Under Clear Skies

Long-beach Sunset

Although we were scheduled to head to Milford for the morning, with the current crop of great sightings in Stratford I rerouted the tour for the day to hit a few likely spots there. In the end there was plenty to keep us occupied although I had hoped to manage to get to Silver Sands before the end of the walk and didn’t.

It is always a risk going to somewhere that you know there are  good birds around as there is always a chance of missing something and coming away a little disappointed. Well we did miss a few of the hoped for species on the morning but I think the birds we did find were a nice compensation.

Lapland Longspur - Michael Ferrari

Highlight spectacle wise were the massive flock of Greater Scaup (4-5000?) that were flying up the sound eastwards. I was using their primary pattern to identify them (note in this comparrison illustration the way the white extends through the primaries on Greater Scaup) but as a general rule most scaup on the sound would tend to be Greater and birds on a pond or in a harbor would be Lesser (of course there are exceptions).

Bird wise the three LAPLAND LONGSPURS (or Lapland Buntings as they are known back in the old country) were my favorites. I love Longspurs and Snow Buntings, they just seem so tough the way they stick it out in the most inhospitable spots at the most inhospitable time of the year. Plus I must say I am more of a passerine fan than anything else, so these birds keep me going through the winter when there are few passerines gracing the state. Added to that we had 5 fairly uncooperative AMERICAN PIPITS (although one did provide better views when we went to retrieve cars from Long Beach) a flock of HORNED LARKS and 5 SNOW BUNTINGS to round off the regularly occurring pipits, larks, longspurs and buntings for the season.

Probably the rarest bird of the trip and a State or life bird for many was the CLAY-COLORED SPARROW. Of course I am avowed sparrowphile, so it was nice to see this bird again (my lousy digiscoped pictures of this same bird in November here). A great looking bird and it performed fairly well, which was useful as it was accompanied by both Fields and Trees for a Spizella trifecta making picking it out from the group somewhat difficult. Added to the nice assortment of sparrows on the day was an Ipswich Savannah Sparrow. A great looking sparrow which made a nice comparison to the common or garden Savannah that we had over at the Gun Club.

Clay-colored Sparrow - Michael Ferrari

I was also talking on the trip about this great little part of the Birdlife International website (which is worth an explore in and of itself) which has species fact sheets for all of the birds in the world (here). Out of interest I looked up the rarest bird I have ever seen – Black-breasted Puffleg (see awful picture from last July in Ecuador below) and here is the species sheet for that bird. I am currently trying to arrange a trip to Ecuador to go back and see this beautiful and rare bird (details to come soon on my trips and tours section).

Black-breasted Puffleg - Luke Tiller

Trip List- 50 Species

Great Blue Heron, Black-crowned Night Heron, Mute Swan, Canada Goose, Brant, American Black Duck, Mallard, Gadwall, American Wigeon, Canvasback, Greater Scaup, Long-tailed Duck, Common Goldeneye, Bufflehead, Red-breasted Merganser, Hooded Merganser,  Red-tailed hawk, Sanderling, Dunlin, Ring-billed Gull, Herring Gull, Great Black-backed Gull, Mourning Dove, Belted Kingfisher, Downy Woodpecker, Horned Lark,  AMERICAN PIPIT, Black-capped Chickadee, Tufted Titmouse, Carolina Wren, American Robin, Northern Mockingbird, Blue Jay, American Crow, Northern Cardinal, American Goldfinch, House Finch, CLAY-COLORED SPARROW, Field Sparrow,  American Tree Sparrow, White-throated Sparrow, Song Sparrow,  ‘Ipswich’ Savannah Sparrow, Savannah Sparrow, DE Junco, LAPLAND LONGSPUR, SNOW BUNTING, Red-winged Blackbird, European Starling, House Sparrow

Another chilly but beautifully sunny day in the field that didn’t go totally unrewarded. Unfortunately the highlight birds midweek didn’t get relocated (WW Crossbill, Glaucous Gull) but we did manage to track down a decent assortment of birds including another IPSWICH SAVANNAH SPARROW (that’s three of the estimated 3-6000 seen over the last two weeks) and  a feisty MERLIN that zoomed right past us as it took a typical ground hugging attack trajectory towards the Snow Bunting flock that we were about to go look through (can’t hold it against it too much though as it did perch for perfect views a little later).

Other uncommon species on the day were one immature SNOW GOOSE, one probable LESSER CANADA GOOSE, three fairly mobile AMERICAN PIPITS, 1 or 2 fairly uncooperative PINE SISKINS and one equally uncooperative PURPLE FINCH. We also had a nice flyover of Horned Larks which nicely highlighted the difference in their flight calls from the American Pipits.

