it's not in the mood to talk!

As adults separation of these American adn European Moorhen is pretty straightforward. The American Moorhen (G. c. cachinnans) has a much bigger culmen shield than it's European counterpart (G. c. chloropus),which has a much smaller rounded culmen shield. However, it looks as though our birds culmen shield is not fully grown,indicating it's an immature,so what do we do now? In fact, can we even be sure it's an immature?

This is pretty small and somewhat rounded culmen shield, but perhaps larger than an average European Moorhen (assuming this is an immature bird)

Photo courtesy of Jared Clarke

Apparently Moorhens can be aged by the color the dorsal wing coverts and the shape of the tertials, with the immatures haveing more pointed tertials than adults. having very little experience with Moorhens, this means little to me.

I've already been advised by one expert that these subspecies are virtually indistinguishable as immatures, so I don't have any real hope of getting a definite answer here. However, when you bird in Newfoundland you always have to be aware of the possibility of European birds, especially in a year when there was a big cold weather movement in the UK and Western Europe, which has brough us numerous Northern Lapwings, 3 Redwings, a Chaffinch and an above usual number of Common Teal and Common Gulls.

Speaking of gulls, expect something in that vein for tomorrow!

A Day With Bohemians and a Quiz Raptor

2011-02-08T22:18:00.004-03:30

Today I did something radical. Instead of going right to Quidi Vidi lake after dropping my fiancee off at work,I went in search of Bohemian Waxwings. Over the last week or so there has been an invasion of these birds into eastern Newfoundland. This in itself, is not surprising, but usually they show up in December or early January, gorge themselves on Mountain Ash berries then move on. This year, they're over a month later than normal and they don't have any food,because we had an abysmal Mountain Ash crop this year.

So, this means there are lots of starving Waxwings. I heard of a lady who was feeding waxwings yesterday and today I decided to help her out by bringing a bag of apples and maybe I'd take a few photos as well ;) I cut a few apples in half, impaled them on a hedge and within 5 minutes the Waxwings appeared and began feeding hungrily on the apples.It was amazing to basically stand among the birds as they fed totally unconcerned by my presence. Ive had Waxwings over winter in my garden in the past and it's my experience that they get tame fairly;y quickly once they realize your the one providing the food. I actually spent most of the time I was there just enjoying the bird and kind of forgot to take photos. Below are a few I did get.

While I was spending some time with the BOWA's I noticed a raptor soaring high above. To be more specific, it was an Accipiter, but which one? My first impression was that this was a decent sized bird that was definitely crow sized or approaching crow sized. Then again impressions can be deceiving. I flip flopped a bit on this identification. Aside from size, which is not useful in a photo of a single bird, what can you make out about the birds tail shape, overall jizz etc.What do you think? Any remarks about this bird id are gladly welcomed and appreciated. Below are some distant photos of the bird in question.

REDWINGS

2011-02-07T19:37:00.006-03:30

To start with,no the s at the end of Redwing in the title is not a mistake. Today there were TWO Redwings found together feeding in a kelp bed at Portugal Cove South (extreme SE Avalon Peninsula).We were expecting that there should have a been a Redwing out there lurking somewhere, but with no berries and consequently no Robin flocks, a Redwing is tough to find.

EDIT: A third Redwing was found yesterday by visiting British birder Richard Lowe, that makes three now. New arrivals? Seems late...

The birds were found by Richard Thomas,who should know them well having grown up in the UK. He was on his away to a local store when two thrushes flew across the road. Assuming they were just Robins(a number had been feeding in the immediate area recently)he never thought much of it. On the way back from the store he stopped to look at the 'Robins' and was nicely surprised to find not one, but TWO Redwings!!Below are a couple of record shots he captured with his point and shoot camera.

Photo by Richard Thomas

Notice the extremely dense streaking on the breast of this bird compared to the relatively sparse streaking of the bird above- photo again by Richard Thomas.

So hot on the heels of the Chaffinch we get two Redwings, what are we missing!! This is really just an addition to a growing list of amazing birds currently residing on the Avalon Peninsula.

NOTE: Redwing is now basically annual in Newfoundland. It is usually found between December- February, often feeding on Mountain Ash berries amongst American Robins. While we have had multiple Redwings present in Newfoundland at the same time,I think this is the first occurrence of two birds at the same location.

COMMON CHAFFINCH

2011-02-06T18:02:00.004-03:30

I was having a lazy evening on February 3rd, when I signed into my email to find an email from Bruce Mactavish, entitled, "here We go Again". As soon as I saw this my pulse doubled knowing i was about to learn of some great rarity. We I wasn't disappointed when I opened to message to find a photo of a Common Chaffinch.

Male Chaffinch in Freshwater Newfoundland, February 5th

Common Chaffinches are probably one of, if not the commonest bird in Europe with an estimated 85-240 million pairs and maybe as many as 30 million (at certain times of the year)in the UK alone. So there are lots of individuals out there that could possibly make it across the ocean to the coast of Newfoundland. Well,things aren't quite that simple. Chaffinches are kept in captivity in North America. Many are imported by bird fanciers etc, for sale, I believe, mainly in the US. Because of this fact the vast majority of Chaffinch records in North America, have not been accepted, or have severely tainted by the possibility of the bird being an escapee.

So, how can one be sure that this particular Chaffinch is not an escapee? Well, the answer is you can't. However, there are a number of factors to consider when judging the probably provenance of a bird such as this. Records of Chaffinch from the interior US and California have been scoffed at by local records committees. I believe that there might have been a couple of records accepted from New England. However, there is still great deal of doubt surrounding these.

having said all of that, why am I so excited about this bird. Well that answer is easy, this is Newfoundland, anything can happen. IN fact the first accepted record of Common Chaffinch was at a local birders feeder in the early 90's. The foreign bird trade is not a popular activity in Newfoundland. there isn't anyone importing Chaffinches into the province that we know of and there are any aviaries housing exotic birds that this particular bird could have escaped from.

One should also consider proximity and Newfoundland history of attracting European vagrants. We are by far the most easterly land mass in North America, therefore it stands to reason that a Chaffinch that has flown the 2000 miles or 3200 km's from the UL would be pretty happy to see the shores of Newfoundland,just as are the Northern Lapwings, European Golden Plovers, Northern Wheatears, Redwings and the list goes on.

Also, if Newfoundland doesn't have any captive Chafficnhes, that means if this is captive bird it would have had to migrate from some location outside Newfoundland, enduring an overseas flight. What would possess an escaped Chaffinch to do this? Would it be trying to get back home to the UK or Europe, I doubt it!

Anyway, getting back to the story, we arrived in the small town of Freshwater, Placentia bay on the western edge of the Avalon peninsula around day light. We met with the home owners and waited for the bird to show- it didn't. After a while we wandered to a different feeder down the road that had more birds, we waited, saw scores of Crossbills and other finches but no Chaffinch. Brice decided to head back to the original feeder, while myself and fellow birder Jon Wells continued the stake out at what seemed like the more busy feeder. After about another 15 minutes we headed back up the road to see a birder waving their arms, telling us it's there! I took off in a sprint up the road, only to hear that the bird had circled the yards landing in the top of a few spruce trees and departed, oh no!! I took a look at a photo on the back of Bruce's camera and felt sick- we had to see this bird.

About 20 minutes later we heard a lispy chink- that's it,but where is it. No one got on the bird and it wasn't heard again. Then about 1.5 hours later, I heard the call again. I scanned the trees methodically and there it was only 20 feet from in perched in the center of a thick spruce. What a stunner. I fired off a few photos and the bird was gone. Over the course of the next hour the bird made two more very brief appearances. it never visited the feeders with the other feeder birds, it as considerably more weary. This is perhaps another point in favor of a genuine wild vagrant Chaffinch.We congratulated each other, thanked the home owners for their gracious hospitality and headed out to continue birding, not wanting to disturb the bird any further.

