On September 12, 2014 a Whiskered Tern was identified at Cape May, New Jersey.  The Rare Bird Alerts were immediately filled with reports of this sighting, because it is only the third time that a Whiskered Tern has been recorded in North America.  It is classified as an ABA Code 5, the rarest of the ABA classifications.  The prior sightings, both in the Cape May area, occurred in the 1990s.

Barbara and I flew to Philadelphia and drove to Cape May on Wednesday, September 17.  I hoped to add the Whiskered Tern to my North American List, as species number 735.  It was one of the easiest excursions to find a rare bird that I have ever experienced.  As we drove into the parking lot near the Cape May Lighthouse,

we saw dozens of observers with scopes and binoculars lined up on the Hawk Watch platform at the north end of the parking lot.  We joined the lineup and immediately saw the Whiskered Tern snatching insects from the surface of Bunker Pond as it engaged in swift, acrobatic flight.

It soon disappeared toward the Atlantic Ocean and we walked a short distance to the beach, hoping to re-find it.  It was there and Barbara was able to photograph it among the other terns and gulls resting on the sand.

After a few minutes the tern took off to return to the pond to feast on more insects.

The City of Ouray, Colorado bought the area now called Box Canyon Park a long time ago.  Thanks to the City of Ouray.  The Park is a little jewel.  Upon entering Box Canyon, you will be awed by the sound of roaring water as the force of thousands of gallons per minute ricochet off a mix of rugged crags and smoothly eroded pre-Cambrian rock, rushing eighty feet to the canyon’s floor.

It also happens to be home to a colony of Black Swifts, in recent years, perhaps only 6 or 7 nesting pairs.  The Park handout features a picture of a Black Swift on the cover, with the brief notation: “Summer home of the beautiful & rare Black Swift.”

Not only is the Park a jewel, and the Black Swifts a major attraction for birders, but Ouray (pronounced “Youray”), is a lovely mountain village and worth a summer visit for its own beauty.

I learned of the presence of Black Swifts at Ouray from an article in the September-October 2012 issue of Audubon Magazine, written by Alisa Opar.  Anyone seeking information about the amazing Black Swift (its airspeeds can exceed 100 miles per hour, and it may remain in the air permanently except for the time spent nesting and raising young), should read that article.

At Ouray, Sue Hirshman has dedicated 18 years of her life to recording the daily activities of the Black Swifts who nest at Box Canyon Falls.  She graciously agreed to meet us at the site on June 23, to help us locate the nests, eggs and hopefully, swifts, who were just beginning their reproduction cycle.  I was, to re-coin an old phrase, “blown away” by the close-up views of the nesting Black Swifts, their nests and their eggs, at unexpectedly close range.

I had expected to find the Black Swifts at Ouray, but not to see them so well.  Uniquely among North American swifts, the Black Swifts lay only a single egg.  If that nest fails early, they may lay a second egg, but the long growing time (45 days) required to reach maturity may endanger late born swifts because of the arrival of cold weather in October.

My North American Life List grew to 733 with the addition of the Black Swifts.  That leaves only 4 more ABA code 2 birds to add to my list:  Sooty Grouse, Whiskered Auklet, Mottled Petrel and McKay’s Bunting (the latter 3 probably only to be found in Alaska or its waters).  I will be working on this during the balance of this year.

Two of the seven ABA Code 2 birds that I have not seen in North America have been the subjects of recent changes of status under the American Ornithological classification system.  Nutmeg Mannikins are not native to North America, but have been around in southern California for a long time.  Last year they were recognized as a viable population and given recognition by the ABA.  At about the same time the species known as Xantus’s Murrelet, was split into two species, Scripp’s Murrelet and Guadaloupe Murrelet.  Scripp’s Murrrelet was designated as an ABA Code 2 and Guadaloupe Murrelet was designated as an ABA Code 3.  Poor old John Xantus (1825-1894) thereby lost by the stroke of a keyboard one of his only two namesakes in the bird world.  I wouldn’t be surprised to see the other one, Xantus’s Hummingbird, succumb to a similar fate if his reputation is not redeemed before that happens.

The Nutmeg Mannikins were easy to find in Tecolote Canyon, on the north side of San Diego.  In fact, there must have been at least 30 of them in the flock that flitted about the stream bed near the entrance to the Canyon.  I missed them on my way in but Chris, a local birder, figured out what I was looking for and sent me back to the gate area, where I enjoyed watching the noisy flock for a half hour or so.   Number 731 on my North American list and leaving 6 on my target class of Code 2 birds.

