Knocking em down (record early Least Bittern?)

We are entering that time of year where the number of possible county birds increases greatly. Instead of spending 2 weeks just working on Great Black-backed Gull or Long-eared Owl, I am now having to concentrate on any of 3-5 species, soon to be 10+. My current foci have been Black-crowned Night-Heron, Forster's Tern, and Northern Goshawk. The heron appears not to breed in Kent Co., and so must be scored as a migrant or post-breeding disperser. Both of these possibilities present difficulties, but there are several records for the county over the years. The window for this species appears to open up around April 10-15 based on past occurrences, and close by early to mid May. So I have been out listening and playing tapes at key wetland sites the past few evenings at dusk, so far without luck.

That changed last night. I joined Neil Gilbert and Jonathan Lautenbach for an evening tour of Chase Lake (privately owned and not accessible without permission). We were also interested in trying for American Bittern, a similarly rare migrant in Kent Co., not often recorded. But we were shocked when the first rarity we discovered was not either of these species. This came out of left field (the song is faint but turn the volume all the way up and listen carefully at 0:01, 0:05, 0:08, 0:12, and 0:35):

I didn't believe Jonathan when he called out "Least Bittern", but quickly was convinced by the bird itself, which sang repeatedly for a 10-15 minute period! Typical arrival dates, I had thought, were in the first week of May, or the final week of April at the earliest. I am still researching this, but the eBird chart for MI indicates no records prior to the final week of April, and I have been informed that Berrien Co.'s earliest record is around April 25! So it seems that any way you slice it this is a very early arrival. It was bizarre to observe snow and a Least Bittern in the same day!

A short time later we were treated to a flyby Night-Heron, which I wasn't willing to call to species. I couldn't make out much in the way of plumage (backlit, low light, etc.), nor did it vocalize, but it went right over our heads at about 30m height, and was not seen again. This was my 230th Kent Co. bird.

Finally, we did not have American Bittern despite much effort, but did have Sora and Virginia Rail, including one Sora which flew overhead about 20m height repeatedly (a first for all of us). It was an epic evening to experience!

White Wagtail at Pointe Mouillee

If only one could chose his/her location at the time of discovery of rarities... This time I found myself in Petoskey MI when I received the frantic call. Adam Byrne had discovered a White Wagtail almost 5 hours' drive to the south at Pointe Mouillee. And thus my detour home began; the 3 hour drive home turned into an epic 8.5 hour drive with a 4 hour stop for the bird. Fortunately, despite the miserable weather (at least 20-30 degrees colder than the shorts and tee-shirt weather of Petoskey yesterday morning), upon my arrival at Cell 3 around 4:50 PM the bird was immediately visible, though from very long range, perhaps 400m. The bird turned out to be one of the most skittish passerines I have ever encountered, flushing as a result of being approached by 'predators' over 200m away. The Killdeers weren't nearly as skittish as this bird was; at one point I had a Killdeer halfway between me and the Wagtail stay put as the Wagtail flushed. This, in combination with the wind, made for very difficult digiscoping conditions, but I was able to get these relatively decent shots as I gingerly approached the bird with the final group of birders late in the evening to probably about 150-200m at the closest.
Here are my two best video clips of the bird, taken when the wind had died down slightly.




I don't have time for a completely detailed post about the bird's identity, but after looking through "Pipits and Wagtails" by Alstrom and Mild, it is clear that this bird is either the ocularis race ('Swinhoe's' White Wagtail) or lugens race ('Black-backed Wagtail') of White Wagtail. Both forms are from e. Siberia, so it is interesting to note that this bird didn't cross the Atlantic to get here, but the Pacific and most of North America!

Had these former species (ie. White and Black-backed Wagtails) not been lumped many years ago, this bird would possibly have been an identification conundrum which could not be resolved ("Black-backed/White Wagtail"). Fortunately for us now, it is merely an issue of subspecies. Relevant traits for separating these two are complex and beyond my level of knowledge (this was a life bird for me- the first wagtail of any species I've seen). But in my quick reading of Alstrom and Mild at 2AM last night, rump and uppertail covert pattern appears to be an important trait: lugens showing a blackish lower rump and uppertail covert area and ocularis showing gray concolorous with the mantle extending all the way down to the base of the tail. My final photo in the series above seems to establish that the Mouillee bird possesses the latter condition, but there appears to be at least one caveat (as for most of the important traits!) allowing for a small percentage of lugens to show this as well. So, for the time being I am only willing to call this an ocluaris/lugens White Wagtail, and would love to have the input of birders more experienced than I.

Details of median coverts were simply not viewable due to the long distance of observation and skittish behavior, though I can confidently say there was a substantial amount of white in this tract. Greater coverts were thickly edged in white and had a substantial amount of dark on the inner webs, with perhaps some of this dark bleeding laterally into the outer web; at rest this tract appeared all or mostly white, like the white wing patch of male Bullock's Orioles in alternate plumage. We also judged the eyeline to be relatively even width in front of and behind the eye, a trait which may be suggestive of ocularis. In any event, please leave your comments on subspecific ID if you have anything to offer!

