Vagrant Birds from Hurricane Irene

Hurricane Irene Reaches New York City / Credit: NASA/NOAA GOES Project

Tropical cyclones like Hurricane Irene are well-known among birders for carrying numerous birds far from their normal ranges. Aerial waterbirds – those that earn their living on the wing over open ocean – are particularly prone to displacement. The prospect of seeing storm-blown birds, especially ones that one would normally need to travel or take a pelagic trip to see, lures birders to coastal areas or inland spots with open water even before a storm has completely subsided. I made some mostly unsuccessful attempts to find unusual birds at my usual spots. Other birders had much better luck, and it turns out that Irene's track was particularly conducive to sighting entrained birds from land in this area.

Here are a few of the sightings that have been reported so far:

• Cape May was under a mandatory evacuation order, but that did not stop some birders from staying behind and birding Cape May Point the next day, with impressive results. Normally, a sighting of two White-tailed Tropicbirds from land at this latitude would be the highlight of a day's birding, but the birders at the Point also saw a probable White-collared Swift, which would be a state record and a first for the Northeast.
• Birders at Finderne Wetlands in Somerset County found a nice collection of terns for an inland site.
• In New Jersey, there were also some good birds seen along the Delaware River, Hudson River, and New York Bay.
• Corey and other NYC birders watched from several vantage points on Long Island's southern coast and found three storm-petrel species and a Bridled Tern.
• Nick Bonomo has posted several updates on Irene; his sightings on Sunday in coastal Connecticut included several storm-petrel species.
• Lake Nockamixon featured four species of terns, including Sooty Tern.
• The Nemesis Bird reports Sanderlings in Centre County, Pennsylvania.
• Nate chased some reports of coastal species at inland sites, finding some but not others.

Finally, the Hurricane Irene 2011 blog has been collecting sightings from throughout the areas affected by the storm. The Philadelphia Inquirer has an article on hurricane birding in the Philadelphia area. If you live in or near the storm's path, did you see any unusual birds this weekend?

Eurasian Collared-Dove at Cape May Point

While I was down at the shore last week, I managed to see a Eurasian Collared-Dove that has been hanging around in Cape May Point for the last several weeks. Apparently there is also a second bird, which I did not see. This was a life bird for me, and it brought my life list up to 350 species. It was larger than I expected, built more like a Rock Pigeon than a Mourning Dove.

Eurasian Collared-Doves originated in southern Asia and gradually spread west and north into Europe. In the 1970s, some were released on Bermuda, and their population quickly grew and spread into North America from there. Their current range covers the Deep South, with pockets of breeding birds in the southern Great Plains and southern California. It would not surprise me to see their population spread further north, especially as the climate warms and becomes more hospitable to them. Their rapid spread has led to concerns about their invasive potential, though what effect they may have on native species like the Mourning Dove remains unknown.

Gray-hooded Gull at Coney Island

Over the past week, I have been watching reports of a vagrant Gray-hooded Gull, from happy birders who saw it and frustrated birders who missed it. The gull has been present at Coney Island since at least July 24; whether it arrived earlier than that is unknown. However, its presence was only reported publicly several days later, after an eBird reviewer figured out that the Black-headed Gull reported to eBird was really a Gray-hooded Gull. That set birders in motion, both New York birders who wanted to see the gull for their state and county lists and birders from other states who wanted the potential life bird. Andrew, Corey, and Rob have all seen it, and even The New York Times and New York took notice.

The reason for all this fuss is that the Gray-hooded Gull (Chroicocephalus cirrocephalus) is very rare in North America. The species is called Gray-hooded Gull by the A.O.U., but elsewhere it is known as Gray-headed Gull. Only one other individual has been documented in the United States, in Florida in 1998 (pdf). Peter Harrison's Seabirds: An Identification Guide shows two populations: one in central South America, ranging from the southeastern coast of Brazil to the Pacific coast, and the other in Africa south of the Sahara. According to Howell and Dunn's Gulls of the Americas, the South American population is slightly larger and has paler uppersides and head markings. There has been some discussion over which population this bird came from. To me, South America makes the most sense since a lot of birds migrate between North and South America anyway; it could have joined a northbound flock this spring and wandered around. Then again, we get an occasional bird from Africa on the East Coast, so that may not be ruled out completely.

