Rarity Round up July 1st- July 10th

We are starting to get into the dog days of summer now. Birds are actively feeding young and birdsong is beginning to diminish. The birding calendar is starting to turn from songbirds to seabirds as we anticipate the arrival of capelin and the hordes of birds that feed on them. Already there have been reports of significant gatherings of Gannets and Shearwaters on the SW Avalon and increasing whale and Gannet action on the SE Avalon Peninsula suggests that the Shearwaters cannot be far away.

In the last edition of rarity round up, I noted that July was a good month to find rare Terns on the Avalon Peninsula in summer. John Williams and Dave Hawklins proved this to be true by finding an exceptional Roseate Tern in Bear Cove on July 9th. This is just the 3 record of this rare, endangered Tern for Newfoundland, so quite an amazing find. Both John and Dave are more than adept bird photographers so they did a great job of documenting the rarity!

Note the long black bill and extremely long tail, extending well beyond the wing tips
PHOTO : John Williams

Comparison with Common Tern- note differences in structure and bill colour
PHOTO: John Williams

The other exciting birds of the week are continuing and possibly a new Little Egret. Earlier this Spring Newfoundland experienced an influx of Great Egrets and it seems that a few of them are hanging on into the summer. Also present is a continuing Little Egret Spaniard's Bay that was first found and report by Lois Clarke. Due to some investigative journalism by local birders Shawn Fitzpatrick it was found that the bird had actually been present since at least June 18th. I suspect it is likely this this bird found its way to Newfoundland even earlier in the Spring, which would be a more likely time of arrival for this rare European Egret.

Also in Little Egret news a second (or the same?) individual was reported from Pond Rd in Kelligrews on July 10th! It's not yet clear if this represents a second bird or if the Spaniard's bay bird has switched locations.

The Spaniard's Bay Little Egret with prey
PHOTO: John Williams

Spaniard's Bay Little Egret taking flight.
Note the two long head plumes and bluish lore, which help to separate it from the very similar Snowy Egret, which has more bushy, shorter head plumes and yellow lores
PHOTO: John Williams

In the future I think I will write these articles 3 times monthly, with each one covering 10 days. I would like to thank John Williams for allowing me to use his images for this article and I would also like to thank everyone else who has supported the page, offered suggestions, donated photos etc. It really does mean a lot! 

What's Next!

In this segment I will attempt to predict new birds that could possibly be added to the Newfoundland list. Some of these will be total long shots, but most will have at least some basis in reality. I will attempt to provide justification based on species migration habits, proximity of other records to Newfoundland as well as, changing weather patters and habitat etc.

I am omitting Labrador for now, now because I have some kind of grudge against Labrador and it's fantastic people, more so because I don't know know about what's possible in Labrador to comment. To put it another way, anything seems to be possible in Newfoundland. In the number of few yeas they've had Yellow-breasted Bunting, Western Tanager and Lewis' Woodpecker!

The last three birds added to the Newfoundland list were Eared Grebe, Willow Flycatcher and Western Meadowlark. Two of these birds presented enormous ID challenges, with extensive analysis of calls (via sonagram) used to finally clinch the Willow Flycatcher. None of these birds were necessarily unexpected. There is a previous record for Eared Grebe from St.Pierre et Miquelon and previous records from elsewhere in Atlantic Canada. Willow Flycatcher has been know to breed occasionally in the southern Martimes. Since it is essentially identical in every way to Alder Flycatcher (aside from song and call) it may be overlooked on occasion. I don't have a lot of information on Western Meadowlark. Considering Eastern Meadowlark is extremely rare in Newfoundland, Western was a bit of a surprise, though not shocking. Again, this can be a very difficult ID, not only because Eastern and Western Meadowlark are extremely similar, but they can also be very secretive, often only allowing brief looks after being flushed (unless they are perched up singing)

So what's next? The Newfoundland list currently stands at 404 species, what might be 405? Well considering we are well into the the breeding season with shorebird migration starting in the next month, I will go with a shorebird. Newfoundland already has a nice shorebird lists with some exciting birds from, North America, Europe and Asia. We've had Marbled Godwit, American Avocet and Black-necked Stilt from Western North America, Northern lapwing, European Golden Plover and Common Redshank from Europe and our most recent shorebird added to the Newfoundland list was Little Stint likely of Asian origin.