Another fact worth mentioning regarding this birds possible provenance is the existence of extreme wintry conditions in Western Europe and the Uk in early winter. This is an ecept from the Portland Bill Bird Observatory in extreme southern England on November 9th.

http://www.portlandbirdobs.org.uk/latest_nov2010.htm

A morning of atrocious conditions - a blasting north-easterly and almost constant rain - provided some compelling interest on the birding front as a constant stream of migrants battled in low over the sea at the Bill and continued northwards. Chaffinches and Starlings figured most conspicuously, with sample counts of 5660 Chaffinches and 730 Starlings north along the West Cliffs at the Bill in 2¼ hours and 2710 Chaffinches and 780 Starlings north over Ferrybridge in 1½ hours; with passage of both going on throughout the morning it seems likely that something of the order of 10000 Chaffinches and 2000 Starlings

Ten thousand Chaffinches!!! You think one of those could have made it here. then wandered around enjoying the unusually balmy conditions in eastern Newfoundland before being driven to a feeder recently after a series of storms? Seem plausible to me. The movement of Chaffinches continued over the course of the rest of November and into December. We also got about a dozen or so Northern Lapwings this winter, another cold weather migrant noted at Portland Bill over the same time period. So, if there was ever going to be a 'countable' Chaffinch in North America, then I think this bird is it.

Catching Up!!-and The Big Year= Fail

2011-01-27T21:26:00.004-03:30

Ok, I know it's been way too long since my last post! So much has happened since I last posted a little over 3 months ago,that it's tough to know where to start. Well, I won't try to get caught up completely in one post,but maybe I'll take a couple of posts to try to do that. I'll dedicate this post to some discussion of my big year,since I've gotten some questions about that recently,then I'll move on to a bit of a review of the 2010 birding year in Newfoundland.

So, the big year. I started off with such vigour,chasing every bird I could and cleaning up on all the winter specialties. By the third week of January I had already ticked Northern Lapwing, Redwing, Hoary Redpoll, Gyrfalcon, Snowy Owl and Ivory Gull, a nice start!

From there we move to spring,which was greeting by a Pink-footed Goose, a major surprise. This was also a decent year for European Golden Plover. I personally had my biggest total for this species this spring,mainly due to a flock of 22 on the Cape Race Rd in May.

The next big birding event for me was my annual Codroy Valley trip. The trip was excellent as usual. There were lots of Blackburnian, bay-breast and Cape May Warblers. As well, we found 5 singing Chestnut-sided Warblers and all were still on territory when we left in mid June,indicating that this species is following the route of Northen Parula and is now becoming established in the Codroy Valley.

After the Codroy Valley the big year lost some steam, I lost motivation. The summer months,especially June is the best time in Newfoundland to see big numbers of seabirds from land,especially Shearwaters and Jaegers.I never birded much during these months,but wasn't worried because I figured I'd pick them up in the fall- boy was I wrong. As a result I missed Great Shearwater for the first time ever on a year list,since I started birding. I also failed to see any Jaegers!! Combine this with the fat that I never made an effort to See Wilson's Storm Petrel, Northern Hawk Owl,Spruce grouse, Rock Ptarmigan or Three-toed Woodpecker and I decided the big year just wasn't gonna happen.

Well fast forward to late fall. It was good fall for warblers. I managed to catch up to a number of southern strays including two Kentucky Warblers and finally a caught a quick glimpse of a Worm-eating Warbler in early October. Going into the December I was sitting about 240 species. I picked up a few more random species,not the least of which was a Black-tailed Gull I found on December 1st to end the year at a respectable 243 species.

The Newfoundland record big year of 247 species was certainly within reach and so was my goal of 250. In fact if one went full speed all year long,chased every possible vagrant and ticked all the breeders, I think 260 is an attainable number.but that will have to wait for another year. After two consecutive years of Newfoundland year listing, I'm taking a year off.

At some point in the near future I'd like to write a blog dedicated to all the best birds of 2010. Before I can do that I've got to get permission to use some photos. Also, I'm going to be starting to post identification articles on a regular basis, or at least that's the plan. So, that's it, I'm back, look for the Rare Bird's of 2010 post later this week.

Weekend Birding Forecast

2010-10-07T02:16:00.004-02:30

Well, I'm not really into making bold predictions and maybe this doesn't qualify.However, looking at the current weather maps, I can't help but get a little excited about the possibility of some birds being pushed our way over the next 48 hours.

Currently there is a nice low pressure system that stretches from The Great Lakes to the Carolinas. This has been kinda stalled there for a few days,but will start motoring east, then north east reaching the Avalon Peninsula of Newfoundland by Friday. See the maps below...

Notice the progression of the low pressure system as it moves from SE of the Great Lakes to Newfoundland. Notice the isobars showing a nice SW flow,off the eastern seaboard, up to the Avalon Peninsula, especially for Thursday night,Friday and Friday night..White-eyed Vireo anyone???

With any luck birds will lift off on the NW wrap around winds that follow the passage of the low pressure system and fly with the NW wind in a SE direction towards the coast. Some will likely get carried out over the sea and may get caught up in the SW flow, then follow these SW winds with the low pressure system until they reach land on the Avalon Peninsula. At least, in a perfect world ( from a birders perspective), this is how it would work. Either way, I'm hoping for some kind of an influx. If you were on the fence as regarding my southern Avalon trip, this weekend,maybe this will serve to entice you a little further. Again,this is all best guess,but the weather maps show the potential exists!!Guess we'll see on Saturday....

Fall Recap- Looking Forward and a Few Photos

2010-10-06T05:30:00.007-02:30

Well we're about half way through the fall vagrant season in Newfoundland right now and to this point the birding has probably been about average to slightly below average. There has been a rarity here and there,but no real major events that really get the adrenaline pumping.

The reason for our relatively mundane fall thus far is the lack of any real major weather related bird influxes,or fallouts. Maybe I'm just spoiled from last fall, when there was a nice fallout event on the Cape race Road( extreme SE Avalon Peninsula) in early October that brought a couple of Hooded Warblers, Kentucky, Yellow-breasted Chat,a couple Chestnut-sideds, Prairie Warbler,as well as both Scarlet and Summer Tanagers,Cuckoos and a selection of less rare warblers,such as Ovenbirds. This was a remarkable event and was the result of a low pressure system that generated warm SW winds directly from the Carolina's and even further south directly to the southern Avalon Peninsula.

As I said there have not been any such event to this point, this year,but we're still hopeful!Three weeks ago we were hopeful too as Hurricane Igor rushed ashore,but all it did was carve a path of destruction, not leaving even a single pelagic stray as a consolation. This was disappointing. Since the storm was almost entirely pelagic,never really getting close to land,aside from Bermuda, we knew the possibilities were limited,but similar storm have dropped a White-tailed Tropicbird. We were hoping for a repeat, or maybe even something more significant,but despite lots of searching,nothing was found.

Just before Igor,however, word got out about the rarity of the season, so far in Newfoundland- a FORK-TAILED FLYCATCHER. This is a primarily South American species breeding from central Mexico to Argentina,but is an austral migrant( migrates north,instead of south for the winter) and it known for it's wandering habits. The bird that was photographed in Chapels Cove, Conception Bay on the northern Avalon was just the second or third record for the province.

Aside from the FTFL, there has been a smattering of rarities,with a surprising three Kentucky Warblers,all found on the southern Avalon(two at Cape Race,Trepassey. Aside from that there has not really been any other vagrant southern warblers reported aside from Prairie Warbler and Yellow-breasted Chat,both of which as expected annually in fall in small numbers.

Photographed at Cape Race Oct, 2009

Photographed in my backyard in late Oct 2007

Things have also been relatively slow on the shorebird front as well,on the Avalon Peninsula at least. By that I mean there have not been any outstanding rarities, or any abnormally large influxes witnessed. Perhaps the best shorebird seen this fall on the Avalon is Hudsonian Godwit,of which there were 5 in St John's just a couple of weeks ago. Below are a couple of photos I managed of the birds during the 5 or so days they were in town.

So,thus far it seems as though this is a very negative report of birding on the Avalon Peninsula this fall and perhaps hte birding has not been exceptional in terms of rarities,but we still have a lot to look forward too. October and November often bring some of the best rarities,since this is the best time to find rare western strays, i.e. the enigmatic Townsends Warbler.

Hmmm enigmatic Towsends Warbler..what does that even mean? Well, it's an odd thing about TOWA in Newfoundland. I believe that we have about 14 records for this species sin about the last 25 years. This fact alone is somewhat staggering,since this is perhaps close to the combined number of records for the rest of the Maritimes and the NE states, but what's even more bizarre, is that all but two of these have occurred on the same street (Waterfordbridge Rd) in St.John's,and mos tof those within about a 300 m area!! I will not even attempt to offer an explanation for this phenomenon, except to say that we must be missing a s**tload of TOWA's in the rest of Newfoundland!!

