I had hoped to be able to share a good story about my
birding trip to Nantucket. It was one
of the best trips I have taken and I will remember it for a long time to
come.
I spent a decent part of the day on Friday, November 2 making
arrangements to go to Nantucket. Half of
the battle is getting there from the mainland in an efficient and
cost-effective manner. I reserved a
rental car on the island and secured passage for myself and a friend on the
6:30AM Hy-line Fast Ferry. My friend,
Jeff, and I emailed some other friends to see if we could get a 3rd
and 4th person to accompany us.
Having more sets of eyes looking for birds is helpful and it would be
nice to split the costs of the rental car and gas four ways, rather than
two. My friend, Jan, from Marblehead
wanted to join us, but we were unable to get a four person. The plan was for me to pick up Jan on my way
out of town and then we’d meet Jeff at a Park-N-Ride at 4:45AM near Hingham,
MA.
I awoke at 3AM (3:09AM, to be exact; 9 minutes is the length
of one snooze cycle) on Saturday and had enough time to get some coffee and
breakfast in my system. I had put most
of my gear in the truck the night before so I was essentially ready to go. I left the house at 3:45AM and was in
Marblehead at 4:00AM. I would’ve made it
much sooner if not for the red lights at every quiet intersection I hit en
route. Would it kill them to have some
flashing red and yellow lights? There
was no reason for anyone to be sitting at a stoplight for 2 minutes at this
time of morning. I picked up Jan and we
headed south down the coast. For the
first time in memory, there were no detours or tunnel closures overnight and we
made good time through Boston. Just
before we were to meet Jeff at the carpool location, he called me. He’d had some “alarm trouble,” which he
explained as the “snooze button kept getting hit.” He said we should continue on to Hyannis
without him as he wouldn’t be able to make the rendezvous -time at the Hingham
exit. He assured us that he would make
it in time to catch the ferry with us, despite still being in the city.
Jan and I got to the ferry terminal quite early and we still
had almost an hour before departure. We
got parked for $10 and went to the office so that Jan could purchase a
ticket. With spotting scopes,
binoculars, backpacks, and cameras in tow, it was clear that we were not going
to Nantucket for the day to work.
Another birder, Marian (who we didn’t know at the time), also had the
same gear and we quickly struck up a conversation about the birds on the island
and our strategies. About 15 minutes
before departure, Jeff showed up with time to spare.
I said, “You must’ve
been going like 80MPH to get here.”
Jeff replied with a smile, “some of the time.” It was clear after I worked through the math
in my head that eighty was the low end of the range of his morning’s driving
speeds.
Marian had been listening to us converse and inquired if she
could tag along since she didn’t have a rental car waiting on the island. We all agreed that was fine and I told her
that she was in for a quarter of the expenses which included the rental car,
gas, and the taxi fare to get to and from the rental car lot to the Nantucket
Ferry Terminal. She agreed. It was around this time that I realized I had
forgotten my driver’s license as it was in a different wallet back in
Salem. I asked Jeff if he’d be willing
to drive the rental as I was no longer going to be able to. He agreed and shortly thereafter we were
making the trek across the sound to Nantucket.
We were specifically targeting three different species of
birds on the island, all of which were likely displaced there by Hurricane
Sandy. We were searching for cave
swallows and brown pelicans, which had been pushed in from the south. The real reason we were taking the trip was
to find a pair of northern lapwings.
This species is exceedingly rare in North America and only occurs as a
vagrant from Eurasia. There are only 2
or 3 previous Massachusetts records, one of which was in 1927. These birds also tend to not stick
around. They are one-day wonders and
when found in the New England, they are often seen only by the person that
finds them. Fortunately, this pair had
been reliable at a location on Nantucket for the past several days. Both cave swallows and brown pelicans had
been reported yesterday on the island as well.
As we entered the harbor at Nantucket around 7:30AM, I
spotted a brown pelican flying from the roof of a building and struggling in
the wind to get some altitude. I yelled
out, “Brown Pelican!” We were all able
to see the bird and were very excited to get this bird as easily as we had. This would give us more time later searching
for other birds. It was a new Massachusetts
bird for Jan, Marian, and I. Jeff had
seen one a few months back in Boston, but it was no less exciting.