All in all a nice day in the field and one on which I got to meet a fellow WordPress Blogmeister, Susan.

Trip Species List

Great Blue Heron,  Mute Swan, Snow Goose, Canada Goose (+ probable lesser Canada), American Black Duck, Mallard, Gadwall, American Wigeon, Bufflehead, Ruddy Duck, Red-breasted Merganser, Hooded Merganser, Turkey Vulture,  Red-tailed hawk, Merlin, Ring-billed Gull, Herring Gull, Great Black-backed Gull, Mourning Dove, Monk Parakeet, Belted Kingfisher, Downy Woodpecker, Horned Lark,  American Pipit, Black-capped Chickadee, Tufted Titmouse, Golden-crowned Kinglet, Carolina Wren, American Robin, Northern Mockingbird, Blue Jay, American Crow, Northern Cardinal, American Goldfinch, House Finch, Pine Siskin, Purple Finch, White-throated Sparrow, Song Sparrow,  ‘Ipswich’ Savannah Sparrow, DE Junco, European Starling, House Sparrow.

Baby, it's cold outside

We set off on a beautiful snow dusted day to Bridgeport and Stratford looking for winter goodies. As I drove down along the Saugatuck River the scene was beautiful, as the snow had dusted every surface that it had touched the night before. A photographers dream and the kind of scene that is reason enough to want to spend ones winters in New England.

Birding on the day was to be slightly problematic as every municipal park seems to close for snow days in Bridgeport and Stratford even when the snow is literally a half inch deep. Anyway, first stop was the little known but often highly productive Captains Cove. Here we managed to pick up our first uncommon birds of the day LESSER SCAUP. Last year we had so many here Roy who runs the listserve was so surprised by the number I reported he wanted to double check with me that I hadn’t posted either the wrong number of wrong species accidentally.

I love these identification challenge species like scaup, as it allows you to earn your keep as a tour  leader and hopefully impart some identification details that are much more vivid to people in the field than they are staring at them in a field guide. With scaup the head shape is all important but I find although not overly illustrated by Sibley the flank coloration is usually a very reliable fieldmark and usually quite easy to see even at distance.

After an abortive stop at Seaside Park (closed) where we did at least spot a large raft of Common Goldeneye (and a chance for another field class on picking out Barrow’s Goldeneye – a shame there wasn’t one in there !) we stopped over at  Long Beach in Stratford. On entering the park we almost ran over an AMERICAN PIPIT as it lurched out in front of the car flashing us it’s white outer tail feathers. We also found on site an IPSWICH’ SAVANNAH SPARROW (Passerculus sandwichensis princeps). This subspecies breeds only on Sable Island in Nova Scotia and is a real rarity with perhaps as few as three to six thousand birds existing on the planet. It is distinctive enough that it was considered a full species until 1973. Other birds of note were 2 Northern Harriers, a huge mixed flock of Sanderlings and Dunlin and 4 stunning PURPLE SANDPIPERS. Purple Sandpipers are one of the few species that are much more exciting in their basic (non-breeding) plumage than they are in their alternate (breeding plumage) with their jaunty orange legs and bases of their bills.

The final couple of stops on the day were less productive than hoped for but we did get a NORTHERN GANNET heading west at Stratford Point. Until recently Gannets were considered rare in Long Island Sound but there numbers have built steadily so that although still considered uncommon they are at least expected during this season.

Next Walk

Trip Species List

Northern Gannet, Great Cormorant, Great Blue Heron, Mute Swan, Canada Goose, American Black Duck, Mallard, Gadwall, American Wigeon, Long-tailed Duck, Lesser Scaup, Common Goldeneye, Bufflehead, Ruddy Duck, Red-breasted Merganser, Hooded Merganser, Turkey Vulture, Northern Harrier, Red-tailed hawk, Wild Turkey, Sanderling, Dunlin, Purple Sandpiper, Ring-billed Gull, Herring Gull, Great Black-backed Gull, Mourning Dove, Rock Pigeon, Monk Parakeet, Belted Kingfisher, Downy Woodpecker, American Pipit, Black-capped Chickadee, Tufted Titmouse, Carolina Wren, American Robin, Northern Mockingbird, Blue Jay, American Crow, Northern Cardinal, American Goldfinch, House Finch, White-throated Sparrow, Song Sparrow, Swamp Sparrow, Savannah Sparrow, ‘Ipswich’ Savannah Sparrow, DE Junco, European Starling, House Sparrow.