Short-eared Owl in flight

Ever since discovering several Short-eared Owls at the Gerald R. Ford International Airport in early December, several of us have returned to the airport throughout the winter, not only to score a county tick, but also to see how long the birds were spending on site. I have not had the chance to visit at dusk since December. That is, until 2 April, when I made sure to visit the s. Kraft access lot to check on the birds. My expectation was that wintering Short-eareds would likely leave their winter quarters by mid to late March (Long-eareds in s. MI leave on this time frame), and I wasn't really expecting to get the bird. However, right at dusk I was happily surprised to see at least 1 Short-eared patrolling low over the runways, straight out from the overlook. Birds such as this in low light are usually very difficult to photograph, but I have become more and more a proponent of video mode in such conditions, which does an admirable job of capturing the subject. Here is what I was able to capture of the 1 definite Short-eared I saw (I saw another Asio sp. too far to identify to species):

Youtube link

It will be interesting to see when these last few birds leave. (Aside: it should be mentioned that it is conceivable that the birds I saw on April 2nd were not of the wintering group, but were spring migrants which wintered further south and were stopping over on their northward migration, though I think this is less likely the explanation).

Riverside Park Red-necked Grebe- a caution

Everybody who has chased the Barrow's Goldeneye to date seems to have gotten it- which is great news and not at all a sure bet for March Barrow's in this state. The Red-necked Grebe at Riverside Park has been considerably tougher, though many are reporting it. This difficulty in finding the bird was further confounded today by the presence of an impostor Horned Grebe at the south boat launch.

The impostor looks very much like a Red-necked Grebe: but it is a transitional Horned Grebe with an unusually pronounced gray cheek patch and a slight reddish on the neck side, etc. At first myself and several others were convinced it was going to be the Red-necked, but inspection proved its bill lacked yellow, had the pale whitish tip, and was too small/short for Red-necked (no photos, sorry!). This bird was only about 300 yds north of the south boat launch from at least 8AM to 10AM. The real Red-necked was actually seen this morning at the same time at a different location (by Josh Kamp and Randy Vandermolen): at the middle boat launch (closed to car access) nearly 1 mile north of the south boat launch. Here is a map of these locations for clarification:Both Josh and Randy walked from the south lot all the way to the middle launch to see it, and it was tucked up under the far riverbank and not easy to see. At this location the bird is not visible even with scopes from the south lot. This bird has a long, yellow bill and lacks the obvious white coloration seen on the impostor. The best photos of the actual Red-necked I have seen are here .

Anyway, something to be cautious about should you chase the Red-necked!

Barrow's Goldeneye video

Checked on the bird again this morning, and was happy that many out of towners were able to see the bird. I was treated to my best looks of its visit at Canal Park, with low sunlight behind me and the bird only a couple hundred feet away. I was able to capture this neat sequence on video:

Youtube video hyperlink

New Barrow's Goldeneye pics plus map

Well, despite the bird not being present at Riverside Park at dawn this morning, it was refound a short distance to the south around 7:30 by Jon Van DeKopple, at Canal Park just south of Leonard St. on Monroe St. We raced over and were treated to much better looks and photography conditions than yesterday. It is moving around a bit between the Leonard St. and Newberry St. bridges. Here are today's shots:
What a stunner! Here is the location:And for kicks here are the 2 least terrible shots of the Red-necked Grebe, taken seconds before we discovered the Barrow's. Also this bird was seen again this morning around 9:15AM at the south parking lot at Riverside by Randy Vandermolen.

BARROW'S GOLDENEYE!!

While viewing our first ever Kent Co. Red-necked Grebe in rapidly fading light this evening, Curtis Dykstra and I were **blown away** to see a male Barrow's Goldeneye scoot into the same scope view as our grebe!! These birds are at Riverside Park at the south parking lot, located at Knapp and Monroe. This story is an epic one to be sure, but for lack of time at the moment, let me forego the story to address the ID issue which will be on people's minds. The goldeneye is not a hybrid or intergrade with Common, as evidenced by its facial crescent at least twice as tall as it is wide (markedly thin, even compared to some male BAGO I am familiar with in Montana where I lived for 4 years), coming to a sharp point above the eye. The scapulars consisted of half a dozen small, well-spaced spots. The black of the upperparts came down to the water's level at the side of the breast (the 'spur'). Here are the best photographs I could muster given the very poor light and heavy wind:
And here are the best videograbs I could get from my 5 videos I took (video mode way outperformed photo mode in the low light):




And finally, here is the best video clip I could muster. Blogger definitely downgrades the video quality, so I have also uploaded the video to Youtube here.