A Clueless Potter Around New England - 4th to 18th June 2016 (1 Viewer)

[Paul Chapman]

I've been away three times this year. A birding trip to Western Sahara not yet written up that yielded Dunn's Lark and Cricket Warbler for my life list but left a rather bittersweet taste on Golden Nightjar and Allen's Gallinule; a day trip to Barcelona for what now seems like the annual Champions League exit and Monk Parakeet year tick; and a post year end relaxation in the first week of May in Bulgaria (still not got through the photo editing) which is always a class European destination - 189 species - but I dipped my only world tick being Rock Partridge.

I had planned to spend the post-Bulgaria period getting ahead of my work and planning this trip. Extended stays in Land's End and flying visits to Shetland and the Hebrides have meant that I have failed in both goals.

I therefore sit here in Dublin Airport awaiting a flight to Boston totally and utterly unprepared. If I'd got my only other American trip into eBird - a family trip to Disney World in Florida so long ago that Arsenal won the League at the Lane whilst we were there - then I could use the Target Species function more effectively but at least it will exclude those species I have seen in Europe as I have most of my WP species in there.

I have a week with my wife to basically do as we please before she leaves me to a week at Harvard Business School. I am worried a week will be too little time to teach them everything I know. 3

That week will be twelve hour days so I suspect the trip list will effectively end next Saturday.

I'll try daily updates till then but anticipate that this will end up being a cry for help on what I am failing to see rather than a trip report!

All the best

Paul

 

[MKinHK]

Bet you see loads of Black-billed Cuckoos - good job you genned up.

Cheers
Mike

 

[Farnboro John]

I thought this was going to be JK Rowling's first BF post....

John

 

[Paul Chapman]

I thought this was going to be JK Rowling's first BF post....

John

John

Careful.

Lawyers have got into trouble revealing JK Rowling's secret literary titles:-

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2...owling-robert-galbraith-fined-cuckoos-calling

Currently cloudy over Newfoundland.

All the best

 

[Paul Chapman]

Bet you see loads of Black-billed Cuckoos - good job you genned up.

Cheers
Mike

Mike

It won't be an uncommon experience. Lots of species likely to be ones I've twitched! Checking eBird for likeliest Massachusetts species. Reviewed most commonly reported June species and they breakdown as follows:-

Commonest 50 - seen 24 in Britain & Ireland and 16 more in US with 10 targets:-
Black-capped Chickadee
Chipping Sparrow
White-breasted Nuthatch
Great Crested Flycatcher
Eastern Phoebe
Eastern Wood-Pewee
House Finch
House Wren
Warbling Vireo
Wood Thrush

Second commonest 50 - seen 24 in Britain & Ireland and 12 more in US with 14 targets:-
Ruby-throated Hummingbird
American Redstart
Hairy Woodpecker
Willow Flycatcher
Swamp Sparrow
Chestnut-sided Warbler
Field Sparrow
Black-throated Green Warbler
Marsh Wren
Blue-grey Gnatcatcher
Purple Finch
Piping Plover
Brown Creeper
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker

Finally third commonest 50 - seen 30 in Britain & Ireland and 8 more in US with 12 targets:-
Least Flycatcher
Blackburnian Warbler
Saltmarsh Sparrow
Blue-headed Vireo
American Oystercatcher
Virginia Rail
Winter Wren
Red-shouldered Hawk
Magnolia Warbler
Barred Owl
Eastern Whip-poor-will
American Woodcock

Current hasty plan is following an overnight near the airport head north along the coast into Maine before heading inland to Vermont and New Hampshire in light of advice kindly received. If I've uploaded eBird as I go, working out locations and habitats for realistic targets should improve if I've seen some of the commonest species...

http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=309893


All the best

 

[Jeff Hopkins]

Paul your "most common" targets should be no problem except for warbling vireo (find a creek or river).

Don't know how far you're going into NH but a lot of the passerines should be possible in the White Mtns.

 

[Paul Chapman]

Jeff - many thanks. As this is not a birding trip anything will be great.

Way back in March when booking the flights and arranging our ESTA's, I needed a place to stay for the first night. Looking on Google Maps close to the airport, I came up with the Winthrop Beach Inn on the basis that it was 10 mins from the airport and on the coast so we could rest up following the travelling and if I felt up to it, I could go for a stroll.

I had booked a car hire the day before through the Aer Lingus website and it was remarkably smooth with the only task being to pick up the bags having pre-cleared immigration in Dublin. So on to the courtesy bus to the car hire rental centre and after a 30 minute queue away from the airport and into the roadworks.....

