The bird that shook Newfoundland and Labrador
It was after supper on Monday 16 October when Vernon Buckle sent out a photograph of a bird at his bird feeder that he was not familiar with. Vernon lives in Forteau, Labrador.
He was bitten only recently by the birding bug, but he got a full dose of birding desire. Every day is exciting for Vernon. Over the last three years he has opened our eyes to the possibilities that can be found in southern Labrador. During fall migrations new and exciting birds where coming Vernon’s way almost weekly.
When I heard Vernon had a bird at his feeder he could not identify I was curious to see what it was going to be. Being quite familiar with the birds of North America and Europe and everything that could possibly occur in Labrador, I was fully expecting to be able to identify the bird if the picture was good enough. I was wrong! The picture was good quality shot of a bird that I could not identify. I was grasping at straws trying to turn it into something common but in a bizarre plumage. After the second and third picture came in it became apparent we had something extraordinary here. It was a sparrow-like bird with a yellow breast and dark bar across the upper breast.
I was on supply vessel on the Grand Banks. I had no reference books with me and the internet signal was too weak to search out the possibilities on the web.
Vernon posted images of the bird on a Facebook page geared to identification challenges of North America birds. This was not an identification challenge if you were looking in the right bird books. Like any book that covered Russia, Japan or China. This was a yellow-breasted
bunting from Asia. It was such a simple name for a colossal rarity. The species had reached North America from eastern Asia five times before but all in western extremities of Alaska, not that far from Russia. Now there was one in southeast Labrador! WHAT!? How could that happen? The shortest route would be from Russia, over Alaska and through the southern Arctic, across northern Quebec and Labrador coming to a stop when it hit the Atlantic Coast.
The impact of the discovery was late getting out to the Newfoundland and Labrador birding community that night. My email was clogged up at sea preventing some personal red alert emails. When Paul Linegar awoke at 5:30 in the morning he checked the Newfoundland bird news group as
a matter of course and learned about the yellow-breasted bunting. He got dressed. He got in the car and began the 10-hour drive to the St. Barbe ferry. He made it. Less than 12 hours after hearing about the bird in his house in St. John’s he was actually looking at the bird in Forteau and feeling on top of the world. John and Ivy Gibbons were also there having made the relatively short jaunt from their Plum Point home to St. Barbe and across on the Strait of Belle Isle ferry.
Ken Knowles is my personal favourite buddy to accompany on a rare bird chase. We both know the No. 1 rule is to go now and ask questions later to increase the odds of seeing the bird. Ken had an appointment he could not miss on Tuesday morning. He would not be able to make a Tuesday ferry but could get to St. Barbe in time for the first ferry on Wednesday. Ken’s wife Kathy joined him for the Labrador adventure. They saw the bird right away on Wednesday morning and then enjoyed a little bit of Labrador scenery before returning home.
The yellow-breasted bunting was chummy with a dickcissel, a bird from central North America and rare for Labrador. Both birds have yellow breasts. Also starring at Vernon’s bird feeder were a clay-coloured sparrow and a rose-breasted grosbeak. Such an eclectic group of rare birds at a small bird feeder in a non-descript corner of Labrador was perhaps more than a coincidence. Forteau’s magic defies explanation for now.
Meanwhile, I was trapped on a supply vessel on the oil fields on the eastern Grand Banks. The adrenalin was running sky high but there was nothing I could do about it. I saw the helicopters going back and forth between St. John’s and the oil rigs and wondered if I could grab the wheels of one as it flew overhead or if I should fake an ailment requiring a medevac.
Alas on the day my boat turned in for St. John’s was the first day the yellow-breasted bunting did not come back to the bird feeder. It had run off with the dickcissel leaving all the other rare birds behind. A yellow-breasted bunting at Forteau, Labrador on 16-19 October 2017 has earned a place in the history books of the birds of North America for all time. What’s next Vernon?
When Paul Linegar awoke at 5:30 in the morning he checked the Newfoundland bird news group as a matter of course and learned about the yellow-breasted bunting. He got dressed. He got in the car and began the 10-hour drive to the St. Barbe ferry. He made it.