Rare Moments

While I don't maintain a Life List I probably enjoy as much as the next fellow chancing on a bird I haven't seen before. My bailiwick for such excitement, you understand, is the immediate environs of Halibut Point. The other day I had a nice encounter with a Blue Grosbeak there. It turns out this is a rare and privileged experience anywhere in New England and a first occurrence among those I've been able to contact who keep records of sightings at the State Park.

Startled Song Sparrow

It seemed in this picture as if the resident Song Sparrows were as surprised by the apparition as I was. But I've been warned before about ascribing human thoughts or feelings to birds, the flabby sin of anthropomorphism. I'll stick to my own reaction.
 

Blue Grosbeak

The Blue Grosbeak would add an uncommon spark to almost any natural setting in our latitude. Other than the flashy feathers of Blue Jays we have few blues to delight us below the dome of the sky, which never attains the hue nor the chromatic intensity of the bird unexpectedly before me.

 

I want to say beautiful, a complicated word that depreciates the stunning but commonplace features of the nearby Song Sparrows. I might think 'artistic' because of the pleasing contrast between the wing tones and the rest of the body that looks like a work of painterly genius to make the blue seem bluer, but this is certainly not a result of the bird's choice or desire. Birds don't make art. 

The Blue Grosbeak looks like a Cardinal re-dipped in an alternative primary color for equally vivid effect. The novelty no doubt amplifies my sense of its beauty.

Readers will recall my disquisition with Chris Leahy on  A Good Bird. Naturally I contacted Chris about the Blue Grosbeak. He confirmed that "despite the fact that the species is showing up [in the north] with increasing frequency, it is still very much a 'good bird.' Halibut Point is the kind of coastal migrant trap where such rarities are most likely to occur."
 

The rarity of the occurrence of course gratified me but I was less warm to his terming Halibut Point a 'coastal migrant trap.' Chris reframed that soulless ecological jargon into a helpful explanation.

The word “trap” is somewhat misleading. Especially during spring with the prevailing SW winds that migrant songbirds are in part guided by, birds arrive and depart in “waves” responding to weather variations. In addition, they tend to follow “leading lines” such as river valleys and coastlines to orient. As dawn arrives and these nocturnal migrants are looking for landing habitat, they tend to “pile up” in coastal areas that provide food and cover. These may also be “islands” of open space surrounded by more developed land. Such places can “trap” both large numbers and high diversity of species (which implies good chances of rarities) and therefore also capture birdwatchers.
  

Consider me captured.