Thick-billed Murre.01.17.2022 Patrick Dugan

Bird of the Month: January 2022

Thick-billed Murre

The top Bird of the Month (BOTM) bird for January 2022 was Thick-billed Murre (two different individual birds –and now a third one at Harkness on February 2).

One was spotted and photographed on Jan.17 by Patrick Dugan (at Cove Island Park) and the second was spotted and photographed at the other end of the state (Stonington Point) on Jan.31 by  Russ Smiley, and it still continues there as of Feb.5, usually 100 yards south of Stonington Point, just right/west of the second red buoy.

Runners up are included below.

  1. Thick-billed Murre. 2 birds, Jan.17 and Jan.31, both photographed, at very different locations. See details above.   #1 BOTM WINNER.
  2. Varied Thrush. 1 found by Sarah Faulkner on Jan. 31 at Hammonasset State Park. Seen briefly, not photographed, not found again. (Varied Thrush is an elusive shy bird, so this is not surprising).  
  3. Pink-footed Goose (highly ranked, because of its extreme U.S. rarity until recent decades).
  4. Western Tanager. 1 found by Nic Main on Jan.1 at Hammonasset. (Interestingly there are two in Manhattan, NY at the time of this writing!).
  5. Western Kingbird. 1 found by Anthony Woodall on Nov.09 at Hammonasset. Deceased Jan.12. On January list for sentimental reasons. 
  6. Eared Grebe. One found by Phil Rusch on Jan.25 at Stonington town docks. 
  7. Northern Shrike. One continuing from Nov.18 in South Windsor CT.
  8. Harlequin Ducks. 1 found by Bill Rankin on Jan.23 at Linden Shore, Branford, and 1 found by Russ Smiley on Jan.17 at Stonington Town dock. 
  9. Snowy Owls. Multiple birds continuing through the winter.
  10. Yellow-headed Blackbird. 1 found by Bill Batsford on Jan. 16 in Sterling, CT.
  11. Lark Sparrow. 1 found by DT Bowen on Jan.21 at Shelton-Nicholdale Farm.  [rare, but fairly regular in migration in CT].
  12. Red-necked Grebe. Several in January, including the one at Cove Island Park in Stamford, first spotted by Vanessa David on Jan. 24. 
Two long-distance photos of the Thick-billed Murre on January 17 from Cove Island Park in Stamford, CT. Found and photographed by Patrick Dugan.

Blue and red icons on the eBird map below show ALL of the Thick-billed Murre records in eBird for the New England area shown, for all years, for all months;  it is a relatively small number, with only a few in CT. The red icons show the recent reports (within the last 30 days or less).  Note the two red icons for CT, which are the two birds for this January report…

YEAR LIST  (aka BIG YEAR): 

RUNNING TOTAL of all the bird species seen in Connecticut in 2022, by all birders: 

As we do the BOTM summaries at the end of each month we will also keep track of the growing total number of bird species seen in CT for 2022, using eBird. So far, collectively we have reported 175 species already in CT, and we are only one month into the year!

https://ebird.org/region/US-CT?yr=cur&m=&rank=lrec  <<click to see CT 2022 running total. 

You can see this data by going to eBird and to Explore (https://ebird.org/explore ), then set Explore Regions to Connecticut,  then change time period from AllYears to CurrentYear,  then change the sequence from LastSeen to FirstSeen. 

The image above is a snapshot taken at the end of January 31, 2022. 

REFERENCES:  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thick-billed_murre

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Thick-billed_Murre/lifehistory

https://ebird.org/species/thbmur

https://avibase.bsc-eoc.org/species.jsp?avibaseid=B70B5840ABCD5CFC

https://birdsoftheworld.org/bow/species/thbmur/cur/introduction

https://www.audubon.org/field-guide/bird/thick-billed-murre

Gaston, Anthony J (1988). “The mystery of the murres: Thick-billed murres, Uria lomvia, in the Great Lakes region, 1890-1986”. Canadian Field-Naturalist. 102: 705–711.

https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/28243982#page/727/mode/1up  Gaston, 1988.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1c/Uria_lomvia_map.svg  << good map

https://www.hww.ca/assets/images/birds/murres/map_web_e.jpg << another good map…

And (thanks to Felix Sangari) here is a current map of Thick-billed Murre confirmed breeding sites in Europe, as per the European Breeding Bird Atlas 2  ( https://ebba2.info/maps/ ):

THE ENVIRONMENT IN JANUARY

On the average, January has the most windy storms of the year, and February is almost as stormy. This is the time when birds and other life forms are mainly trying to survive, especially since there is not much to eat at this time of year, on land or on the sea, where our Thick-billed Murre lives. The winter winds have mixed the ocean’s otherwise stratified temperature layers (warmer layer on top, colder waters below), and caused a downwelling, pushing more phytoplankton down, away from the sunlight in the top layer which they need to photosynthesize and reproduce. This negatively impacts the entire marine food web which depends upon them, from phytoplankton up to zooplankton, up to fish, up to birds that eat the fish and zooplankton. This will change in coming weeks as the sunlight gets longer and stronger, and the average winds will decline, and the ocean will stop its winter mixing and re-stratify temperature-wise.  This will allow the first plankton bloom of the year, to jump-start the marine food chains, and feed our Thick-billed Murre more easily. These trends will be substantial by the end of February, encouraging our re-fueling Murre to feel like heading north, back to their remote breeding grounds on rocky cliffs (safe from foxes and other mammalian predators) to reproduce. 

SUMMARY as of January 31, 2022:

  • Thick-billed Murre  = #1 BOTM bird species for Connecticut for January 2022.
  • 175  = YEAR LIST number of species reported to eBird in CT since the beginning of the 2022 year. This 175 is already (in just 31 days) about half of the number of species reported in CT in 2021, and about 40% of the 446 bird species ever seen in Connecticut.. Lets see which species get added each month during 2022 to the state’s “year list”. This year list will be compared monthly to the CT checklist of its 446 species.

FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION AND HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE, SEE *** BOTM Bird Of The Month report for 2022 January – Google Docs

COA plans to publish this kind of end-of-month summary every month this year, relying heavily on eBird and CTBirds, and  focusing on two things:  the Bird-Of-The-Month (BOTM), and the running YEAR LIST for the state of Connecticut as that list grows throughout the year…

Please contact robben99@gmail.com  if you have suggestions or questions.