291!!!

   

Clay Colored Sparrow
My 291st bird of the year and a lifer. 

If you read my blog from last year, you couldn't get away from the fact I was doing a Rhode Island Big Year. The goal was to see how many species I could see in Rhode Island in 2019. I not so secretly wanted to reach 250. My previous high was two hundred and thirty-two. When I reached that on June 1, the number I next wanted and hoped for was 263. Why such a strange number? My friend Marge Bradley had retired the year before and her husband Dick had already retired. They got to spend the 2018 birding whenever they wanted. They ended up with 262. I figured if I could reach one more bird than that I knew I had a good year. Dick and Marge are very good birders, so to surpass good birders that were retired the following year just meant I was trying hard. I passed 263 and chased everything right till the end and ended up with 290 species. 

   Also if you read my blog in December of last year and January of this year, you read a broken record about how I had no plans to do it again. I put thousands of miles on my car, went through a set of tires, and may have blown a head gasket. The more likely reason I wasn't going to get anywhere 290 again was I had too many things planned in 2020 that had nothing to do with birding in RI. I was going to do eleven overnight trips plus take a vacation to Florida in November. Between hiking in NH, birding in Maine, and whale watches out of Gloucester, getting anywhere near my previous high was not only unrealistic but not even a goal.

   Here is the thing, just because I didn't have plans for a big list did not mean I stopped liking birding. January was fairly mild so I went birding on all of my days off. I ended January 2020 with one hundred and twenty five species which was more than I got in January 2019. Still, this meant nothing. Getting all those birds in January just meant there wouldn't be much to look for until early migrants showed up in mid-March.

   Then, as we all know, things got ugly and everything shut down. So, like everyone else, my plans got cancelled. So I did what I always do on my days off, I went birding. Spring birding was good and I missed very few species. I ended up getting my 250th bird on May 31. One day sooner than the previous year. Up till this point, I stuck to my plan of keeping miles off of my car. I would bird far from home on days off but stay close to home on work nights. I would not "chase" birds after work. I only broke this rule to see a White Pelican in Tiverton, but for god's sake its a pelican in Rhode Island so give me some slack.

   During the summer I missed some tough but getable birds including Marbled Godwit, Baird's Sandpiper, and the bane of my existence, Royal Tern. However four mega-rare birds that I have wrote about often showed up between June 28- Nov 1. I was lucky enough to see all four. I managed to see most of the expected shorebirds and terns highlighted by Black Skimmers that flew right by me the day after I bought my new camera.

   Throughout the fall I was still getting birds. I went on a pelagic on Sept 8 that went one hundred miles south. I got four birds on that trip.  Last month someone found a Dovkie in Trustom Pond. I was close by and got a very unexpected lifer. That bird put me at #290 and I tied my previous personal best.

   The last couple of weeks I have alternated my time looking for the very rare Pacific Loon and the beautiful Evening Grosbeak and Snowy Owl. Those three species were my best chance of getting a species that is "expected" in RI. No luck. 

  On Sunday my friends Jan and Jess found a Clay Colored Sparrow in Portsmouth. I couldn't go because I worked. Today I went there and looked for it. Jan came down and we spent another two and a half hours looking for it but dipped. We left.

Thirty minutes later Jess was there and the bird popped up for her in the same spot as Sunday. So I turned around and went back. I ran out to Jess. She moved down the path looking for other birds. She told me where it was and I waited. The bird popped up within five minutes!!! Not only was it #291 but it was a lifer! Great way to break my PB. 

Stats- 

If there is one thing birders like as much as birds it is numbers. Here are some- Last year I ended up seeing the forth most birds in RI. I was second in the entire state for people with a job (tough to compete with retired folk, especially retired people that are among the best birders in the country). 

This year I am fifth on "the list" but realistically I think I am eleventh between people whose numbers I know and people that I know that are better, retired, work from home, and obsessed. Also, and this is surely true, there are a lot more people birding this year than last. Yes, this is due to the pandemic. When a good bird used to show up the same ten people would rush down to see it. I knew all of their cars. Then, the next day or two a few stragglers would hope it was still there. Now, thanks to amazing networking and unselfishness forty or fifty people will go look for the bird in the next few days.

By no means is this making excuses. If  #291puts me in eleventh place when all I wanted to do was see birds, then Que Sera. I'm more than happy to hold down that number. This has been a great year for rare birds and many birds. The RI record is in jeopardy. I have four friends that have reached 300 and others within a bird or two. I don't think before this year there were ever three birders in the same year to reach three hundred. Congrats to them!!

291

9 lifebirds (plus one in MA-Ruff) Thick Billed Murre, Tennessee Warbler, Terek's Sandpiper, Red Necked Stint, Little Stint, Pomarine Jaeger, Common Cukoo, Dovkie, Clay Colored Sparrow

2 other State birds Lark Sparrow and Wilson's Pharalope

The best bird I found myself- Wilson's Pharalope