Date: 2/1/26 8:43 am From: 'Steve Mirick' via NHBirds <nhbirds...> Subject: [NHBirds] 4th & Longspurs Superbowl Results - 76 Species and 160 points!
Jane and I joined up with Paul Lacourse yesterday for the "Superbowl of
Birding" sponsored by the Joppa Flats Education Center of Massachusetts
Audubon. Unlike recent years, our "running back" Kurk Dorsey was placed
on "personal leave" and we picked up Stuart Varney on waivers who
performed more than just admirably filling in for Kurk. His hearing
reminds me of a hound dogs sense of smell. Stuart was hearing birds that
were beyond the frequencies and range of most human beings! Even better
than Jane's hearing and far beyond the abilities of Paul and I. :-( He
also makes great breakfast sandwiches!!!!
This is the 23nd anniversary for this competitive event. The event is a
fun way of beating the winter cold and getting out and finding birds in
Essex County, MA and Rockingham County, NH. Our team name is the "4th
and Longspurs". We've now competed in NH for 20 years of this event
having missed 3 due to a broken elbow and covid. As we've done in the
past years, we participated in the category of "Rockingham County, NH
only". A weighted valuation system determines the winner, where the
rarity of the species determines the number of points awarded.
Similar to last winter, this winter has been very cold....more like the
older days. But in contrast to last year, we had LOTS OF SNOW after
last week's 20" storm. This made things very difficult for roadside
birding and even worse on the coast, where snow banks and drifting snow
caused lots of troubles. Ragged Neck was plowed out, but most coastal
pullouts were NOT and that limited our offshore scans. Our car
thermometer bottomed out at -3 and I heard others report down to -7. A
very light wind in the morning made it just that much worse. There was
plenty of sun, however, and the morning breeze died down quickly. The
temperature, however, barely got up to 20F for the day. The seas were
flat and visibility offshore was great, but we covered it at low tide
which, combined with limited access, made finding alcids difficult.
After receiving our breakfast sandwiches at Stuart's at 4:45 AM, we
started out with our Owling in Portsmouth and Rye. We struck out (as
usual) with owls off Little Harbor Road, but we got Screech Owl and
Great Horned Owl off Brackett Road. Unfortunately we arrived just a bit
too late to get the Saw-whet Owl that others had on Love Lane and we had
no luck with the Barred Owl that wouldn't call back at the Rye
Recreation area.....others SAW this bird later in the day! My dawn
strategy worked very well as we were able to find the roosting Vultures
in Hampton Falls and easily pick out 2 Black Vultures in the Pine Trees
as an 8-pointer. The morning rhythm worked reasonably well as we picked
up Wild Turkey, Northern Pintail, Rusty Blackbird, and Fox Sparrow. We
then headed out to Evy Nathan's feeders and got another easy 8-pointer
as her Baltimore Oriole was sitting in the tree as we pulled in!! Back
to Exeter, we had terrible luck with the ducks at Gilman Park (frozen!)
and Sapsucker....we went 0 for 3 on scouted locations. So......north to
Stratham and Newmarket where Jane picked out a "stop-light" Cedar
Waxwing and we easily got Savannah Sparrows, Common Mergansers, and OUR
THIRD 8-pointer of the day with a scouted Chipping Sparrow in the same
thickets of Newmarket where we had one last year!
We kept things going with a nice pace in Greenland; missing ducks on
Great Bay, but picking up a scouted Yellow-rumped Warbler and finally
getting a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker. Now down to Hampton where we got
(on our 2nd attempt) the INCREDIBLE PAINTED BUNTING seen by so many this
day. THANK YOU to Grace McCullough and Alicia McLaughlin for setting up
this ONE DAY ONLY visitation. Things continued on a roll.....Paul
whistled in a scouted Eastern Towhee while Stuart picked out a surprise
flyover Fish Crow in Hampton Falls and Hooded Mergansers continued in
the creek. A side trip to the Hampton WTP failed to produce any new
birds, but it did provide us with perhaps the rarest sighting of the
day. A falconer was flying/training an adult EURASIAN GOSHAWK! While
I'm not in favor of falconry, I respect this man's love and respect for
birds of prey. And these birds are incredible to see up close.
Off to Hampton Harbor in Seabrook where things continued to go well.
Jane picked out a nice adult Peregrine Falcon sitting in the saltmarsh
and when I put up my scope for a (rare for location) Greater Scaup, I
was shocked to see a nice adult male Barrow's Goldeneye. While the
Lakes Region and downtown Manchester have enjoyed these annual winter
visitors, they are (for some reason) rare on the seacoast.
The whole day then went downhill fast when we hit Hampton Beach State
Park!!!!! I'm not sure what happened, but the day was never the same!
First there were the snow drifts, I struggled to walk through them to
get to the beach to scan offshore, but when I turned around, only Stuart
followed me! 5 minutes later, Jane showed up, panting and exhausted.
But Paul never appeared! We almost sent out a rescue dog to search for
him, but it turns out he just said "screw this"! After post-holing down
to his thighs for the 3rd time in the snow drifts he just went back to
the car! But that wasn't the worst of it! We filled in a few gaps with
common offshore birds....nothing we didn't see later. But as we were
leaving, we noticed a poor, confused, elderly, French-speaking man who
had gotten his car stuck in the snow! What were we to do?!?!? I spent
10 minutes trying to push him out and then, because he spoke very poor
English, and was very old and confused, I spent another 20 minutes using
his cell phone to try to call AAA to come and pull him out......by the
way, I don't know what the heck has gone wrong with AAA, but now you
can't get directly connected to a human voice any more!!!! They send you
a text message so you can click a link that leads you to a confusing
on-line questionnaire!!!! What the heck is going wrong with society! :-(
We probably wasted a solid hour at Hampton Beach State Park with no
significant birds. Stuart suggest that this act of goodwill would give
me good Karma. HE WAS WRONG! We traveled up the coast, filling holes,
and ticking off some common coastal birds, but we missed Pipit, Snow
Bunting and Razorbill. We even missed "Mr. and Mrs. Piney" the Pine
Warblers that have been hand-fed meal worms at a feeder in Rye. Despite
the fact that "Mrs. Bud" came out with fresh meal worms! And the final
shoe to drop was missing Swamp Sparrow at the Portsmouth Hospital marsh
at 5 PM......where we had 7 on January 11th before the storm.