Anyway, yesterday I went to Coney Island to try to see the bird myself. As I rode the trains, first NJ Transit and then a series of subway lines, I hoped that the Gray-hooded Gull would make an appearance that afternoon. When I arrived, I found a cluster of birders on the boardwalk. They had not seen it yet, but soon enough another birder walked past and indicated that the gull was a little way down the beach. Sure enough, it was sitting on top of a yellow metal pole, with a group of birders clustered around it. The poles were out on the beach, somewhere between 10th and 12th Streets. If you click through the photo and click on the map in the right column, you can see the approximate location.

The gull seemed fairly tolerant of people; I imagine that a bird would have to be pretty tolerant in order to take up residence at a place as busy as Coney Island. (Even on a weekday, the beach was crowded with sunbathers and swimmers.) The gull stood still as several people walked by, but then a woman with a clipboard walked right up to the pole, and the gull flushed. It flushed a few times as I stood on the beach watching it. Each time it picked a pole that had a Laughing Gull on it and made the Laughing Gull vacate the pole so that it could take its perch.

When I was satisfied with my looks at the Gray-hooded Gull, I walked a bit down the boardwalk to see what other birds might be around. I walked out the long fishing pier and found some Common Terns, Barn Swallows, and a mix of gulls on the water. Including the Gray-headed Gull, I added six species to my Brooklyn list.

If you have not seen the Gray-hooded Gull yet, and have the time this week to do it, I recommend going to see it. The location is easy to reach both by car and by public transportation, and it is easy to find the bird once you get there. The gull has been appearing pretty reliably in the area around the 12th Street entrance, especially in the afternoons. This is a great find and one that may not be repeated for a long time.

Penguin Gets Lost and Visits New Zealand

New York area birders are excited about the presence of a Hooded Crow in a park in Staten Island, New York. This would be an extraordinary record if the crow got here on its own, without the assistance of a bird collector or ship. Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, New Zealand has just as unusual of a visitor. A young Emperor Penguin arrived on New Zealand's Kapiti coast.

Experts had checked the bird, nicknamed Happy Feet, and confirmed it was healthy and in good condition, biodiversity programme manager Peter Simpson said.

It was venturing into the sea at night to feed and moving between locations on the beach.

"We keep our interference with wild animals to an absolute minimum, and this emperor penguin is no exception."

The juvenile penguin, was named by Peka Peka Beach resident Chris Wilton, who first saw it on Monday afternoon, standing on the beach flapping its flippers. It weighs about 10 kilograms and stands about a metre tall.

It is only the second time an emperor penguin has been recorded on New Zealand shores and DOC put up a sign near it yesterday, urging people to keep their distance and to ensure dogs were kept on leads.

Mr Simpson said people had flocked to the beach to see the penguin and a lot of admirers had asked why it was not being taken back to Antarctica.

"It is midwinter and completely dark down there, there is nothing going there.

"More importantly, during its long trip here, it would have come across other penguins and penguin diseases and we do not want to take it back and introduce those diseases to Antarctica."

This is the first record of that species in New Zealand in 44 years.

Return to the Rogers Refuge

Since my last visit to Rogers Refuge was not successful, at least in terms of turning up rails or a bittern, I was back there again yesterday evening to try again. Instead of walking around, I stood on the observation deck the entire time to make sure I would not miss any of the secretive marsh birds if they did make an appearance. As it turned out, I was waiting a long time. While I was waiting, there were plenty of other birds to watch, so the time did not seem to drag. Red-winged Blackbirds were the most prominent, and their antics kept grabbing my attention. Several times I saw a male glide towards the platform with its red epaulettes fully flared. The males kept chasing each other around and called repeatedly from the reeds in front of the platform, like the bird above.

Plenty of other birds were active in the marsh, too. A pair of Wood Ducks was feeding among the lilypads, and occasionally I would see one or two Wood Ducks fly past. Baltimore Orioles were singing in the woods across the marsh, and an Orchard Oriole occasionally sang in the trees behind me. At one point, a feather drifted down in front of me; the lower part was white and the tip was bright orange, about the right size and color for a Baltimore Oriole. Wood Thrushes were singing in the woods; I could not hear their song clearly over the din made by the Red-winged Blackbirds, but the pattern of flute-like sounds was still distinctive. My first Solitary Sandpiper of the season flew in and started walking around the far edge of the water.