We hopped in a taxi to go to the car rental place at the airport. When we got there they told us we should have
let them know that we needed a ride to the rental place and they would’ve
picked us up or brought the car to the dock for free. Really?
When I ask for a rental car, do you think I have a ride? Why wouldn’t you offer that when I make the reservation? Since Jeff had to be the driver, he also had
to use his credit card for the damage deposit since the names on the credit
card and the primary driver had to be a match.
We were happy to have a Toyota Prius as our rental since we are all
environmentally conscious people. We
stowed our gear and headed for the lapwings, a few miles away at Hummock Pond.
Jan knows the island well and guided us to Hummock
Pond. Once there we had to turn off of
the paved, Hummock Pond Road and take a small dirt track to the viewing
area. If you’ve ever been in a Toyota
Prius you know they have a clearance of around two and a half inches. We dropped off the pavement onto the side-road,
which was essentially a two-track trail into a horse pasture. We heard the under-carriage scraping along
the pavement as we edged off and once the back tires dropped to the dirt, the
back end of the car hit the pavement with a “thud.” We made a mental note of the drop-off and
thought maybe we’d have to get some weight out of the car when we drove out
later. We made our way down the rough,
puddle-ridden road and were placed to see a local birder, Edie Ray, driving out
in her SUV. She gave us a “thumbs up” and
told us that the lapwings were still there.
For the next hour, the four of us were the only birders at Hummock Pond. We watched the lapwings at length as the
briefly foraged and walked around on the exposed point across the pond. Most of the time they just slept with their
heads tucked, but we were fortunate to see them moving around and showing-off
all of their field marks. The birds were
distant, maybe 500 yards away, but with our scopes we were able to see them
well, though taking photos of them was a challenge. Jeff and I both tried to take some
pictures. Jeff took some shots by
holding his iPhone up to the scope and I took a few by photographing the image
in my scope with my Pentax K10D. We
enjoyed the lapwings and all the other birds on and around the pond. There were lots of ducks, coots, and a huge
number (141) mute swans. The northern
lapwings were life birds for Jeff, Marian, and I. Jan had seen them in Europe previously, but
this was his first sighting in North America.
There were also at least two common moorhens on the pond, which was a
new Massachusetts bird for me. I had
gotten 3 new Massachusetts bird by 8:30AM, which is no small feat to accomplish
when you’ve been birding in Massachusetts as long as I have. The lapwings were number 401 in MA for Jeff,
and over 410 for Jan.
Around 9AM, other birders started to arrive and were not as
fortunate as we had been. Though they
were able to see the lapwings, the views continued to be distant and they were
often blocked from view by all the mute swans.
To add to the frustration, the birds were not being active. About 20 others were here now and everyone
was hoping for a better look at these MEGA rare vagrants. As the crowd continued to gather, a peregrine
falcon lanced in from out of nowhere and spooked all of the shorebirds on the
pond. The lapwings took flight with them
and Jeff was able to obtain some decent photos with his Canon 35MM. The lapwings didn’t re-land and winged their
way off into the distance to the west.
The speculation at the time was that they were gone for good, though
they did show up later in the afternoon and continued for 2 more days at
Hummock Pond. Most of the other birders
there were also interested in seeing a brown pelican and didn’t see one in the
harbor as we had. Another local birder,
the always-entertaining, Vern Laux, had heard that a brown pelican was being
seen at the Nantucket dump. Apparently
this bird was “distressed” in some way or another and was quite easy to find as
it walked around the dump. It was either injured, sick, or just weakened by the shock
of the cold and lack of food in this northern climate. The group decided to go look for this
individual and we decided to go as well.
We returned to the car and noticed that the back bumper appeared to be
flared-out and dislocated by our low-clearance event from earlier. At this juncture I was certain that Jeff was
wondering why he agreed to be the driver and use his credit card for the damage
deposit. Marian was probably pondering
if she was into this mess for a quarter of the cost. I was thinking about how to disguise the
damage or fix it. Jan appeared
worried. We cautiously backtracked to
the main road without incident and made our way to the off-putting location,
the Nantucket Landfill.
