Red Fox and Red Headed Woodpecker

 

   I went on a birding trip on Cape Cod two weeks ago looking for rare birds. There were seven possible species at various locations. One of those locations was Race Point. We worked our way to P-town stopping at all of the potential rare birds on the way. Because we dipped on some, we spent too much time looking for them. So I got to the Race Point parking lot around 2 pm instead of the 12:30 time I hoped. I rushed out to the rip but by the time I got there it was about time to turn around. I had to meet Laurie who came for the ride but made it clear she wasn't walking over the Race Point sand if she went.

    When I got back to the lot a friendly Red Fox was begging for food. There wasn't any doubt it had been fed. I started taking photos of it. Because it was on the asphalt and the lines of parking spaces were in front of and behind it, most of the photos suck. However, I got a few decent ones. At one point it was too close to me to focus and I had to stand up to make it back off. I'm sure it wouldn't have hurt me, but it was about six feet from me. Though I saw some of the birds I wanted to see, the fox was by far the highlight of the day. Laurie got to see it too. Woodpecker story below photos.

   My friend Nicole babysits for a family on a working farm. She is a hardcore birder and the family she works for loves birds. They even allowed her to do a Christmas Bird Count on the farm in golf carts for "Birdability" which is for people that have a hard time getting around. 

   On the farm there has been a Red Headed Woodpecker for a month. This farm and Nicole live in Connecticut so it is a long ride for me. One to piggyback things to do I decided to go for the Woodpecker and hang out with Nicole. After that, I would bird RI stopping first at Misquamicut to see the Snow Buntings. Also that day I put up two Screech Owl boxes so it was a busy day.

   I met Nicole at the nature center where she works. She showed me around and I got to hold a lot of the animals. By far, the most exciting animal I held was a very tame Hognose Snake! I got to hold some turtles and a toad also. It was very nice of Nicole to let me see everything.

   We went to the farm after leaving the nature center. It was a ten minute ride. We got on the golf cart and went out to the field that had some huge oaks. The Red Headed Woodpecker wasn't there so we went down other trails. Finally on our third and last pass we saw the Red Headed Woodpecker. I didn't get any great photos but it was still awesome to see. Thank you Nicole!

 This week I also got a photo upgrade of the super rare Ross's Goose that has been hanging around the Newport Country Club for a month

Little Gull

 

  I went birding yesterday in Rhode Island. I spent all day birding in the hopes of collecting rarities. The bird I most wanted was a Little Gull. Little Gulls are actually the smallest gull in the world. They primarily live in Eurasia. There are small colonies around the Great Lakes and Hudson Bay, but other than those places they are rare in the rest of North America. Though not the first ones to visit RI, this is the second one to come to RI since I became a birder. It turns out, there are three in Rhode Island right now. However, the most consistent ones are between South Kingstown Town Beach and the Ocean Mist.

   The problem is there are probably two thousand gulls in that are right now. Due to all of these Nor'easters gulls have been pushed to the shore by the thousands. It really is amazing to see so many birds. The other problem is Little Gulls look a lot like Bonaparte Gulls. Bonapartes are also small though not as small as Little Gulls and they have a black patch on the side of the head as do Little Gulls this time of year. As Dan Berard said "it's like looking for a needle in a stack full of needles"

  The first place I went yesterday was South Kingstown Town Beach. Speaking of Dan, he was there looking through the gulls.  Dan is the best birder in Rhode Island or at least tied for that spot. He has a memory to remember field marks and ears to hear songs like no other birder. So I was thrilled Dan was there. I knew if I didn't find the bird he would if it was around.

   

That is exactly what happened, twice! He found the Little Gull on the water with a flock of several hundred Bonaparte Gulls. Twice he got it in his scope for me to look at and twice I couldn't see it! Between the wave action and my inexperience with this species, I just could not pick it out in a scope view full of thirty birds huddled together in the few seconds before they would lift to avoid a wave..

   So I realized my best chance to see it was to find it when it flew. Though Little Gulls can be told apart from other species by their size, a dark smudge on top of the head, and their roundish wings, those were tough field marks figure out when you only have two or three seconds before the bird moves in the waves. The key field mark is they are the only gull with a completely dark underwing. Find a gull with the underwing almost completely black and you found a Little Gull. 

   Every time a part of the flock took off or rose to avoid a crashing wave I looked at them with my bins. After an hour of this strategy I finally saw the adult Little Gull. It was down the beach to the left but it flew slowly towards us. I called it out to Dan and the other birders and we watched it for the minute or so before it landed. Once in the water I lost it again in the hoard of gulls. We saw the adult fly twice. A juvenile also flew by giving great looks to the group but I did not see it.