At 6:30 the next morning I departed from Port Loma on the Grande with a group of about 50 birders, destined to the 30 Mile Bank over a 12 hour excursion.   This pelagic outing, sponsored by SOCAL, is an annual event and attracts many local birders as well as a few of us from greater distances.  Paul Lehman was the lead guide on the trip and did a fine job of keeping us all informed of not only the birds, but the other natural objects observed along the way.  He informed me that to see Scripp’s Murrelets on this trip was far from a sure bet, because most of them had moved out of the area by the end of May.  So, it was with great relief and pleasure that about mid-afternoon, 2 Scripp’s Murrelets appeared alongside our boat and gave an unusual opportunity for close-up observation and photography.  Many of the folks on the boat were photographers, and one, Doug Galasko, sent me two photos of the Murrelets with permission to use them on this blog.

The Scripp’s Murrelets became number 732 on my North American Life list, and reduced the number of Code 2 birds that I have yet to see to 5.  I am hoping to make a clean sweep of the Code 2s within the next year.  Three of them will probably mean another trip to Alaska (Whiskered Auklet and Mottled Petrel in the Aleutians and, in Nome in winter, McKay’s Buntings).  The other 2, Black Swifts and Sooty Grouse remain a challenge for me but should be found somewhere in the western part of the lower 48.

Doug Galasco also sent me a photo of the somewhat uncommon (in North America) Brown Booby that we saw from the Grande.

The same lady who directed me to the Nutmeg Mannikins in Tecolote Canyon, also suggested that I go to the Bird and Butterfly Garden south of Imperial Beach to see the Black-throated Magpie-jays that have been seen regularly in that vicinity.  These are not recognized by the ABA, as there is evidence that they are escapees from pet status and may not have established a viable reproducing wild population here.  I was unable to make connections to get back to Iowa on Sunday, the 8^th so I drove down to the southwest corner of the United States to look for the Magpie-jays.  I missed the turn and drove on to Border Field State Park near Tijuana, Mexico, but on the U.S. side.  The gate was closed, but I met a fellow who was planning to hike up to the end of the trail, so we hiked it together.  He took my picture by the fence between the U.S. and Mexico.

I walked back to my car and found the Bird and Butterfly Garden where, later in the day, I had the pleasure of observing a flock of 5 or 6 of the Long-tailed Magpie-jays.  I took some pictures on my phone, but none of them turned out very well.

I was in Nome June 2-4 trying to get a good look at one of my 8 remaining unseen ABA Code 2 birds, the lovely Bluethroat.  Bluethroats are found primarily in Asia and Europe, but western Alaska sees a fair number of breeders there during the brief spring and summer.  I have seen Bluethroats in India, but never in North America.  Two prior visits to Nome late in June had failed to produce a view, although other birds were plentiful.  This trip was a success, producing number 730 for my North American count.

Nome in early June, at least this early June, was crowded with birders and fisheries people, who were having their annual convention there.  I was lucky to find a vehicle to rent and a room to stay in. (Phone calls a few days before my arrival indicated everything was taken).   A local tour guide, Richard Benville, whom I have worked with in the past when I was in Nome, was extremely helpful on both counts, and with his help I was able to rent an F-150 and drive where I wished, and to sleep in nice quarters, one night at the Nugget and one night at the relatively new Dredge 7.

My top priority, of course, was to see Bluethroats.  On the morning of the third I started driving the Kougarok road. The weather was cool and foggy.   At mile 22.8, I spotted a Bluethroat male, perching up on a small bush and was able to scope it for a few seconds before it dove into the underbrush.  Soon it flew up, accompanied by what I believe was a female Bluethroat, and displayed briefly in the air before again disappearing.  Continuing along the road, just before the bridge over the Grand Central River, my luck improved even more when a Bluethroat male made its way along the edge of the road, and was most cooperative in staying visible for quite a long time.  The bird is even more beautiful than the pictures that I have seen would have led me to believe.  I did not take pictures, but anyone wishing to see pictures of Bluethroats can do so by Googling “Bluethroat” and going to Wikipedia, which also contains a nice summary of its ornithological status.

On the evening of May 24 and again on the evening of May 25 I heard and was able to identify by hearing one, and possibly two, Buff-collared Nightjars (ABA Code 3) at the base of the entrance to Madera Canyon near dispersed campsite number 1.  From 7:45 until at least 8:00 p.m. the bird(s) called repeatedly from the hillside just south of Proctor Road.  I was not able to see the bird, or at least if I did see it briefly in low-flight, I was unable to identify it other than by song.  The song, however, is unique and distinctive and I will add it to my North American Life List as number 728.  It joins the Black Rail as one of my two “heard only” birds.  Close enough.