Coming soon to the Waterford Valley??!!

Almost sunrise- time to go find birds,rather than just sit here and write about them. To be continued later today...

Ok,so birding today wasn't all that productive,but I did manage to refind a Great Egret and a Common Gull that I had found a few weeks ago. The Common Gull(a 2nd winter bird) was especially cooperative and I was able to get some nice photos.

Record shot of today's Great Egret at Blackhead. It probably arrived during a blast of southerly winds this week. Interestingly another Great Egret was reported on the SW Avalon Peninsula yesterday.

Note the somewhat thin,short bill, with zig zag black markings and steep forehead combining to give the familiar "gentle" expression, as opposed to the more fierce expression of similar ages Ring-billed Gull

Well,since it's been about 20 hours since I started writing this post, I now seem to have lost my place entirely. Since, I mentioned the Common Gull above I guess that's a good place to pick up. We tend to think of winter as being high season for gulls in St.John's,but fall offers exciting opportunities as well. Oue Black-headed Gull numbers are slowly increasing, I've already found two Yellow-legged Gulls ( returnees from last winter?)and now the Common Gull,not too shabby.

However,before we get too ecited about gulls yet,we can't forget there is still a little over a month of prime passerine vagrant hunting left yet. In fact, November often brings some of the most exciting birding in Newfoundland. Think of birds like the afore mentioned Townsend's Warbler, Yellow-throated Warbler,Eastern Towhee..then there are the more enticing options such as Cave Swallow and Ash-throated Flycatcher,both of which have occurred in the last 3 years!!

Newfoundland first ever Ash-throated Flycatcher,found by yours truly last November in Ferryland on the southern Avalon Peninsula. This nice photo was taken by Jared Clarke.

Newfoundland's first Cave Swallow,found in November 2008 at Long Beach,near Cape Race on the southern Avalon Peninsula.

So,that's an idea of how things have gone so far this fall and a hint of what might be yet to come. This fall has been relatively unexciting, in that we have not had a major vagrant event,but there has been a fairly steady trickle of good birds and the above two birds prove that there is still time for something exciting to happen!! We

With that I'm going to end this somewhat rambling post...next time look for something more structured..maybe a gull ID article in preparation for gull season and my upcoming workshops.

Predicting Some Good Birds

2010-09-10T20:56:00.006-02:30

The fall birding season in Newfoundland has gotten off to a pretty slow start,with a just a few relatively minor rarities being reported thus far. As is usually the case very little of the island has been birded, or if other parts are being birded I'm not hearing about it. There are of course a few brave souls outside St.John's, on the west coast a couple in central and the Northern Peninsula,but as usual, the lion share of the birders,birding, and by extension, the rare birds, have been found on the Avalon Peninsula.

The shorebirding season has now reached his peak. Our main influxes of shorebirds doesn't really get going until the beginning of August and so far there have been few highlights but nothing really out of the ordinary. A Common Ringed Plover found on a St Shotts beach in mid August would be cause for great excitement anywhere else in North America, but this species has been annual in on the Avalon Peninsula over the last 5 years,with about 7 records,all between mid August and Mid September.

Last weekend my fiancee Jen and I witnessed the a new provincial high count for Buff-Breasted Sandpipers,which was pretty cool to see,but it still feels like something is lacking. We've only had a couple of Baird's Sandpipers reported and still not Hudsonian Godwits or Stilt Sandpipers,the later of which has become pretty rare in recent years. Also we're still waiting for some European flare alah, Ruffs or Curlew Sandpipers etc.But,there is still lots of time left to find all kinds of good stuff,especially southern passerines!

If you were to visit Newfoundland you might be surprised to be able to walk done a dirt road that has hosted Prothonotary,Kentucky, Blue-winged and Hooded Warblers on the same day!..in mid September! We spend a considerable amount of time each fall especially in September and October trying to uncover these rare southern gems. We generally accomplish this, one of two ways, alder bashing, or pishing the Tuck.

First off Alder bashing. The layman reading this must think that us birders have some deep seated hatred for alder trees and for a couple months each year, we let them feel our wrath....well that's not the case. You see coastal NF is not blessed with deciduous habitat that looks familiar to southern passerines,but we are blessed with an abundance of alder bushes,which, compared to stunted conifers, seem to look pretty appealing to wayward Cerulean Warblers etc!

So basically the technique consists of finding a break in the alders, or creating on of your own, if needed. You then get low,below the 7 foot canopy,so your often kneeling,and you pish and squeak madly!! Sometimes this tales a while before you get any reason,but then you get a chickadee,then kinglet,then a Blackpool and Common Yellowthroat,then you catch a flash pf rich yellow low down in the alders,30 ft away. You struggle to focus through the branches, the bird just feels like something good because of the richness of the yellow and it`s skulky habits. The it comes a little close,,the adrenaline starts to surge,,you see the black crown,with the slight hint of laper grey on top of the hea, the black face pattern reveals itself and you know you`ve found what you were looking for...KENTUCKY WARBLER!!! It often happens like this way down,deep in the dark alders. A few years ago I saw a photo of a Blue-winged Warbler taken in the alder on the southern Avalon and it was captioned ``The Essence of Aldering`` and I couldn't`t agree more!

So, now that you have an introduction to aldering, we can move on to pishing the tuck. Well to grasp this cogent is it imperative that you first understand two important terms, pish and tuck. If you don`t understand tuck, you are partially forgiven,since it may be a Newfoundland colloquialism.However, if you don`t know what pish means.....!!! then you need to find out. Type pish in google and see what you get0 you`ll get a hit in wikipedia.

So,pishing the tuck..what is it anyway.. Well when we use the word tuck we are referring to tuckamoor,which are the stunted conifers found at coastal locations around our province. One destination famous for it`s tuck is Cape Race. Cape Race consists basically of jagged rocky cliffs and coastal barrens,essentially there are no real tracts of forest of any kind. However, there are scattered patches of stunted conifers that provide excellent protection for weakened passerines. As well, we have seen some of the vagrant passerines take up shop in the tuck and stay up to two weeks, indicating the feeding can be pretty good in there as well.

So,you might be wondering how one might go about pishing this tuck.Well you be happy to know that it usually doesn`t involved diving in. Pishing the tuck can usually be done without actually having to enter the tuck itself. In fact I find those squeakers used to immiate chip notes to be very effective. These are available at most wild bird stores and are especially good for getting sparrows all riled up!.

Anyway,I was talking about the fall so far,almost lamenting the lack of really rare birds. There have been a couple of nice ones found, Yellow-breasted Chat,Prairie Warbler, a few Canada Warbler, a couple Nashvilles,a couple Orioles and few other odds and ends. We`re still waiting for te nice warbler event....couls this happen tomorrow?I think it's possible!

There are two reasons i tihn we are in for some good birding this weekend.

1) Cape May and surrounding area are reporting tremendous in and out migration between there and New York over the last 3 days. That means lots of birds heading south on NW winds following cold fronts that pass their areas.

2)Well, as it turns out for the past three days we have been getting warm humid south west winds from the southern US, between the Carolinas and Cape Cod.Now it isn' too much of a stretch to think that some of those birds heading towards the east cost riding NW winds could get pushed out over the Atlantic. In fact, we know this happens quite a bit. Once blown off the eastern US coast that may get picked up by these SW winds, therebyu depositing them directly on the Avalon Peninsula. Sounds crazy?? It happens!Will it happen this weekend...well we'll just have to waut and see.

Edit:It turns out I was right,partially. There were a number of goof birds found this weekend, including,a number of Prairie Warblers,Chestnut-sided,Canada Warbler and what do you know a KENTUCKY!!..kinda prophetic,if I do say so :)

Fall Birding at Cape Spear

2010-09-09T14:53:00.006-02:30

Wow,look at me,blog updates on back to back days!! Well,not that I have anything new and exciting to talk about personally,since I haven't been birding for days. For the last two days I've been considering birding the Cape Spear Rd but have been unable to find the motivation when the alarm sounds at 6:00!

Having said that,the purposes of this entry are twofold. Firstly it will serve as an introduction to birding Cape Spear for those unfamiliar with the area and secondly and selfishly, it will hopefully remind me, of how fantastic the birding can be there at times, if you only drag yourself out of bed and get out and look!

