Winter Solstice Bird Count

Back in December my brother and my grandfather and I went on our annual Winter solstice bird count in Westport Massachusetts. We were expecting to see at least one of the Snowy Owls reported at Horse Neck Beach and maybe if we were lucky, an alcid or two. Alcids are a family of black and white birds that live far out at sea in Winter and nest on cliffs up in Canada in the Summer. They range in size from as large as a duck to smaller than a dove. 

Our first stop was at Westport River. We stopped here because we saw some ducks as we were driving past and they tuned out to be a hunter's wooden decoys! The next stop was a parking lot next to Horseneck Beach to check for Snow Buntings, Horned Lark and Lapland Longspur as this time last year we saw them here. We didn't get any of the birds I just mentioned but it was still worth the stop. When we pulled into the parking lot there were a bunch of cars with wind surf boards on the top and some without but all had wind surfing stickers on them. When we got down to the beach it was very windy and cold but that didn't stop the surfers. They were everywhere sitting on the beach, in the dunes and surfing, scaring all the sea ducks away. I was amazed the wind surfers didn't freeze, I was almost frozen and I wasn't even in the water! We decided to leave for the next place due to the freezing wind but just as we were about to get into our car a Peregrine Falcon flew over and away. 

Gooseberry Neck sticks out into the Atlantic right next to Horseneck Beach. Gooseberry is a shrubby peninsula and is good place to look for warblers in Spring, shorebirds in Fall and Snowy Owls, alcids and sea ducks in Winter. We didn't even begin our walk because as soon as we got out of the car my brother found a small black and white Dovekie swimming out in the middle of the bay! A Dovekie is a very small alcid species and we were all very excited because we had never seen one before. It slowly started swimming closer to us with a strange style of locomotion. Instead of using it's feet to swim it was using it's wings like paddles and rowing towards shore. I was sitting photographing it as it paddled closer and closer. Amazingly it beached itself on the rocks and then crawled up the beach to where I was sitting and right onto my lap! 

Dovekies are tiny birds, a little smaller than a dove. They have very short, stubby bills, black backs, white bellies, white necklaces and black caps. It was obvious that something was wrong with the one resting on my lap and so we decided to take it to a wildlife rehabilitation facility. Our grandfather got a blanket from the car to calm the bird as we picked it up but it kept running away from the blanket and we couldn't catch it that way. So I picked it up in my hands and while I was carrying it up to the car it bit my finger. I am now one of the elite few who have been bitten by a Dovekie.

It is a well known fact that the victims of a vampire's bite turn into vampires themselves but I was not aware until recently that the same is true for Dovekie bite victims. I now turn into an alcid every night; flying far out in the Atlantic and trying to sleep on the frigid waves, sadly squawking quietly to myself.

Me and the Dovekie