Early in the morning of May 25 I was on the Anza Trail near Tubac  in a second effort to locate the Sinaloa Wren (currently an ABA Code 5, but I am betting it moves to Code 4 based on the frequency with which it is being seen in the past two years) that had been seen there throughout much of the spring, but had not been reported in recent days.  My patience sitting for about 2 hours on a fallen tree trunk near the power line cut on the trail was ultimately rewarded by a fabulous view of the wren as it fluttered up from the underbrush within a few feet of me in pursuit of a small moth or butterfly.  Although there is a possibility that the bird I saw was a Bewick’s wren, I am satisfied that it was the Sinaloa Wren because of the brightness of the brown coloration and the eye-stripe, both of which appeared to me to be more extensive than what I have seen on Bewick’s Wrens (of the southwest eremophilus race, or subspecies), and finally, of course, the location.  There was no “tail-wagging” behavior.  The bird was silent so I did not have the advantage of that in making my identification.  I am certain enough to include it as 729 on my Life List.

Later that week I went to Washington State for several purposes, one of which was to try to find a Sooty Grouse.  If seen, this would reduce my unseen ABA Code 4s to 7, but in spite of hours spent on and near Hurricane Ridge in the Olympics, I neither heard nor saw a Sooty Grouse.  This bird is becoming my number 1 nemesis bird.  If anyone reading this blog knows where I can find them, let me know.

If it seems from this report that I must get bored spending so much time not finding the birds I am looking for, that would be far from the truth.  It is pure pleasure to spend hours in pristine areas enjoying the sights, sounds and feelings of the natural world.  That alone is sufficient reward for the effort involved.  A welcome bonus is the occasional exchange of greetings and thoughts with folks, such as Carol on the Anza trail, who share my love of nature.

I did some homework on my ABA list of North American Birds soon after I tallied number 725.  I found that I have seen all of the approximately 490 Code 1 birds, and all but 10 of the approximately 165 ABA Code 2 birds. The next challenge was not long in forming in my brain:  top priority for me in 2014 is to see the remaining Code 2 birds, namely, Mottled Petrel, Sooty Grouse, Purple Swamphen, Scripps’s Murrelet, Whiskered Auklet, Mangrove Cuckoo, Black Swift, Bluethroat, McKay’s Bunting and Nutmeg Mannakin.

The only place to find Purple Swamphens and Mangrove Cuckoos is Florida, and the best time for the Cuckoo, is springtime.  I decided to make them my first targets.  I contacted Chris Newton, an accomplished Florida birder and photographer, to see if he would like to join me to help me find them.  He readily agreed, and with his invaluable help, we located both of my target birds.  The photos included in this blog were taken by Chris and are used with his permission.

I flew into Orlando and picked Chris up at his home in Kissimee and we drove to Green Cay Wetlands and Nature Center near Palm Beach.  What a fine place this is.  The wetlands are quite extensive and are unusually accessible by virtue of the impressively long board walk that has been constructed throughout.  We searched a long time before finally locating a Purple Swamphen hiding in the tall grass.

A few looks at its head were quite unsatisfactory, but after a while, though at a distance, the bird decided to fly to another area, Chris was able to photograph it, and I was able to follow its flight in my bins as it flew over the open water.  The legs were not as red as I expected, so it was probably a youngster.  The next day we saw an adult Purple Swamphen flying across some water.

Among the interesting sights along the boardwalk was that of a Black-necked Stilt guarding its clearly exposed nest with 4 brownish eggs, vigorously harassing an approaching and hugely larger Great Egret.  She (or he) was joined by several other Stilts as they successfully diverted the Egret from the nest.  Life is perilous in the swamp.  A few Alligators glided through the open water.  Common Gallinules were common, and many of them had chicks.

A young Least Bittern clung to the reeds and seemed oblivious of our presence on the nearby boardwalk.

Target number 1 was in the bag so we decided to get a jump on tomorrow’s effort to find a Mangrove Cuckoo.  We drove on south toward and past Miami and explored 2 or 3 likely sites, with no success.  As darkness descended, we decided to call it a day, seek shelter and sustenance, and get an early start in the morning.  That we did, and by 7:00 a.m. the next morning we were searching the area around Black Point Marina near Miami.  We did not have to wait long before a very vocal Mangrove Cuckoo made its appearance and was most cooperative in selecting resting sites that allowed for decent photography.

