Your silliest/most entertaining/unlikely birding accomplishments (1 Viewer)

[KenM]

I was famously bad at putting effort in to get rails for my Pennsylvania lists, especially for my county. Two years ago, on a misty April morning that brought some locally rare Laughing Gulls to my patch, a friend called. "Hey, I'm in the parking lot and there's a Virginia Rail on the shoreline!" I sprinted over from a different part of the park, eager to get my first PA rail. A minute later and we were enjoying the bird at close range, poking out of a bush at the lake's edge far from any good reed habitat. After I got home, word eventually got out that this was a CLAPPER RAIL. One of the first chaseable state records and a new county record! I was mortified but thrilled at the same time. Having moved away since, Clapper remains my only rail actually seen in Pennsylvania.

Plenty of rails here BM….just the trains missing.🤣

 

[Val35]

In 2016, shortly after waking up, I checked the local bird news : a Black Winged Kite had been seen not too far from where I lived. At the time, I was studying in Brittany and it was an extremely rare bird in the area (now there are several breeding pairs). I took a screenshot of the pics attached to the sighting and sent it to two friends from university, it would have been a lifer for the three of us so we decided to twitch it together after classes.

In the afternoon, we were ready to go but there was only one problem...we couldn't find the sighting again in the database again (we later learnt that it was because breeding evidence had been found and the original observer decided to put the sighting in private mode as it was sensitive information) !

All we had was the name of the village where it had been seen (I remembered it) and the screenshot of the pic that accompanied the sighting...
The bird was perched on a dead tree...

So we started searching for that tree around the village, it seemed like searching a needle in a haystack as the administrative limits of the village were quite big and it was all fields with hedges...turns out we eventually found the tree just before dusk and observed not one but 4 BWK : 2 adults and 2 1cy birds !

 

[Andrew Whitehouse]

Probably quite a few things, although I may have tried to forgot some. A few off the top of my head.

1. I saw Caucasian Grouse in Turkey years before I saw Black Grouse anywhere.
2. I've seen quite a few Buff-breasted Sandpipers in Britain but have never seen them in the New World, despite several trips. I've never seen American Golden Plover in the US either, despite seeing them in the UK, although I have seen it in South America.
3. I once saw six species of auk in a day within 2km of my home.

 

[Jeff Hopkins]

My rarest observation ever is Tennessee Warbler. Having seen tons in migration every year, this year I also found one in late June in my local patch in Ohio, hundreds of miles from any suitable breeding habitat.

Yellow-bellied Flycatcher was my very first empid, even though they are the rarest in my area besides Alder.

My only Ruddy Turnstones were seen on a puffin/seabird boat tour in maine, flying over the water out of sight of any land.

My lifer Ruddy Turnstone was in Singapore.

 

[Jeff Hopkins]

Last year I was on a birding tour in Southern Ecuador. We were in some coastal wetlands looking at, among others, Kelp Gulls, when another dark-backed gull flew in. Our guide, who lived in Ecuador wrote it off as just another Kelp Gull, but the clients (all Americans and Brits) felt it looked different and insisted he take another look. When we got it in the scope, we found it was a Lesser Black-backed Gull; a common species here in PA and Europe, but an absolute mega for Ecuador.

And a twist on this: My lifer Kelp Gull was many years before in Maryland.

 

[pbjosh]

My lifer Ruddy Turnstone was in Singapore.

Ruddy Turnstone is the second most widely seen bird for me by number of countries, beating out W Cattle Egret, Osprey, or Peregrine even but losing to Great Egret. I probably saw it in 8-10 other countries before seeing it where I was living.

 

[Andrew Whitehouse]

Ruddy Turnstone is the bird I’ve seen in the most countries, beating out Osprey or Peregrine even. I probably saw it in 8-10 other countries before seeing it where I was living.

A game I play with myself when going on any foreign trip is to avoid seeing Osprey and Peregrine. It sort of amuses me, since they're often regarded as 'rare birds' in the UK (or at least were when I was growing up). It's surprisingly hard to avoid them almost anywhere in the world though.

 

[pbjosh]

A game I play with myself when going on any foreign trip is to avoid seeing Osprey and Peregrine. It sort of amuses me, since they're often regarded as 'rare birds' in the UK (or at least were when I was growing up). It's surprisingly hard to avoid them almost anywhere in the world though.

Hah I would rather do this with Cattle Egret! And I inadvertently lied there about Ruddy Turnstone - I used to have Cattle Egret as my seen in the most places bird but with it splitting in eBird (where I track things, it is what it is) it fell to below Ruddy Turnstone which was fortunate I guess, hah. But I was forgetting about Great Egret which is now my most widely seen bird…

 

[Farnboro John]

Probably quite a few things, although I may have tried to forgot some. A few off the top of my head.

1. I saw Caucasian Grouse in Turkey years before I saw Black Grouse anywhere.
2. I've seen quite a few Buff-breasted Sandpipers in Britain but have never seen them in the New World, despite several trips. I've never seen American Golden Plover in the US either, despite seeing them in the UK, although I have seen it in South America.
3. I once saw six species of auk in a day within 2km of my home.

My crew's term for this is backwards listing... currently I think my wife holds the record with Gyrfalcon in Britain before Merlin, Peregrine and Hobby!

John

 

[Xenospiza]

Hah I would rather do this with Cattle Egret! And I inadvertently lied there about Ruddy Turnstone - I used to have Cattle Egret as my seen in the most places bird but with it splitting in eBird (where I track things, it is what it is) it fell to below Ruddy Turnstone which was fortunate I guess, hah. But I was forgetting about Great Egret which is now my most widely seen bird…

Just wait till American Egret is finally split!

