The Perfect Birding Librarian Storm

As a birding LIS student, I just couldn't resist blogging this.

When my mom asked about Bar-tailed Godwits the other night on the phone, I knew a bird celebrity had been born. Sure enough, today the Dewey Blog had an entry entitled "Migration of Bar-Tailed Godwits". If you had any reason to wonder what Dewey Decimal Number such a migration would get, wonder no longer.

All four species of godwits have been recorded in NJ. The first Bar-tail showed up at Absecon in 1937, and one bird visited Longport from 1972 to 1982. The last NJ record was from Nummy's Island in September 1985.

Ruff

On this day in 1932, Charles Urner found two Ruffs near Tuckerton, Ocean County. In that day, on the cusp between specimen and sight identification, Urner took no specimens but notes, then repaired to specimens to double-check his conclusions. This was not the first record of Ruff for NJ, since there was at least one previous specimen record cited in Chapman (1906).

In subsequent years, Ruffs became synonymous with Pedricktown in springtime, but that is not so much the case now. They seem to be easier to find in Delaware than Jersey these days, at least in spring.

Urner, Charles A. 1933. The Ruff in New Jersey. Auk 50:101. PDF here

Baird's Sandpiper

Baird's Sandpiper
Originally uploaded by ammodramus88

On this day in 1898, David McCadden collected a Baird's Sandpiper at Stone Harbor in Cape May County (Stone 1908).

It might indicate the relative rarity of this fall migrant through NJ that, when Stone compiled his list of NJ birds ten years after that first Baird's was collected, it was still the only state record. If there had been a Review List then, Baird's Sandpiper probably would've been on it. The state maxima was ten birds at Brigantine NWR on 8 September 1992 (Walsh et al. 1999).

The bird illustrating this post was on the Cumberland County end of Johnson Sod Farm on 1 September 2007.

Spotted Redshank

On this day in 1978, C. Clark and P. Fahey found a Spotted Redshank at Brigantine NWR. This bird remained until 28 September 1978, then moved on, but it returned the following year from 28 September to 8 October 1979. The only other record of Spotted Redshank in NJ is from 22-23 October 1993, also at Brig. The most notorious "Spotted Redshank" in NJ birding history, however, might be the 1973 Brig bird that turned out to be an oiled Greater Yellowlegs (Kaufman 1997, Smith 1974).

Mlodinow (1999) gives an extensive account of Spotted Redshank occurrence in North America. By far the most records come from the Aleutians, but eastern North America has quite a few as well. Mlodinow suggests that eastern Spotted Redshanks may come across the continent, ultimately originating in Asia.

This species' showy black alternate plumage is briefly held, so that birders hoping for a redshank in NJ are best advised to scrutinize yellowlegs carefully.

Kaufman, Kenn. 1997. Kingbird Highway. Houghton Mifflin, Boston, MA.
Mlodinow, Steven G. 1999. Spotted Redshank and Common Greenshank in North America. North American Birds 53:124-130.
Smith, P. William, Jr. 1974. Spotted Redshank Vs. Soiled Yellowlegs. Birding 6:84-86.

Long-billed Curlew

On this day in 1880, Dr. W. L. Abbott shot a Long-billed Curlew on Five Mile Beach in Cape May County. This barrier island currently hosts the Wildwoods.

Stone (1965) said the Cape May gunners called it the Sickle-bill. In Absecon, Pleasantville and Somers Point they called it Buzzard Curlew. The Pleasantville gunners also inclined towards naming it Smoker, Old Smoker or Lousy-bill; in Cape May Court House, it was Mowyer. Perhaps the Tuckerton gunners had a line in to the AOU when they called it Long-billed Curlew (Trumbull 1888).

In other words, Abbott's curlew may have been the first state record reviewed and accepted by the NJBRC (the specimen currently resides at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia), but it was not the true first state record. The Long-billed Curlew was one of the shorebirds that was favored by market gunners and, as a result, almost shot out of existence. The Eskimo Curlew was another casualty of this profession. Alexander Wilson wrote about the regular migrations of the species through NJ in mid-May and September; he wrote in 1812. By the time W. E. D. Scott visited Long Beach in April 1877, he considered it "very rare," not to mention "shy" (Stone 1965). I guess the prospect of gunplay might make anyone shy.

Almost 100 years passed between another record from Five Mile Beach in 1898 and a record from Cape May in 1987. In the late 1980s, I found birding. I developed a fascination with shorebirds, looked at field guides and thought seeing a Long-billed Curlew would be a really neat thing. I was sure I'd have to go out west to accomplish the feat, but I was wrong. My lifer Long-billed Curlew was the one that showed up in North Wildwood (a slice of bayside on Five Mile Beach) in 2002. As remarkable as this overwintering curlew was, more remarkable was its return the following year. Then there was the one that visited an airport in Whiting, in the Pine Barrens, during the day, then lit out toward Toms River in the evening. I saw that one too (the sketch that illustrates this post is of the North Wildwood curlew).

