Anne and I returned home last night after a 600 mile (round-trip) $215 dollar (gas, tolls, lodging, and restaurant meals) expedition to Ashtabula, Ohio on the shore of Lake Erie.  Our life-list now includes the Black-tailed Gull, a handsome dark-mantled coastal bird typically found along the western edge of Asia.

The Japanese honor this bird with the Kabushima Shrine where it is considered the messenger of the god of fisheries.  Perhaps the appearance of a solitary black-tailed gull at the mouth of the Ashtabula Harbor suggests a rebirth of this tired port.  The bird arrived more than a week ago, was spotted by a local birder, and posted on the Internet.  The pilgrimage began.  We considered going a week ago, but our schedule was full. 

On Thanksgiving evening, I checked the bird listings and noticed that the bird had been seen that day.  Our car was scheduled for service on Friday morning, but we had nothing solidly scheduled after that until Monday.  So, we quickly packed and went to bed.  On Friday morning we jogged and went together to the auto shop.  With inspection made, oil changed, and two new tires, we began a five and one-half hour run across Pennsylvania to the Ohio border.  The weather was clear and the historic Pennsylvania Turnpike was smooth and clean.  Often at this time the weather has turned bad, but clear mild weather was forecast through Saturday.  Sunday was to be a different story.  We hoped to find the bird before that.

We picked up a motel flyer at a rest area, but my quick Internet search the night before led to the best deal, a clean and comfortable Hampton Inn at Austinburg about ten miles from the harbor.  The attendant asked ninety dollars when we called, but quickly agreed to the seventy-five I had seen listed on-line. 

We had packed leftovers and warmed them in the microwave before watching TBN and AMC on the new flat-screen TV.  We don’t have such luxury at home.  The lights were out at ten p.m. and the alarms woke us at five a.m.  The motel wonderfully had breakfast out before six.  I made a lovely waffle in the machine provided. 

At six-thirty we were driving through the darkness in an unknown area to a location on a map I had downloaded, a concrete bridge near the mouth of the Ashtabula River.  This was in a harbor area dominated by railroad tracks, tower cranes, mountains of coal, stone, and salt, marinas, and various arms of the harbor.  Though dark, the area was reasonably well lit by industrial lighting.  We found the bridge and located a small parking lot.  Various birders were already loitering.  The lot was full, but when I tried to squeeze into a too narrow space, a set of headlights turned on and a waiting birder backed out and moved his car a little closer to one side.  We parked.

The morning was chilly, about forty degrees and with a light but steady breeze.  We dressed well, but expected it to be a bit warmer.  We added clothing as the dawn approached.  More than forty people stood on both sides of the road at the west end of the bridge.  Gulls were already moving, but it was too dark to see them well enough to find the single outlier among the hundreds of herring, ring-billed, and Bonapartes gulls that coursed, flying and swimming, where the river flowed into the lake a kilometer to the north.  Closer, a large flock of red-breasted mergansers provided entertainment by swimming and diving in the harbor close to the bridge. 

The group was cheerful, chuckled, chatted, and sipped coffee.   Mostly they raised their binoculars whenever a flock of gulls flew up the river and past our vantage point.  These  folks were serious in their purpose.  The license plates ranged from Texas to Connecticut.  Each knew that this might be their only chance ever to see this, most likely natural, occurrence of a “class 4” bird within the “American Birding Association Area” of the continental United States and Canada. 

The dawn came up pale.  The chilly wind continued.  Perhaps a few thousand gulls passed.  High powered scopes scanned birds roosting on industrial buildings and posts in the marina.  Voices mentioned a night heron, a kingfisher, a great blue heron, and horned grebes.  By seven-thirty disappointment had begun.  People were retreating to cars to warm up.  A number of people drove to other points along the waterfront where the bird had been seen in previous days. 

Anne sat in the car to recover and returned to the lookout.  She asked if we should move.  I commented that this was the likeliest spot and that others were scanning at other points.  Somebody’s cell phone would ring if the bird was seen. 

The phone rang at about eight o’clock.  The bird was reported about a blue roof to the east.  Most of the group fled immediately to their vehicles to move to Lake Front Park.  We tarried a few minutes.  The report was vague, and the building was not quite a mile a way.  We could (with the help of our scope) see the building from where we were.  I scanned with the scope but could see no dark-backed gulls.  We folded up the tripod and headed for the car.

Arriving at the lookout, we found the parking spaces full.  Anne got out while I found a place for the car.  Walking back with the scope in arms, I found the group restless.  Anne said the bird had disappeared.  She had stepped up to the lookout as the bird dove off the far side of the roof and disappeared.   After a half hour without the bird showing up again, we became sorely disappointed.  Most of the group had seen the bird, but many for only a few minutes.  Knowing that the bird often vanished to points unknown for much of the day, we began to wonder if we had blown it. 

After an hour we returned to the car to warm and begin cruising the waterfront.  We wandered to the ends of narrow streets and alleys to glimpse slips and spaces where a bird might hide.  Many gulls were coursing about the river mouth and around the sewage plant.  Almost always there was a bird or two somewhere in the sky and a birder or two within hailing distance.

