Date: 2/1/26 9:33 am From: Anthony Tzortzakis <anthuny7723...> Subject: Re: [NHBirds] 4th & Longspurs Superbowl Results - 76 Species and 160 points!
Thank you for sharing. I live for this! This is truly my superbowl!
On Sun, Feb 1, 2026 at 11:43 AM 'Steve Mirick' via NHBirds <
<nhbirds...> wrote:
> 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.
>
>
> https://www.flickr.com/photos/stevemirick/55071218336/in/photostream/lightbox/ >
> https://www.flickr.com/photos/stevemirick/55072436059/in/photostream/lightbox/ >
> 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.
>
>
> Steve Mirick for "4th & Longspurs"
> Bradford, MA
>
> --
> To Change your e-mail delivery settings (digest, daily, no mail) visit:
> https://groups.google.com/group/nhbirds/subscribe?hl=en > ---
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> "NHBirds" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
> email to nhbirds+<unsubscribe...>
> To view this discussion visit
> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/nhbirds/<24c117f6-0587-4c30-a47b-86fa1e37671b...> > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/nhbirds/<24c117f6-0587-4c30-a47b-86fa1e37671b...>?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > .
>
