Well I always say I’m not a twitcher, but if you invite me to join you on your twitch I just might say yes. Today my friend Diane LeBlanc (who found the Louisiana Waterthrush here a while back) asked me if I wanted to go see the Black-throated Sparrow that showed up a few days ago in Beaubassin. I said yeah, let’s go right now.
And so at 3pm we started driving to NB since it was a nice day and why not.
It had been reported in Nova Scotia the day before but I’m not sure if it had actually been there. Certainly it is possible but it looked very cosy at the Beaubassin Research Station a few hundred meters away and had been thought not to have left there since it arrived.
This would make a huge difference really as it has never been sighted in Nova Scotia according to the Nova Scotia Bird Society’s records.
http://www.nsbirdsociety.ca/index.php/library/the-of-birds-of-ns
Anyway, we weren’t exactly sure where to go so we phoned Nelson Poirier from Nature Moncton who gave us wonderful directions and said we “would be pleased”. We certainly were and thank you Nelson for your help.
Upon arriving we were quickly greeted by the “Acadian Birder” Alain Clavette who was setup helping birding tourists like ourselves spot the bird along with the group of White-throated Sparrows it’s been hanging with. We also met birders from Charlottetown and Grand Manan and one gal even shared her home made cookies!
The sparrow flock turned up shortly as promised and it is quite something to see the black throat, particularly mixed in with all the white throats. Very well setup Mother Nature if I do say so.
I don’t think twitches usually work out so perfectly, but that certainly was an easy one and well worth the drive. It was great to meet some of the New Brunswick birders and a sunny warm day spent in good company.
We checked the marsh for Blue-winged Teals who are around that area quite reliably at the moment but no such luck. It would be a first for both myself and Diane but you can’t complain when you just photographed a Black-throated Sparrow in NB now can you?
We did get a nice close viewing of a pair of Northern Shovelers, and a wonderful arial presentation of no less than 100 Tree Swallows which was quite a sight.
And we were home by dark in Nova Scotia. Not too shabby, I’ll take it and thanks very much Diane!