Neighboring states tell a similar story of the Long-billed Curlew; formerly abundant, then shot out by market gunners. Long Island seems to have been another favored location (Levine 1998). It still winters in the Southeast, but NJ's current birders have been very fortunate in the recent pulse of Long-billed Curlew records. May there be more to come.

Levine, Emanuel. 1998. Bull's Birds of New York State. Comstock, Ithaca, NY.
Stone, Witmer. 1965. Bird Studies at Old Cape May: An Ornithology of Coastal New Jersey. Dover, New York, NY.
Trumbull, Gurdon. 1888. Names and Portraits of Birds Which Interest Gunners. Harper & Brothers, New York, NY.

Juvenile Curlew Sandpiper

On this day in 1997, a juvenile Curlew Sandpiper was identified by Bob Confer in a farm field near the Clarksville Sod Farm in Burlington County. Although the bird was present for a few days before this (Dasey 1997), looks sufficient for identification only came on the 7th. Ed Bruder was the original finder of this bird. The bird remained for one more day, 8 September, then departed.

This individual went on to become the first fully accepted record of the species for NJ. Although the state has many previous reports, the NJBRC elected to review only post-1996 reports of this species due to the difficulty of unearthing adequate documentation on so many reports after the fact (Halliwell et al. 2000). John James Audubon himself reported shooting two Curlew Sandpipers in spring 1829 at Great Egg Harbor in Atlantic County (Stone 1965); this is the first known report for North America.

The Curlew Sandpiper might be thought of as a "regular rarity" in NJ; most years have at least one report of the species. Most reports come from May with a secondary peak in July (Hanson 1999). In contrast to many vagrant species, most reports are of adults rather than immatures, a pattern that holds across the Northeast. It remains uncertain whether juvenile Curlew Sandpipers are overlooked because their plumage is far subtler than that of an adult in even partial alternate plumage, or whether there is a real difference in distribution of these age classes. A fuller discussion of Curlew Sandpiper distribution can be found in Hanson (1999). In any case, the Burlington County bird is noteworthy for its age, since there are no other known reports of juvenile Curlew Sandpipers for the state.

The Burlington County location is also noteworthy. Curlew Sandpipers are known for their site loyalty; Brigantine NWR in Atlantic County is probably the classic example of a location traditionally favored by the species. Part of this site loyalty may stem from adult birds repeating a migration path throughout their lifetimes, but there is no hard information on this. Most of the favored locations have been coastal ones. On the other hand, the appearance of such species as Pacific Golden-Plover and Sharp-tailed Sandpiper on inland sod farms demonstrates that rare shorebirds can show up in non-coastal locations.

Dasey, Ward W. 1997. 1996 Fall field notes, Region 4. Records of New Jersey Birds 22:14-16.
Halliwell, Tom, Rich Kane, Laurie Larson, & Paul Lehman. 2000. The Historical Report of the New Jersey Bird Records Committee: Rare Bird Reports Through 1989. Records of New Jersey Birds 26:13-44.
Hanson, Jennifer W. 1999. Curlew Sandpipers (Calidris ferruginea) in New Jersey. Records of New Jersey Birds 25:26-31.
Stone, Witmer. Bird Studies at Old Cape May: An Ornithology of Coastal New Jersey. Dover, New York, NY.

Pacific Golden-Plover

On this day in 2001, Richard Crossley found a Pacific Golden-Plover at Johnson Sod Farm on the border of Salem and Cumberland Counties. The bird stayed through 16 September 2001 and was seen by many. This is the only NJ state record of the species so far, and one of very few East Coast records. The following spring, a Pacific Golden-Plover was found at Plum Island in Massachusetts on 21 April 2002; that bird remained until 5 May 2002. There's also an old Maine specimen record from 11 September 1911.

Finding a Pacific Golden-Plover in a flock of American Golden-Plovers will always be a difficult task, but it's possible that other Pacifics have been overlooked because of the identification issues. Also, the two species were considered to be one (Lesser Golden-Plover) until relatively recently, so this doubtless helped it fly under many birders' radar. Interestingly, a bird that may be Utah's first record of the species is currently being discussed on the ID-Frontiers listserv, so now is clearly the time to be alert for this species.

The first state record article, "New Jersey's First Pacific-Golden Plover" by Richard Crossley, was published in the Fall 2002 issue of Records of New Jersey Birds, pages 57-60. Other references include Angus Wilson's discussion on the bird, which he posted on his Ocean Wanderers website.