We ended the day with a total of 76 species. This is well below our
record high of 87, and below our average for recent years, but I think
an excellent total considering the horrendously cold and snowy winter.
Phil Brown's team beat us with 77 species, BUT we beat them by a single
point! (160 to 159). We'll have to wait and see whether either of us
wins any awards as the final results will be announced tonight.
Total species - 76
------------------------
Canada Goose
Mallard
American Black Duck
Northern Pintail - Female at duck pond in Hampton Falls
Greater Scaup - Great Bay frozen as far as you could see. But a few
around Great Boar's Head and in Hampton harbor.
Common Eider
Surf Scoter
White-winged Scoter
Black Scoter
Long-tailed Duck
Bufflehead
Common Goldeneye
BARROW'S GOLDENEYE - One of the surprises for the day. This may be my
first Coastal record of an adult male since March 2014!
Hooded Merganser - Taylor River along Rt. 1
Common Merganser - Newfields Landing on Squamscott River
Red-breasted Merganser
Wild Turkey - Groups in Hampton and Greenland.
Horned Grebe
Red-necked Grebe
Mourning Dove
Rock Pigeon
Sanderling - A couple of spots on seacoast.
Purple Sandpiper - Scarce this winter. Small flock from Little Boar's
Head picked out by Stuart.
Black Guillemot - FOUR at Odiorne.....but no Razorbills.
Ring-billed Gull
American Herring Gull
Great Black-backed Gull
Red-throated Loon - One at Hampton Beach SP and 3 more at Odiorne.
Common Loon
Great Cormorant - Rye Ledge
BLACK VULTURE - Two perched up in roost trees at dawn in Hampton Falls.
Turkey Vulture - Didn't count. Perhaps 20+ at roost.
Cooper's Hawk
Bald Eagle - 7 total for the day
Red-tailed Hawk
Eastern Screech-Owl - One off Brackett Road
Great Horned Owl - At least 3
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker - FINALLY got one in Greenland. After dipping
at 3 spots in Exeter.
Downy Woodpecker
Hairy Woodpecker
Northern Flicker - One at Autumn Lane in East Kingston only.
Peregrine Falcon - One adult in Seabrook marshes.
Blue Jay
American Crow
FISH CROW - Only our 2nd ever for Superbowl. Nice bird calling very
vociferously as it flew over our heads in Hampton Falls.
Common Raven - Two for the day
Black-capped Chickadee
Tufted Titmouse
Horned Lark - Ragged Neck
Golden-crowned Kinglet - Nicely picked out by Stuart Varney by call note
from 1/2 mile away!
Cedar Waxwing - Incredible single bird in fruit trees in Stratham.
Spotted by Jane at stop light! Rare on seacoast this winter.
Red-breasted Nuthatch - At Bud's feeders. Rare on seacoast this winter.
White-breasted Nuthatch
Carolina Wren
Northern Mockingbird
European Starling
Eastern Bluebird
American Robin
House Sparrow
House Finch
American Goldfinch
CHIPPING SPARROW - 8 pointer at feeder in Newmarket. Took a little
effort and a lot of pisshing, but finally came in!
FOX SPARROW - Cooperative bird at Dave Kellam's house in Exeter.
American Tree Sparrow
Dark-eyed Junco
White-throated Sparrow
Savannah Sparrow - Very easy at Stuart Farm in Stratham.
Song Sparrow
EASTERN TOWHEE - Cooperative female staked out in Hampton Falls.
BALTIMORE ORIOLE - Female nicknamed "Shirley" at Evy Nathan's feeder in
Kingston. Wish they were all as easy as this drive-up bird!!
Red-winged Blackbird
RUSTY BLACKBIRD - Cooperative bird at Painted Bunting feeder.
Yellow-rumped Warbler - Surprise that this bird has made it through the
storm. Scouted by Stuart in Greenland.
Northern Cardinal
PAINTED BUNTING - Female in Hampton reported at feeders for the first
time only 2 days earlier!!!! Where was it before then???? OUR FIRST
EVER for a Superbowl and our 162nd (!!!) species recorded for this event
over the years by our team! Thank you Grace McCullough and Alicia
McLaughlin!
The infamous list of birds MISSED included:
---------------------------------------------------------
Snow Bunting - They've been widely scattered and common lately along coast
Lapland Longspur - Four today at Hampton Beach SP. None yesterday.
Pine Warbler - Mr. & Mrs. Piney
Merlin - Two recently in Hampton area. None.
Northern Harrier - Not sure why we've had such bad luck with this
Red-shouldered Hawk - Apparently there was one in Rye. No luck
Brown Creeper - Stuart heard one at dawn, but we failed to work for it
and never had another one.
American Pipit - Recent rarity could not be found
Razorbill - Disappointing miss. I scanned for several minutes at
Odiorne, but no luck.
Green-winged Teal - I don't know of any recent reports of the male that
had been seen in Gilman Park.
Iceland Gull - No luck
Great Blue Heron - We generally get these about 50% of the time. It is
actually no surprise that we missed one this winter!
Pileated Woodpecker
Winter Wren - No luck with scouted bird at Blakes Lane.
