ML524513231

Age

Not specified

Sex

Not specified

Observation details

What a nice surprise! I was in my car on the roadside patiently waiting for the flock of juncos to return after another car flushed them so I could carefully search for other sparrow species, when I noticed a slender, light gray bird perched with an erect posture on top of a roadside tree above where the juncos were gathering again." What is that? Very odd, not a mockingbird, not a catbird. Could it be a Townsend's solitaire?" I took a quick look with binoculars and... "Yikes! It is!" I quickly grabbed my camera and shot a few distant photos, from the car. While I zoomed in to double-check the images in the screen of the camera, the bird disappeared. "Aargh!" They were poor photos but they were clearly this species. But for documentation of this new state species, I wanted good photos. So I pulled out my Merlin and played the bell-like call note. No response heard, no bird seen. I played the second call note in Merlin, which was very raspy and an obvious alarm call. It appeared very briefly but then flew off with a very erratic jittery flight. I do not recommend using this call note because the bird disappeared into the pine and cedar forest, obviously too alarmed. Pishing didn't work to bring him back, nor did the bell notes. So I tried the alarmed-chickadee-and-screech-owl recording. Playing this for only about 1.5 minutes it pulled in a plethora of chickadees, kinglets, yellow-rumped warblers, juncos, and yes, right out in the open, atop a dead pine right next to the road the solitaire reappeared. Wow! I shut off the recording and shot a few photos from the road, savoring the sight for about 3 minutes. Then I thought I'd better let others know about it. By the time I finished texting the WV rare bird alert, the bird had disappeared back into the forest patch. Not wanting to overdo it, I left the bird in peace. Please respect this bird and don't overdo it. Try patient waiting, watching, and listening first. Please respect private property and stay along the road. There are a couple places where you can pull off the road safely in the vicinity of where this bird was seen. This is not a busy road, but please don't get in the way of the local people as they drive the road. The location where I saw this bird is right where the ebird location flag is. First it was on the lake side of the road, right next to the road. When it disappeared it went into the pine/cedar woods on the opposite side of the road. When it reappeared it was right along the road on the non-lake side of the road. I will probably replace this camera-back photo with a better one from the camera itself when I return to VA.

Technical information

Model

SM-S908U

ISO

160

Focal length

6.4 mm

Flash

Flash did not fire

f-stop

f/1.8

Shutter speed

1/60 sec

Dimensions

4000 pixels x 3000 pixels

Original file size

5.22 MB