This is the species I’ve tried to find all spring. There had been 3 in New Jersey in early 2013, one in Georgia and 2 on Nantucket Island in Massachusetts. Two of these locations were too far but I tried for the New Jersey birds, taking 3 days, driving a few thousand kilometres and missed out, the birds were there but we just got unlucky.
I’d seen and photographed many of these birds in Hungary, Iceland, Scotland and Germany but still needed one in the ABA area.
This month I read a report of a Lapwing in the Gaspe but it was just too long a drive but when I heard about a bird northwest of Montreal, I knew I had to go for it
We left at 3:45am to avoid Montreal morning traffic and arrived at the 102 Rang du Fleuve, near St-Barthelemy, Quebec, in about 3 hours. Using our spotting scopes, we glassed for 2 hours and we just could not find the bird. We saw Killdeer, Semi-palmated Plovers, Dunlin, Egrets, Herons, Gadwall, Shoveler and many other common birds. The river was very high and most of the fields on the south side of Rang du Fleuve were flooded.
They are about the same size as a Killdeer, unmistakable in flight and as I found out very difficult to see in a flooded corn stubble field. I was speaking to the man who owns the home at this location, he told me where the bird had been for the past 3 days. I scoped the area for 20 minutes but just couldn’t see it. Rick decided to walk down the road a bit and am I ever glad he did. He spotted the bird from that different angle, and as I’ve said before, its now in the books.
The images above show just how lovely this bird is, all but the 1st image, were taken in Europe.
Today’s photos were taken with my 300mm lens at extreme distance, under overcast condition…crappy but keeper’s.
Ciao for now…….
BIRDQUEST2004 