Having notched numbers 726 and 727 in my North American Life List, we began the long trek back to Kissimee and Orlando, stopping at a few bird-friendly locations on the way.  First stop was at Pine-tree Park in Miami-Dade where a rare Bahama Mockingbird had been seen regularly in recent days.  As predicted, it was easily located and quite oblivious of the activity around it.  This bird, my second Bahama Mockingbird in the last month, is quite drab compared to the one I saw at Key West, and has a malformed upper mandible.

We drove on north to see if we could get a better look at some more Purple Swamphens.  We stopped at the City Furniture Pond near Tamarac in Broward County and were soon rewarded with not one, but two Purple Gallinules, including this one foraging in the reeds.

Mission accomplished, I returned home to plan my next foray.  I will divert a bit from my primary objective of finding Code 2 birds, in order to try to see the Buff-collared Nightjars (Code 3) recently seen in Arizona [with another attempt at Sinaloa Wren (a Code 5), this time in Huachuca Canyon rather than the one seen earlier this year in Tubac], from whence I will go up to Washington to try again for a Sooty Grouse, (one of my now remaining 8  Code 2 birds) this time looking in the Hurricane Ridge area.

From age 65 on to my present age of 80 I have taken up the hobby of birding on a serious basis, although birds have always been of interest to me.  When I became serious I went back and checked off about 400 species that I had identified in my “youth”.  I then decided to strive for a life list of 500 birds.  Well, that has long been surpassed during my birding efforts over the last 15 or so years, and a few years ago I said to myself, if I ever get to 725 I will be satisfied.  Today I did (see # 725), but of course, I am not (satisfied).

The North American Rare Bird Alert system (NARBA) has reported on two different Garganeys being seen in widely separated parts of the country:  Vermont and Wisconsin.   National Geographic’s Field Guide to the Birds of North America (Third Edition) describes this duck as “an Old World species;  a regular migrant on the western Aleutians; very rare on the Pribilofs and in Pacific states, and “casual” elsewhere in North America”.

My dog-eared, tattered and heavily annotated companion in the field is the National Geographic Third Edition Guide, referenced above, now outdated.  I also maintain a cross-check at home, The National Audubon Society sponsored Sibley Guide to Birds.  National Geographic purports to include (1) all species known to breed in North America-defined as the land extending northward from the northern border of Mexico, plus adjacent islands and seas within about two hundred miles of the coast; (2) species that breed elsewhere but are seen here when they spend the winter here or pass through on regular migration routes; and (3), accidental visitors seen here only when they wander off course or are blown in by storms if they have been seen at least 3 times in the past two decades or five times in the century (plus a very few that are expected to meet that standard). Sibley’s Guide, published in 2000, is more selective, including, generally, species that occur regularly within the area including most rare but regular visitors, i.e., loosely defined as those species recorded 10 or more times in the last 25 years.

That is probably more information than most readers want, but it is prefatory to my identification today of my 40^th North American duck: the Wisconsin based Garganey, hanging out with some Blue-winged Teal two miles north of the Crex Meadows Wildlife Visitors’ Center, along Wisconsin  County Road F.

Sibley shows only 39 duck species in his work; National Geographic shows 45.  Both contain the Garganey, an ABA Code 3 bird.  So, I hereby claim a sweep of the Sibley ducks, and number 40 on National Geographic’s list of 45.  My missing 5 include two species that I have never seen anywhere:  Smew and Baikal Teal (neither of which Sibley mentions); and 3 that I have seen in far away countries but never in North America: Common Pochard, Spot-billed Duck and White-winged Pintail, (none of which Sibley mentions).  The 6^th duck omitted by Sibley but which I have seen in North America is the Falcated Duck that I saw in California and reported on in one of my prior blogs.

Barbara had to stay home and mow the lawn today, taking advantage of our one dry day in weeks, so I don’t have any photos of my Garganey to grace this blog.  Anyone interested can Google “Garganey” and see what a distinctive bird the male of the species is.

A few weeks ago I saw a Mexican Whip-poor-will in Arizona and reported it as my 720^th North American Life Bird.  Later, I found out that late in 2013 there was a split of one of my prior sightings, Sage Sparrows, into two species, Bell’s Sparrow and Sagebrush Sparrow.  I checked my records and found out that I had seen both of them, Bell’s near Hollister, California in 2004 and Sagebrush in western Arizona a few years later.  Consequently I am assigning number 721 to Sagebrush Sparrow, and thus accounting for the jump from 720 to 722.