This might be a bit of a long shot, but I'l going to go with Long-billed Curlew as the next bird to be added to he Newfoundland list (if a new bird is added between now and October). Long-billed Curlew has been recorded in both Nova Scotia and New Brunswick and there was a Long-billed Curlew shot in St.Pierre et Miquelon maybe 10+ years ago. This is a bird I see happening at Cape Race or maybe St.Shotts. It would be a thrill to find standing near the Cape Race lighthouse or walking the fields at the St.Shotts Sod farm. This is a species I've predicting would happen for a while and it still hasn't happened yet, so who knows.

This may become a regular series, depending on how people like it. In future posts like this I will be a bit more prepared and will try to gain access to photos of the various rarities that I mention, since it's always fun to see photos of rarities from the past.

Long-billed Curlew-plates from Sibley Guide

Rarity Round Up- June 15-21

I've been trying to think of regular content for the blog to ensure that I am able to continue to post daily. I've decided to add a new article in the mix called Rarity Round Up. This is essentially a compilation of the rarer birds that have been seen in Newfoundland during the previous seven day period. This is not meant to be an RBA, though you are welcome to contact me for updates if you wish. This is a discussion of the various rarities.I will highlight some of the more special birds, and add a little context to the record, in terms of the birds history or lack there of in Newfoundland.

**Note** If I miss something or make an error please feel free to correct, or remind me!

** Note** These posts will be organized taxonomically, rather than by date.

Rarity Round Up June 15-21


There is a continuing Gadwall at Virginia Lake in St.John's, while on the west coast t(Deer Lake- Codroy Valley)there have been a rash of reports of Northern Shovelers, who are likely rare breeders on the island. There is also a continuing Tufted Duck in St.John's which has been seen at Burtons Pd, on the Memorial University Campus.

The star of the last week has been the Sandhill Crane in the Goulds. A genuine rarity on the island of Newfoundland, you are quite lucky if you have an opportunity to see one of these every few years, but if you are going to see one in Newfoundland, the Goulds has been a good spot over the years.

Not quite as rare but every bit as cool was a Long-tailed Jaegerthat was seen and photographed in St.Anthony. While primarily a pelagic species that comes ashore to nest on the Arctic tundra, Long-tailed Jaeger are occasionally seen grazing on berries on the barrens at coastal locations in Newfoundland. In Spring it is often the sleek looking adults, while in fall the birds seen ashore are often immatures, which present a bit more of a ID challenge.

It's nice to see several reports of Ruby-throated Hummingbirds this week. While it is known that Ruby-throats breed in small numbers in the Codroy Valley, pairs seen in Renews and St.Georges are very interesting!

In Flycatcher news there have been a few reports of Eastern Kingbirds, which isn't too out of the ordinary for the season, as well there were several reports of Olive-sided Flycatchers. There was a also an Eastern Wood Pewee photographed in Gander, where it is extremely rare. The majority of records for Eastern Wood Pewee in Newfoundland are from the SW coast and the Avalon Peninsula.

There was a Philadelphia reported and photographed near Murphy's Pond in the Goulds, where there is also a continuing Gray Catbird. A second Philadelphia Vireo was see in Bishops Fall in central. where a couple of Red-eyed Vireo's were reported as well.

It was a good week for Black-billed Cuckoo sightings with two, one in Trepassey and another photographed on a lawn in Cape Ray. This is a solid rarity in the province, but when we do get records they are often in the latter half of June. Seeing one in the open on a lawn is especially fortuitous, since they are generally quite a reclusive species.

