Bird of the Month – December 2021

Bird Of The Month (BOTM)

BOTM for Connecticut for the month of December 2021

This brief project analyzed the most uncommon birds reported in Connecticut during the month of December 2021, and the results of that are summarized below. 

COA is running its new bird-of-the-month (BOTM) project for both December 2021 and January 2022 as an experiment, to evaluate it and to decide if it should be run at the end of every month going forward.  Please continue to post your rare and other noteworthy birds on COA’s CTBirds listserv (send your posts to this email address:  ctbirds@lists.ctbirding.org  — please subscribe to it if needed) and of course, on eBird, the most important bird database.

To be included and considered for BOTM all these birds had to be reported in Connecticut in December and be rare or otherwise noteworthy. “Off-season” birds were excluded (birds which are common in CT in other months of the year, but rare in December), such as most warblers. The candidate birds were ranked by several factors:  how irregular they are every year in CT, total number ever seen in CT, how few were in CT during this December, how far away their regular range is (the Northern Lapwing surely wins this criterion), and their “wow factor” (e.g., Snowy Owl).  The Northern Lapwing has almost never been seen in CT, there was only one in CT this year, and their normal range is Europe (not this continent). Visits of the Northern Lapwing from Europe are few and far between. The last remarkable visits to North America were in 2010 (when several visited North America, including one in Connecticut  http://lapwings2010.blogspot.com/). All those factors combined to enable the December 16  Northern Lapwing to win our BOTM for December. 

The #1 Bird Of The Month for Connecticut for December 2021 is…

  • NORTHERN LAPWING, found at Milford Point, CT, on December 16 by Tom Murray.  Photographed by many, two images are included below.
Northern Lapwing, Milford Point, CT. 12/16/2021.
Photo by John Oshlick
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Northern Lapwing, Milford Point, CT. 12/16/2021.
Photo by Aidan Kiley

Here is Tom Murray’s recollection of discovering the lapwing on December 16, 2021 :   

     “Standing on the platform that overlooks Wheeler Marsh at the Milford Audubon at 2:45 in the afternoon of December 16. Paul Desjardins arrived a minute later.  It’s always great to see Paul afield.  Paul started telling that he was trying to beat his own one-day high species count for December. Unfortunately he knew that he wasn’t going to succeed having had too many misses. We started going over what he was missing. As we talked, Stefan Martin, George Amato and Paul Fusco showed up. Paul D could not believe he hadn’t seen any shore birds all day. The tide was pretty low so the mudflats were exposed. Looking out naked eye I noticed what at first I thought was a Killdeer. It was a fair distance away. Quickly I got my scope on it and was amazed to see a wispy crest and called out Lapwing! Wow! Stefan had just started walking away and heard the excitement and came back quickly. We were all excited and started to put the word out. Paul Fusco got some great record photos. It was really cool that we were all together. I feel so lucky to be friends with all those guys. The comradery shared with the whole birding community is a  wonderful thing. The light was hazy but you still could see to pick up the beautiful emerald green on the blackish back. Through the scope you could see the distinctive face, bold black breast and buffy undertail. The bird stuck around in the same area and a bunch of other birders were able to see it before we lost it in the darkness.”

The eBird maps below show every data point that eBird has in its multi-decades database for Northern Lapwings seen in North America.  The small number of these historical records shows what a rare bird this is in Connecticut and in the entire USA.   

Blue and red icons on the two eBird maps below show ALL of the Northern Lapwing records in eBird for all of North America, for all years, for all months;  it is a relatively small number. The red icons show the recent reports (within the last 30 days or less)… 

The red icons show the recent reports (within 30 days or less, i.e., during December 2021).  Blue icons show reports which are more than 30 days past… 

The “runner-up birds” for the December BOTM bird-of-the-month are the following: 

  • Western Kingbird, found on November 9 by Tony Woodall and then posted by Bob MacDonnell. The bird stayed through the end of December. 
  • Tundra Swan, found on December 8 by Jeff Fengler.
  • Snowy Owl, found at almost a dozen CT locations during December. 
  • Long-billed Dowitcher, found on December 13 by Frank Mantlik (his photo above).
  • Red Knot, found on December 6 by Russ Smiley. 
  • Barrow’s Goldeneye, found at 3 CT locations during December. 
  • Northern Shrike, found at 3 CT locations during December. 
  • Harlequin Duck, found at 2 CT locations during December. 
  • Glaucous Gull, found at 3 CT locations during December. 
  • Dickcissel, found at 4 CT locations during December.
  • Iceland Gull, found at 6 CT locations during December. 
  • Lesser Black-backed Gull, found at 6 CT locations during December. 
  • Cackling Goose, found at 8 CT locations during December. 

Congratulations to Tom Murray and all those birders who found these outstanding birds in our state.  Please continue to report all your bird sightings to eBird (the most important bird database), and your rare/noteworthy birds additionally to COA’s CTBirds listing service (please subscribe to do this,  at  ctbirds@lists.ctbirding.org).  We would like to ask that all rare birds that are reported only on other tools (such as eBird, CAS RBA text messaging, Facebook, WhatsApp groups, small Google Groups, etc) also be copied into COA’s CTBirds listserv (for at least the most essential information).  We believe this is generally being done, and we give thanks to the top birders in CT who do this, and thereby keep our birding community united, inclusive and vibrant. THANK YOU. 

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