Rare Bird Alert!

Fall is a great time to spot rare birds. And I recently saw the rarest bird I’ve ever seen in Maine! A European Golden-Plover (Pluvialis apricaria). Wow! It’s the first one ever spotted anywhere in the US except for one identified and then “collected” (a euphemism for “shot in the name of science”) in southeast Alaska 2001. Long story short: My birding friend Robbie found it in Scarborough Marsh, a well-known Maine birding spot a quick drive from my house. Based on good information shared via the Internet, through our “Maine Birds” e-mail list, I scampered out there and found it myself. Woo-hoo!

Here’s a link to the Wikipedia entry for the bird:
view link

Here’s some cool photos:
view link

And here’s a sketchy entry on Whatbird.com:
view link

A birding frenzy
Literally hundreds of crazed birders from every corner of the continent jumped on planes, trains and -- who knows, chartered helicopters -- in an effort to see this one bird. Most North American field guides don’t even include it, it’s so rare. Unbeknownst to it, this wayward European Golden-Plover was a life bird (or at least a new bird for the so-called “American Birding Association area” comprising the continental US, Canada and Alaska) for practically every birder in North America. It sure was for me!

What’s the big deal? Well, for people who have birded for many years in many areas of the country, there aren’t many new birds left that they haven’t seen. Some folks have over 700 birds on their life lists for the ABA area -- a milestone that says “I’m a hardcore birder par excellence!” Trust me if you haven’t experienced this for yourself: birders can go to extreme lengths to see a life bird. There’s a fine line between interest/fun and obsession, but who am I to judge?

How rare is rare?
How did this funky plover end up in Maine? Good question! A bird of this species has never before been seen anywhere in North America in fall. Very possibly it veered off-course on a migration from Iceland to Africa. It’s more typical, though still spectacularly unusual, for European Golden-Plovers to end up in Newfoundland or elsewhere in maritime Canada on their way from Africa back to Iceland or Greenland in spring. (Yes, they can fly across the Atlantic without stopping.) This makes the European Golden-Plover a “Code 4” rare bird: “Casual; well-defined pattern of occurrence, but not annual.”

A few appearances on the continent over 100 years of looking and it only rates a 4 -- the American Birding Association is hard to impress! Rarer still is a Code 5 bird: Accidental; one or a few records with no defined pattern. And then there’s the rarest of the rare, which are assigned Code 6: Extinct or otherwise impossible to observe in the wild.

I’ve seen a bird that is now Code 6: the Hawaiian Crow or Alala. When I saw them in 2000 there were just a handful left in the wild, in one tiny area on the island of Hawaii. Sadly, the last two wild Alala disappeared in 2002, very possibly victims of another threatened species, the Hawaiian Hawk. A few Alala remain in captive breeding facilities, but attempts to introduce captive-bred birds back into the wild have thus far failed. The Alala is now “extinct in the wild.” You can read about it here among many places online: view link

Rare over there
In its usual haunts over in Europe and Africa, a European Golden-Plover isn’t exactly rare, though it is uncommon, declining rapidly, and a focal point of concern among conservationists. But it’s wicked rare here in Maine!

And that’s another aspect of what makes a rare bird rare -- how common is it, relatively speaking, in the area where you’re seeing it? Birders sometimes see birds that “belong” elsewhere: like a Western Kingbird in the east or an Eastern Meadowlark in the west. These are called “vagrant birds” or just “vagrants.” Some species show up predictably on an annual basis (like Lark Sparrows, a western species, in Maine in fall). Others have popped up only once, like Sage Thrasher in Maine -- talk about improbable but I saw it myself.

According to the fascinating science of avian population dynamics, the appearances of so-called vagrants are not random events. In this view, wandering birds are a property of the species’ population as a whole, not of the individuals that wander. In a nutshell: birds wander because they can. They aren’t “lost” -- they’re pioneers. Some might find mates, food and places to breed. Maybe not here and now, but somewhere somehow…

So what about Maine’s now-famous Euro-plover? Where will s/he end up? When I saw it the bird seemed to be in great shape and foraging actively. Possibly it will migrate south to central/southern South America with some American Golden-Plovers. And then maybe make it back to Iceland or Greenland in the spring. Possibly it will find suitable breeding habitat here in the “New World” but probably not a mate of its own species.

But who knows? One thing is for sure: a lot of birders are wishing that bird well!

Peace and good birding,
Scott Cronenweth
Eons birding mentor
www.naturalpathwalks.com