Ten essentials of the ultimate birthday birding expedition

1. A quest for an uncommon bird. In this case, a Connecticut Warbler. The ornithologist who first recorded the species was no doubt at the end of his rope trying to come up with yet another way to name a yellow warbler and just settled on the place where he saw it. Little did he know that it's barely ever seen in Connecticut. If he'd called it something more apt, like Thicket-skulking Warbler or Honking Great Big Ground-foraging Warbler, I probably wouldn't have been so keen to see it. There was just something about seeing a Connecticut Warbler in Connecticut. On my birthday.

No, I don't have a photo of a Connecticut Warbler -- because you know where this quest is heading, right? Instead, here is a Connecticut Warbler (top), Mourning Warbler, and MacGillivray's Warbler illustrated by Louis Agassiz Fuertes.

2. Bizarre directions. Turn left at the red toy truck. Keep following the river until you find a tree with chicken wire wrapped around the base, lying by the side of the trail. That kind of thing.

3. The right companion to share the expedition with. You need someone who will approach the quest with the requisite gravity.

Frank Gallo, birding companion extraordinaire

4. A sewage treatment plant. They call them water treatment plants now, but we all know what they are. And no birding birthday is complete without one.

5. High-tension power lines. These are a must on any birding expedition, really. The bizarre directions (see point 2) must include a reference to them, e.g., "You want to be on the other side of the power cut." Preferably they will be pulsing and throbbing and crackling in a way that makes you walk really, really quickly through that power cut.

6. A fleeting glance of bird that could be the bird you're looking for. On the way to your ultimate location (e.g., fallen log with chicken wire around base), you should get a very quick sighting of a bird that may fit the description of the rare bird -- or not. For instance, you might notice a gray hood and a yellow body but no other details. It could be a Connecticut Warbler. It could be a Mourning Warbler. It could be a Nashville Warbler. But you will never know, because it has disappeared into an overgrown thicket and will never be seen again by human eyes.

7. Several hours of staring at one spot. The spot should be densely vegetated, almost entirely with weeds. It could also be a slushy bog with an unidentifiable oily slick on top and an abandoned truck tire poking out. There is about a 99% chance that it won't be a picturesque meadow.

(Other) people had actually managed to see a Connecticut Warbler in there in previous days.

8. Cool random stuff that you see while staring at one spot for hours.

A cicada

A weird spiky fruit/gourd thing

A caterpillar

9. A temporary spike in your risk of a major cardiac event when your companion sees something yellow out of the corner of his eye. As your heart rhythm returns to normal, you realize it's only a Palm Warbler. But still, they are cute buggers, aren't they?

10. A sign from the heavens. Sure, you may still have never seen a Connecticut Warbler in Connecticut, but keep your eyes open. You just might see a heart-shaped cloud on the drive home...

Awwwwwww

I've seen a Snowy Owl!

The call goes out: a Snowy Owl at Stratford Point. Not much more than a 20-minute drive away. Grab binoculars, camera, car keys, jump in car. Frank Gallo gives me directions to this place I've been a million times before but of course can't remember how to get to. He's giving exceptionally good directions, but to me it sounds like: words, words, diner, turn left, words, words, airport, other words, more words -- what is wrong with me? Anyone who gives me directions may as well be talking in Abyssinian. I know that even once I've plugged the street address into the GPS, I will still get lost. Now why is everyone suddenly obeying the speed limit? It's un-American. Why won't that giant SUV get out of the overtaking lane? What the hell is that guy in the giant Cadillac tank-boat-thing with Tennessee license plates actually doing? Certainly not driving. I take a wrong turn. Yes, even with the GPS. Somehow I get there. Step out of car. Cell phone falls out of pocket onto pavement, falls into more pieces than I realized a cell phone consisted of. The bird is astonishing. It's just sitting there, 20 yards away from a knot of birders, napping, occasionally opening its eyes and swiveling its head, absorbing the warmth of the rocks. I get that dissociated feeling you get when you're in the middle of an accident that's unspooling right before your eyes: It's happening, yes, it's happening, but somehow it's not happening; you're registering it all from a distance. All this time -- more than three decades -- and here I am, face to face with this creature. It's head is so rounded, so boofy -- somehow I only fully notice this now, being able to watch it turn that head. And there are barely perceptible ear tufts, fluffing up now and then in the wind, which always blows cold and hard out at Stratford Point. Thank you, Scott Kruitbosch, for finding this beauty today, and Frank Mantlik, for setting up his scope so I could get a good look!

