Well the second day of consecutive Sea Bird watching at Race Point Provincetown was really nice. I had not bird watched with anybody since the pandemic began, so, it was nice to bird with Keelin. I swung by Keelin's house at 4:30 and we made our way to race point -obviously we were both wearing our masks because of this stupid pandemic. We had one last stop before the Race, and that was at Dunkin’ Donuts to get coffee.
We arrived at Race Point proper at 5:45 AM. That is about 15 minutes before actual first light. I believe that time is called nautical light. We set up our scopes and almost immediately we had Manx Shearwater streaming by. I had explained to Keelin that if you put your spotting scope out over the Race in this pre-dawn Light, you get to see many more birds as they fly out of the bay. Identification of Manx and Sooty Shearwater are pretty straightforward, and, with a little practice, you can get to separate Great and Cory's just buy their flight style. Obviously, when jaegers come through, you need to get a good look to get the identity. And today we had some good looks in the predawn light of Parasitic Jaegers coming out of the bay early on.
The wind had been steady overnight from the northeast at 15 mph. It maintained 15 mph most of the observation period. Once the day lightened a little bit, we started picking out Northern Fulmar. The Fulmar show yesterday was pretty good. I tallied 38. This looked to be an even better day. Manx Shearwater work streaming by but nothing like it was the day before. After a good hour of birding, we were joined by Ted Bradford, Sebastian Jones, and Lauren Grimes. They’re all good people. Not full of them selves, they joke around a little bit, you know, the kind of folks I like to be with. A little bit later Peter and Kate came up the beach it was nice to see them birding together. They stayed apart from us down by the shoreline more towards Hatches Harbor.
The numbers of birds today was far less the number of birds yesterday. That is all OK. Species diversity was still excellent. Keelin was hoping to see Parasitic Jaeger, Leach's and Wilson's Storm-Petrel, Northern Fulmar, and Red Phalarope. Overall, we were successful in that regard. We had good views of Northern Fulmar and Parasitic Jaeger, but, Leach's were not inshore. I picked up the first one past the rips and unfortunately nobody was able to get on it. The second one was inside the rip and I was able to get everyone on it and Keelin got some great looks through my scope. The third Leach's was a distant bird that I couldn’t get anybody on either.
American pipits seem to be in good numbers this fall there were several that were flying overhead and we could hear their carts. That was a new bird for Keelin for the year. She was very excited. As we watched the seabird, show it was kind of cool to hear Keelin go "weeeeee" every time a Great Shearwater banked up high. She didn't even know she was doing it - it was really cute. She was such a little kid enjoying herself. The continuing first summer/second winter transitional Sabine's Gull made a brief appearance flying west to east towards Race Point North (some call it the "Cove" but the NPS labels it Race Point North (RPN)). Got some record shots of the beautiful gull that I hope to post. Other sightings of note were a Northern Harrier head off shore toward the northeast. I picked up a small passerine coming in off the ocean. The other folks went and looked for that well I stayed behind and continued scoping.
One of the funnier things from the morning besides Keelin going "weeeeee" was this classic comment. She said, "So what are these two little birds?" I got on them and they were a pair of fairly close Red-necked Phalarope heading east inside the rip. Very nice! We also had another Red-necked Phalarope on the water down by Peter and Kate. More trickled by during the day. By about 9 AM the morning flight had diminished to a trickle. Three hours of bird-watching with 45 minutes in the beginning being in twilight. It takes me three hour to ride down for three hours and birding. Definitely worth it. You could show up at Race Point at 1000 and think that there are no seabirds. Quite the opposite. They tend to leave the bay very early and then, towards the end of the day, they stream back into the bay. If you have the patience of a rock (like me), you stick around all day and catch both flights. The middle time is spend working hard to find what is hanging out or may be just a random bird passing by.
Around 930, Keelin spotted a golden-buffed Plover in front of us with Sanderling’s walking on the waterline. The bird was directly in front of us. It was aglow in gold. Keelin had been hoping to see an American Golden-Plover and she got very excited with this bird. I took some photos for her and was reserved in commenting on the identity of the bird. It lacked a capped appearance, had no noticeable supercilium, and the bill was honking thick. It flew off while I was doing something else and I went and confirmed that yes indeed it was a fresh plumaged juvenile Black-bellied Plover. Oh well can’t win them all. We packed the gear up and made a pass around Hatches Harbor. It was relatively quiet. Hatches Harbor has expanded so much in the past couple of years both in breadth and length. An isolated area of dune grass has started to grow towards the tip of the Hatches Harbor Cove. We did not have any luck with finding an American Golden-Plover at Hatches, so we made our way back along Pole Line Road (PLR). PLR is so beautiful in the fall with the sun behind us the glowing oranges and yellows and reds from the fall colors make for a pretty stunning and very picturesque ride back to the parking lot.
We decided to go down to the small open area at RPN just north of Race Point Beach (RPB). One of the very first birds I got on Wilson's Storm-Petrel! I was able to get Keelin on the bird in my spotting scope and she was very happy. She had seen one this year so she was very, very happy. There was also a second Wilson's there that she was not able to get on. The first one kept going back-and-forth in the rips provided great views.
So, I have this thing about prime numbers. It's odd and most probably an OCD thing. I love them. If I get to a bird total that is not a prime number, I continue birding at the end of the day until reach a prime number count. I was stuck at 64 Northern Fulmar. I picked up 65 and 66 and was continuing to scope out past the rips. That's when I picked up a distant Sabine's Gull coming straight at me from the northeast, well over a mile offshore. It kept coming towards us and in my mind was saying that it was odd to have the continuing bird be so far out at sea when it was pretty sight faithful to the inshore waters of RPN. It then banked to the west and I clear view of the dorsal pattern. It was a juvenile plumage Sabine's Gull. The creamy-brown head coloring extended down the neck and filled in the rest of the central dorsal area (the saddle, if you may). No break in the hind neck pattern like the continuing bird. A second Sabine's Gull! The bird started veering towards the west and Keelin yelled get a picture. Fail. I took my eye off the bird and could not locate it. It is really not easy to go from a 20x-50x spotting scope where things look close and switch to a 600mm (11x) camera lens. You lose birds that way. That's one of the many reasons I stopped eBird. If you weren't one of "them", you needed pictures of everything. You can get so obsessed with taking a record shot for some database that may use your data whereas you can just enjoy the sighting. If it gets close enough, take a pic! So be it.
Here is a list of hi-lites first number represents 9/21, second number in parentheses represents numbers from 9/20:
- Northern Fulmar - 67 (38) - I was able to observe my 67th Northern Fulmar
- Manx Shearwater - 196 (538)
- Great Shearwater - 40 (125)
- Cory's Shearwater - 25 (35 )
- Sooty Shearwater - 0 (1)
- Leach's Storm-Petrel - 3 (6)
- Wilson's Storm-Petrel - 2 (1)
- Red-necked Phalarope - 5 (33)
- Parasitic Jaeger - 8 (13)
- Sabines' Gull - 2 1s, 1w (1)
I was an absolutely awesome time with Keelin. Spending time with Ted, Lauren, and Sebastian was also very pleasant. Ted's a good egg.
Winds don't look great for the next week or so for birding the Race. Probably spend more time at Gooseberry (avoiding people) and taking morning flight shots of passerines re-orienting themselves at dawn as the fly back to the main land after being pushed out over the water. Challenging to see, ID, and photograph - perfect!
Thanks for reading.
Yours truly - Thanks Keelin!
