[nysbirds-l] Reflections on Tropical Storm Henri
The information/communications environment we now inhabit distorts our expectations. At least this is how it seems to some of us who began birding storms prior to the advent of the internet and mobile phones. Perhaps it could be argued that our expectations have simply been altered, not necessarily for the worse. It was pointed out to me several times, explicitly and implicitly, during the excited lead-up to Tropical Storm Henri, that I am now an old-timer. From that perspective, I think I can state accurately that my more humble expectations, which come naturally to me after decades of personal failures of various sorts while searching for birds, serve me well—and possibly better than the grander expectations that arise so easily now, based on the non-stop news cycle of other people’s successes, culled from a vast body of collective effort that constantly and noisily commands our attention. And yet I definitely expected that this storm would produce at least a few Band-rumped Storm-Petrels, Black-capped Petrels, and White-tailed Tropicbirds, somewhere on Long Island or New England, if not for me personally. And I intended to do my best to put myself where I might find them. I also expected that the storm would displace some of the regular seabirds that inhabit our shelf waters at this time of year, and that it would force down difficult to see species that normally over-fly the coast at this season. Of these three modalities, my experience from 40-plus years of birding has been that the tropical/Gulf Stream results are by far the most variable from storm to storm. Indeed, each storm’s yield of such birds seems wildly uncertain and almost always defies predictions, for better or worse, despite our ever-increasing sophistication in terms of precedent and meteorology. The second mode, relating to our common seabirds, impresses me as being the most predictable. When a storm approaches our coast from the south, one will see Sterna and Laughing Gulls streaming eastward during the approach, and one will usually see some shearwaters and jaegers during the storm, if one is able to view the ocean. The third mode, southbound migrants whose ordinarily invisible overhead flights are obstructed and forced downward, almost always occurs in some fashion, but with much variation in terms of scale and species composition. Lesser Yellowlegs and Black Tern are the bread and butter of this cohort, Sabine’s Gull and Long-tailed Jaeger the caviar. Viewed this way, Henri’s avian impacts look less freakishly pathetic than they seemed at first. The greatest surprises, requiring some exploration, are (1) the near (or complete?) absence of tropical/Gulf Stream birds; and (2) the abundance and richness of the downed migrants. My intention from the beginning was to try to get east of the eye at landfall on Sunday and to be at an appropriate promontory to observe displaced birds flying back to the ocean on Monday morning. Initially it seemed that Montauk Point could serve both purposes, provided that one could get there, hide the jeep from the gendarmerie, and survive overnight. But the 11:00 p.m. tracking update obviated that. Patricia Lindsay and I would have to drive through the top of the storm to Rhode Island on Sunday morning and see what we could accomplish in my childhood haunts. It quickly became clear that this was not a physically large storm. It was calm with just light rain in Bay Shore at 7:00 a.m.; the rain was intense in Bridgeport, but just a little further east in New Haven, it was utterly calm with light rain at 9:07. We first noticed the wind picking up when we crossed the high, exposed bridge over the Connecticut River, and our pulses quickened when we re-entered our home turf in New London. There, on the Thames River bridge at 9:49, both wind and rain were intense. Dropping down to the RI coast along Rte. 1, I felt that perfect sense of excitement that I experience from being in a hurricane, irrespective of the birding angle. I couldn’t resist exploring some storm-roost spots in the Matunuck area, but this was in retrospect an error that was potentially quite costly. My plan was a pee-stop at Trustom Pond, a quick trip down to Mud Pond, inspection of Cards Pond and the fields to the east, then escape back to Rte. 1 via Matunuck Beach Road. But that road was blocked by fallen trees, as was Moonstone Beach Road when we tried to return that way, but Green Hill Beach Road was still open, so we escaped. >From there, everything went perfectly in terms of timing, access, etc. We were >able to bird the Point Judith Peninsula in relative comfort as the poorly >formed eye made land and we found loads of birds at all the regular >storm-roosts. The only problem was that all of the birds we saw were, with >only one possible exception, species expected as to time and place. With >effort we saw Manx, Great, and Cory’s Shearwaters, a Parasitic Jaeger, two >Black