While much is said by myself and others about the fantastic birding of the southern Avalon, there is some great birding right around St.John's, particularly at Cape Spear. Cape Spear is the the most easterly point of land in North America and scores of people visit each year just to stand there and feel like they are standing on the edge of the earth. It is this feature(the geography,not the scores of tourists) that is responsible for the good birding at this location.

If you look at a map of the Avalon Peninsula you will notice a piece of land jutting out near St. John's, this is the Cape Spear headland. Under the right conditions( N,NE, or SE winds) the Cape can offering some spectacular sea birding,if you can find shelter from the wind and often accompanying rain or snow. During summer and early fall, on any given day, you can see Gannets and a variety of Alcids,but it is during strong NE winds,particularly those following the passage of tropical storms or intense cold fronts, that the real show starts. At times, under these conditions it is possible to see thousands of Shearwaters,along with Northern Fulmars, Leach's Storm Petrels, Jaegers and Alcids. In winter I have seen over 10,000 Dovekies flying past the Cape!!

Aside from the sea birding possibilities, the barrens surrounding the Cape and the deciduous growth bordering the roadsides offer great birding and serve as an attractive landing point for weary migrants that have reached land after a long oversea flight. Practically, every North American breeding warbler from Hermit to Worm-eating, has been seen on the roadsides from Cape Spear to the community of Blackhead over the years. Finding rare birds at this area is sometimes as simple as locating a flock of Yellow-rumps, or even a couple of Black-capped Chickadees or Kinglets and just watching every bird in the flock until you see something unusual,therefore knowing the common birds is essential,cause you can't know what's rare if you don't the common stuff!

Birding this area is basically as easy as walking the roadside and pishing. We generally do a cursory walk around the Cape itself if you get there early enough before hitting the alders. It's best to tackle the area by parting on the roadside just as the deciduous growth starts are birding up the road a ways,then back, then moving your car up a beat and repeating. It is often a good idea to get off the roadside and actually get under the cover of the alders and pish,this often attracts more birds and makes then easier to see then just birding from the shoulder of the road. Those people who participate in my fall birding trips will see this method in practice!.

UPDATE

I decided to hit Cape Spear this morning and see if the strong SE winds triggered a seabird movement. I birded there from 7:45-9:00 when I was forced to leave by non stop heavy rain making birding impossible.During the time I was there I saw,

Atlantic Puffin- 1000's
Leach's Storm Petrel- 1000's
Northern Gannet- 200+
Northern Flumar- 3
Sooty Shearwater- 10
Manx Shearwater-3
Ruddy Turnstone-1
BAIRD'S SANDPIPER- flew in off ocean with a Semipalmated Plover and
sheltered only 20 ft from me.
Phalarope sp-1
Semipalmated Plover-1

Just another good old fashioned Leache's Storm Petrel wreck at Cape Spear!

Fall Birding Trips

2010-09-08T19:04:00.003-02:30

After a long,long hiatus from updating this thing, I've finally decided to commit myself to regular updates. There likley will not be updates every day,but I can guarantee something on at least a weekley basis moving forward. I'm actually currently working on several things, including an article on the relationship between weather and birds in Newfoundland, as well as a article discussing the separation of juvenile Herring and Lesser Black-backed Gulls. I hope to have both of these finished and up on the blog within the next week.

For now, I'd like to discuss my fall birding trips, that will be running about every two weeks until mid November and then I'll probably switch to monthly winter trips. All of these trips will take place on the famous southern Avalon. The southern Avalon, deservedly has the repautation for the most exciting birding locale in Newfoundland and for good reason. What other birding location in North America can claim birds such as European Golden Plover, Corn Crake,Common Redshank,Eurasian Oystercatcher, Eurasian Curlew,Northern Lapwing,Yellow-legged Gull,Common-ringed Plover,Curlew Sandpiper adn those are just the European rarities. Looking within our own continent we've found Pacific Golden Plover,Cave Swallow,American Avocet,Black-necked Stilt,Sooty Tern,Least TernGull-billed Tern,Ivory Gull,, Swainson's Hawk,Clapper Rail,Ash-throated Flycatcher, Prothonotary Warbler,Kentucky Warbler,Worm-eating Warbler etc. Are you salivating yet? I could go on and on listing the fanastic rarities that have been found over the last dacade on this 200 km strip of coastline,but surely this gives you an idea of the potential of the location.

As mentioned I am running trips down the southern shore at least every 2nd week and possibly more often, depending on demand. The first trip in this installment went on Auguest 29th. The trip sold out in just over a day, which was not surprising given the amazing birding at this time of year. There were 7 participants,including myself and we birded from Cape Broyle to Cape Race and back again. The two main objectives of the day were fall "warblering" and shorebirding.

We hit Bear Cove Pt Rd in Renews around 8:00 and stayed there for about 3.5 hours. During that time we saw 10+ species of warbler including a Canada and a Nashville Warbler,both being rare in the province. Aside from that, we saw lots of our more common breeding species,such as Common Yellowthroat,Blackpoll, Black and White, Wilsons etc. After we had out fill of warblers, we headed for Renews beach to check out the shorebird scene.

There was a decent diversity of shorebirds present on the each,despite the high tide and among them were several Lesser Yellowlegs(resaonably uncommon)a Short-billed Dowitcher and a juvie Red Knot. One participant,who shall remain nameless, was left feeling underwhelmed with his life encounter with Red Knot,lamenting the fact that it was in fact not red at all and better yet seemed devoid of any remarkable features! Personally, I think Juvie Red Knots in their frosted, scaly plumage, are quite attractive in a subdued way!I think this particular participant had come to see my way of thinking after point blank views at 60X!! That one of the great things about these trips, you WILL have the opportunity to see many different species of shorebirds at very close range,allowing for careful study of all their intricate details.

After the Renews shorebirding experience, we headed for Cape Race in search of Whimbrels and whatever else might come our way. We did in fact find several flocks of Whimbrels and had some amazing views,especially when a couple of birds circled our heads repeatedly. Aside from the Whimbrels, we had some great encounters with a number of raptors, including Merlin,Sharp-shinned Hawk,Northern Goshawk, Bald Eagle,Northern Harrier(many) and a Peregrine Falcon. I should also mention a nice look at two Moose,that seemd to look out of place on the Cape Race barrens.

We decided to head back towards St.John's after Cape Race since points west seemed to be cloaked in fog. We ended the day with some more study of the Renews shorebird flock and some leisurly scope views of a Beaver eating lilly pads.Overall, it was a great day,with some great birds and good time was had by all.

The second installement in my southern shore birding series happens this Sunday September 12th. Unfortunately, that trip is completely booked and has been for some time.It also promises to be a spectacular trip, with even more promise for exciting rarities.

Following the above trip I have a tour scheduled for either Sat September 25th or Sunday September 26th. This trip will be more focused on finding Newfoundland rarities.Of course, we will stop for whatever crosses our path,but our objective will be digging out some of the more difficult to find species. We'll be hitting all the major vagrant hot spots along the southern shore and I'll be doing a lot of talking about how, when and where to find rare birds on the Avalon Peninsula. If this trip sounds like it might be of interest you, I'd suggest you contact me asap, as there are only 2 of 5 spots remaining and it was sold out until I had a couple of cancellations yesterday.Below is the schedule for some upcoming fall birding trips,

August 29th- Southern Shore(Full)- Completed

Spetember 12th Southern Shore: Warbler, Raptors and Shorebirds-(Full)

September 25 or 26th- Southern Shore Vagrant Blitz! (2/5 places open)

October 11th- Southern Shore- Dunlins,Ducks and Sparrows( lots of potential for vagrant warblers and vireos as well!)5/5 places open

I will be announcing additional dates soon, as well as, my ever popular Gull Identification Workshops!

The Codroy Report...Finally

2010-07-04T16:13:00.008-02:30

Well, it's much overdue but I've finally gotten around to posting my Codroy Report. I was having some difficulty with my image processing software and wanted to make sure I could post photos, so that was partly the cause for the delay. Other than that I guess my extraordinary,almost super-human, ability to procrastinate was the cause.

Anyway, on with the report. While I was there this year I spent some time guiding visiting birders, which turned out to be very successful. All of my clients reported that our trips were some of the best birding they had ever experienced in the Codroy Valley. All of my clients we able to see many of their target species, such as the 'budworm warblers', Blackburnian,Bay-breast and Cape May. Aside from that we saw several other of the rarer warblers,such as Northern Parula,Nashville and Chestnut-sided Warblers. I will be releasing the details for nest years tour within the next few weeks and will distribute the information to my mailing list at that time.

