BIRDS OF NANTUCKET
NANTUCKET'S RAREST BIRD
by Kenneth Turner Blackshaw
The first North American record for a bird species is one of those things that causes hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people to start making travel plans. Of course that depends on whether the bird is still around right now.

Reef Heron

Going back to 1983 we were in an amazingly different world - no internet, no cell phones. Things proceeded at a slower place. Edith and Clint Andrews were the caretakers for the University of Massachusetts Field Station in Quaise and had been watching Quaise marsh for almost 20 years, virtually daily.

Our bird in question was first seen by Clint on April 25. It was an odd looking Little Blue Heron with white on its throat. Since young Little Blues are white, perhaps this was one that was still getting its adult plumage. Over the ensuing weeks Edith noted this bird had bright yellow feet - definitely not a Little Blue. Perhaps it was a hybrid between Little Blue and a Snowy Egret?

Time passed without a verdict and the bird cooperatively remained. In late June, Robert F. Cardillo was on Nantucket taking pictures for project VIREO (Visual Resources for Ornithology). Edith told Robert about the bird and he showed up before 7 a.m. every morning for a week, taking photos of it.

Robert left the island before the pictures could be processed (oh what a wonderful thing digital photography is). So it wasn't until he was back in Philadelphia in early July that he actually had the prints in hand and could show them to the eminent ornithologist, Dr. Robert S. Ridgely, an expert on birds of the neotropics. Ridgely identified the bird as a Western Reef Heron, Egretta gularis. Phones started ringing all over the U.S. - the world for that matter - and birders started heading to Nantucket.

Twenty four years later I posted a request on a computer 'listserv' asking people's recollection of the event and quickly got many responses. Some got the word quickly and were here in early July. They talked of flying over in aging DC-3s from Hyannis, watching loose rivets vibrate round and round on the engine cowling. They talked of walking from town out to Quaise and back. Others came in their own private aircraft and took taxis to see the bird.

Edith and Clint maintained a guest book that people signed and left their comments. One birder was thrilled to see that Roger Tory Peterson himself had been there the day before, July 15, 1983. Edith remembers going to the airport to pick him up only to find another zealous birder had already gathered him in and taken him out to Quaise. She did get to drive him back the next day though.

Another birder got all the way to Washington State chasing other birds. On a boat trip out in the Pacific she discovered that half the people on the boat had already been to Nantucket and seen this bird. She managed to get back here in late July and saw the bird herself.

This is a bird that put on a show for everyone. It was not a furtive, skulking, little bird hiding in the brush. No, this bird danced around the marsh chasing its prey, even spreading its wings to 'canopy' feed like an American Reddish Egret would do.

Western Reef Herons are small dark herons that come in two color phases or morphs, one dark grey blue and the other white. Their range is described as the coast of tropical West Africa, the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf, and east to India. I was working in Atlanta, Georgia at the time and was content to read about this birding frenzy since I'd seen plenty of these birds when I lived on the island of Taiwan during the '70s. Only recently have I found the birds I saw there have been split off into a separate species, so the Nantucket bird would have been new for me. The bird I saw in Asia is now known as the Eastern Reef Heron, Egretta sacra.

Nantucket's rarest bird hung around until the 13th of September that year and gave many people their first opportunity for a summer visit to Nantucket. We can only guess that it went south after that with the Snowy Egrets, perhaps down into the Caribbean. But it never came back to Nantucket.

Nantucket had the only North American record for this bird until 2005. Then another one spent the summer in an unlikely northern spot, Stephenville Crossing, Newfoundland. Perhaps this is the same bird that showed up the summer of 2006 in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia and then in Kittery, Maine and New Castle, New Hampshire. They are still talking about the economic impact for the region caused by all those birders suddenly arriving there.

So stay tuned to birding news. 2007 is another year, and with cell phones and the internet news of a bird like a Western Reef Egret would quickly flash around the world. Birders will hike, cycle, drive or fly to see a bird like this. But there can only be one 'first' record for North America and

Nantucket has this one. I

George C. West creates illustrations for these articles. The Maria Mitchell Association sponsors bird walks on Tuesday and Saturday mornings starting at 8 a.m. from the corner of Vestal and Milk Streets. There is a fee. To hear about rare birds, or to leave a bird report call the Massachusetts Audubon hot line at 1-781- 259-8805. Ask Ken a question at: kenandcindy1@ comcast.net.