Calais, Maine - It's Almost Canada!

The flights from New Orleans to Manchester NH via Baltimore went smoothly.  I used the flight time to re-read "The Big Year" and found it quite enjoyable and and belatedly informative given my different perspective this time through.  In Manchester I was met by my friend Denny Abbott.  We collected my bag and headed east making only two stops - one for gas, the other for food.  We reached Calais ME by 8:30pm and decided to launch our assault on the geese tomorrow from here.  We'll try to get an early start armed with coffee and donuts (Dunken Donuts is the earliest opening foodery here).  The Pink-foot will be first followed by the Graylag.  If we're successful, we'll turn our attention to White-winged Crossbill and Gray Partridge on Prince Edward Island.  Of course you all have heard that an adult Black-tailed Gull was found today in Long Beach CA.  Maybe that would be after the PEI birds....or should it be before them??

Last Day in Louisiana

A really lazy morning!  With no scheduled activity to get us out of bed, David and I got up an hour later than ususal.  And this on top of the time change making a clock difference but not a sun difference!  We also used the motel's business center to print out our boarding passes for tomorrow's flights.  After breakfast with lots of coffee, we checked out and headed back to Lacassine NWR for a final buzz through some good Louisiana coastal prairie habitat.  At the refuge entrance David thought the cypress swamp along the road looked good for Barred Owl and he was right (photo).  David called one in and we shared it with a group of birders from Ohio who were on their way to the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival and had been following my Big Year on this blog.  We revisited the refuge pool unit where we had been a couple of days ago and found mostly the same birds, but we did see some new ones and lots of alligators which we didn't see when we went through before.  The Neotropical Cormorant (formerly Olivaceous Cormorant) posed so nicely I had to take his photo.  The drive back to Jennings for lunch and on to New Orleans was uneventful.  Now at the airport motel we're getting organized to make the rental car drop and trip to airport tomorrow morning as efficient and quick as possible.  By tomorrow evening I should be in Canada with the goose search first thing Tuesday morning.

A Full Day on the Coast of Louisiana

Our last day at the festival didn't include any romps with Yellow Rails.  Instead we joined a group of festival goers on a trip to coastal Louisiana where we scored 109 species for the day moving along at a casual pace and obviously seeing lots of good birds.  We added a couple of new plovers (Wilson's and Snowy (photo)) to our trip list, plus Reddish Egret, White Pelican, Wood Stork, Inca Dove, White-winged Dove, Scissor-tailed Flycatcher, two Barn Owls, and four woodpeckers.  Tomorrow with a late start and perhaps some birding along the way we drive back to New Orleans where we will get a good night's sleep and fly out on Monday.  David will return to Norfolk and I will fly to New England to meet up yet again with the intrepid Denny Abbott with whom I will go to Canada to try for the Pink-footed and Graylag Geese.  Thankfully I now carry my passport and I'm not taking my scope. 

More Yellow Rails

Early this morning David and I went on a local field trip just south of town where we saw Bald Eagles sparring with Northern Harriers, tons of geese and ibis, and a few songbirds for our Louisiana list.  Then it was back to Thornwell for our assignment to a rice cutting field for another round with Yellow Rails.  Today there were a lot more festival goers than yesterday, and since the combine could only take four riders, it took quite a few trips before David and I were able to ride the combine.  However, that didn't stop us from seeing many more Yellow Rails from the edge of the field.  I tallied an even dozen solid sightings such as the two shown in the photos.  See if you can find the rails.  At one point I nearly was able to snatch one out of the air as it flushed from where we had marked its landing.  BTW let me set something straight about the combines and the rails.  The combines are in the rice fields cutting the rice.  The birders are there at the invitation of the rice farmers and see the rails as a simple consequence of the rice harvest.  Under no circumstances were the combines run through the rice fields simply to flush rails.  At the conclusion of our combine ride we were served some boudin, a rice-based sausage which originated in this area.  After lunch David and I toured the wildlife drive at nearby Lacassine NWR.  There were lots more ducks, geese, ibis, herons.  We also saw an American Golden Plover, lots of Long-billed Dowitchers, a Neotropical Cormorant, five Fulvous Whistling-Ducks, a bunch of Roseate Spoonbills, and Savannah, Vesper, Song, Swamp, and White-crowned Sparrows.  In the evening we attended a reception with hors d'oveurs including bacon-wrapped alligator served with wine at the Zigler Museum, a local art museum.  David and I both won a door prize and both chose a pound of local coffee.  There is a god.