    Later in the day after looking for other birds my friend Richard Tucker texted me asking where I saw the Little Gull. After I told him, I went back to the beach to help find it. Though I actually did little to help find it someone spotted it and we got great looks at it flying. Since the sun was more behind us, I got my best photo of the bird near sunset.

   With the Little Gull, I have gotten three lifers since January 1. I got a total of four lifers all of last year, and one of those was in Missouri. However, I got two of those four in December (plus two RI state birds), so I am finally on a pretty good run. I hope it continues.

Two weeks into January, My second Lifer, Zero Good Photos

 

  I had a doctor's appointment in North Attleboro today. While I was sitting in the room waiting for the doctor someone found a Northern Shrike at Snake Den Farm. As it was, that was only twenty two minutes from where I was sitting. I had never seen a Northern Shrike but have tried multiple times. Needless to say my routine doctor's visit couldn't get over fast enough.

    Northern Shrike are little predator birds. They are smaller than a Blue Jay and look much like a Northern Mockingbird. They mostly live in the evergreen forest south of the Arctic Tundra. During the winter they will occasionally make their way south towards New England. In my years of birding, this is only the third one that I know of in Rhode Island. They hunt small birds and will actually use the barbs of barbed wire to impale their prey. 

  Off I went to Snake Den as soon as I walked out of the office. I pulled into the parking lot and got my scope out. I scanned the tops of trees in the distance and found it pretty quickly. I called over some other birders that were looking in a different direction and we all looked at it in our scopes for twenty minutes. Eventually, when the sun went below the tree line the Shrike took off and we lost it against the darkness of the forest. I took some digiscoped photos with my phone over my scope's eyepiece. They are crap, but technically I did get a photo. The Shrike was probably a quarter mile away or more so I'm just happy I found it.

Oh God, I forgot my camera chasing a lifer

Barrow's
GoldenEye 

 Last night I got a message from my friend Danielle Stebbins that a MacGillivray's Warbler (from now on just Mac) was seen during a Christmas Bird Count in Raynham, MA. It was still being seen yesterday. So we made plans to go look for it today.

Mac's are western birds. Even when they migrate south they stay west of the Rockies. So yes, this one is lost. One was seen last year in Providence and I chased it but dipped. When I got there, at least ten birders who had seen it were still there. I saw the movement in the brush but never actually saw the bird. From me on, no one else that showed up saw the bird that day or ever. That sucked.

    Danielle and I pulled into the parking lot at the same time this morning. When I got out I realized I left my camera at home!!! Not much I could do about it but I felt naked. We had the bird fairly easily, it called most of the morning and between us and a New Bedford birder, one of us would hear it every few minutes. It is the nature of a Mac to stay hidden and this one put on a clinic. I saw the bird about seven times. But never once other than flying quickly across the path did I see the whole body at once. All of my looks were for less than two seconds and only once did I see the head. Still al lifer because if you played the game Operation before, all of my sightings did add up to a full bird and it was beautiful. Even if I had my camera I never would have gotten a photo. It was too elusive.

   However, not having my camera lead to another dilemma. Did I want to continue birding without it. I had hoped to find some other good birds but I wanted my camera for proof photos. I went anyway.

 

Northern
Shoveler 

  I went to Buttonwood Park in New Bedford where there was a Northern Shoveler and a Cackling Goose. I found the Shoveler before I got out of the car but couldn't make any of the Canadas into a Cackling.

  Next I went to the harborwalk in New Bedford and spent way too much time looking for but eventually finding the Barrow's Goldeneye. Another western bird that summer's in Alaska, but a couple do show up every winter.

   Lastly I went to Fairhaven and heard Clapper Rails that have been around for months. Another easy bird. I hoped to go to Newport and look for the Ross's Goose or to Westport and look for Snowy Owls but time got away from me today. I was pissed I left my camera at home but glad I got some good birds.

First of the year fish and rarity

   

Goldfish

One of my friends already has ninety three species of birds under her belt in Rhode Island alone. I went out for a walk on New Year's Day and saw a Chickadee. So, if I cared, she has a ninety two bird head start on me. Today, a friend of mine thought it would be a good idea to go seining. Yes, it's January so maybe not our smartest decision. Despite a major strikeout on seeing anything we still had fun. We only had until 1 pm because he had to be in Cranston in the afternoon so I dropped him at the Attleboro Train Station for him to make his appointment.

   Deciding it would be nice to see something new for the year, I went up to La Salette Shrine to see their Goldfish. Goldfish have been breeding in the pond for a hundred years so at this point they are wild. Much of the pond was skim ice but I saw two bright orange Goldfish under the ice. This made me happy. 

