Right Place, Right Time

Last week Karen and I were chasers, meaning we drove about an hour-and-a-half in search of a rare bird.  In this case it was a male Harlequin Duck in breeding colors, which had been recorded in eBird observations from North Point Maria near the Wisconsin border.  This is the same location that holds an annual Gull Fest each January (there were about 700 gulls there on the day of this story).

We arrived at the huge complex of empty marinas and rock breakwaters and went to the yacht club facing the inner harbor.  Soon we met five other birders in search of the same quarry.  It was 28º out but bright sunny skies made it feel more like 29º.  After searching there for an hour or so we decided to check out another spot the Harlequin had been seen according to our friend Scott.  We drove through Skipper Bud’s boatyard to get the Prairie Harbor Channel, which straddled the Illinois/Wisconsin border.  We searched high and low; a fellow birder there said he thought it might have flown past the mouth of the channel and was now out of sight.

We decided to go to the south end of the marina and see if it was hiding somewhere there.  Along the way we had seen Goldeneye, Bufflehead, Ring-necked Duck, Hooded Merganser, Red-breasted Merganser, Mallard and the obligatory Canada Goose.  Heck, we even saw a fox out on the docks.  But no Harlequin.  We stopped and chatted with one of the other birders in search of the Harlequin but he hadn’t had any luck either.

By this time my fingers were starting to get cold but since we had spent so much time just getting there we decided to double-back and try the yacht club and Prairie Harbor Channel again before going home.  Nothing of note at the yacht club so we drove over to the Prairie Harbor Channel for a final look-see.  As we pulled up Scott was just walking to his car and had nothing to report.  We almost went back to our car too, but instead walked down to the channel as Scott drove off.  Not ten seconds later it flew down the channel right towards us!  It was such a beautiful bird!  After being there for almost three hours we were in the right place at the right time.  We didn’t have Scott’s number but Karen put out a quick message on Discord in hopes he would check it before going too far.  Three minutes later Scott raced back and got to see the bird that had eluded everyone for so long.

An interesting side-note; since the Prairie Harbor Channel bisects the Illinois/Wisconsin border it was important for us to see it in Illinois waters so we could record it in our eBird checklist along with the other birds we had seen in the marina.  Technically, if the bird had only been seen on the Wisconsin side we would have had to create a separate checklist using the Wisconsin Hotspot.  However it did clearly land on Illinois waters so were were able to count it as one of the species we saw in Illinois this year.  Scott said it was his 307th for the year!

Here’s a pic of the Harlequin Duck when if first flew in and landed in the channel.  Pretty far away, so not a great shot.  I’ll use it as a teaser for tomorrow’s post which will contain some much better BIF shots of the Harlequin as it flew past me toward Illinois waters.

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