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.

Interview with Birder / Pro Skateboarder Dave Mull

Skateboarding is the best thing in part because I don't know what kind of thing it is. A sport? Not really. A hobby? Doesn't seem strong enough. A ... thing?

Whatever it is, it's the best. It's athletic, but not competitive. It's as technical as gymnastics and as dangerous as football, but isn't full of meatheads. It's artistic, in that there are different ways to execute the same thing and each skater has his own style, or take on the same trick. Plus, as artists do, skaters look at the world differently than the rest of us - seeing the inescapable built environment as things to slide down or jump over or whatever. I just love it.

My brother, Alex, is a great skateboarder. Always has been. I am not, because I have no balance. But we've always enjoyed skateboarding together, and he regularly sends me videos and clips to watch to keep my appraised of the latest. A couple of years ago he started sending me clips from a company called Worble, who was putting out videos based around a dude named Manramp: an anonymous guy in overalls who carried around a piece of plywood to act as a moving feature. A man ramp. They videos ruled, and had a great soundtrack, and featured a long-haired skater named Dave Mull.

Alex sent me a couple more Worble videos and Dave Mull clips and I kept noticing something: there are, like, a bunch of birds in here. There was that Manramp intro where he's got a hawk on his arm. There was an Acorn Woodpecker in the stump jump B-side video, there was a young Red-tail ... I am used to seeing 0 birds in skate videos but now I am seeing birds. Then, Alex send a 2018 interview Mull did with Thrasher (uh, the skate magazine, not the Mimidae), and my suspicions were confirmed: Dave Mull is a birder.

I immediately knew I needed to interview him for Audubon, as I firmly believe in the mission of frantically pointing and waving when I find a birder who is outside whatever you want to think the traditional stereotype of a "birder" is. Dave Mull, pro skateboarder, is certainly outside it. I really enjoyed interviewing him for the National Audubon website.

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Birds at Large: The Bourne Identity (2002)

I don't know why this clip was recommended to me on YouTube. I have never seen the Bourne Identity and have never searched for clips of it, and don't care much for Matt Damon, and uhhh I just don't know. But I saw that there were birds in the thumbnail so I gave it a watch. You should too, for the purposes of this blog post!

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OK so this dude shoots some barrels and they explode immediately. I don't know if that's actually something that can happen (Mythbusters in 2005 apparently found that "It has already been proven that when shot by a normal bullet, a gasoline tank will not explode. However, if a gasoline tank is shot by a tracer round from a great enough distance so that the round can ignite with air friction, it will cause the gasoline to catch fire. By the time this happened, the tank was so riddled with bullets [from previous tracers that were fired too close to ignite], there was no contained pressure, but the MythBusters surmised that had the tank been properly enclosed, it might have exploded." Great!), but (still with me?) the thing I took from that explosion shot is "this movie is not set in the United States." Those are Europe homes!

So, I thought to myself, inner monologueingly, it seems likely that if there are any birds singing in the vicinity (if they haven't fled in terror from the massive explosion) they are likely to be ones that I cannot identify. I don't know the vocalizations of European birds, dear friends! I believed myself to be up the proverbial creek SANS paddle! 

Imagine my surprise then, when just a few moments later, the perfectly enunciated song of an Eastern Wood-Pewee bounded through my ear drums or canal or however it works. Surely I must be imagining things, I monologued to myself, innerly! An Eastern Wood-Pewee, in the snow, in Europe? There must be some mistake! I took off my headphones to check if there was some poor, lost Eastern Wood-Pewee stuck somehow in my basement office, but no. This was IN THE FILM. 

Look, I continued internally monologuing, everyone makes mistakes. It's OK! The wrong bird sound just slipped in there! It's the audio equivalent of a typo. Nothing to make a big deal out of!

But then in rapid succession came the vocalizations of Blue Jay, American Crow, and Black-capped Chickadee! Ain't none of these birds in France unless there was some kind of avian class trip? They were on a passing bus on the way to Normandy? No, no, no ("my inner monologue is arguing with itself now," I thought in an inner aside, a kind of even deeper, even inner-er monologue), birds don't take class trips. This was just a shitty job from the sound guy or gal.