Each year birding the Codroy is a little different,of course the dates of your trip and weather certainly impact the species you are likely to see. This year we didn't arrive until June 4th, which is a little later,but I don;t think that impacted the diversity or number of species we saw. In the two weeks we spent in the Codroy we saw 136 species, including 21 species of warblers, 8 species of flycatchers,9 species of sparrows etc etc. There is truly no place like the Codroy in Newfoundland,when it comes to bird diversity and abundance.

Among those 21 species of warblers included 5 singing Chestnut-sided Warblers. This species appears to be increasing in the area and actually attempted to nest in Newfoundland for the first time last year in Loch Lomand.When we left on June 20th this year there were still 5 singing territorial males,so it seemed the chances are good that at least one of those has a female and will breed successfully.

Another species that I've heard is on the the increase in eastern North America is Bobolink. The Codroy Valley is the only place in Newfoundland,where this species breeds and this year we saw about 10 birds,most of which were splendid looking black and white singing males.

Everyday of birding presented new birds and new opportunities,especially for a bird photographer. I concentrated the vast majority of my time to birding,but I did take some time to focus on getting shots of certain species. The key to photographing the Codroy area is knowing where to find them and more importantly, knowing how to identify them by song! I'd sat over 90% of all birds seen on the entire trip were first identified by song, then tracked down to get a look or to photograph. Below are some other photos from the trip ( I'll hopefully be adding more soon!)

TO BE CONTINUED......

Also, dates for the upcoming Shorebird Identification workshop will be released tomorrow!

European Golden Plover Invasion!!!

2010-05-12T00:27:00.005-02:30

In my last post I was predicting a fall of southern vagrants on the southern Avalon Peninsula, following the passage of several low pressure systems that swept from the great lakes to NF in a couple of days. Well, that was pretty much a bust. Aside from a deceased Gray Catbird we never had much. Another birder( Julie Cappleman) was able to find Newfoundland's(4th?) Upland Sandpiper, so maybe my predictions weren't way off afterall.

However, all of this has been overshadowed by a flight of European Golden Plovers into eastern Newfoundland this week. When searching for southern vagrants at Cape Race on May 10th I discovered a single Euro Golden Plover flying high overhead. Then about 1.5 hours later I had a flock of 19!!! flying north, soon to be followed by a flock if 17 flying south!! In addition to this there have been flocks of 7 and 3 seenin St.John's and a flock of 6 currently at Cape Bonavista! All together,this could mean that over 50 have been seen this week so far!!

Perhaps even more unusual then the numbers being seen, are the weather conditions they have arrived in. A quick look back at the last two posts will show the pressure maps for Newfoundland over the last week or so. They are not even close to being "Plover winds". But hey, I'm not complaining. There was,however, a pretty big low that stationed itself between NF and Greenland, I believe May 4th-7th. This is not the type of system we think of as traditionally being good for bringing Euro Golden Plovers,but maybe that's what did it? If that's the case though,where have they been,since the 7th and why are they now arriving into SW winds??

Aside from the Golden Plovers, there have been a bunch of other cool birds,most being hangers on from our previous southern blast. It seems that the numbers of Rose-breasted Grosbeaks continue to climb. This species is generally a spring vagrant to Newfoundland, however this year there have been easily over 50 reports. There must be huge numbers of this species in the province right now. With this many reports of males and females it seems likley that this species will breed somewhere in the province this year and will makes a welcome addition to the islands avifauna,even if ,only temporarily.

For me though,the star attraction this week was an adult female Red-necked Phalarope in the Goulds( farming town on outskirts of St.John's). We see these bird almost exclusively in fall among flocks of Red Phalaropes, well offshore. It is a rare treat to see a breeding female in a small pond. Oh and in case you didn't know,Phalaropes are the deviants of the bird world. In most bird species the males are the flashy ones,while the females are often crypticly colored to blend in with the surrounding habitat. Well the female Phaleropes don't plan second fiddle to their male counterparts, as they are the more colorful of the two. Aside from that,they leave the males to tend the nest after mating!Below is a photo of the stunner and possible 1st inland breeding plumaged RNPH for Newfoundland.

Predicting Another Wave- Cape Race Here I Come!!

2010-05-08T11:28:00.007-02:30

As I've stated in earlier posts choosing a time and location to go birding is often not a random decision. For many experienced birders, there is much forethought,analysis and planning behind the scenes prior to any birding trip,especially in times of heavy bird migration migration. This is especially true for regions such as Point Pelee,Ontario, High Island ,Texas, Cape May,New Jersey and various other hotspots.

These locations are often referred to as 'migrant traps". A migrant trap is a strategically situated piece of land, often an island or Peninsula. It could also be a particularly luch area in a very arid region, or a heavily wooded sector in a heavily urbanized area,such as Central Park in New York City. Migrant trap don't actually trap birds of course,but they act as a falling out point for birds that might be stressed after a long migration.They are appealing because they are the first point of land available to tireed migrants or because they have some ecological component that makse them superior to the surrounding environment.

For us in Newfoundland we are often at the end of a birds migratory route, we get very few transients other than late summer and fall shorebirds. In short, if your a bird that makes it this far to the north east, you don't intend on going any further, and even if you did,where would you go? We do however have a few locations that have proven to have the ability to concentrate birds after the appropriate weather conditions and Cape Race is one such area.

Cape Race is the most south easterly point of land in Newfoundland. The Cape itself is a barren area,with a few buildings,tundra and some short grassy areas. There aren't any trees at the Cape itself so vagrants settle in the grass and are often found sheltering around man made structures- under steps,parked cars anything that provides shelter. Cape Race is situated at the end of an approximately 20km dirt road that trails along the coast from the community of Portugal Cove South. Along this road there again is little cover aside from scatted patches of stunted spruce,referred to locally as tuckamoor. The tuckamoor and various parts of the road has shown a remarkable ability to hold vagrant songbirds. It consists of extremely dense,often tangled spruce tress that have been battered for perhaps a decades or perhaps even hundreds of years by the often fierce and unrelenting winds,blowing off the northern Atlantic Ocean. At first glance, this habitat doesn't look like much,but imagine your a tiny 6 once bird that has just flown 1000 km's during a storm out over the Atlantic, in 80km winds and it starts to look exponentially more appealing!

So,why am I even talking about all of this? Well, I've been looking at the upcoming weather maps for the next couple of days and they're looking really really good for potentially bringing a pile of birds to the southern Avalon Peninsula. It has only been two weeks since the last fallout at Cape Race,which brought Cattle Egret, Hooded Warbler, Scarlet Tanager and a pile of Thrushes. This next system looks every bit as good as that one to me and shares a lot of features as the previous system. Looking below you can see the system I'm talking about.

Saturday May 8th- Notice the system centered around the Great Lakes Region

Sunday May 9th- System is further east and generating winds from the SW dirctly to the Avalon Peninsula.

Monday, May 10th. A continuation from the previous day,still giving S winds to the southern Avalon Peninsula

Notice the movement of the low pressure system from the Great Lakes to the Maritimes. Notice especially, how the isobars(lines on the map) in the maps for Sunday and Monday are tightly packed(indicating strong winds)blowing out over the Atlantic Ocean and straight to southern Newfoundland( the winds flow parallel to the isobars.) Now look back at the weather maps from the Cape Race fallout a couple of weeks ago and notice the similarities. This low pressure system actually originated in the Midwest near the Texas panhandle then started to rapidly move to the North East.As well, system happens to coincide with the main migration of warblers into the Great Lakes and the NE US.

If things play out like just right,there could be some legendary birding coming our way in the next few days. if you have sick days banked I'd suggest you use them. Make sure you have a full tank of gas and have your bins and camera within reach.Good birding and stay tuned!

More NF Spring Birding Craziness

2010-05-07T19:26:00.007-02:30

Ok, I'm not even sure where to start with this one. Things are happening here, we're getting hit by vagrants from all sides,every other day there seems to be some sort of mini-fallout of some sort, in short some really exciting birding these days and I'm glad to be a part of it. This is Nirvana for Newfoundland birders,with each trip proving to out do the next.

