ML397464431

Age

Not specified

Sex

Not specified

Observation details

Found this morning at neighboring hotspot Santapogue Creek. Part of a developing lapwing invasion, including prior observations at Milford Point, Connecticut on 12/16 and several locations in Canada around the start of the month as well as a number of subsequent reports from throughout the Northeast. I resisted the urge to twitch until I had thoroughly covered the totality of my territory for the Montauk CBC. As soon as I turned in my data, however, I made haste to chase. By the time I arrived at the last known location, the bird had not been seen in more than 3 hours and there were no other birders on site. I began coordinating the search via text with my count partner Trevor, who had started his efforts at Santapogue. While messaging him, I caught a naked eye view of an ungainly silhouette approaching the golf course from the west with exaggerated, loping flaps. As if the distinctive flight style wasn’t enough, binocular views confirmed the diagnostically preposterous shape of the bulbous, rounded wingtips. As I raised my camera, the bird dropped into a dive, revealing its brilliant white belly and boldly contrasting black flight feathers and breast band as it bombed down into a flock of geese and disappeared behind a coarsely vegetated ridge. I put out the signal that it had been refound, and the horde reassembled. The terrain and distance made for challenging scanning, but after several minutes we spotted the bird picking its way along the rough. Good scope views were enjoyed by all. Always an impressive sight to behold, with its absurd Pinhead Larry/Alfafa crest, heavily made-up face, and gorgeous green upperparts. I’ve always thought they look like what a toddler might create if you told them to draw a bird

Technical information

Model

NIKON D7500

ISO

16000

Focal length

500 mm

Flash

Flash did not fire

f-stop

f/5.6

Shutter speed

1/640 sec

Dimensions

940 pixels x 545 pixels

Original file size

165.02 KB