Finally, around 7 pm, the Sora finally made an appearance. My mother spotted it first when it appeared about ten feet from the left side of the platform, near where a Swamp Sparrow had just landed. It walked around there first and then disappeared into the reeds. Shortly after that it appeared at the water's edge, again within about ten feet of the platform. It was hard to get a clear view, but it was possible to watch it as it moved slowly in and out of the reeds. The reeds and the Sora's movements made it difficult to focus the camera on it, but I did get the image above after a few tries.

Longtime readers of this blog might remember that this is not the first Sora I have seen. My first Sora sighting was a roadkilled bird that I found one morning on Sunset Boulevard in Cape May Point. That encounter gave me a much clearer view of the Sora's plumage, but it was far more exciting to see a living Sora!

Crossbills!

As I said yesterday, I will have some posts up soon about the Superbowl of Birding and the rest of my weekend with the Bloggerhead Kingbirds. But first, I want to write about some follow-up birding. Yesterday, I went down to Long Branch with my mother and sister to look for crossbills at Seven Presidents Park. Both crossbill species have been reported there almost daily since shortly after New Year's. When we arrived, we found a few other birders present already, some walking around and others driving back and forth across the park. As we walked around looking for the crossbills, we saw some other birds, including three Horned Larks that were running around the parking lot.

A few others located two Red Crossbills in a pine tree on the northwest corner of the largest parking lot. The crossbills were feeding on the tree's abundant cone crop. One appeared to be an adult male and the other an immature male. They moved slowly around the tree and tended to stay in one spot to pick seeds out of a single cone or group of cones. This made it easy to find them with the camera, though proper focus was still tricky. I heard one give its flight call, but I am not sure I could match it to a known call type.

The White-winged Crossbills were harder to find, even though there were more of them present in the park. It took a few walks back and forth across the park, plus a snack break, for us to find them near the maintenance garage. A flock of about a dozen were foraging actively, flitting around from branch to branch and even chasing each other. Even though they were moving faster than the Red Crossbills did, photographing them was still easy because it took them some effort to open a cone and pry out a seed. The trees where the White-winged Crossbills foraged were full of other birds as well. They included some Red-breasted Nuthatches, Dark-eyed Juncos, Song Sparrows, and at least one Red Crossbill.

The Red Crossbill was a life bird for me, and both crossbills were life birds for my sister and mother.

If you can get to Long Branch, it is definitely worth a trip to Seven Presidents Park to see these crossbills. The birds are pretty easy to find, and they are very cooperative for watching and photography.

A Varied Thrush in Central Park

Since late November a Varied Thrush has been wintering in Central Park's Ramble. As other urban rarities seem to do, it picked a rather odd location. The most reliable place to see the vagrant thrush is a small brushy area wedged in between a bustling transverse road and the men's bathroom in a maintenance building. The choice seems all the stranger if you consider its native habitat. Varied Thrushes are rare in the eastern United States. Their breeding range extends from the Pacific Northwest north to Alaska; they winter south to California. These are somewhat secretive birds, preferring to dwell in dense, wet forests.

By this point, most birders in the New York metro area have probably already seen it if they wanted to, but I just saw it for the first time yesterday. As I arrived at its regular location, I met another birder who had seen it briefly before a Blue Jay's alarm call sent the thrush and other birds flying. After I had waited about 10-15 minutes, the Varied Thrush reappeared, staying long enough for me to get a good look but not long enough for me to take photos of it. So I waited another 15 minutes or so, as a snowplow passed by going one direction along the path, and then a garbage truck and two snowplows drove in the other direction, and finally a police golf cart drove past and parked in front of the maintenance building. After all that, the thrush reappeared, and I took the photos you see above.

As the thrush disappeared away for the second time, I became aware of someone approaching along the path. It turned out to be a familiar figure – Corey of 10,000 Birds pushing his son, Desi, in a stroller. I stood with him for a while and waited for the Varied Thrush to come back. When it did not appear for a while, I decided to move on and look for another unusual bird for the park, an immature Red-headed Woodpecker that has been using the trees on the south end of the Sheep Meadow. The woodpecker was easier to find than I expected; I was only waiting about five minutes when it flew into view, and I had a good look at it. Unlike the Varied Thrush, the woodpecker was not a life bird, just an interesting one.

I stopped briefly at the Ramble feeders while walking to and from the Varied Thrush's location. There were not unusual finches like Pine Siskins or Common Redpolls, but there were plenty of other birds around. Here are a few images of the those birds.