One Lost Kittiwake

By BILL CHAISSON
Of a Feather
One bird on the NH Bird Forum caught my eye this summer. It was a wandering black-legged kittiwake (Rissa tridactyla), possibly the same single bird making its way across the state in an apparently confused manner. The nearest large breeding population of this species is in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and there are two small colonies (c. 100 pairs) in the Bay of Fundy between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. The law of averages suggests that a single adult kittiwake in breeding plumage lost in New Hampshire during the breeding season came from the nearest breeding colony. But, of course, we don’t know.

Kittiwakes nest from scattered locations in the northern temperate and southern subarctic zones to the northern limits of open water in the Arctic. They begin breeding earliest at the more southern colonies and it takes them five months to raise their young until they leave the nest. These nests are normally built on steep cliffs, but the European colonies are occasionally on man-made structures like buildings and deep-sea drilling platforms. During the other seven months of the year, kittiwakes are pelagic, living out of sight of land.

The first R. tridactyla inland sighting this spring was at Lake Tarelton in Piermont, which is 100 miles inland from the Gulf of Maine. This bird was seen on May 5 and reported in the Rare Bird Alert of May 8. Steve Mirick, proctor of the NH Bird Forum, saw a black-legged kittiwake from Pulpit Rocks in Rye during the Rockingham County “Big Day” event in mid-May. He called it out as the rarest bird of the day, as it was an adult rather than a juvenile and adults should have been breeding in May, not larking about just off the New Hampshire coast.

On June 9 a black-legged kittiwake was reported on Chase Pond in Wilmot. This is a 10-acre pond, and it is unusual to see any gulls there at all. A local expert birder went looking for it that afternoon and the next day and did not find it. But on June 11 it showed up on Pleasant Lake, a 600-acre body of water two miles to the west in New London.

On June 12 at around 6:30 a.m. the Wilmot birder found it near the south end of the lake after it had been reported to be on the west side. This forum report attracted the birding community. By 9:40 a.m. that morning a Sunapee birder reported “Best views from along Bunker Rd. Eastward toward Pleasant Lake Inn, midway between north/south shorelines. Scope required.”

On June 14 another birder got a photo of the bird sitting on a “cormorant’s rock” in the lake. It is a pretty little gull. The adults are the classic gray-mantled white bird, but they are distinguished from the familiar Larus gulls (herring, ring-billed, black-backed et al.) by their smaller size and a beak that is plain yellow in the adults. They are about the same size as a laughing gull but of course couldn’t be confused with a black-headed breeding adult of that species. The black tips on kittiwake primaries lack any white spotting, which sets them apart from all the larids except the laughing gull, which has a much darker gray mantle and darker gray primaries (in all plumages).

Steve Mirick, impressed by the rarity of an inland excursion by an adult kittiwake this time of year, weighed in on this sighting to quote Keith and Fox’s Birds of New Hampshire: “Inland. An exceptional flock of 16 was at Turkey Pond, Concord, 22 May 1972 (T. Richards, K.C. Elkins, R.W. Smart) despite the lack of an easterly storm; a photograph taken by J. Mullins appears in NHAQ 26 (1): 3. One was found at Lebanon 14 Dec 1994 (P.D. Hunt, D. Crook), and 2 were at Enfield 19–20 Nov 1995 (S.R. Mirick, P.D. Hunt). One juvenile was at Rochester 13 Nov 2007 (S.R. Mirick, B. Griffith).”

In other words, this was a truly weird event. Pam Hunt of the N.H. Audubon Society was moved to drive over on June 14 and found the bird still on its Pleasant Lake rock around noon. Another birder posted an hour later to confirm its continued presence at this spot.

A New London birder posted that day to say she had taken her kayak out on the lake to photograph it as it sat on the water in the middle of the lake on June 12. The crisp, clear photos show a slightly disheveled bird, its feathers somewhat askew rather than lying flat on its back and wings.

Between June 18-23 it was reported not only to be still present (by several different observers) but still on the same rock. Later in the queue Steve Mirick asked the Forum members if they had ever seen the bird feed, but he got no online replies. On June 23 it had been two weeks since it was sighted on Chase Pond. According to the July 3 Rare Bird Alert, it remained at Pleasant Lake until June 26. In the July 17 RBA it was reported to have been present there through July 13.

On August 1 Steve Mirick speculated the Lake Tarelton and Pleasant Lake birds could have been one and the same. On August 11 a black-legged kittiwake showed up 40 miles to the south on Powder Mill Pond, a 420-acre reservoir in Hancock and Greenfield. Some good photographs of the bird were taken, but unfortunately, they revealed that it “appears to be injured or with wounds on the chest just below the neck and just above the waterline.” As of August 17, I have seen no further posts about this lost bird and I fear the worst.

The wandering Steller’s sea eagle seen earlier this year stuck to its coastal habitat (albeit the wrong coast) and seemed to be feeding and healthy. Not so the kittiwake.

Bill Chaisson has been a birdwatcher for over 50 years. He lives and works in Wilmot.