Yellow Rail

What a day!  This morning we gathered in the conference room of the motel where we were greeted and told the virtues of growing rice.  It was actually quite interesting and the idea for the festival came from a conversation about initiating a cooperative effort between rice farmers and birders to highlight the value of rice fields to the wintering population of Yellow Rails.  At the conclusion of the morning session we adjourned to a rural location where we divided into two groups, each going to a different farm where combines were harvesting rice.  At each farm two of us at a time got to ride in a combine which was harvesting the second cutting of rice.  The combine flushed rails ahead of it, the rail show including King, Virginia, Sora, and Yellow.  Yes we got Yellow Rails.  I saw eight of them, four viewing from the combine and four from land while watching the combine move through the rice.  It certainly was a worthwhile venture and adventure to come to this festival to add Yellow Rail to my year's list #713.  Overhead there were thousands of geese (Canada, Greater White-fronted, Snow, Ross's), ibis (White,White-faced), and grackles (Boat-tailed, Great-tailed).  Other birds flushed by the combine included sparrows (Song, Savannah, Swamp), American Pipit, and Wilson Snipe.  On the way back to the motel we stopped by a place John and I had visited in January and flushed a Sprague's Pipit.  In the evening after dinner (gumbo, fried pickles), we attended a festival event at a museum which held the contents of an old general store.  We were served sweet dough pie a la mode.  Neither David nor I won a door prize.  Better luck tomorrow. 

We're in Louisiana

For all the bad flight days I've had, today was indeed a very good one.  David Hughes picked me up at the house and drove us to the airport where we had a little trouble finding a parking place in the long term parking garage.  But that was our only glitch.  After getting a bite to eat, we took the plane to Baltimore where we caught our connection to New Orleans arriving there ahead of schedule.  Our luggage appeared promptly.  The rental car was ready when we got to the Alamo counter, and we headed west on I-10 for several hours, arriving in Jennings by 8:20pm CDT.  At that point we decided to eat before checking into the motel since restaurants may close early.  David ordered oysters and I got catfish; both turned out to be tasty.  We are now in our room at the Hampton Inn, the headquarters for the Yellow Rail Festival.  Tomorrow we'll head out into the rice lands and see if we can find that poster bird for the festival.  Wish us luck.

A Few Rarities

Saturday was a pretty day for our MD visit and Joyce and I got to watch our granddaughter Bre play soccer (photo).  However, still nothing new on the bird rarity scene as we left the playing field and headed toward Baltimore.  Our hotel right on the harbor front was a few notches up in quality from my usual overnight digs on the birding highway.   We arrived with enough time before the wedding to rest up.  With our wedding duds on, we took the shuttle bus running between the hotel and the wedding venue, the American Visionary Art Museum, with its sculptures modeled after a hot air balloon and an early airplane hanging aloft (photo).  The bride and groom were not teenagers, but were still a lot younger than we are.  And the vows spoken and the readings given were very young, quite spirited, and clever.  There were many young children in attendance who were asked to participate from time to time. I like that. The dinner reception which followed was upstairs in the museum, two floors up.  It was great seeing and chatting with all of Joyce's cousins.  As usual the music was too loud, but it was a young people's night.  We did get in a dance (slow) before we called it a night and returned to the hotel.  I checked the email and saw that a Pink-footed Goose had been found in New Brunswick.  I went to bed wondering what I would do about it.
On Sunday we went to a lovely brunch in a restaurant nearby and I continued to wonder if I should chase the goose.  I began the drive home.  But after we got into Virginia, Joyce drove, giving me a chance to make a couple of phone calls and try a few northeastern itineraries using my wireless router and laptop.  In the end I decided to stay on course with my upcoming trip to Louisiana and go for the closer Pink-foot that will make an appearance before the end of the year.  It was also good to see that several other rarities popped up over the weekend, but none that I needed for the yearlist.