In my last post I spoke of a combination of southern and European vagrants, well this has just continued and has gotten even stranger. Maybe someone can explain this to me. How is it possible to get a fallout of Neotropical migrants such as Grey-cheeks Thrush( a month early!!!) and European Golden Plovers at the same location, on the same day??? It just doesn't make any sense does it? Winds that carry us European Golden Plovers should push northbounds Neotripical migrants away from Newfoundland and vice versa. Well I guess anything is possible at Cape Race. if you have never been there,do yourself a favor and make a visit. It's a mainstay on all my southern Avalon tours and for good reason- it rarely dissappoints. If your not impressed with the birds then you'll surely be impressed with the awesome coastal scenery.

Anyway, getting back to the exciting stuff. Here is a list of birds I saw during an leisurly afternoon birding outing from Ferryland to Cape Race on Wednesday May 5th. Note all of these birds are classified as vagrants to Newfoundland.

CHIMNEY SWIFT,CLIFF SWALLOW,PURPLE MARTIN,INDIGO BUNTING,ROSE-BREASTED GROSBEAK,SCARLET TANAGER,HOODED WARBLER,VEERY,RUFF,CATTLE EGRET...I think there are a few more,but this is enoguh to give you an idea of what the birding is like right now. All of these birds have been carries north by low pressure systems moving up the eastern seaboard and across to Newfoundland from the Great Lakes Region.On May 6th I made the same trip again with my fiancee,Jen,so she could cash in on a few lifers that we missed on a previous trip. We had most of the birds listed above but also witness a pretty extraordinary event, a fallout of Grey-cheeked Thrushes,Hermit Thrush and White-throated Sparrows!! The Hermit Thrush and White-throated Sparrows aren't that unusual,but the Grey-cheeks...really weird,almost a full month early. A birding friend told me that Point Pelee got the first grey-cheeked yesterday and it was deemed early. If that bird was early the Newfoundland birds are..well insanely early. It is likley the birds arrived here on the fast moving southerly winds. Many of the arriving birds appear stressed and this is eveidenced by two emaciated carcasses that I collected (note you need a permit to collect birds carcasses- I have one.

So the Thrush eent was quite exciting,but combine that with the sudden arrival of 9 European Golden Plovers at three locations on the southern Avalon Peninsula and you have a total mind bender..WTF??? I knw that after the last low pressure system passed it sat of the north east coast of the Newfoundland gicing us wrap around NW winds that almost reached southern Greenland. I guess it's possible that there were some Euro Golden Plovers that were already off track and got whipped around to southern Newfoundland.

Notice the low pressure system off NE Newfoundland. This originated in the Great lakes moved to this position in a couple days. It could have carries a bunch of swallows erc with it,pushed them off the eaast coast of NF,then slingshotted them back with the wrap around NW winds that followed the passage of the system. Thjis same winds could have pushed Euro Golden Plover to SE NF.

So getting back to that list of birds I mentioned earlier,below are some photos that I took. Thsee photos are mostly just record shot quality. I never had the luxury of spending the time rewuired with these birds to get great photos,but for the record here are some of the birds I've seen recently.

Purple Martin(female)- Ferryland May 5th

Cliff Swallow Ferryland May 5th

Chimney Swift- Ferryland May 5th

Scarlet Tanager- The Drook, Cape Race May 5th

Indigo Bunting- Renews May 5th

Cattle Egret- Portugal Cove South, May 5th

Ruff- Renews, May 5th

I'm planning a couple of more southern Avalon trips in the next two weeks, before I leave for the Codroy Valley for a month. If you are interested in attending one of these trips you can pre book your spot by contacting me @ dave.browne@gmail.com. After the excitement of the last week I'm sure these trips will book quickly.

PS: excuse the typos that undoubtedly plague this post, I'll edit them out when I get time, just wanted to get this out there.

Spring Birding,Newfoundland Style!!

2010-05-04T16:28:00.004-02:30

Sorry again that there has been some along time between posts, at least the interval has been reduced! Anyway,things have really gotten exciting on the Newfoundland birding scene over the last week,with a combination of mini fallout of southern vagrants and a mini European invasion, as odd combination that would never happen anywhere else on earth! This odd combination of vagrant birds is what makes Newfoundland such a unique and exciting birding destination. We may not have 300+ breeding species,but when things are"happening" in Newfoundland, there is really no place I would rather be birding.

The events that I speak of above were likely precipitated by a couple of weather events. One a nice low pressure system sitting south of Iceland that generated winds directly to Newfoundland and a series of low pressure systems that quickly moved up the eastern seaboard that generated offshore winds from the Carolinas directly to southern Newfoundland. Below are a series of images showing the surface pressure maps for April 27th-May 3rd.

April 27th

April 28th

April 29th

April 30th

Birds likely started arriving in Newfoundland on Thursday April 29th. On that day there were a few Veeries reported from Cape Race and Trepassey and a Cattle Egret from nearby Portugal Cove South. Over the following days the true breadth of the event would be realized,when reports of southern vagrants poured in from all over the Avalon Peninsula and the entire south coast of the province. it is interesting to note that there have not been similar reports in other parts of Atlantic Canada and the NE US,indicating that the winds that blew offshore from the Carolinas carried birds from there or points south,directly to the shores of Newfoundland. The bird that has been reported the most has been Rose-breasted Grosbeak. This species beeds in the Canadian Martimes,but is still considered a vagrant in Newfoundland. There are a few reports each spring,but nothing like the influx of the last week. So far there have been over the 30+ reports of this species from birders and feeder watchers. One can only guess how many have gone unseen,perhaps hundreds! Other birds included in this even are Indigo Buntings, a few Scarlet Tanagers, A few Baltimore Orioles, Veeries, Swainson's Thrush, Grey Cheeked Thrush( a month early!!),Gray Catbird,Purple Martin,Eastern Phoebe,HOODED WARBLER,PROTHONOTARY WARBLER,Snowy Egret, Great Egret(several) and Cattle Egret. Who knows what else is lurking out there waiting to be discovered.

Well, if the above even was not extraordinary enough, we managed to find a few "decent" European birds to round out the week. The juxtaposition of the European and North American rarities is what makes Newfoundland bird so great and yet so unique. Where else in the world could you see a Garganey, Ruff and Hooded Warbler in the same day? What about Northern Lapwing and Cattle Egret?Yes, in the past Newfoundland had been referred ot as Attu east and it is times like this that the name is so rightly deserved.

I mentioned in the my previous post that Euro Golden Plovers might be on the way,due to a nice weather system that was generating winds from Iceland to Newfounldand. Well, we didn;t quite get an influx of Euro Golden Plovers,but we have gotten two this week, which is more than the rest of North American can say ;)Along with the Plovers,are the aforementioned Northern Lapwing,Garganey, Ruff and throw in a Northern Wheatear and you have yourself a nice little mix of European birds,not bad for a weeks birding in North America's most easterly province.

So what's next? Well spring is just getting started. There is still plenty of time for more European bird and southern US vagrants,not to mention that our own breeding birds will be arriving en masse over the next month. This is an exciting time to be a birder in Newfoundland and not a bad time to visiting birder on our shores either!

NOTE**

The songbird workshop starts this Saturday- still some room left,details in the workshops section of my blog. Also, I will be leaving for the Codroy valley in SW Newfoundland ina few weeks. I hope to be there for a minimum of three weeks. This is the most bird rich area of our province,but can be difficult to bird if you don't know your way around. If your planning on birding in the area, I'm booking day trips ( and more) now. Why waste time stumbling around trying to find the best birding spots when you can have an experienced birder,out you on the great birds? If you into photography,this is even more important. Please contact me at dave.browne@gmail.com to book your day trip or vacation today. I'm only allowing a small percentage of my time there for guiding so space is limited.

Euro Golden Plovers on the Way!!!???

2010-04-23T22:02:00.003-02:30

First of all, I should say I'm sorry for not updating this blog in so long. I've been busy and preoccupied with non-birding related things,but hope to get back to regular updates of at least every couple days.

Anyway, it's not like you missed much. The fisrt official couple weeks of spring is not particularly exciting in NF, in terms of birding. We have a few of our breeders back suck as Fox Sparrows, Robins,Horned Larks,but it is not until the second week of May that the real flood of migrants begins. Almost all of our breeding birds wil return in about a 10 days period,when they will feverishly look for territories and mates, build nests, defend territories, feed young, then take off south again before doing it all over again next year- sounds like a lot of work!

