I’m not sure if I’m more surprised that a Nightingale-Thrush is in South Dakota or that someone is actually birding in South Dakota.

I kid because I love.

I arrived at Barrow, Alaska on the evening of October 5. Denny Hodsdon picked me up at the airport and said he had seen about 25 Ross’s Gulls earlier that day, a relief to hear. While I was mostly confident our timing was good—the Ross’s Gull migration here usually begins in the latter half of September—I had a nagging worry that maybe they’d be late this year.

The next morning, we started birding at the old runway beyond the old U. S. Naval Arctic Research Laboratory (the main building is now Ilisagvik College). Several whales had been harvested and then butchered at this site. The carcasses were stored in dumpsters here before transport to Point Barrow. We figured this was the most likely location for an Ivory Gull to appear. As we started birding, we began to notice several flocks of Ross’s Gulls flying fairly high, coming in from the Chukchi Sea and then flying east-northeastward across some of the inland lakes, presumably taking a shortcut to the Beaufort Sea. Most flocks had from 20 to 40 individuals, but one had about 100. By the end of the day, we had seen about 250.

This following day, we saw similar flocks overhead, though some Ross’s Gulls were seen flying over the sea and following the coastline as well, some fairly far offshore. One such flock, flying fairly quickly and low over the water, contained an adult Ivory Gull. A few Ross’s also stopped briefly on the frozen lake next to the runway. Though the passage had not yet approached the mega-flights recorded in some years, we saw about 300 Ross’s on October 7.

During my discussions with some of the local biologists, I learned that high winds bring the gulls close to shore, as these winds create breakers at the coast, and the gulls feed in the turbulent water. (The direction of the wind is apparently not critical, as wind from several directions can create breakers.)  Up to this point, the weather had been mild.

As luck would have it, we awoke to howling easterly winds and relatively large breakers on the morning of October 8. A few other birders had joined us this day, and as we were getting gas, a few flocks of Ross’s Gulls could be seen flying along the shoreline in the predawn light. We raced down the road to get ahead of a flock so the new arrivals could get their lifer looks at the gulls, then proceeded back to our usual spot at the old runway. Some other birders and biologists also soon arrived.

Ross’s Gulls began to pour by, flying right along the shoreline and feeding in the surf. Many were rocketing by in the high winds, making photography difficult. Some passed by no more than five feet above our heads. Over the next hour or so, my companions made three one-minute counts that indicated the gulls were passing at a rate over 7000 per hour. Of course, a more rigorous protocol should have been followed to obtain a more reliable estimate, but there were obviously thousands of Ross’s Gulls. For several hours, they flew by us at seemingly the same rate.

Later in the morning, there seemed to be fewer gulls, but they may have just been more spread out. We made a trip to the point in the afternoon, and Ross’s Gulls were still flying by the point in a continuous stream, though the point appeared to be a bottleneck. A group of about 500 were continuously in view, with apparently equal numbers flying into the west end and out of the east end of the flock. Given our counting methodology, we were not able to arrive at a reliable estimate of the number of gulls we saw that day, but it may well have been over 10,000, with a higher proportion of first-cycle Ross’s than we had seen in the previous two days.

The next day, winds had calmed again, and the gulls had resumed the behavior we witnessed during the earlier days of our visit, flying by at higher elevations in discrete flocks. Numbers may have been higher though, with about 200 seen in 20 minutes, but we departed that morning, so we don’t know if that rate continued throughout the day. It had been a spectacular experience.

There was a small fishing boat on the horizon, so we switched course to see if there were any birds around it.  There wasn’t, but in the course of a radio conversation, that boat’s captain said we weren’t in a good area for Short-taileds.  We knew we were in a good area — we were approaching Seguam Pass, a hotspot for them — so it was a nice ‘I told you so’ when we spotted the next Short-tailed within sight of that boat.

Over the next several hours, we encountered more Short-taileds.  As we passed through the west side of Seguam Pass, the Short-tailed count approached 10.

A little while later, a small pod of Orca along with many albatrosses were ahead of us.  As we approached, an adult Short-tailed Albatross suddenly appeared on our port side (and yes, I was sitting on the starboard side).  It flew ahead of us but then sat on the water.  It then started flying again and we lost it, but then I started chumming.  Soon we had about 20 Laysans and one Black-footed behind the boat.  Then Rich spotted the Short-tailed coming into the ship’s wake.  Some of us had all three species in one binocular field of view.  The Short-tailed never came close enough to grab some chum, but it did follow the boat for about 10 minutes.  It was certainly the bird of the day.

While looking up at it, Hermina Kramp and Rich MacIntosh spotted a snipe flying in overhead from behind.  It landed along the beach in front of us and then disappeared into the grass.  We flushed it back up to the road and then flushed it several more times before we could get a decent look at it, though each time it flew, it looked _very_ interesting…

 I put “first” in quotes in the title because there was a report of Solitary Snipe from St. Paul island a few years ago.  Even though it was photographed, the record was not accepted, though I hear it may be re-evaluated soon.

The winds are forecasted to remain from the north for the rest of our stay, but we have new hope for finding a few more birds before we have to leave.

After birding, we moved the boat over to Alexai Point.

Burrowing Owl at the Renton, WA post office; 19 Mar 2010

I’ve probably seen a few hundred Burrowing Owls, so how was this a lifer?  I’ve never seen one in a tree before.  One reason I missed the last one in King County was that it was in a tree too (at least while I was looking for it), and I never even thought about looking up.  It probably also didn’t help that it was on the opposite side of the field from where I was looking.  I’ve seen them perched on traffic signs, hay bales, irrigation pipes, and other posts, but never in a tree — until now.

That makes a 100% success rate for lapwings on our “official” tours: we’re two-for-two.  I say “official” because I’m not counting my scouting trip.  That one was lapwingless, and I have to say I will be really surprised if we get another lapwing on a future tour.

There have been several significant invasions of Northern Lapwings to the maritime provinces of Canada.  The largest was in December 1927 when hundreds, possibly thousands, were found, primarily in Newfoundland.  A smaller invasion occurred in January 1966.  Both invasions occurred when there was bad weather in western Europe and easterly winds over the North Atlantic.

Northern Lapwing seen on our Dec 2008 tour

The reason for the excitement is that the same conditions are occurring right now, plus Ireland has seen huge numbers of thrushes (Redwing, Fieldfare, Song Thrush) arriving, presumably from points east and perhaps continuing west, so Newfoundland’s birders are looking for more than just lapwings.  Jack Snipe is also on their minds.

I’m excited because our 2010 Newfoundland tour starts today (OK, the birding won’t actually begin until Saturday), so I’m hoping the participants will see a lapwing and possibly another European species or two.  St. John’s birder Jared Clark will be leading the tour, so I’ll be missing out on the fun this time around, but remarkably, we had a lapwing on the previous Newfoundland tour (photo above).  It was a great “bonus bird” for the trip list.