Steller's Sea Eagle in Massachusetts

5:45 AM - I left my house in Cumberland, Maine and drove an hour south to York, to meet other birders for the York County Christmas Bird Count.

7:40 AM - We were counting! Things were going pretty well. We'd just seen a Northern Flicker, apparently the first one ever on the York count, and now we were walking through the cold and quiet but beautiful Highland Farm. Here's that.

Then I got a text from Doug Hitchcox: "Steller's was just found."

He was referring to the Steller's Sea Eagle. The species had never before been seen in North America outside of western Alaska, but one individual had been spotted in interior Alaska in August of 2020 has been disappearing and appearing all over North America since then. It was photographed in southern Texas in the spring -- a baffling sighting that was initially chalked up as an escaped bird or a hoax -- when all the way up in Quebec, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia in the summer and into November, when it disappeared again. I spoke to the New York Times about the bird in mid-November after it had just gone missing again, and I told them I hoped it would fly to Maine. Apparently it did - but we all missed it. 

We learned yesterday, Dec. 19, that a photographer in Massachusetts had photographed the bird a week earlier, on Dec. 12. Not sure why word hadn't gotten out but the Taunton River area was searched yesterday without luck. This morning they had luck, and I got a text in York County.

8:48 AM - I abandoned the Christmas Bird Count. Sorry, York County, but there's a goddamn Steller's Sea Eagle two hours away. They had enough counters without me and I heard later that things went great. Doug and Fyn also paused their seawatch from Nubble Light. I picked up a Horned Lark (a year bird for Maine) along Short Sands Beach while we waited for Ed to come down from the Portland area.

10:32 AM - We are barreling through southern Massachusetts. I forced everyone listen to the Adam Sandler "Toll Booth Willie" skit after we passed the turn to Worcester and it was even dirtier than I remember. We were all shot up and boosted and wore masks in the car.

11:02 - We pull up to the tiny, private beach where the bird was last seen to the dreaded "you just missed it!" A birder's nightmare. It flew upriver somewhere and no one knows where it is. My gas light is on with 22 miles left until empty. We follow the roads upriver.

11:37 AM - We get word that the bird is being seen from Dighton Rock State Park. We go, park haphazardly, and there it is, across the river with a bunch of Bald Eagles. Holy shit. We're screaming.

We're not particularly close to the bird, but it sits still and gives great views through the scope. The orange bill is visible with the naked eye. The size stands out -- a pair of juvenile Bald Eagles perch just above it but are dwarfed by the Steller's. An absolute dream to be all of a sudden standing in this random park in southern Massachusetts looking at a wild, rare Russian monster. There are about 200 birders there by noon. We leave.

2:23 PM - Obligatory stop at the New Hampshire State Liquor Store to buy some vodka to commemorate our new comrade. I am home in plenty of time to pick up my son.

An amazing day. I never in my life thought I'd see a wild Steller's Sea Eagle, and may never again. This bird is my 699th ABA Continental species. It appeared healthy and was seen eating earlier in the day, and so hopefully it'll stick around to entertain many more birders.

9:25 PM - I sit down to write this blog and hit publish at, let's see, 10:57 PM, which is righhhhhhhhtttttt now.

Barnacle and Greater White-fronted Geese in North Yarmouth, ME

Let the good times roll!

First it was a Northern Wheatear in Gray. Then it was a White-winged Dove just down the street in Portland (which, to my knowledge, did not return after I watched it fly off). Now there are geese in North Yarmouth.

The place is Thornhurst Farm in North Yarmouth, a lovely working farm with rolling hills and fields. The place is always a great southerly migration spot for Canada Geese...and whatever other birds get caught up in the flocks.

A few days ago I went up to find the reported Greater White-fronted Goose, and today I returned and found the reported Barnacle Goose. Good times all around. Here are some terrible pictures:

Greater White-fronted, front and center, head down looking left.



Barnacle Goose, facing right, just over the cow's left ear.



Barnacle Goose, looking at camera, over the big cow's butt.



The question with Barnacle Geese is whether they are wild vagrants or escaped domestics. I don't really have anything to say about it. The usual mark of a domestic bird is a big, deep belly - fat accumulated from a comparatively sedentary life. To me, this bird did not appear any fatter or deeper than any of the other geese. Of course, much more study of this bird is required to make the best decision.

Secondly, I was unable to find any of the handful of Cackling Geese present at the location. Cackling Geese are a lot more difficult to pick out of a flock than a Barnacle or Greater White-fronted, and time has not permitted me to linger at the farm, so it looks like I'll just have to take another trip to the farm.

Discussion with John of A DC Birding Blog

The White-Crested Elaenia that recently turned up in Texas was the first of its kind to ever be found in the U.S. and inspired a whole lot of excitement among birders who could afford a plane ticket. The situation got me thinking about extralimital birds. How many extralimital birds are actually found by birders? How many birds are missed?

