LONG ISLAND NICE TEASE - CURLEW SANDPIPER

This is a week of second chances. Yesterday's Blue-footed Booby was, incredibly, the second chance this year for a bird that is often absent most years from the ABA region. And today was my second chance at another previous miss - Curlew Sandpiper. This time on Long Island, NY.

Phoenix was thus a quick stop - flying in from Virginia in the morning, and out on the red eye at night. Red eye? More like red ribs after spending the night squished between the window and a very elbowy neighbor. At least the free eye mask meant I didn't have to witness the claustrophobic seat invasion.

The Curlew Sandpiper was first reported on Sunday, about a week after the one I missed on Plum Island, MA. Given the latter bird only stayed for 2 days, I was nervous about chasing this one. Hey - it could even be the same bird; Long Island seems to be on the flight path for shorebirds leaving MA - at least that's what seems to have happened for the Red-necked Stint earlier in the year.

Ninety minutes after leaving Queen's I arrived at Mecox bay, a sheltered cove on the east end of Southampton. The area the bird was frequenting was easy to find: follow the trail out to the beach, turn left when you see all the muggles having fun (swimming, sun-bathing, throwing frisbees), climb over sand dune (taking care not to entirely fill your shoes with sand) and enter a secluded, smelly mud flat (replace sand in shoes with mud.) 

The smelly mud flat was teeming with shorebirds, terns, gulls, and…

Black Skimmer. What a beauty!

Lots of Semipalmated and Least Sandpipers, Plovers, White-rumped Sandpiper, Sanderling. But no Curlew Sandpiper. This was a pretty small area, with most of the birds clustered around a pile of rusty metal wire. If it wasn't here, it wasn't here. I'd had a feeling this could be an awkward bird. It's a fairly common rarity, but one that's actually quite easy to miss. I start walking around the mudflats, in case I missed a few spots. Nothing. And then, as I come back to the metal heap, I see it: large shorebird, reddish body, long, drooping bill. It's feeding non-stop, like a clockwork toy, spinning around picking at the mud. Curlew Sandpiper!

Curlew Sandpiper. 

Note the deep red undersides which are splotchy - it's molting into its winter (basic) plumage. 

The strong supercilium (eye stripe) is also a feature of the winter plumage. 

I watch the bird for about 10 minutes before it dramatically runs over to the metal heap, drops down underneath it, tucks its bill in and goes to sleep! I bet this is where it was hiding when I first arrived. 

Not the most comfortable of places to sleep, but if I were a Curlew Sandpiper in this heat and bright sun, that's probably where I'd hide. But since I'm not a Curlew Sandpiper, and probably couldn't fit under the wire heap, I instead head back to the shade of the car, which, unlike heaps of rusty metal on beaches, also has a/c.

Nice spot Mr. Sandpiper. But how's the a/c situation?

The great thing about being back home in the northeast, is that I get a ride home from Gerri, who very generously picks me up from Queens. The bad thing is the traffic. Those 75 mph roads in Arizona are a distant memory as we're crawling through CT, and then the Boston / Cambridge traffic. But it's worth it to be home again. And it's my first chance to properly celebrate hitting 700 for the year…

700!

Celebrating at the Cambridge Common.

+ + +

BIG YEAR LIST: 701 + 1 provisional

NEW YEAR BIRDS (1): Curlew Sandpiper

BIRDING SLUMP

This has been a tough week - by far the toughest so far - and a reminder of the ephemeral nature of birding luck. Oh - and also how annoying it is to not be able to predict the future yet!

July already seems a distant memory - zipping from rarity to rarity. There never seemed any shortage of the latter, and somehow they all cooperatively managed to stick around long enough for me to see before heading off to the next. Not that it was easy - in the month of July I spent 24 nights away from home, and many of those sleeping in a plane, airport or car. But boy was it fun!

This week, though, the luck finally ran out. Poised at 699 I just couldn't get a break. I was continually dogged with the realization that I was always in the wrong place at the wrong time.

It started back on Sunday night in San Diego, before my epic 56 hour southern California pelagic. 

I'd never used sea sickness medication in the past - and I've never been seasick. But I'd also never been at sea on a small boat in the Pacific Ocean for 3 days. So, just before heading to dinner, I stopped by the Sport Fishing store at Point Loma, where I'd be leaving at 6am the following morning.

The guys in the store were friendly, and chatty, and, after buying my Dramamine, I ended up talking about my how excited I was for the trip. 

"Which trip is that?"