SatNav means you can go wrong and correct yourself quickly so we were at our accommodation by 3.00pm local time.

I decided to do a quick stroll straight away to get my bearings. A 200 yard stroll to the beach led me to my surprise to a 30 pair Least Tern colony. They proved more straightforward than the days I had put in for the Rye Harbour bird. Offshore there were about 30 Double-crested Cormorants and then an unfamiliar wader call put me onto my first Piping Plover - a new bird for me. In the end, I saw about 20 together with a Semipalmated Plover and a Killdeer. Maybe two dozen beach goers interspersed amongst the birds.

A few other birds on the coast were plentiful American Herring Gulls displaying their full variety including pale worn immatures, Great Black-backed Gulls, maybe a dozen Eider and Mallards. Offshore produced a Common Loon - presumably a first-summer as in winter garb. (They look a lot like Great Northern Divers. But I'll do my best to fit in locally. Let's not distract this thread with the old bird names thing.)

A stroll along the beach and a familiar call put me onto my first American Oystercatcher. I saw at least two in the end.

I then looped along the point before cutting inland to walk back via Lewis Lake. The commonest passerines were House Sparrows followed by Common Grackles and Starlings. The odd Northern Mockingbird mocked. I presume that they were mocking me about the 1988 Essex bird that was surpressed. Yes, yes, I know. Private land, landowner insistent, etc, etc. Let's not distract this thread...

A few Feral Pigeons secured the usual trio with the House Sparrows and Starlings.

Otherwise it was not the time of day for passerines really. A Catbird wailed and I then picked it up. Another reminder of horrors past. A few Cardinals sang here and there, a Song Sparrow rewarded me for checking the House Sparrows and then sang - it was so robust and powerful, it reassured me that the Seaforth Docks bird was almost certainly not ship assisted, a flash of yellow was probably a Yellow Warbler but too brief and a female Baltimore Oriole hung out in the trees around Lewis Lake. The harsh calls of several Red-winged Blackbirds there didn't match their beauty.

Otherwise the walk yielded a few Chimney Swift overhead, an American Robin or two along with a fledged juvenile and a fly through Black-crowned Night Heron.

A total of 24 species - quite pleasing in an urban environment including two ticks and nine I had twitched in Britain and Ireland.

We then crashed. Hopefully my brain will work today. We'll head up the coast to Plum Island after an early morning stroll. Just getting light at 5am. See what the day brings....

All the best

Paul

 

[Paul Chapman]

I'll be brief. Today lived up to the title. No wifi. Pretty constant rain and not much to show for it. I'll hope to add detail later. The species list has climbed to 57 species with Eastern Wood-pewee and Purple Finch new for me. Hoping for dry weather and more luck tomorrow but any recommendations for good locations for passerines on the coast gratefully received before I head inland! Plum Island again tomorrow.

All the best

 

[Scridifer]

Following with interest! Good luck Paul!

Chris

 

[Paul Chapman]

Still no wifi. We stayed 10 mins from Plum Island and were back there for 5.30am. Conversations with the locals confirmed that migration had finished last weekend.....

It was a day of learning the songs I should have learned before I left - Yellow Warbler, Yellowthroat, Eastern Towhee, etc - and discovering that there is no substitute for extremely loud pishing.

I spent 7 hours on Plum Island this morning before lunch at Newburyport and provisioning at Amesbury and a further four hours this evening. Back tomorrow morning before heading inland.

Despite continued incompetence, the highlights were cracking views of 2 American Woodcock this morning and a breeding male Magnolia Warbler this evening - both at Hellcat Marsh.

A close third were 5 American Redstart including 3 males. Other ticks were Black - capped Chickadee, Willow Flycatcher and Field Sparrow.

Proper detail in due course and trip list struggled to 75 species.

All the best

 

[Jeff Hopkins]

Plum Island is a fantastic place, but given the rest of your list, Paul, it's time for you to head for some woodlands.

 

[cafe birder]

Hope you saw the woodcocks displaying. If not then go back in the evening. Its fantastic. Howard

 

[Jason Williams]

Have a great trip Paul (and Jude!)

 

[Paul Chapman]

Jeff - totally agree!

Howard - it did turn and spread it's tail at me. More interesting but less intimidating than when a Turkey did similar later.

Jason - cheers. She's loving the insect bites.

 

[Paul Chapman]

Well we've left the coast behind and headed inland. Currently at Lincoln in the White Mountains. I have some Wifi so maybe I can work out what my targets are!

I'd finally started to suss out Plum Island. I'd worked out where the S curves were and started getting my head around the calls. I couldn't find anything but Song Sparrows in the marshy margins though.

