the modest birder (21) 2013 year-list

As a sort of competitive joke I kept a year-list for 2013 to show my birding buddy how many birds could be seen without travelling to hotspots during a one day excursion from one's home or traditional vacation spot (Maine in August). And even with his Spring in Georgia, trips to Arizona and elsewhere, he did not reach my year total until mid-summer.


Actually I broke my parameter, for at the end of May we made a specific 10 day trip to places in Maine that are father away from our vacation location of Southport Island (see the entry "August in Maine"). That trip consisted of 2 days around Scarborough, 3 around Machias and 2 in Baxter State Park, with stops on the way to these places. Birdwise that trip was not bad with some 29 year birds and 4 "lifers." But the weather was uncooperative with one 4-day period of constant and sometimes pouring rain; our planned trip for Machias Island' s pelagics was cancelled. Most of the food was 1950s "family restaurant," but the tree meals that were not were pretty outstanding. As it turned out of the 303 birds on the list even 3 of the 4 lifers could have been seen in Southern Jersey or Delaware and 2 of them I actually saw during fall migration, only the Spruce Grouse being strictly a northern species. In August, however, we saw several pelagics on boat trips out of Boothbay.


The highlights of the May trip were the Black Terns at Belgrade, the Spruce Grouse that walked calmly across the road in front of our car in Baxter, the Red Phalarope that flew up the Machias River, seen from of our room, and the five different sparrows on the Kennebunk Plains where the Vesper and Grasshopper Sparrows were target birds and a Clay-colored a nice bonus.
 Black Terns are regular fall migrants at Cape May and in Delaware, but their wheeling around above marsh reeds reminded me of the ponds in the meadows of my childhood when I would drift in my kayak among them. Other good memories, in spite of the icy winds were the many Yellow-rumped Warblers in breeding plumage darting among the vegetation at the edge of a pond below Mt. Kathadin that itself was impressive in its fresh snow cover that virtually hung below its cloud enveloped summit. Then there was the odd appearance of a Hawk Owl on top of a spruce along Rt. 95 just before the Millinocket turn off, a flashback to our trip to Alaska.
 The weather improved on our last day when we drove from Baxter to Freeport where we stopped for the night. The sky was blue and the sun was bright and as we had time we stopped off at Reid's Beach, one of our usual summer haunts. Colette took a long walk up and down the longer stretch of sand while I birded the park roads. She saw some Piping Plovers while from the height of the parking lot I watched several Common and two Red-throated Loons as well as the 4 usual terns. But most appreciated was the blue sky, the flat ocean and the spring-like temperature.


One of the consequences of the rainy weather, especially during the days we spent in the Moosehorn NWR, resulted from the fact that neither of us uses modern birding technology. This led to some experiences that were both challenging and amusing. If there was light rain we birded from the car with the window on the lee open. As I have hearing - and that only 70% - in my right ear only, this meant that Colette and I frequently changed seats to be able to lean out of the "dry" window, which was especially helpful if the bird was singing on that side. But one-ear hearing often creates an erroneous direction. If it poured the windows were opened for an inch or so. Identifying birdsong, especially of very high notes or from soft singers becomes an identification hazard. The upshot was that Colette tried to imitate sounds and cadences while I paged the likely warbler species in Peterson Warbler Guide and 2 other books. Slashing in the mud in a drenched trench coat was often the only way to establish a modicum of certainty.
I had a long time to watch the rain drench the rushing Machias River and among the things that went through my mind was the likelihood that the term "Godawfull weather" may have originated with some Christian farmer thinking about the biblical Deluge as his plough got stuck in the mud.


90% of the birds on the list birds posed fewer problems as we saw them in our regular haunts. Nearly all the ducks came in the first two months. A King eider appeared at Cape May but for the Common one we had to wait for Maine. The odd one out was an Eurasian Teal in Cape May on 3 March. An Eared Grebe hung around Indian River Inlet, Del. in February and a Red-necked appeared in Wildwood in April. Brown Pelicans regularly occur during the fall, but a White was in Bombay Hook NWR, Del. on 9/19. Least Bitterns were regular at Bombay, but I did not find one until Sept. 6. In that month there was also an invasion of White Ibis in Delaware and I saw several on that Sept. 6 trip when I saw also the only Mississippi Kite of the year though there had been several of  them in May and June in New Jersey.