Arriving at the dump in our mildly-damaged Prius, we were
all wondering whether it was more unusual to see a pelican at the dump or
someone with “Vote Obama” pickets at the entrance. This avid supporter encouraged us as we drove
in, saying that the pelican was still there and he hoped we were able to see
it. The pelican had been hanging around
some of the buildings, but had recently moved to a location that we weren’t
able to view from the parking lot. The
two local birders, Edie and Vern, were able to secure permission for all of us
to enter the dump with our vehicles and drive to the site where the bird
currently was. It was hanging out in a
steep-sided water pond that was probably there to collect run-off.
Edie is a licensed wildlife rehabilitator and had decided to
try and capture the pelican. It would
not likely survive much longer in this climate and location without
intervention. Edie approached the side
of the embankment and shook a freshly-caught red snapper at the pelican. Everyone was amazed to see the pelican
respond by running up the embankment with its wings outstretched. It was clearly hungry and desperately wanted
the fish, but it stayed a few arm lengths away from Edie who was telling
everyone to stay back. Her plan was to
get the bird to grab the fish and when it did she’d pull the fish and bird
close enough to grab. It took several
minutes before the pelican determined that the risk was worth the reward and it
lunged for the fish. Unfortunately, it
got the fish and Edie was unable to catch the pelican. The pelican moved out of arms reach again and
sat with the fish in its pouch. It was
too weak to swallow the fish and it appeared that the pelican had it sideways
and was unable to maneuver the food to a position where it could swallow
it. Several of us decided to move closer
and try to surround the bird, but it was very close to the edge of the steep
bank and at the bottom was a quagmire.
If it got down there, we wouldn’t likely be able to catch it. As we approached, the pelican jumped into
flight and glided across the pond to the other side, where it continued to try
and swallow the fish and was very close to the edge of the muck.
She asked, “Do you really think so? If it gets in that stuff we’ll never catch
it.”
I said, “I’ve caught pelicans before. I think I can get it.”
She looked at me with curiously, “You’ve caught pelicans
before?”
“Yeah. American white
pelicans in Colorado. I helped band them
one time.”
“Alright,” she said.
“Go for it.”
My thinking was that if I could somehow get below the bird
on the steep bank and force it up the slope while someone then moved in on top
of the bank to block it, I’d be able to capture it. I didn’t think it would be able to get the
momentum to fly uphill and it would have to turn back downhill and towards me. I also knew it couldn’t outrun me. Edie handed me a towel to wrap around the
bird if I caught it and she offered me a net.
The net was way too small for capturing a pelican, but I decided it
could be a useful tool as the handle was about 6 feet long. As a crowd watched, I twisted my lucky
Nebraska Cornhuskers hat on backwards and set off down the embankment to the
edge of the muck and starting working my way around the pond towards the
bird. Edie and another helper started
off that way on top of the bank. The
pelican was resting about a third of the way up the bank from the bottom and I
somehow was able to get below it. The
duo on the top of the embankment was nearly in place and the pelican got
edgy. I decided to go for it and made a
quick dash towards the bird as it opened up its wings and turned downhill and
to my left to get airborne. I stretched
out the net and gently knocked the bird to the ground by placing the net on its
back. I dove forward and captured the pelican! In the distance I heard a few cheers. I stood up with the pelican and handed it off
to Edie, who high-fived me. I walked
proudly back to the car and was excited to have participated in that
event. It was a very personalized
experience with a rare vagrant to Massachusetts and I enjoyed it
thoroughly. The show was clearly over at
the dump and there would be no more birders that could count that particular
pelican on their accoutrement of lists.
That bird ceased to be “countable” when I got my arms around it. There was at least one other brown pelican on
the island and I hoped others would be able to see it. I didn’t want to be the guy that “f%*ing
captured the brown pelican just before I could get there to see it.”
Semipalmated Plover at Hummock Pond
Northern Parula
We some extra time before the 4:30PM Ferry departure so we
celebrated our day at the Brotherhood of Thieves, which is an amazing place if
you’re ever on Nantucket. http://www.brotherhoodofthieves.com/
The warm black bean
soup and cold Sierra Nevada beer hit the spot.
We toasted to good birds and a great day afield.
I’m happy to report that the brown pelican was at a wildlife
rehab center on Cape Cod later that day and doing well. It had no broken bones and wasn’t sick or
injured. It likely just needed food and
vitamins before it could be released, probably someplace closer to its home
range.
Sunset in Hyannis as the ferry returns us to the mainland
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