Then Matt Damon goes over and shoots into the air and a ton of birds take off from the field. What the shit was that. Why didn't those birds flee during the earlier massive gas explosions and/or gunshots? What even were those things? Too skinny to be doves but does France have huge winter fields filled with snipe? 

This clip sucks and the movie looks like shit and if Matt Damon's character is supposed to be so smart why doesn't he know a single bird call? GOODBYE.

A quick post about Pat Hentgen, Major League Baseball player

As longtime readers (?) of this interblogsite know, I like to think about sports teams named after birds. Good times fun times all is well. But one angle I've never considered in all of this how the players feel about playing for a team named after a bird. 

And I still don't know that and can't really pursue it because I'm too busy and too lazy at the same time.

But if I were to talk to anyone I'd talk to Pat Hentgen, a Cy Young Award winner and three-time all-star pitcher who played between 1991 and 2004. He was a really good player and, for our purposes, has the unique status in major league baseball history as being the ONLY player to play for all three teams named after a bird (the Toronto Blue Jays, Baltimore Orioles, and St. Louis Cardinals), and ONLY those teams.

Every time Pat Hentgen put on a major league uniform there was a bird on it somewhere. Pretty cool.

UPDATE

In Memory of John Beetham

John Beetham, author of the longtime bird blog Dendroica (formerly A DC Birding Blog), passed away this week, just a day or so after competing in the World Series of Birding. I can't say I knew John -- I think I met him only once, in DC back in probably early 2006 -- but he was a good online friend, a pioneering bird writer and journalist, and by all accounts a nice man.

When I moved to DC in late 2005 I had the birding itch and was stuck in an office all day at a low-pressure internship. I couldn't leave the office to bird, but I could write about birding, and so I wanted to start a blog. Blogging, and birding blogs, were sort of new at that point. There were a lot of them, mostly all unread, and, as I recall, all pretty boring. Most had some boring title like "Backyard Musings" or something and every post was like "I went out this afternoon and saw a cardinal. Here, look at this awful picture I took." But the beautiful thing was that there was possibility in a blog - you could write about whatever you wanted with no editors and no filters. Some birding blogs weren't boring.

John's A DC Birding Blog (now Dendroica) was one of them. (10,000 Birds -- still going strong -- was another.) John posted A LOT in those days -- 528 separate posts in 2006!!! -- and didn't just post birds he's identified but wrote about history and advocacy issues and ephemera. Fun stuff, interesting stuff. He also played an important role as an aggregator of information - links, news stories - which he collected into his mentromically regular Loose Feathers column. This type of aggregation was the most useful way in those days for a writer to get noticed, or for like-minded blogs to find one another. Seeing one of my crummy little posts show up in John's Loose Feathers collection was such a thrill and an honor in those early days, the first taste of recognition. Fittingly, the last post that John ever published was the 800th edition of Loose Feathers.

The first time I ever corresponded with John was when on March 1, 2006, when I told him that I was starting my own blog, titled BirdDC. I don't know why I titled my blog something so close to the title of his ... I think people just used local geography in their blogs back then? Kinda rude of me, in any case. But, at least I owned it I guess, and I wrote to John:

Hello John- I just wanted to let you know that I have recently (still working out the HTML kinks) begun a blog called birdDC (http://birdDC.blogspot.com).  It's quite similar to your site, which I like very much, and for that I apologize, but I live in DC and love birding so what can ya do.  I just thought I would give you a heads-up about cramping your style rather than having you stumble upon it. Best, Nick

John wrote back the kindest response. Instead of saying, like, "Oh, good for you" or "Nice why didn't you call it something else you hack?" he wrote:

Nick - Thanks for sending me the link. It looks like your blog is off to a good start. Don't worry about cramping my style. There is plenty of room for additional voices among bird bloggers. When I started my blog I originally patterned it after several bird bloggers that I read and liked, and then eventually developed my own voice and style.