   As I was getting into my car, there was an alert that a Townsend's Warbler was at Swan Point. This was presumably the same bird as a month before. I really didn't want to go to Providence but I was five minutes from the highway and from the exit only fifteen minutes after that. So I went. I saw the bird rather quickly since Sue Talbot was there and she is a great birder. She came across it high in a pine tree. It was in beautiful light with the sun behind it. I took a lot of photos but one of them stood out from the rest. It is probably a photo upgrade.

End of the Year Review 2023

   

Sleepy Hollow, NY

   It is safe to say I will never have another year like this year. I spent a whole year playing while recovering from the health problems that I've talked about enough. While I still have trouble lying down, I am certainly grateful that most of the last nine months have been relatively pain free. Because I feel so much better and had some money in the bank, I had a year full of memories.

    Throughout my adult life, most years always end up having a theme. As I've said in other reviews, one year DJ and I went to New Hampshire every weekend during the summer. The following year I was introduced to Striped Bass and became obsessed. I'd drive to Narragansett or Jamestown four nights a week after getting done baking donuts at 1 am. Twice I've done Rhode Island Big Years chasing birds. I spent all of 2011 fishing for trout and keeping perfect records of how many, where I caught them, each species, and what I caught them on.

   It would be tough to pinpoint what this year's theme would be. I did such a variety of things that I'd say "enjoying nature" would make sense. As an outdoorsman and a wannabe naturalist, this is such a broad statement that it really doesn't describe anything. The more I thought about it, the theme for this year was about chasing adventures. For much of the year I was out looking for something different and new. When I wasn't looking for new and different I was still looking to make everyday as full as possible.

   If you are a reader of the blog, you could make a strong argument that I chased herps A LOT. This I did. I saw far more herp species in New England than I ever had. I saw species I'd never heard of (Italian Wall Lizard). My favorite day of my Midwest vacation was walking a road looking for snakes. Many days during the spring, I'd go birding only to find my eyes facing towards the ground looking for snakes as the morning wore on. Every day is an adventure when herping. Every rock that I lift is a possible winning lottery ticket. Even the most common Garter Snake is fun to hold and sometimes its a challenge to catch them.  But even though so many days spent looking for snakes, I still spent triple the amount of days doing other things. 

  I didn't fish too much this year. I did get out a few times. I had many good days trout fishing down the Cape and in Rhode Island. I did catch all the species of trout except Lakers. I only caught a few Stripers. I caught one lifer, Mackerel.  I fished my ass off in  New Hampshire fishing just about everyone of my nineteen days there.

   Many adventures involved fish but not a fishing pole. I went seining three times in saltwater and twice in freshwater. I got multiple lifers (more on lifers below). I went snorkeling and saw a Beau Gregory which is a tropical fish that should not be here. 

   Laurie and I went on multiple getaways. 

• April Cape trip looking for Right Whales and Herring Runs
• Philadelphia and Delaware Water Gap
• Sleepy Hollow, NY in the footsteps of Washington Irving
• Two trips to NH in the spring. I spent 19 days camping. Laurie came up for about five of those days
• Midwest Trip for ten days Gateway Arch, Hannibal, Kankakee Sands, Snake Road, Cuyahoga NP, PA wilds elk
• A "bag night" is a night spent in the sleeping bag (so its a term used for camping). I had roughly thirty bag nights. I camped twenty five nights and slept under the stars on Laurie's deck about five to ten other nights. I'd have done it a lot more but there was always so much dew on my bag in the morning. 

For nature on those trips I saw-

•   New Hampshire- one moose, one bear, otter, two beavers, heard multiple species of birds at my campsite, breeding toads, two Northern Watersnakes, Smallmouth Bass, Rock Bass, Pickerel, Pike, Rainbow Trout, Brook Trout, Common Shiner, Largemouth Bass
• Cape Cod- two far off Right Whales, herring runs 
• Midwest Trip- Bison, Eurasian Tree Sparrow, 16 Cottonmouths, 1 Plain Bellied Watersnake, 1 Rough Green Snake, Grey Tree Frog, Green Tree Frog, Cave Salamanders, Newt, Armadillo, Racoons, Elk, Indiana Bat

By the numbers- 

   I only kept a year list for herp species I saw. I saw 31 species of herps. This breaks down to 7 turtles species, 12 snakes, 8 frogs, 4 salamanders/newt, 1 Lizard, plus one subspecies (Midland's Painted Turtle)