"Oh - the 56 hour trip on board the Grande."

"The what?"

"You know, the birding pelagic."

"Wait - wasn't that cancelled? Yeah, like a month ago. The Grande's on a fishing trip now."

There was something surprisingly unsurprising about the news - as if I'd been waiting for this moment, knowing that it would suddenly strike and that reality would rudely awaken me from the highs of my recent success. In the next few minutes I discovered that, even though I'd called a week before and received an email confirmation, there'd been a mistake: there was no birding trip. There was to be no magic #700 celebration aboard the Grande, and my time and money getting here had been wasted. The Dramamine wouldn't cure this sick feeling and knowing that a recently-discovered Curlew Sandpiper was drawing appreciative crowds at Plum Island back home didn't help much either.

I knew I'd get a chance to use this pic again this year!

I now had a choice - to rebook my flight home and try for the Curlew Sandpiper, or head to New Mexico for the mega-rare Blue-footed Booby. My exhaustion and frustration got the better of me - I chose Boston and home. I figured that, though Blue-footed Boobies are rare, they do tend to stick around longer - certainly longer than a Curlew Sandpiper. I'd go to Boston first, then back to NM.

As I left San Diego, on the first flight back home, the Curlew Sandpiper had been seen at 6:30 that morning. When I landed late afternoon, it hadn't been relocated. Figuring it was tidal and morning's might be best, I went back the next morning (Tuesday) to find lots of shorebirds but no Curlew Sandpiper. Damn. The #700 celebration at home, with Gerri on Plum Island, was also not to be.

But there was still the Booby - which was being seen every day and was very approachable. It was on a tiny lake in the middle of nowhere, New Mexico. I booked a flight on Tuesday evening to Dallas. I'd arrive late at night, and then drive the 6 hours (!) and be there on Weds morning. As I left, there was an update saying the bird had been seen today. Blue-footed Booby for #700 would be pretty cool. Finally my luck was back!

When the plane landed at DFW, I turned my phone on - as I habitually do now to check on bird sightings - and was surprised to find another update on the Booby. Why would there be another update? I could feel the knot in my stomach grow as I read that the bird was emaciated (no fish in the lake for it to eat) and had been captured for rehabilitation. Shit. The bird was gone. I'd chosen the wrong date to come.

I walked off the plane, went to the nearest airline rep, and asked if I could get the next flight back to Boston. "Wait, didn't you just arrive?" I didn't feel like talking about the situation, and thought that a story about a Booby might not help either, so opted for a resigned nod. I was on the next, and last, flight back home - at 1:15am. A beer and a grilled cheese sandwich did little to cheer me up. Nor did the discovery that the flight was now delayed until 4:30am. I spent the night drifting in and out of "sleep" precariously perched on the now all-too-familiar airport seating with its cruel arm-rests.

+ + +

If I hadn't been in San Diego for the pelagic, I'd have been in Hatteras - trying again for White-tailed Tropicbird and Herald Petrel. I could try this weekend, but I had a field trip I was leading at Plum Island on Saturday. Thinking one day was better than nothing, I booked a flight to Norfolk, VA, on Saturday evening, for the Sunday boat - the last of the season out of Hatteras.

I arrived at Hatteras at 2am, with barely enough time to sleep before the 5:30 boat. I was tired but excited: the day before, Saturday, they'd got White-tailed Tropicbird and two Herald Petrels. (They also had Herald Petrel the weekend I was in San Diego.) But pelagic trips are notably fickle - no two days are the same. And Sunday was predictably nothing like Saturday: despite a good show of shearwaters, the shout for "Herald Petrel" never materialized. Nor for Tropicbird. If only I'd been on the boat the day before... Those are two birds I've definitely lost for the year now. 

So here I am, a week later, with no new birds to show, and a lot of near misses and frustration. It's reminded me that birding is like baseball - if you can get a hit 30% of the time, you're doing extremely well. Maybe it was the contrast with the previous weeks which were so unbelievably good, or just the physical and mental toil this past week has placed on me, but it's the first time this year that I've not had fun birding. And I have a feeling the second half of my Big Year is going to throw up similar challenges. If I can just get some decent sleep, I think I'll be ok.

Right now - I'm waiting for my third flight of the morning from out-of-the-way Norfolk to Phoenix. There's a second Blue-footed Booby this year at Patagonia Lake in south east Arizona. Hopefully a chance for Booby redemption.

+ + +

BIG YEAR LIST: 699 + 1 provisional

NEW YEAR BIRDS: 0