Then he offered to connect me to a blog carnival (these were early, curated collections of blog posts hosted on a rotating blog roll) that he was managing. I mean, just the nicest guy and the kindest response. 

We supported each other and kept reading each other after that. I followed his advice and went to good birding spots. I learned about the issues from him. I "interviewed" John in 2006 as part of my very-lame-in-retrospect Birder Profile series. Maybe our biggest shared thrill was when John and I debated the question of what percentage of rare birds get found (I was on the Birdist site then), and we were directly refuted by David Sibley himself! David Sibley read our dumb little thing and thought we were so wrong he put down his paintbrush to (very kindly) join the conversation! A badge of honor.

But to be honest the Sibley issue illustrates perfectly the excitement of those early blogging years. Two non-experts could write about whatever popped into our heads, post it online, and have the biggest minds in birding read it and respond. There was no gate-keeping or approvals, no one to tell us what to post or what not to post, and genuine freedom to let writers develop their interests and reach viewers with minimal road blocks. Everything I've written and published is due to the freedom I had in those early bird blogging days and to the support of John Beetham and people like him (but mostly just him).

I didn't "know" John, and never birded with him, but I don't want his small but important place in birding history to be forgotten. He was a great writer and by all accounts a good person and good birder. I want to thank him for his friendship and support, and I extend my deepest sympathies to his family and friends. 

The Blobin

 Just wanted to share that I found the chubbiest Robin, the Blobin. Here it is.

Good stuff. Oh, there was also a Redwing there, in Portland, Maine. ABA Lifer #694.

Trashfire: The 2020 Year in Review

I mean it wasn't actually all that bad from a birding perspective. I miraculously got some great trips out of the way before the pandemic hit, and then I was pretty damn lucky to be able to enjoy the birds in my backyard. 

QUICK STATS

World Species Seen: 615 (new personal record)

Countries with eBird Checklists: 4 (USA, Mexico, Ecuador, Panama [airport lol]) 

ABA Species Seen: 292 (only 7th year since 2005 under 300)

ABA Lifers: 2 (Yellow Rail and Common Cuckoo, bringing ABA total to I think 694 counting Northwestern Crow for now) 

Maine Birds Seen: 232 (most since 2010)

Maine State Birds: 12 (Bullock's Oriole, Thick-billed Murre, Western Tanager, Golden-winged Warbler, Mourning Warbler, Yellow Rail, Clark's Grebe, Say's Phoebe, Western Kingbird, Rufous Hummingbird, Tundra Swan, Rock Wren, bringing state total to 338)

Yard List: 49 year birds, 99 total yard species. 

 

Let's do a quick review, month by month.

January

I have a good crew of birding friends, and in January we took a trip up to my family's cabin near Moosehead Lake to help out with Maine's Winter Bird Atlas, and also drink a bunch. We had a blast, and the birds were cooperative. There was an abundant cone crop, and the sky was filled with White-winged Crossbills in full song, making reproductive hay while the sun shined, so to speak. We had close encounters with most everything you'd want up there in winter: Canada Jay, Boreal Chickadee, and a very confiding Black-backed Woodpecker.

February

In February I was invited to speak at the Laredo Birding Festival in West Texas, a huge honor and an opportunity to see some incredible birds. A great time on multiple fronts: great birds, great food, warm weather (as opposed to Maine), and a few good night's sleep away from my 2 year old (lol thanks to my lovely wife). The festival was incredibly well organized, and had great support from the city. I can't thank them enough for having me down, and I encourage anyone reading this to attend in the future.

March

All the shit started this month, but I tell ya, I had a good March. Three friends and I put together an insanely fun trip to Ecuador, a 8-day whirlwind up and down and Andes. I saw or heard (or was told I was seeing or hearing) 398 species, mostly all lifers. What can I say? It was incredible. We drove on insane mountain roads, relaxed over Amazonian vistas, tromped through high tundra, ate awesome food, and just had a wonderful time. It looks like I didn't do any posts on the blog about it? Weird. Too many highlights, but one (pictured below) is my 1,000th world bird, a Cinnamon Flycatcher.

