double lifer day 🎉 purple sandpiper (Calidris maritima) and razorbill (Alca torda), and managed to get (potato quality, lol) digiscoped pics of both! I’ve now been on the east coast long enough to have knocked out all the low-hanging fruit lifers and am starting to have to actually strategically search for each new one, so this was neat.
$598.99 $ Vanguard Endeavor XF 20-60x80 Spotting Scope (Angled Viewing) https://nzdepot.co.nz/product/vanguard-endeavor-xf-20-60x80-spotting-scope-angled-viewing/?feed_id=126811&_unique_id=6552020e183a2 Features: Vanguard Endeavor XF 20-60×80 Spotting Scope (Angled Viewing) The Endeavor XF spotting scope boasts excellent optical viewing for nature enthusiasts and hunters. – High light transmission rate – Rubber armored magnesium body – Large focus wheel for easy use, even with gloves – 100% waterproof & fogproof – Fully multi-coated optics and phase-coated BaK4 prism Compatible digiscoping adaptor PA-202 The Endeavor XF spotting scope boasts excellent optical viewing for nature enthusiasts and hunters. It features a rubber armored magnesium body and is waterproof submersible, nitrogen filled and fog proof. The lenses are all fully multi-coated to ensure optimum light […] #
Today, February 16, 2023 reached 60 degrees out so I was determined to get out and do some birding for a lunch break. When the above rare bird alert came in this morning for a Eurasian Wigeon seen at Westport’s Compo beach, 10-15 minutes from my office, I decided that was the move.
You know when you were a kid and would learn a new word and suddenly see and hear it everywhere? That’s what it felt like at Compo beach for me with the absolute abundance of seabirds in every direction. Immediately I spied a dozen long tailed ducks, an enormous gang of brants, groups of male and female buffleheads all of which I’ve only just “id’d” for the first time this winter… not to mention mergansers, mallards, Canada geese, crows, variety of gulls… a month ago I don’t know if I would have even noticed all the different duck and geese like birds.
Most of these were seen just from right outside my car where I parked. I id’d a number of red-breasted mergansers which I am pretty sure was a first for me. Notable for there very silly spiked hairdo and then found my way to the area the wigeon was spotted earlier in the day, by the Marina part of the beach. On my way there I spotted what proved to be my first confirmed Greater Scaup and followed him over to a group of male and female greater scaup. Having just recently id’d a massive flotilla of Lesser Scaup far out in the ocean with my scope, and discovered a whole world of struggle veteran birders have differentiating between the two related birds… I was excited to immediately notice the distinguishing traits… the female having a white ring around it’s beak and the male having the “peak” of its head near the forehead (whereas the lesser Scaup has its peak on the farther back area of the head). The better news was that the wigeon was spotted hanging out with the greater Scaup gang earlier in the day. So I set up and watched. Tried and failed many times to get my digiscope to work so I could get some photos of the surprisingly cooperative and patient scaups. But no. And also no wigeon.
Regardless it was an awesome birding location that I will definitely try to get back to. There is easily over a mile of shoreline with long sandbars and shell beaches and coves etc etc to observe. Literally saw hundreds and hundreds of sea birds today… just no Eurasian wigeon and no pictures. Well there was this one I found later, from a failed digiscope attempt:
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Snowy Owls are being seen in the Champlain Valley. #digiscoping #snowyowl #birdsofvermont. 📷 Bill Mayville https://www.instagram.com/p/CH080PuBwFb/?igshid=1tqwrt3rt0wpd
Denne nordamerikanske/nordøst-sibiriske vadefugl var kommet grundigt på afveje, og var endt på Agger Tange en gråvejsdag sidst i september.
Fuglen blev desværre kun på lokaiteten en enkelt dag; men under hele opholdet forblev den i de lavvandede søer på tangens sydspid, hvor den vekslede mellem at raste og fouragere sammen med lille kobbersneppe, strandhjejle og almindelig ryle.
Long-billed dowitcher (Limnodromus scolopaceus)
This Nort American/Northeast Siberian wader had been brought way off course and ended up on Agger Tange on a dreary day in late September.
Unfortunately, the bird only stayed a single day. But during its entire stay, it remained in the shallow pools at the southern tip of the panhandle where it alternately rested and foraged alongside Bar-tailed Godwits, Grey Plovers and Dunlins.