Number 722 was the lone Bahama Mockingbird, (ABA Code 4) which has been seen for a week or two around Fort Zachary Taylor State Park at the south end of Key West, Florida. We spent a very hot afternoon searching for it, following up on all the distracting Northern Mockingbird songs.

We finally found the Bahama Mockingbird to the northwest of the Fort, feeding from a berry tree that it refused to leave, but in which it was difficult to photograph.

He (or she) was very cooperative in every other respect, allowing us to approach very near for as long as we wished.

We left immediately to drive north on the Keys to the Marathon Airport, the best spot in Florida, reportedly, to find Antillean Nighthawks (ABA Code 2).  We looked at the south end of the airport with no luck.  As dusk approached, we drove around to the north side.  Antillean Nighthawks were just taking to the air over the airport with their distinctive “pitty-pit-pit-pit” calls.  They cavorted aerially within yards of us as we stood in the parking lot at the north end of the airport, near the Air Museum and the helicopter ride concession.  One pair showed us their distinctive, elongated white wing-bands as they flew low and directly over us.  We couldn’t manage to photograph them because of darkness and their constant and rapid aerial motion.  This capped a most successful day as I chalked up Lifer number 723.  We stayed overnight at the Marathon Holiday Inn Express, a very pricey lodging, and enjoyed a delicious dinner of Yellowtail and chips and a local beer at the Tarpon Creek Bar and Grill just a few steps from the Motel.

The next morning we returned to Key West to catch a plane to Tampa, where I would concentrate on finding Budgerigars (ABA Code 3) and Nanday Parakeets (ABA Code 2).  From Tampa, we drove north to the area near Hernando Beach where the quickly disappearing Budgerigars had been reported seen a year or so ago.  In spite of our best efforts driving through the neighborhood, we did not locate any of these lovely little exotics.  As the day grew short we decided to abandon the effort and drive to Walter Fuller Park in St. Petersburg to try for Nanday Parakeets.  The drive was dreadful; traffic was heavy, and red-lit traffic lights refused to turn green.  We finally arrived at Fuller Park and walked all the way around and through the park, which is very nice, with no luck.  We decided this was not our day, so we would find a room and a restaurant in preparation for our long drive the next day to try to find our fifth target bird, the recently added ABA bird, the introduced Purple Swamphen (ABA Code 2).  As we left the Park, we made a wrong turn and when we discovered we were going the wrong way, I pulled into a little driveway to turn around.  Directly above the car perched on a wire was a Nanday Parakeet in full view, displaying its beautiful green, blue, red and black colors from all angles as it turned around and around.  The day was not lost, as the Nanday Parakeet became my 724^th Lifer.

I do not expect to have the pleasure of making many more 3-lifer trips.  Elated I was.

We decided to get a head start on our three hour drive to a wetland area near Clewiston, Florida, where Purple Swamphens had been seen.  An hour or so later we stopped at a motel and were told that they were full, and we better go back to Tampa if we expected to find any vacancies that night.  It seems that the Indian Bollywood awards were a great attraction in south and central Florida, and all the motel rooms in the area had been taken up for that event.  Tired and frustrated, we turned around and went back to Tampa, where the clerk at the local Hampton Inn had kindly called ahead and made reservations for us.  We arrived, of course, late and hungry.  A dinner at Red Lobster restored our spirits.

We got a late start Monday morning and arrived at the wetland (Hendry County Stormwater Treatment Area 5) early afternoon.  It was closed, except to foot traffic.  We loaded up our water and started walking the levees, I lugging my scope and tripod, sweating all the way.  The wetland held lots of birds, including many easily confused (with Purple Swamphen) Common Gallinules.  Among the more interesting creatures were the Alligators alongside us as we walked the levee,

and nearly motionless little Swamp Rabbit.

We struck out on the Purple Swamphen, however, and returned to our car several hours later, thirsty and exhausted, and made the long trip back to Tampa to catch a plane for home the next morning.

The driver at the motel near the airport in Tampa suggested that the Cheesecake Factory would be open late on Sunday night and that it was very close by.  We went there, sat outside on a beautiful Florida spring night, and watched the interesting people arriving and departing from the nightspot next door. Our server, Patrick, did a great job and the food was outstanding, so we lingered until midnight, knowing that we did not need to have an early start on the morrow because all the early Delta flights were overbooked. After a long and stressful day at the airport we felt lucky to finally find a flight on Southwest, directly from Tampa to Chicago and Des Moines, where we arrived at nearly the same time as if our original plan to return by Delta through Atlanta had materialized.