Here are a few photos.

April

OK well things were a lot slower in April. I birded locally, and wrote this about Stevie Nicks. I saw a Prothonotary Warbler in South Portland, which was cool.

May

I mean, you can't beat May pandemic or no. One highlight was taking place in a bizzaro version of the World Series of Birding, which was opened to teams outside of NJ for the first time ever. A group from Maine Audubon combined to find 139 socially-distant species on a cold, blustery day. We didn't quite have the numbers to best teams in other states (migration in early May is still not ideal), but we had a blast. 

Also, hilariously, I put a call out to Twitter to see if anyone could recreate MLB logos with real birds. User @WhiskyEyeBrews managed to get a Northern Cardinal to come to her custom-made St. Louis Cardinal feeder for this photo. Unreal.

June

My kind and loving wife let me take a couple nights off away from the kiddo so I made a solo trip to the mountains of western Maine to try to snag a long-overdue state bird, the Mourning Warbler. Ebird directed me to a new spot for me, Quill Hill, and it was just a total paradise. I nailed Mourning Warbler quickly (why are these only digiscope pics? Did I now bring my camera?), and saw a bunch of other good birds. The next day I hiked Sugarloaf Mountain and had some amazing, close Bicknell's Thrush encounters. A great break.

July

Word quietly got around to Maine birders that there was a Yellow Rail at a remote marsh in far eastern Maine. This is an exciting bird, one of those birds that I really didn't know when I'd ever get. I couldn't pass up the opportunity, so my pal Ian and I (we were sort of in the bubble together and the virus was at a low point then, still we took many precautions), threw a canoe on my car we drive into the night up to Washington County. We got there in the pitch black, and launched our canoe into what we discovered was dead low tide -- we had to drag the boat through like two-hundred yards of unexpected mud before we hit the river. We finally launched, and paddled down the windy river through complete silence. Soon we began to hear a slight clicking in the night, like a reporter at a typewriter in the middle of the marsh. Unmistakable Yellow Rail. We got close to where the bird was without ever getting onto shore -- the bird is surprisingly loud -- and then paddled back through pure starry darkness back to our car. What an experience. 

August

August was pretty quiet. One highlight was rolling up to a socially-distanced friend's house outdoor hang at dusk and bearing witness to a flock of at least 300 migrating Common Nighthawks. It was unbelievable. Also, I saw some shorebirds at one point. Also, I saw the crazy Clark's Grebe that showed up in central Maine, but it was too far away for pictures.

September

The clear highlight was a (safe and distanced) friends trip to Monhegan Island for some migration birding. God damn is that a wonderful place. I also spotted the Say's Phoebe just a few miles from my house. Good times.

October

It's been an incredible winter for irruptive finches, and it started in October with a flood of Pine Siskins at my feeders. A side effect of the pandemic was that I was able to spend a lot more time birding in my yard (did I write about this already?) and I added a ton of birds to my yard list. Other highlights included ticking Rufous Hummingbird and Western Kingbirds for the state, and photoing an obliging Sora.

November

On Election Day, which turned out eventually to elect a good man instead of a raving egomaniac, Doug and I were FORCED to make a quick trip to Rhode Island to chase a Common Cuckoo. Common Cuckoo! Never thought I'd see that bird in the U.S. A fun, highly successful chase. At one point the bird flew directly at me and perched just above my head (photo of my by Doug).  Also saw my state Tundra Swans, which were boring.

December

Another amazing record in Maine, a Rock Wren, was a delightful surprise and gave great looks in Perkins' Cove, where it has persisted into 2021. Also enjoyed shooting some nice Pine Grosbeaks that hung out in my little yard. Nice way to end a garbage hell fart year. Thanks for sticking with me.