I caught (with a fishing pole) one new fish species, Mackerel

Lifers-

• I got one lifer mammal, Indiana Bat
• For herps of my 31 species  ten were lifers
• Birds- Four lifers (Eurasian Tree Sparrow, Western Grebe, Western Flycatcher, Ross's Goose) Two state birds Sedge Wren, Townsend's Warbler
• Fish- I saw fourteen lifer fish species. eleven while seining, one seen at the Cape Cod Canal, Blind Cave Fish on a cave tour, and one by snorkeling

Photo upgrades-

• Including the lifer photos I got twenty bird upgrades to add to my photo album. I'm starting an album to document mammals, herps, and fish I've caught. This year I got photos of twenty five herp species that were either lifers or upgrades from what I had. 
•  I have photos of 47/50 fish I've caught. Missing are Sheepshead, Mahi Mahi, and somehow American Eel.
• There are eight bird species I have seen that I did not photograph out of 401
• There are eight mammal species I've seen without a photo out of 61

Armchair Ticks- 

   Though seeing an animal five years ago obviously does not count as a lifer this year I spent hours going through old photos to add to my Species Album. I found photos of 8 birds, 2 mammals, 12 lizards, plus some other photo upgrades of other snakes and turtles.

Personal-  

   I went to a surprising nine concerts. Many of them were free. I only read three real books, but spent countless hours buried in field guides. I watched dozens of documentaries. I went to the movies four times. Laurie and I did binge a bunch of series on Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Plus. 

   Only went to fireworks once. Four Museums. Swimming at Onset Beach three times. Three fishing and outdoor expos. Visited Concord, MA twice. Four Holiday/Church Fairs. One figure skating event with Laurie. Saw a flower that smells like rotting flesh called a Corpse Flower at Wheaton College.

   Other than the above trips, all of my other adventures were fishing, birding, chasing state birds, herping, snorkeling (once), quahogging (once), camping in New Hampshire,  or vacation days

For my "Photos with Friends Project" I took photos of myself with twenty of my friends. This leaves me with many more to get. Since I started this project in May, I'm going to continue it for another few months until May. I really want to document memories with people

Happy New Year and may your days be filled with adventures!

Holy Mackerel

 Of all my posts, this one easily has the cheesiest and laziest title but low hanging fruit is the easiest to reach. So no apology from me at this time.

   Today I went to the Cape Cod Canal and caught my first ever mackerel. While it would be considered "spot burning" to say that I caught them at the canal, there are like four people that I know that have the surf rods heavy enough to actually fish there or they wouldn't drive there anyway.. They all live in Rhode Island or western Mass so it is safe to say that I will not be adding to the crowds at the Sandwich Marina. The fishing reports from tackle shops have already reported where the mackerel are. If you are randomly reading this on the internet and your goal in life has always been to catch a mackerel, you are welcome!

   Actually, catching a mackerel was one of my goals. I had never caught any. I'd seen them swim by and be chased by stripers in the summer but never targeted them. Yesterday I went but I failed. I had hoped to catch them on light tackle so I brought my trout rod and some small Kastmaters.  Unfortunately, the macs were way out of range of my small rod.  I did bring an eight food surf rod but I did not think things through. I brought my rod with my bairunner and twenty pound mono. This had half the casting distance of braid. Add to that that I only brought some egg sinkers and tied a small Kastmaster to my line, I must have looked like a googan (idiot)

   When I got done fishing yesterday, I went home and got more appropriate equipment. I got my Mojo rod with a reel full of braided line. I picked up my one Sabiki rig and some bank sinkers. The weather forecast said I had a few hours in the morning before a huge rainstorm. I planned on going fishing at 7-8 am but I didn't fall asleep until 5 am so I got up at 9 am.

   

It's a shame mackerel are just considered 
baitfish because the colors are incredible

   I caught three mackerel today. Since I had never caught any, I would have been very happy with one. I  caught two on one of my casts and an hour later caught the third. However, if I would have been in a competition or a tournament, I would have gotten my ass kicked. I saw so many mackerel caught. One guy reeled in five at a time so often I lost count. Many other guys caught a dozen or more. 

  I tried to figure out what I was doing wrong. My casts were about as far as those guys and I was letting my rig sink like they were. I think they had better Sabiki rigs than me. While I had a rig with five tubes that were grey and red the other people were using a different Sabiki. It seems like they were nailing fish on white teasers or shiny silver teasers. The white fly and the flashy stuff far outfished my rig. 

I learned a lot today by not catching. It made me pay attention to those that were. I probably won't spend a lot of time chasing mackerel anyway. The crowded conditions really aren't my style. On a personal note, the mackerel were my fiftieth species I've caught fishing AND I saw a guy catch a fish called a Longhorn Sculpin. I had no chance of catching one of those, they only eat bait off of the bottom and I was fishing with lures. Still, I saw a lifer. 

Longhorn Sculpin