As for Warblers, there were a few reports each of Cape May, Blackburnian and Bay-breasted. This has been a decent year for these three species of 'Budworm" warblers, whose populations seem to ebb and flow in the SW and W portions of the province. The good work of Vernon Buckle in Forteau Labrador, shows that area should not be overlooked, with a pair of Cape May's this week. There was also a Nashville Warbler reported in the Codroy Valley- not too surprising since there are probably small numbers of them there annually in Spring.

Saving the best for last the long staying Purple Gallinule still continues in the Waterford River area of St.John's. The bird is one of about 30 provincial records, but it was the first 'countable' bird that any birder has seen. Previous records of moribund individuals, birds on ships, bird in boxes and specimens, don't make it to your life list.

Hope you enjoyed this quick read, please let me know if this is something you would be interested in having me continue in the comments.

Update and FORK-TAILED FLYCATCHER!

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)

Comparing Two "Events"

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.

Add caption

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.

#247 Bagged

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 Update and Looking Ahead

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.

2011 Newfoundland Winter Birding Summary

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 birding tour next January, 2019. We will focus on rare gulls, finches and European rarities. Some highlight birds may include, Yellow-legged Gull, Common Snipe, Tufted Duck, Common Teal, Common Gull, Black-headed Gull, Eurasian Wigeon, Dovekie, Great Cormorant, King Eider (nice flocks of sea ducks in general), Pine Grosbeak, White-winged Crossbill, Boreal Chickadee, Willow Ptarmigan, Snowy Owl etc!

****JACK SNIPE****

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!!!

Jack Snipe- Ferryland, Newfoundland

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

Avalon Peninsula Rarity Round Up

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

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!

Birding for Winter Specialties in Newfoundland

Over the last two days I have been birding with Keith Camburn, helping him pick up some Newfoundland specialties. He has amassed an ABA list that most of could only dream of. One bird that has eluded him (and many listers) is Yellow-legged Gull and seeing this species was our main focus.

We met yesterday at 8:00 am at Quidi Vidi in a heavy drizzle. Although the conditions were not ideal, the gulls didn't seem to mind and there were decent numbers at the lake. We scanned the flocks a few times and never saw anything but our usual species and a couple of hybrids. At 10:41 it happened. Keith noticed a gull with with a gleaming white head and medium gray mantle, that was easily darker than the surrounding Smithsonianus Herring Gulls. I got on the bird and confirmed it was indeed a Yellow-legged Gull. In fact,it was the same bird that I had photographed a day earlier at the St.John's harbour (see previous post for photos).We enjoyed nice looks at this rare gull until it eventually flushed with the other gulls, for some unknown reason. We would find this gull again 4 hours later in the same location for a second look.With the major target bird out of the way we set out to see some of the other Newfoundland birding specialties such as, Tufted Duck (30+), Eurasian Wigeon, Eurasian Green-winged Teal, Common Gull, Black-headed Gull and Great Cormorant- not to mention over a 1000 Kumliens Iceland Gulls. At that point the light was starting to fade and we decided to call it a day and decided to devote the following day to birding the southern Avalon.

We had a great day today birding on the southern Avalon, seeing many other nice northern birds, that one just doesn't get to see that often in the southern US. Some of the notable species included, Boreal Chickadee,White-winged Crossbill,Pine Grosbeak,Northern Shrike and really nice flock of 250 Snow Buntings! Aside from passerines, we also saw large numbers of Common Eiders and long-tailed Ducks, 2 King Eider, all 3 Scoter Species,Red-necked Grebe and had knee-buckling looks and amazing photo ops, with 70+ Purple Sandpipers.







All of this, combined with the fantastic coastal scenery, made for a nice end to successful visit for Keith and I just happy that we were able to see so many of the birds on his wish list.

I still have some room available on my southern Avalon tour on January 16th,but I'm expecting it to fill quickly.If you'd like to experience birding like this for yourself, drop me an email to book your spot.