 

[DMW]

This is more a testament to my incompetence than an accomplishment, but I spent a whole day walking and scrambling in the Glacier Martial valley outside Ushuaia in southern Argentina in a fruitless search for White-bellied Seed Snipe. After I had given up and headed back down, I found a very confiding Yellow-bridled Finch feeding on the ground, and got down on my belly to photograph it. As I was focusing the lens, guess what popped into focus in my lens a few feet behind the Finch!

 

[Welsh Peregrine]

My seedsnipe there appeared between the legs of our guide as he was taking a step!

 

[lgonz1008]

My first trip to South America was in Guyana and everything was backwards, down to the fact that I didn't even reach 1,000 birds in my life list until later in the year when I went to Ecuador.

Here are some species I had in my life list before some widespread/common Neotropic staples such as Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl and Zone-tailed Hawk:

• Rufous-winged Ground-Cuckoo
• Capuchinbird
• Great Jacamar
• Rufous Potoo
• Crestless Curassow

More recent one, was this year when birding South Texas, went to a local park to find a Golden-crowned Warbler, only to be greeted by a miserable crowd of birders that claimed the bird wasn't seen in 3 hours. I just looked around, heard it's call and said "there it is", sure enough the bird came out when I said it before anyone even got a chance for a picture. When I started going back to the car with my friend, we could hear them yelling: "How come some guys just shows up and gets the bird but we couldn't see it for hours!!!". Funny highlight to a memorable trip.

 

[JWN Andrewes]

1989
Camping in Andean cloud forest, just north of Quito.
I'd been hearing and odd call for a few days, and lacking such resources as the existence of ebird, xeno-canto, any internet whatsoever, etc I was stumped. The bird finally revealed itself when I'd nipped off by myself to a secluded spot off the main track we'd cut, taken my trousers down (having checked the forest floor for ants etc) and squatted whereupon, mid business, a Club-winged Manakin leapt out in front of me and started displaying! Mystery solved, but in no position to deploy optics! Happily the Manakins proved relatively easy to see over the next few days, but I'll never forget that first sighting.

 

[cajanuma]

And a twist on this: My lifer Kelp Gull was many years before in Maryland.

I was one of the original finders of that Kelp Gull...

Not sure if this is stretching the intent of this thread a bit, but my two craziest lifer combinations are my life Razorbill and my life Vermillion Flycatcher on the same day on the eastern shore of MD/VA, and seeing my life Fork-tailed Flycatcher on the same day as my life Common Eider at Cape May

 

[Nightjar61]

The bird finally revealed itself when I'd nipped off by myself to a secluded spot off the main track we'd cut, taken my trousers down (having checked the forest floor for ants etc) and squatted whereupon, mid business, a Club-winged Manakin leapt out in front of me and started displaying! Mystery solved, but in no position to deploy optics!

Reminds me of an encounter I had. I was birding with a group on the boardwalk at Sacha Lodge in Ecuador. We briefly heard an Undulated Tinamou in the thick brush near the boardwalk but try as we might, we were unable to see it. We waited quite awhile but it never showed itself. As we were ready to move on I thought it would be a good idea to hang back and take care of some business behind a thick tree next to the boardwalk. As I was standing there doing my business, the Undulated Tinamou stepped out, giving close, fantastic views, even without my being able to use my binoculars. Given my situation, I couldn’t really call out to the group, and by the time I was done, the bird was gone. I was the only one to have seen the elusive tinamou.

Dave

 

[lgonz1008]

Reminds me of an encounter I had. I was birding with a group on the boardwalk at Sacha Lodge in Ecuador. We briefly heard an Undulated Tinamou in the thick brush near the boardwalk but try as we might, we were unable to see it. We waited quite awhile but it never showed itself. As we were ready to move on I thought it would be a good idea to hang back and take care of some business behind a thick tree next to the boardwalk. As I was standing there doing my business, the Undulated Tinamou stepped out, giving close, fantastic views, even without my being able to use my binoculars. Given my situation, I couldn’t really call out to the group, and by the time I was done, the bird was gone. I was the only one to have seen the elusive tinamou.

Dave

Taking the piss on those of us who failed to connect with Tinamous to a whole new level.

 

[SlowLowFlyingTurkey]

I saw more Great Horned Owls in a few short trips to North America than Eagle Owls during lifetime in Europe.

Ha! Same here. I saw about five GHOs on a chicken tour of Colorado, including a self-found lifer just outside Cherry Creek State Park before the tour started. The only Eurasian Eagle Owls I've seen were chicks in a nest at the well-known viewpoint in Monfrague NP, Spain. Never seen an adult.

 

[Swindon Addick]

My lifer Ruddy Turnstone was in Singapore.

A couple from before I was seriously into birding: my lifer Treecreeper was seen on a Church-visiting holiday trip to Geneva and my lifer Black Redstart was in the Roman ruins at Herculaneum.

 

[jurek]

Ha! Same here. I saw about five GHOs on a chicken tour of Colorado, including a self-found lifer just outside Cherry Creek State Park before the tour started. The only Eurasian Eagle Owls I've seen were chicks in a nest at the well-known viewpoint in Monfrague NP, Spain. Never seen an adult.

GHOs, and also Milky Eagle Owls in Africa have a habit of perching prominently at telephone poles, treetops etc. before dusk, often in pairs, surveying their territory. I never seen EOs doing this.

I remember in Venezuela we heard a quiet hollow sound at the roadside. We thought it was rainwater flowing under the road. But not. We started checking, and finally found a huge Great Curassow hidden between branches!