Gray-hooded Gull, aka Most Bizarre Birding Excursion Ever

Forget bucolic backdrops and a nice ride in the country for a spot of birding. Why do that when you can go see a super-rare bird . . . on the boardwalk at Coney Island, amid tattoos and thongs, beach umbrellas and giant pina coladas, and signs boasting "Live Freaks, Cold Beers"?

Gray-hooded Gull, Coney Island, NY, July 30, 2011

The Gray-headed Gull that has been hanging around Coney Island recently is a truly beautiful gull--with its icy, translucent eye and those red-licorice legs. When it flies, the bright flashes of white in its forewings make it stand out from the many Laughing Gulls that call Coney Island home. And this bird is sassy. I guess it would have to be gutsy to have somehow made its way here from South America. And now it has really made itself at home on the boardwalk. Twice we watched it chase a hapless Laughing Gull off the top of a lamp-post, and no other bird was getting near it once it perched on there.

Laughing Gull that was soon not laughing, as it was about to be evicted from its lamp-post

Patriotic Laughing Gull

I don't chase birds all that often, but when I do, I never expect that the bird will just fly right at me. Yet that's exactly what it did. Out of the flocks of Laughing Gulls swirling above the beach umbrellas and gold bikinis, the Gray-Hooded Gull peeled off and came and sat on the lamp-post we were standing next to. I was so shocked, I could hardly turn the camera on or remember how to use it. If anything, the bird seemed curious, although no doubt it was probably just calculating whether we had any french fries.

The fact that we were looking at such an extraordinary rarity (only one has ever been recorded in the United States before this) was made all the more surreal by the surroundings.

That's Frank Gallo getting some beautiful shots of the bird after it landed on the lamp-post.

It chose lucky lamp-post number 13 to perch on. Looks like it wasn't the first gull to have done so.

Flight shot showing the glowing white forewings (copyright Frank Gallo)

There are a lot of remarkable things about this bird, but for me it is those icy eyes. When the bird moved to perch on a roof next to other gulls, the lightness of its eyes was so distinctive.

Laughing Gull (in molt), Gray-hooded Gull, Great Black-backed Gull -- on the roof of the public toilet (really, this was the most pristine, scenic birdwatching experience ever)

Gray-hooded Gull on left, with Laughing Gulls

We celebrated with freshly squeezed lemonade.

Though it was hard to resist the tastefully presented pina coladas in naked-lady glasses.

Thank you, Coney Island, for your super-rare gull, your burlesque girls, guys with snakes wrapped around their necks, and girls with Amazon parrots on their shoulders.

Fly away

Do you ever have the urge
to fly away from yourself?
To leave just a memory trace of feathers
against a bright blue sky.
To fly way up high,
to Siberia,
to Tasmania,
to a world that isn't your own.
Just for a time, not forever.
Like the rogue bird that separates from the flock
and flies miles from its range,
puzzling everyone,
defying explanation.

I do.

The White-tailed Kite that strayed to Connecticut for much of the summer
and has now been spotted in New Jersey, still far from where it's usually found.
Photo copyright Frank Gallo.

The Day of the White-tailed Kite

I just circled today's date in the calendar and named it The Day of the White-tailed Kite. This truly amazing bird was spotted at least a thousand miles from home, in Stratford Point -- the first documented sighting in Connecticut, and one of the only times it's been seen in all of New England. Who knows how or why this bird arrived, or how long it will stay -- it's normally found in Florida and the Gulf states, or on the West Coast and in some Southwestern states. It perched in a tree in the meadow, flew sorties around the point, and hovered searching for mammal snacks, looking to my eyes like some kind of predator angel.

These photos are by Frank Gallo, director of the Connecticut Audubon Society's Coastal Center at Milford Point -- a man who runs like the wind when there is a rare bird to be snapped.

The calls went out, the crowd soon gathered.