Shorebirder

From our trip to Utqiagvik last October, here's some Ross's Gull footage. Slo-mo is the better watch, but full speed will give you some idea of the conditions. Enjoy! - Nick

The last few years have been rather underwhelming for late winter/early spring gulling in Connecticut. Traditionally, this has been peak time for gull numbers and diversity, as the annual bloom of barnacle larvae on Long Island Sound draws thousands of gulls to our western and central coast. But the event has dwindled over recent years. For whatever reason, numbers have been down. I had theorized that perhaps the lack of cold and snow for a few winters in a row had somehow affected the event, either by altering the volume of the larval bloom or the timing of the gull migration. This past winter was the coldest locally in 11 years. That early spring of 2015 ended up being a particularly good one for gulls. Connecticut's first Kamchatka Gull appeared, as did many Little Gulls, including a high count of seven at Southport Beach. So, I was hoping this past winter's weather would lead to an uptick in spring gull activity. Unfortunately, that was not the case. The plankton event stay...

From the perspective of a North American birder, the island of Aruba, which lies adjacent to Curaçao and Bonaire and merely 15 miles from Venezuela, may not be the sexiest of island birding destinations. Why not? Well, perhaps the biggest draw of island birding is the high degree of endemism that one usually encounters. There are, sadly, no bird species that are endemic to Aruba. But arguably the second most appealing reason to get excited about island birding is the disproportionately high density of vagrants that might be found. Islands serve as terra firma oases surrounded by uninhabitable ocean. Birds that accidentally find themselves over water will take refuge anywhere, and islands present irresistible opportunities for much-needed rest and refueling. Aruba is well-located for vagrants, positioned to receive birds from multiple directions. Vagrants may be migratory species from North America, or they may stray from nearby mainland South America. I would also imagine that certain...

Winter birding can feel a bit static at times, especially in late January when birds have settled into their wintering grounds and spring migration has yet to begin. A big storm or drastic weather change can spice things up, though. I always enjoy birding after deep freezes or major snow events, as birds can be forced to move around, even if only locally. But even a minor change in position due to weather could reveal an interesting bird that was previously undiscovered. A rare goose or duck that was along a private stretch of river might be forced to more visible water. Or a vagrant sparrow that was wintering on the wrong side of a farm field could be pushed to a patch of dirt exposed by a snow plow. Last weekend's nor'easter dumped 1-2 feet of snow throughout southern New England and beyond. This was followed by the coldest air of the season, and that's saying something this year! We've enjoyed an "old school" winter for the first time in a while. So, given ...

The northernmost, and final, segment of the trip brought us to areas of desert, dry scrub, and acacia woodland, where a variety of Sahel specialties and regionally scarce species occur. These include Golden Nightjar (candidate for Bird of the Trip), Horus Swift, Little Gray Woodpecker, Sennar Penduline-Tit, Cricket Longtail, and Atlas Wheatear. behold, the Golden Nightjar Cricket Longtail Temminck's Courser Chestnut-bellied Sandgrouse Long-tailed Nightjar Common Hoopoe Little Gray Woodpecker Atlas Wheatear Sennar Penduline-Tit Horus Swift That's all she wrote! - NB