New Year's Birding Big Day with Amber

I used to go out birding on New Year's Day. As you can imagine, New Year's is like Christmas to birders. What was considered old hat yesterday is a new bird for the year today. You would be shocked at how many people go out birding on New Year's Day. I stopped going when I started working days. I used to be a baker, so I'd have all day to play before work.

This year, January 1 fell on my scheduled day off of Friday. So, I planned for the last couple weeks to do a Big Day. I invited DJ's little sister to come along. Although Amber is not my child by blood, I love her like she is. She even lived with me for four months after her mom was in a car accident in 2010. She is probably the nicest kid I have ever known.

The catch with taking a thirteen year old girl whose favorite hobby is cheerleading is to make sure they do not get too bored. The other thing is making sure they don't get too cold. For the most part, we did short hikes and quick stops at many places. We did have two walks, one at Trustom, the other at Sachuest. Knowing she was getting tired, we stopped about 3:30 with an hour of daylight left and ate. I probably could have seen a couple more species if I was alone, but I wouldn't have had as much fun. Also I got to take a kid out in nature, and that is more important than one more bird.

We left the house at 7:30 and went to Turner Reservoir. We were surprised to see Ruddy Ducks and Common Mergansers. We also had a Red Tailed Hawk fly-by. We had a few common song birds and geese.

From there we went south to Trustom. I will not bore you with every stop and every bird. I wrote

This was our view across Charlestown Breachway
This lady was riding a horse. The other horse was not
roped or ridden, but stayed put

down a list of the most common forty birds and Amber checked them off as we saw them. If we saw a bird not on the list, she wrote it down. Birds that she wrote down were more important than the common ones I might miss today because I can see them anytime.

The "good birds" we saw today were-
Blue Wing Teal
Green Wing Teal
Red Throated  Loon
House Finch
American Goldfinch
Common Goldeneye
Surf Scooter
Great Egret
Common Merganser
American Widgeon
Sanderling
Ruddy Duck
Hooded Merganser
White Throated Sparrow
American Tree Sparrow

Not every bird on the above list would be considered rare. Some are quite common. However, I either did not expect to see them, or could not predict there whereabouts. On the list, the best bird that I was most surprised about was the American Tree Sparrow at Trustom Pond. Also, the Surf Scooter was a bit of a surprise. I was at Beavertail on the 31st and did not see any.

The best bird of the day was by far a Barrows Goldeneye at Frigate Road in Jamestown. It is a

lifebird for me (and obviously Amber), but it also considered a rare bird in these parts. Only a couple show up a year in New England, so it is a great bird to get. It was very close to shore along with their cousins the Common Goldeneye so we got great looks as long as we could stand the cold.

The misses for the day included morning dove, fish crow (which I did not look for). I had a catbird and a Northern Mockingbird at Beavertail on the 31st but not on Jan 1. The saddest miss was purple sandpipers. I saw them at Sachuest on Christmas. I like seeing them and that is a long ride to make to see one small bird.

All in all though we had a fun day. We saw a total of 49 species. Besides seeing 47 species of birds, we also got grey squirrel and deer. We cut out about 3:30, and I rewarded Amber with Taco Bell.