We visited the local coffee shop, recaffinated, warmed our hands, and checked the Internet reports.  The morning’s appearance of the bird was noted, but nothing more.  We encountered birders at many of the stops and shared what little information we had.  We also shared phone numbers. 

We finished the morning back at the lookout above Lake Front Park.  At 12:30, we left the scene to go to a diner in the harbor area.  We had packed a lunch, and had hoped to be on the road toward home by then.  Instead, we decided to take our dinner in the diner and save the sandwich for supper.  We would stay until 3:30.  The gull was likely to return to roost by then.  If not, we would give up.

The diner was warm and busy.  Folks in the town were familiar with the popularity of their famous bird and asked about it.  An hour after our arrival, the check came.  I debated with myself where we would go first.  Then, the phone rang.  It was a new acquaintance, Barry, who reported the bird back on the same roof it had been on in the morning.  I threw the payment and tip on the check in cash, and we hustled out the door.  Another couple of birders who had just arrived in town were hampered by their meals still in progress. 

I pushed the limits and parked ten minutes later.  Anne ran up the hill while I gathered the scope from the trunk.  The bird was perched on the roof and preening, probably only 1,000 feet away.  It remained for a half hour.  We enjoyed watching the details of plumage as it turned its head and raised its wings to spruce up the feathers after a morning of hunting.  Then we waited, hoping to see it fly before we began our six-hour drive home. 

After a time something disturbed the small flock of roosting gulls and they began to take to wing.  Our gull finally lifted and floated across the harbor to show off the black band on the tail that gives the species its name.  Anne and I kissed, and we returned to the car. 

The ride home was long with no time for long stops.  We took a more direct route and avoided the tolls, but by the time we left the Allegheny Plateau and began crossing the steep Appalachian ridges, it was dark.  With no tunnels on these routes, the two-lanes wound up and charged down the ridges.  The manual transmission made it easier to minimize abusing the brakes as we crossed the “Wilds” district of Pennsylvania. 

Our Loop Road was a welcome sight. 

We returned home feeling tired but rewarded.  Another tic on the life list.  Number 683 for me, 680 for Anne, more or less.  Few others have seen this many.  We are within striking distance of 700.  Will we make it before we are too old to move or too blind to see?  How much will it cost to add additional birds to the life-list?  I will try to post answers to these questions as opportunities for more life birds come forward.

This year we have added nine species.  We found four species during two pelagic birding tours off the California coast.  The birds were Laysan Albatross, Ashy Storm-Petrel, Buller’s Shearwater, and Great-winged Petrel.  These cost about $800 counting the tour fees, lodging and eating out.  At $200 per bird, that was about the same as this weekend’s gull.  I didn’t include the cost of the trip to California, because we went there to visit our son.

Two of the birds, the storm-petrel and the shearwater are not uncommon in the coastal Pacific.  We now have seen most such birds.  The Laysan albatross is rare but regular; it was a good catch.  The great-winged petrel was a great and lucky find!  It has now been seen in the A.B.A. Area only five times.       

We found two life-birds on our visit to Nova Scotia this fall.  Touring and birding one day  I commented, while driving, on gulls feeding in a field.  Anne looked and reported seeing smaller birds among them.  I stopped.  We scanned the field with binoculars.  I saw numerous killdeer, but Anne said she saw yet smaller birds moving among them.  I turned around and parked at the end of a farm driveway.  Nobody was home and no dogs bothered us.  I too spotted the tiny sandpipers, but they were too far away to identify.  I set up the scope in the driveway and brought into focus a Buff-breasted Sandpiper.  Five of them were feeding on the pasture.  We enjoyed fine, if distant views.  There was no extra cost for this bird.

It is a species that migrates between the high arctic and South America along the Mississippi flyway.  There it is rare and irregular in short grass fields for a few weeks in spring and fall.  In the East, it shows up very irregularly on sod fields, pastures, and airports.  We have missed finding it many times, and were delighted to finally see it. 

Later, we took a whale watching cruise to add the Atlantic Puffin to my life-list.  Anne had seen one on a pelagic trip off of New Jersey, but I had missed this bird.  Cost, for me, $60, the cost of the boat ride.  The bird was priceless.

We easily found Black Guillemots along the Nova Scotia and Maine coasts, a region we had never before birded.  Not considering the coast of our tour, we paid nothing to add the species to our lists.  We knew we would find this bird on this trip.  It was pretty much a sure thing.  There won’t be many more such birds!

In January, we made a three-day, two-night excursion from Ft. Myers to the Everglades and Miami area in search of birds.  Total cost about $200 for gas, lodging, and eating out.  On our last morning, a Sunday, we were up and drove to exclusive Key Biscayne before dawn.  We entered Bill Baggs State Park when the gate opened, parked at a trail head and began searching for a La Sagra’s Flycatcher, a species normally found in the Bahamas, but not in Florida.  This particular specimen seemed happy spending the winter there.  We found and observed it hawking insects from a power line along the trail.  The “added cost” for the bird was probably only a few dollars for gasoline and the bridge toll.  A bargain, certainly!

From here on out most life-birds will require special trips or good luck.  Each will be a small or large adventure.  We will keep you posted.