Cold winds and warm birders

Residents of the northeast Avalon Peninsula get no mercy from the rest of the province when we complain about the weather. The five days of relentless cold northwest winds with rain, drizzle and fog last week was reminiscent of a bad spring. However, this kind of weather arouses the interest of birders. The vastness of this storm reached out into the Atlantic Ocean to just about to the shores of Europe. At the same time the wind funnel fanned out to include strong winds from Greenland and Iceland. Eastern Newfoundland, especially the Avalon Peninsula, was the focus of these winds. Long-time bird watchers could not recall seeing a weather system quite like this during the autumn season.

What kind of European birds, if any, would be carried to the shores of Newfoundland? We had our dream list.

The first sign that something interesting did actually happen was a pair of barnacle geese found by waterfowl hunters at an undisclosed location on the Avalon Peninsula. Barnacle geese are a Greenland nesting species. They fly back to Scotland and a few other European locations for the winter. This was only about the fifth time they had been encountered in Newfoundland and Labrador.

The wind in the weather system was perfect for causing them to veer off course to the Avalon Peninsula. The barnacle is a small goose attractively marked with a black neck and breast contrasting with a silvery body and wings with a large white face patch.

This news stimulated birdwatchers to check out known locations for Canada geese around the Avalon. Avalon Peninsula geese make themselves scarce once the hunting season opens. Not one goose was found. The excitement of the barnacle geese started to wane. Maybe it was just a once off event.

But the feeling was revitalize that evening when word got out that a little egret was discovered at Pond Road in Kelligrews by a visiting birder Ben Keen. This member of the European heron family has occurred a number of times in Newfoundland and was a likely candidate for crossing the Atlantic Ocean on these winds.

Then the real shocker came when I opened an email from Natasha Nichols. She sent me a picture of bird she found dead in the parking lot of Holy Family Elementary School in Paradise. At first she thought it was a small grouse but something was not right. My eyes nearly popped out of my head when I saw it was a corn crake. This is a European bird of legendary status in North America. It has occurred at a number of random locations in eastern North America including the island of Newfoundland. It is notoriously shy and secretive.

This robin-sized, chicken shaped bird lives like a mouse in the grasses and wild vegetation of dry fields. There was no obvious sign of the cause of death but pure exhaustion from being blown so far off course likely contributed to its demise.

Arrangements were made to donate the body to Memorial University where it will be made into a study skin and preserved for all time.

In the morning everyone went to Pond Road in Kelligrews to look at the little egret. The bird was very obliging. It stabbed its long bill into the shallow water catching little sticklebacks. According to the struggle it was having swallowing the fish it was apparent this little egret was not used to eating such a prickly fish. Part way through the morning a SECOND little egret appeared with it. Two little egrets together was quite an extraordinary sight on the North American side of the Atlantic. Together the two birds hunted sticklebacks. What will happen to these birds?

Will they try to go back to Europe?

They probably do not know there are nice places they could spend the winter if they flew southwest of the province to the southern United States. Without worrying about those details we enjoyed watching the two elegant little egrets.

As we soaked in the two egrets a text came in from Randy White on the west coast. He had just discovered four pink-footed geese feeding with Canada geese on the Stephenville golf course. This is a Greenland species.

They nest in Greenland during the summer and migrate to Europe for the winter. A handful of Greenland pink-footed geese do get mixed in with Arctic nesting Canada geese and follow them back to North America each winter but a flock of four is an extraordinary number. We assumed these were also storm waifs. It was certainly an exciting event for the west coast birders.

This is a continuing story as the column goes to the presses. Other European birds are likely to turn up over the next few days.

Watch your dogberry trees for unusual birds like the European redwing. Or maybe you might notice a small goose grazing on the grass of a sports field.