[nysbirds-l] Reflections on Tropical Storm Henri
The information/communications environment we now inhabit distorts our expectations. At least this is how it seems to some of us who began birding storms prior to the advent of the internet and mobile phones. Perhaps it could be argued that our expectations have simply been altered, not necessarily for the worse. It was pointed out to me several times, explicitly and implicitly, during the excited lead-up to Tropical Storm Henri, that I am now an old-timer. From that perspective, I think I can state accurately that my more humble expectations, which come naturally to me after decades of personal failures of various sorts while searching for birds, serve me well—and possibly better than the grander expectations that arise so easily now, based on the non-stop news cycle of other people’s successes, culled from a vast body of collective effort that constantly and noisily commands our attention. And yet I definitely expected that this storm would produce at least a few Band-rumped Storm-Petrels, Black-capped Petrels, and White-tailed Tropicbirds, somewhere on Long Island or New England, if not for me personally. And I intended to do my best to put myself where I might find them. I also expected that the storm would displace some of the regular seabirds that inhabit our shelf waters at this time of year, and that it would force down difficult to see species that normally over-fly the coast at this season. Of these three modalities, my experience from 40-plus years of birding has been that the tropical/Gulf Stream results are by far the most variable from storm to storm. Indeed, each storm’s yield of such birds seems wildly uncertain and almost always defies predictions, for better or worse, despite our ever-increasing sophistication in terms of precedent and meteorology. The second mode, relating to our common seabirds, impresses me as being the most predictable. When a storm approaches our coast from the south, one will see Sterna and Laughing Gulls streaming eastward during the approach, and one will usually see some shearwaters and jaegers during the storm, if one is able to view the ocean. The third mode, southbound migrants whose ordinarily invisible overhead flights are obstructed and forced downward, almost always occurs in some fashion, but with much variation in terms of scale and species composition. Lesser Yellowlegs and Black Tern are the bread and butter of this cohort, Sabine’s Gull and Long-tailed Jaeger the caviar. Viewed this way, Henri’s avian impacts look less freakishly pathetic than they seemed at first. The greatest surprises, requiring some exploration, are (1) the near (or complete?) absence of tropical/Gulf Stream birds; and (2) the abundance and richness of the downed migrants. My intention from the beginning was to try to get east of the eye at landfall on Sunday and to be at an appropriate promontory to observe displaced birds flying back to the ocean on Monday morning. Initially it seemed that Montauk Point could serve both purposes, provided that one could get there, hide the jeep from the gendarmerie, and survive overnight. But the 11:00 p.m. tracking update obviated that. Patricia Lindsay and I would have to drive through the top of the storm to Rhode Island on Sunday morning and see what we could accomplish in my childhood haunts. It quickly became clear that this was not a physically large storm. It was calm with just light rain in Bay Shore at 7:00 a.m.; the rain was intense in Bridgeport, but just a little further east in New Haven, it was utterly calm with light rain at 9:07. We first noticed the wind picking up when we crossed the high, exposed bridge over the Connecticut River, and our pulses quickened when we re-entered our home turf in New London. There, on the Thames River bridge at 9:49, both wind and rain were intense. Dropping down to the RI coast along Rte. 1, I felt that perfect sense of excitement that I experience from being in a hurricane, irrespective of the birding angle. I couldn’t resist exploring some storm-roost spots in the Matunuck area, but this was in retrospect an error that was potentially quite costly. My plan was a pee-stop at Trustom Pond, a quick trip down to Mud Pond, inspection of Cards Pond and the fields to the east, then escape back to Rte. 1 via Matunuck Beach Road. But that road was blocked by fallen trees, as was Moonstone Beach Road when we tried to return that way, but Green Hill Beach Road was still open, so we escaped. >From there, everything went perfectly in terms of timing, access, etc. We were >able to bird the Point Judith Peninsula in relative comfort as the poorly >formed eye made land and we found loads of birds at all the regular >storm-roosts. The only problem was that all of the birds we saw were, with >only one possible exception, species expected as to time and place. With >effort we saw Manx, Great, and Cory’s Shearwaters, a Parasitic Jaeger, two >Black