I engaged John of the excellent A DC Birding Blog in a discussion of this topic, for your reading pleasure:

Say 100 White-crested Elaenias are released onto the east coast of the US. After a month, how many of them do you think have been found by birders?

ADCBB: I think it depends on where on the east coast you release them. If you release them near New York City, I would guess 80-90 would be found. In the less developed areas, I could see only 10-20 being found.

I agree that if the birds were released in a heavily birded area they are more likely to be seen than if they were released somewhere more remote, but that still leaves a chicken-and-egg question: Are certain areas heavily birded because they're productive or are those areas productive because they're heavily birded?

ADCBB: For the most part, I think it's the former. Places like Cape May were popular with market gunners who needed to find as many birds as possible long before there was a birding culture around them. I think that urban hotspots develop reputations because there are so many birders to track down every rarity that passes through.

I think I agree. Certain areas are popular because they are places were birds tend to congregate in large numbers, and therefore extralimital birds are more likely. On the other hand, I think a lot more extralimital birds would be found it birders spread out and searched less common areas (gull-filled landfills in the winter, for example). Do you think the Elaenia would have been found if it had landed in a private yard next to the conserved area it was found at?

ADCBB: Probably not, unless the yard belonged to a really sharp birder. Then again, nothing would stop it from wandering into the conserved area where it might be more likely to be seen by a birder.

Sure. Length of stay and movement definitely increases the likelihood of an unusual bird being discovered. Of all the extralimital birds that show up in the U.S., how many do you think are discovered?

ADCBB: I think that most extralimital species are discovered eventually; I'm not sure that most individual birds are since it is easy for individuals to land in an underbirded area.

But aren't most extralimital birds single individuals? Are you saying that species makes a difference?

ADCBB: If you have one extralimital bird that sticks to a particular location for an extended period, then I think you can say with some confidence that it is a single bird. But you don't really know for sure unless you band it or have some other identifying characteristic to separate individuals from each other.

As an example, a few winters ago a Rufous Hummingbird was visiting one of the Smithsonian gardens in D.C. There were actually two birds, but that did not become clear until the one that had been banded was recovered outside a window in Pennsylvania. Without that recovery, it would have appeared that a single individual stayed all winter. Now Rufous Hummingbird is not an extralimital, but I think its example can be applied to some of the single-record extralimital birds. There is speculation that the various Western Reef Heron sightings along the East Coast in the last few summers are a single individual, but I am not sure whether that has been confirmed.

That's an interesting point that refutes my position that most extralimital birds are not seen. If the same individual Western Reef-Heron was seen in several different locations it would indicate a higher level of birder coverage than I expected. However, I would temper this my saying that coastal birds - especially herons - are more easily seen than most birds (ie rails, warblers, sparrows) that stay out of sight. Therefore, extralimital birds of this type are less commonly discovered than more visible species like waders and raptors. Do you agree?

ADCBB: I think that is correct. The smaller and more cryptic birds are going to be harder to find, especially outside of breeding season, so some individual birds are going to go unnoticed. At the same time, most extralimital species seem to follow some sort of misguided route - a spring migration that takes them too far or a winter migration that somehow ends up on the wrong continent. Except for birds that only touch the edges of the ABA area, their route is likely to pass through some areas with few birders and others with lots of birders. So the (hypothetical) Northern Lapwing that is missed in Nunavut could be spotted around Cape Cod, Cape May, or the Eastern Shore.

Passing through the same areas that local migrants favor (and, with them, birders) would certainly improve the chances that they are discovered. So a bird will continue it's general north-south or south-north migration even though it's on a different continent?

ADCBB: I think that the north-south instinct is still pretty strong, even if the east-west coordinates are off. If you look at distribution maps for rare species, the sightings tend to cluster around certain areas of the country. There are large clusters along the southern border, mainly in the Southwest, and there are other clusters along the Pacific or Atlantic seaboards, which suggests birds that entered through the Arctic followed North American flyways. I think that both of these represent a misguided migratory instinct. It would be interesting to know if studies of vagrancy patterns would confirm that.

What about species that don't migrate as far? What do you think about patterns of species like Arctic gulls (Ivory, Ross' etc) or Great Gray Owls, that aren't necessarily following flyways?

ADCBB: The flyways are really just broad fronts along which birds move, whether because of geography, weather patterns, or some other factor. Each species, of course, has more specific routes. I think the shorter distance migrants still follow flyways, but just not as far. When Ivory Gulls come south, their destinations seem fairly predictable (see map).

Awesome map. OK, let's wrap this up with a prediction. I think that of all the extralimital birds that arrive in the US, only about 1/3 are found by birders. How many do you think are found and why?

ADCBB: I think it's a little over half. Extralimital birds that enter the country seem likely to end up in a spot frequented by many birders, so they ought to be found eventually, even if it takes some time. A lot of the more cryptic species will go unnoticed, either from being missed or being misidentified as common birds, but a higher percentage of the rest will be found.