Right so that's the common stuff, the expected species,but what we really look forward to this time of year are European visitors,particularly those travelling to Iceland. Most years in late April there are low pressure systems that sit off southern Iceland that generate, E and NE winds between Iceland and Newfoundland. European birds that are migrating from Britain or southern Europe to Iceland soemtimes get caught up in these winds and ride the transatlantic highway right to Newfoundland. This year there is an extra wrinkle thrown in,since there is a massive cloud of ash between Oceland and Newfoundland- who knows how this might affect Icelandic bird migration. Will birds ajust fly through the cloud? Will fly above it, below it, around it? Who knows what will happen,but there are all kinds of tantilizing thoughts flying arounf the minds of Newfoundland birders, about birds getting detoured to our shores.

Ok, so that might be a bit of a pipedream, but one thing we probably can count on is a few European Golden Plovers. This species is extremely rare in North American and Newfoundland is about the only place a birder could ever hope to see one on North American soil. They have occured elsewhere in North America,but very very rarely and it;s amajor event when they do. Here, we expect them. European Golden Plovers are annual spring vagrants in Newfoundland.

It is getting to be the time of year when we start to see EUGP showing up and the weather appears to cooperating as well. As I mentioned above, we want to see low presure systems south of Iceland that generate winds from Iceland to Newfoundland- well that's what is happening right now! Coincidetally European Golden Plovers are appearing in Iceland in good numbers right now,making it the perfect time for some to veer off course. Notice the weather map below shows a nice low off of Iceland with a nice flow of air from the NE Atlantic to Newfoundland, if things work out as planned, we will see our first European Golden Plovers this weekend!!

Only time will tell if these predictions hold true,but history has shown this combination of weather and date means a decent chance for Icelandic strays, there could be some exciting birding over the next few days- stay tuned!!

PINK-FOOTED GOOSE!!!

2010-03-17T01:50:00.006-02:30

I have been waiting for weeks for something to break the late winter birding doldrums- today it finally happened. It was completely random how things played out. Many times my birding outing are planned with military presision.I try to get to best location given the season,winds, current weather patterns etc. All of this planning gives the "prepared" birder an edge over the general enthusiast,who just basically walks the same route every day, or just hits random locations without any thought to the possabilities and or any of the conditions I mentioned above. Well,it seems like it's been a long winter in St. John's,even though it hasn't really been much of a winter at all. However, it's been a while since anything really exciting happened.

The above sentance shows just how jaded a birder can get here in St. John's. I say it's been a while since anything exciting happened. Well it's been only a few weeks since our Ivory Gull bonanza and a couple weeks more since a White-winged Dove turned up( we no longer get very excited over these now annual visitors. A short time before that there was the Slaty-backed Gull, as well as Redwing, a few Lapwings and a Horenmann's Hoary Redpoll!! Anway, none of that means anything to the the seemingly rarity starved birders of "Attu East" as Newfoundland has been referred to in the past.

This is all a long drawn out way of saying that today I was extremely excited to have "luck boxed"( obscure poker term :)) my way into finding a Pink-footed Goose!! There was no planning,no thought and this species certainly wasn't on my radar.So much so in fact that I called resident birder Bruce Mactavish to provide a description,so he could confirm.

What I didn't know is that Bruce had received an email the day previous describing a small Goose near an overpass on the Goulds bypass Rdm in Mt.Pearl! He had even been to the site just 30 minutes before me to check the report but the Goose wasn't there.Well,no matter I was still happy with my "independant" discovery.

After speaking with Bruce I called a couple of other local birders to spread the word,but by this time it was getting dark quick and all the birds ( 20+ Black Ducks and Mallards) had flushed after som kids started throwing rocks into the pond.I stayed around until dark just to advise that I hadn't seen the bird.

I left and headed back to my folks place,where I had left my dog,when I headed out for a quick,random 10 minute check of the area. I was happy to find a nice spread of BBQ waiting for me upon my return- European mega-rarities, BBQ,life is good!

Newfoundland Songbird Workshop

2010-03-11T02:36:00.009-03:30

In the past I have received numerous emails from people asking if
there was a field guide specifically for the birds of Newfoundland, or
a bird song cd that covered Newfoundland birds only. It was with that
in mind that I have decided to offer a Newfoundland songbird workshop.
This workshop is geared toward beginner and intermediate birders and
will focus on learning how to recognize immediately what type of bird
you are looking at, i.e. Warbler, Flycatcher, Sparrow etc. You will
learn the key features to look for when separating songbirds of
various groups.

This is not meant to replace your field guide,but will greatly
enhance your ability to identify Newfoundland birds. In spring and
summer, most bird identifications are made by song. Knowing a birds
song will tip you off to it's presence and will allow you to key on
specific species. This is especially important if you are trying to
photograph particular species. This workshop will give you a great
start in in Newfoundland bird song ID.

For those of you that participated in the gull workshops,the format
will be very similar.

The workshop will include:

2 (3hr)classroom sessions- Sat May 8th, Sun May 16th, 9:00am-12:00am
1 (4hr) field session- Sun May 16th, 6am-10am
covers identification of about 80 species of songbirds,by sight and
sound.
Powerpoint presentation of all material, as well as a cd of recorded
bird songs of all species covered.
Cost: $125

***NOTE*** Terra Nova Birding Weekend participants receive a 50%
discount. Codroy Valley Tour participants receive this workshop for free!!

Attached is an add for the workshop. If you can't identifiy all of these
species at a glance and hear their song in your head,then you will
benefit from this workshop.

Maximum of 9 participants,with a few places already reserved. If you
are interested in this workshop please contact me at
dave.browne@gmail.com asap to reserve your spot.

Looking Forward to Spring and the Codroy Valley

2010-03-02T00:03:00.003-03:30

It really feels liKE spring is on the way in Eastern Newfoundland. Temperatures have been above zero for a few weeks and there is very little snow cover left. Much of Newfoundland has no snow cover at all!

Havinf said that the bird scene has slowed significantly and this has gotten me looking forward to the things to come. However,we are seeing some signs of chang,in fact Black-legged Kittiwakes are already streaming back and they will soon be followed by Murres and Gannets. However it is not until the seocnd week of April that we wil see our first song birds. First we will see returning Robins and Fow Sparrows,thsese will be closely followed by White-throated Sparrows,Savannah and Swampers. Also during this time Hermit Thrushes and Ruby-crowned Kinglets will make their ways back to the Avalon Peninsula. All of this activity will cumlinate of the last two weeks of May when the final flood of birds will appear including all of our warblers,vireos and Flycatchers. This is the time to be birding!

I usually try to get to the Codroy valley each year for a couple of weeks in May-June to really experience summer birding at it's best in Newfoundland. This place is pure magic and the birding is like no where else on the island. The density and diversity of songbirds in this area is truly remarkable. For example last year my fiancee and I did a "big day" in this area and tallied 112 species in a single day!! This is the highest single day count ever in Newfoundaland. It was made up of 15+ species of warblers,3 species of Vireo, 8 species of sparrows,5 species of Blackbird,6 species of flycatcher, 5 species of Thrush and the list goes on and on!!

Just a taste of what the Codroy has to offer....

If you'd like to experience this for yourself,along with stunning scenery and amazing,relaxing,birding experience check out my Codroy valley tour in the curent tours offered section above.

New Tours Announced- Including Owling!

2010-02-22T21:59:00.004-03:30

Hey Everyone,

I just wanted to add a quick note to let everyone know that I have added a few new tours. If you haven't been here lately you might notice that things have changed a bit. Under the title header you will notice some categories. One of these is Current Tours. Click on this to get information about upcoming tours.

I have just announced some Owling trips for late March and April as well as some spring trips on the southern Avalon. Feel free to take a look and see if anything interests you!

IVORY GULL!!!

2010-02-17T22:17:00.005-03:30

On Monday February 15,local birder Alvan Buckley and I birder the southern Avalon Peninsula. Our primary target was the Hoary Redpoll that has been frequenting a Portugal Cove South feeder.

we got underway early,weather was excellent,which was the opposite of what was forecast. We pretty much birded the entire day without anything exciting. the Redpoll was no where to be found and the meagre highlight was nice looks at a couple of Red-throated Loons.

