Gray-tailed Tattler and Greater Yellowlegs at Nantucket on 19 Oct 2012. Photo by J. Trimble.
1 records
| MARC number | Decision | Species | # | Location | County | Arrival | Departure | Observers | Report |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012-116 | A | Gray-tailed Tattler | 1 | Nantucket Harbor Creeks and Quaise Marsh, Umass Field Station | Nantucket | 10/18/2012 | 10/20/2012 | Jeremiah Trimble* (ph, au), Peter Trimble (ph), T. Johnson (ph, au), Simon Perkins (ph, au) | 17 |
The state’s only record was found Jeremiah Trimble and Simon Perkins on October 18, 2012, just in time for the Nantucket Birding Festival. The discovery was dramatic. The bird was first located by call and then identified as a tattler as it flew away in the evening, with fears it would not reappear. Peter Trimble, Jeremiah’s dad, finally documented the bird photographically the next day a good five miles away at Sesachacha Pond. While a good number of festival participants and quick-on-the draw chasers were able to catch up with this mind-numbingly unexpected “Sibe” shorebird the following day, it was not refound after the noon high tide on its third day. Hordes of twitchers arriving Sunday went home disappointed. Amazingly, a more obliging Wood Sandpiper (Tringa glareola) in Rhode Island arrived the previous weekend and stayed through these dates, so was a nice consolation prize for some. With Gray-tailed, Massachusetts now has two tattlers on the State List, which is two more than any other state on the East Coast!