A rare find among the shorebirds were the Lapwings in NJ (for which we made a slight detour on the way home from Cape May) on March 10. Sand-hill Cranes had been reported at that location also, but we missed it and it remained elusive throughout the year. Both Godwits are regular at Bombay Hook, but a Buff-breasted Sandpiper was a real find along Rte 9 near Bombay Hook where it remained for more than a week and attracted many viewers. Because of our Maine trip we missed the Knots on their Delaware Bay stop-over, but some turned up in Delaware and NJ in the Fall.


Among the gulls etc. we saw 2 Sandwich Terns over the Hereford Inlet in Stone Harbor, a Long-tailed Jaeger and a Parasitic Jaeger on the beach at Cape May on 9/14 and 9/24 respectively. As we rarely make specific target trips, owls are always a rare find. In 2013 we saw 5 of them, a Snowy as one of the much reported invasion on 12/5, a Barred on 3/23 off Rte 9, a Screech on 12/22 at Bombay and a Great Horned on 5/16 also at Bombay. A Chuck-will's widow was a "lifer" on Sept. 6 when we nearly drove over it on a unpaved road of Rte 9. It only flew away when I got out to see whether it was alive.


Sometimes a new bird appears in our garden (which is on the edge of a wood transected by a vernal creek), this year it was a Red-headed Woodpecker on 4/27. I saw 2 rare flycatchers, an Olive-sided on 6/26 in the Cape May State Park and a Western Kingbird on 9/17 along Rte 9 (and another on 12/5 in Cape Henlopen St. Pk. in Del).
It's obvious by now that Rte 9 in Delaware is part of our normal birding spots, specifically the stretch from Odessa to Bombay Hk. NWR. and its side roads. It goes by Taylor's Gut and the Woodland WMA and some of its side roads go through blocks old forest. It's rare that we don't find some 10 species on a Spring or Fall trip and once in a while we hit a bonanza. Such was the case on May 16 when in the space of 50 yards along a side road with a thick hedgerow across from a brush-filled high forest there was a "fall out" of some fifty birds which were a pleasure to watch as they did not appear to move on and occasionally flipped across the road back and forth. My oldest US friend, usually very matter of fact if not phlegmatic, became very engaged pursuing each specie until he had a sure identification:
       "That's a Yellow-throated Vireo" or "there's a Blue-headed" or "See that Summer Tanager"or               "Did you get that Kentucky Warbler" or" this must be a Bay-breasted."
 I also had my eyes on some Blackpolls that, confusingly, flitted in the low brush were several Black and Whites were gleaning the bark of the spring refurbished branches. When the excitement ebbed we had identified 14 species. A local lady, walking her dogs had stopped to watch us remarking: "They have been there all morning."
        And as if to celebrate an Orchard Oriole and a Scarlet Tanager began to sing, the one in the top of the hedgerow and the other in a high beech.




Such "fall outs" occur more frequently during Fall migration for which Cape May has become famous, but even in our garden on a good day there may be several birds of up to seventeen species. One such fall-out occurred on 9/24 when I saw some twenty birders spying the hedgerow on the north-east side of Lily Lake in West Cape May. The number of Warblers was so large and their movement so nervous that identification became a group effort. The only new Warbler of the year that I saw was a Wilson's, but earlier that morning, at Highbee Beach, I had good looks at a Philadelphia Vireo, one of the target birds on our May trip to Baxter State Park in Maine.


Bird #300 was a Greater White-fronted Goose that was hanging around in Bombay Hook. I saw it on a regular Delaware trip on October 24. The next two months only brought two more species, though if I had made special efforts I could have added several more.


To some extent keeping the list satisfied my curiosity about how many species we could see without becoming "chasers." In comparison with localized lists of full-time birders ours was not a bad result. Yet, I wont be keeping another one simply to avoid the "pressure of the count" which, especially towards the end, took away from the pleasure of birding and its unsuspected surprises such as that of  the hedgerow off Rte 9 on May 16.
ADDENDUM:  Contrary to the last paragraph, I used the 2013 list for 2014 also and came up with an even 300 (5 less than 2013), of which 18 were birds not seen in 2013, thus in 2013 we saw 23 birds not seen in 2014. Some of the 2014 birds were pelagics, including an Audubon Shearwater, on the annual Maine puffin trip and the whale tour (that came after a bad storm that also brought a Mississippi Kite to Southport Island), but most were Cape May vagrants, including a Smith's Longspur (a lifer) one of the target birds that we missed on our Alaska trip; also a Vermillion Flycatcher and a Western Tanager that were watched by many people as we drove by the same road at different times and a Whiskered Tern that was around for 10 days on the pond in front of the Hawkwatch. For none of the 18 we made a special trip though some took a bit of repeat searching.