It was only 1:00 in the afternoon and we were already heading back north towards St.John's. We decided to visit all the small coves along the way checking for Alcids close to shore and a stop in Ferryland to look for a long staying,yet elusive ( to birders at least) Dickcissel. Well, we dipped on the Dickcissel and hadn't found any Alcids until we got to Calvert.

Driving through Calvert we spotted a Common Murre floating close to the wharf. We decided to drive out onto the wharf and try for photos. Our plan was to wait for the Murre to dive then bolt out fo the car and get a few photos when it surfaced. The Murre dove and we got in position. We got some photos when it surfaced,but amazingly it swam away from us and close to shore. We bolted ot the shore where the Murre was diving. We hid behind a conveniently places warehouse and waited until the Murre dove and again we moved into position. The Murre popped up incredibly close,we got a few shots,then it dove again. Amazingly it popped up again and continued to feed only meters from us for almost 30 minutes. Not satisfied with the photos I was getting from the top of the breakwater, I decided to jump down on shore,since the tide was out and the waves were very small. This was great,until the tide began to rise very quickly. First a slightly bigger push of water,then a slightly bigger wave,then a much bigger wave! I was actually kneeling in the water and barely rose up above and got my back to wave to spare my camera equipment! But it was fun and worth it!!

Compared to the rest of our day this was exciting. I was explaining to Alvan,how sometimes on these trips we don't see anything rare,but there are usually memorable moments and we would likely remember the Murre photo session as the highlight of the trip. We had just pulled into Witless Bay as i was saying this and I had just gotten on 3 shorebirds flying across the bay. The default shorebird in winter is Purple Sandpiper,but these birds looked slightly off,probably because I really wanted to find something exciting. I followed the birds to shore and was suggesting that we drive over to have a look,when it happened! I saw a white gull way off in the distance. It looked somewhat unfamiliar. It's flight seemed unusually buoyant and reminded me of a cross between and Iceland Gull and a Kittiwake. I looked at the bird for about 5 seconds then it sunk in- this is an IVORY GULL. That is when I probably scared the heck out of Alvan, when I yelled,IVORY GULL,this is a f***ing IVORY GULL- I was a little excited.Pulse racing, I jumped out of the car,grabbed my camera and fired a few distant shots,just for the record,but the bird was drifting away.We had to chase it.

A couple of minutes later after a hairy 80km/hr drive down a narrow side road we were again watching the Ivory Gull. We were oblivious to the fact that we had invaded the property of a B&B and there were a few curious people watching us through the large bay window. I'm sure they were wondering what these two nuts we doing running around their front lawn with spotting scopes and cameras,yelling and waving to each other. we stayed here with the bird for about 20 minutes. It was working the coast and actually flre right in front of us several times. Unfortunately it was getting dark at this point and the bird was a little distant for photos. I did manage to grab a few record quality shots as the bird flew by and landed briefly.

WOW!! How things can change. What started out a one of the most bland birding days of the winter,ended out being one of the best. I often tell others that it only takes one bird to change things around and that's so true- especially when that one bird is an immaculate adult Ivory Gull.

Word is that there are flocks of Ivory Gulls in southern Labrador. Also, visiting birder/photographer Brandon Holden found three!! in Savage Cove on the Northern Peninsula. Combine this with my bird and things are shaping up for a good ole invasion of Ivory Gulls. Stay tuned- this might only be the beginning!!!

EDIT: 10-20 Ivory Gulls seen near the straight of Belle Isle in northern Newfoundland!!!

Winter Drags On

2010-02-12T20:24:00.006-03:30

Well, I haven't exactly been updating this blog daily as of late,but then again,there really hasn't been much to report- the winter doldrums are here. I've been spending nearly full days at Quidi Vidi Lake lately looking for something new to no avail. It has been nice to see the Slaty-backed and Yellow-legged Gull almost daily,but it's really time for a new gull, I'm again thinking of Glaucous-winged Gull, we see how that works out.

As I mentioned in previous posting,gull watching at the lake has been hampered lately by the constant presence of a group of Bald Eagles. One immature bird has become particularly tame and oftrn spends extended periods of time close to the lakes edges and is totally unconcerned by the growing crowds of on lookers,that have taken an interest in the eagles at the lake.

Aside from my daily visits to the lake I've been spending some time trying to get good images of our boreal birds. I haven't got much yet,but here is a Junco shot that I've come to like.

Well,unfortunately that's it for now. I hope to have something more interesting to report on my next update. In fact, I think I might write something about gull hybrids,since I've been seeing a few different combinations lately.

Regarding the tour this May, I'm still waiting to finalize the cost of accomodations and travel. I hope to have the cost finalized early next week. If you can't wait and need information sooner, email me and I'll see what I can do. Until next time...

Alcids,Boreal Birding and Euro Strays- Spring Birding in Newfoundland Tour- May 4th-9th 2010

2010-02-08T10:39:00.003-03:30

I'm excited to be able to announce that this tour is coming along nicely. I still have some loose ends to tie together but will have everything finalized, most importantly the price,in the next few days.

This tour will feature three main attractions, Alcids, boreal birding and (hopefully) European Strays!

Alcids- we will see a couple hundred thousand Atlantic Puffins at close range. It is almost overwhelming to be in the presence of so many birds. Aside from Puffins, there will be plenty of Common and Thick-billed Murres, Razorbills and Black Guillemots,all seen at close range.

While viewing Alcids we will also see some Northern Fulmar and possibly Leach's Storm Petrels. Part of one day will also be dedicated to visiting Cape St.Mary's ecological reserve,where we'll enjoy extended views of 30,000 nesting Gannets on nests at very close range. Also in this area will be many more Common and and some Thick-billed Murres and Razorbills. Also, featured at this location will be Black-legged Kittiwakes on nests. If you interested in bird photography a 300 m lens can sometimes be too much here,since the birds get so close!

Boreal Birding- We will also take some time to look for out boreal breeding birds,such as Pine Grosbeak, Boreal Chickadee,White-winged Crossbill and others. Depending on the pace of the trip, we may also visit areas where Spruce Grouse will be possible. At least one evening there will be an optional outing in search of Boreal Owl. The extent of our boreal birding would depend on the interests of the group and also the upcoming section- Euro Strays!!

European Strays- this is probably the most exciting and definitely the most unpredictable feature of this tour. The most likely European vagrants to be seen on this tour would be European Golden Plover and Northern Wheatear. While this is definitely not guaranteed,they are annual on eastern Newfoundland for the most part some time between the last few days of April through the third week of May. The trick is having one turn up during the tour dates! If there are European Golden Plovers or Wheatears reported, we will be prepared to travel extensively to find them. When these birds turn up they are often between the southern tip of the Avalon Peninsula and the Bonavista Peninsula and they usually linger a few days. These areas are both about a 2-2.5 hour drive from St.John's.Both areas offer good birding and we will be visiting both areas anyway,so it wouldn't even really be out of the way, it just might mean juggling things around a little.

Other European vagrants are possible,but unlikely to be found during such a narrow window. However, Common Redshank,Eurasian Oystercatcher,Black-tailed Godwit, Garganey,Eurasian Whimbrel,Redwing and others, have all turned up in spring over the last 10 years. To be sure I'm not misleading anyone,these species are very unlikely at best,but if we get favorable weather systems between Iceland and Newfoundland in spring,these things are possibilities.

To get the most out of this trip you should be prepared to be happy with the seabird spectacle and the boreal birding. There is always the chance of finding an exciting European birds and this creates anticipation and certainly gives one the feeling that anything is possible,especially, if as mentioned above, we get winds blowing from Iceland in April and early May.

Aside from the above mentioned birds,there should be a few lingering Tufted Ducks and probably Eurasian Wigeon and Common Teal around the city. There is perhaps even a very outside chance that there could be a Yellow-legged Gull still in town. I will be closely tracking our YLGU's whereabouts as the tour approaching,so I'll have a good idea if it's worth looking for or not.

To do this tour properly 5-6 full days of birding would be required,also a longer tour increases the chances of finding European birds if they should be around. It is my intention to offer this tour for a very reasonable price,certainly less than other similar tours that have travelled to Newfoundland. I hope to have everything in order and will announce a price by the end of the week. This will be a small tour and I will be accepting an absolute maximum of 5 participants. I'm expecting that this tour will fill quickly once officially released and advertised. If you'd like further details or would like to pre-book,please contact me via email.

Official announcement,including price by Friday of this week!!