There really were Willow Flycatchers everywhere and plentiful Yellowthroats, Yellow Warblers, Eastern Towhees, Catbirds, Brown Thrashers, etc, etc.

I had four ticks today - Great Crested Flycatcher (three now I knew the calls to track), a singing Chipping Sparrow (I'd heard that song before this trip but failed to find the songster though suspected the culprit....), Marsh Wren (at least four in Hellcat Marsh) and a female Ruby-throated Hummingbird.

Mourning Warbler would have been a tick but despite singing for thirty minutes it failed to show to a group of four birders in Hellcat Marsh car park.

The trip list has limped to 84 and when I arrived at Lincoln, the trees were very tall, covered with leaves and full of sounds that were different from the coast..... Roll on tomorrow's cluelessness. If I can work out the targets, at least I can try looking up the calls and songs.

All the best

 

[stuartvine]

That so reminds me of snatching some birding on business trips to the States. (Except I was far, far, more clueless).

 

[Paul Chapman]

Another challenging day. Up early to be faced by downpours so abandoned my early morning walk.

So to the cable car to Cannon Mountain. I know that this was a good tip because the forlorn birdwatcher sitting on the loop trail at the top of the mountain told me that this was where he had seen Bicknell's Thrush easily last year at the meadow that we could not see because it was encased in low cloud.

But we could not be down for long as around 200 screaming children arrived in a succession of school parties to make sure that the eerie white cloud echoed with their cries rather than the deafening silence of an absence of bird song. I dug out Blackpoll and Yellow-rumped Warblers and Dark-eyed Junco to remind myself that they are so plentiful to be able to make it across the Atlantic.

So to Trudeau Road, Bethlehem, courtesy of last night's belated genning up. But by now it was the middle of the day. Swamp Sparrow made its way onto my lifelist and the trip list climbed slightly including Belted Kingfisher.

Some raptors confused so I'll have to see if I can do anything with the photos.

I decided to cut and run to try Moose Pond Bog in northern Vermont tomorrow at dawn. But before I did, the day was rescued a touch by a second tick in Blue-headed Vireo at Jefferson Notch Road courtesy of a visiting birder staking out an Alder Flycatcher. I explained to him that it was my third but the first in the States.... He responded that he was on his way back from dipping Little Egret. He told me that all his warblers that day had been heard onlys which at least cheered me slightly at my inability to trace the occasional song that I had heard.

He gave me a site for an Eastern Phoebe nest under a bridge at Moose Brook campsite. I dipped! The title for this thread stands proud. But my first Red-breasted Nuthatch since a chaotic Sunday in 1989 was pleasant whilst my first Yellow-bellied Sapsucker - my third tick of the day - was the second biggest buzz of the trip after American Woodcock.

Dodgy weather tomorrow but we're in the motel at Island Pond primed for Moose Pond Bog in the morning.

Not updated eBird but I believe the trip list sits in the 90's short of 100.

(Edit - back with WiFi and uploaded. It tells me the trip list was 96 at close of play yesterday.)

All the best

 

[Scridifer]

You must have thought you were back in Bulgaria Paul! Congratulations on the ticks and good luck Today!

Chris

 

[Jeff Hopkins]

Paul,

I've actually never had much luck at Cannon Mountain. Too touristy.

I actually had my lifer Bicknell's on Jefferson Notch Rd. The Caps Ridge Trail can be steep and muddy, but great for warblers and thrushes. Even the car park for that trail head is great.

The Mount Washington road can also be good for Bicknell's.

JH

 

[Paul Chapman]

Jeff - noted. I'm going to give it another crack tomorrow in better weather.

Today was more of the same. Unidentified sounds and shocking weather. I essentially put in the day at Moose Pond Bog but had very little to show for it. Of course, there were highlights but the real stand out was a family party of Gray Jay.

I had walked the main trail and had got to Route 105 and turned back almost totally birdless. The steady drizzle adding to the temperature of about 5 degrees and the considerable chilly wind. A pair of Dark-eyed Juncos clearly decided I needed cheering up and hopped along the trail with me in the gloom. It perked me up a bit but when a young Gray Jay flew in and almost landed on my head that was a whole new emotion.

The two youngsters knocked around at head height whilst the two adults played harder to get.

Trip list to 100 and back now to the White Mountains as a colleague gets into Boston Airport tomorrow. Tomorrow is my last day of 'birding' and a half day at that so Trudeau Road early, Cannon Mountain again - it can't be worse & Jefferson Notch Road again.

Looking at the map I may be able to do Mt Auburn Cemetery next week - it looks walking distance. I think I'll start a new trip list from when my course starts.

All the best