Common Eider at Sachuest Point NWR, Newport, RI

Birding Rhode Island at Christmas-time

It’s a bit backwards for Californians to vacation in Rhode Island at the end of December. People who think 45 degrees is freezing have no business in a place where the high doesn’t reach 30 degrees. That said, we actually avoided a week of steady rain in LA. And I also got to see some birds I don’t usually see. Survival required 2 layers of pants, 5 layers on top, gloves and a scarf, but I saw them. 

We bookended a stay on the water in Barrington with time near Brown University in Providence. What a charming neighborhood. With the trees bare of leaves and it far too cold for most bugs, songbirds were scarce. (How do the sparrows and titmice and chickadees who stick around tolerate it?) Makes you appreciate the bird numbers we have around L.A. throughout the winter. If geese, ducks, and gulls are your jam, however, Rhode Island in December is the place to be.

Iceland Gull
Barrow’s Goldeneye
Harlequin Duck
Brant

Canada Geese were everywhere. Brant were abundant along the shore. The gulls included Greater Black-backed, American Herring, and Ring-billed. I found one Iceland Gull on the river in downtown Providence. It was a Kumlein’s subspecies, which are much paler than our dark Thayer’s subspecies Iceland Gulls on the west coast (those were separate species until 2017).

Duck-wise, it was a bonanza. Between ducks, scoters, and mergansers, I saw 17 species. I managed all three species of merganser. Seeing the male Common Eiders and their sloping foreheads was a delight. So, too, were the Harlequin Ducks at bitterly-cold Sachuest NWR. Harlequin Ducks like swift rivers in summer, and rocky coastlines in winter with pounding surf. Apparently, they suffer the greatest amount of broken bones of all birds. I found a pair of Barrow’s Goldeneye among the expected Common Goldeneye at Colt State Park. And I saw more American Black Ducks than I’d ever seen in my life.

Birds Besides Ducks, Geese, and Gulls

There were other birds to be found. In the water and on the coast, I added one life bird to my list: Purple Sandpiper. These shorebirds like rocky coasts, and I found a half dozen of them with a group of 20 Ruddy Turnstones on my first foray to try and find them. Always nice to get the main target bird of the trip checked off early. I also added Great Cormorant, a bird I’d seen in Spain, to my ABA life list.

Purple Sandpiper
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker
Bald Eagle
Winter Wren

Songbird wise, I stumbled on a Palm Warbler in Providence that should’ve been much farther south by now. Parks mostly hosted Blue Jays and Song Sparrows, and little else. But in one spot. I finally found some numbers and diversity. In a tangle, a tiny Winter Wren appeared next to a White-throated Sparrow. I saw one Yellow-bellied Sapsucker and three species of woodpecker. A couple of Fish Crows thankfully gave their nasal call. as they flew over. And there was a Brown Creeper, one of my favorite birds to find. I checked a few spots that might’ve had Snow Bunting, a bird I have only seen once, without any luck. 

Sachuest National Wildlife Refuge

Over 8 days, I saw 66 species (I can see that many in a single day in my 5MR in January, for comparison). Since it was a family-focused vacation, I wasn’t able to chase as much as I might’ve wished. There were some Black-headed Gulls in the south coast I would’ve liked to see. And on our last day in Rhode Island, a Pink-footed Goose was spotted on the border with Connecticut. Maybe if I wasn’t the only birder in the bunch, I would’ve squeezed it in. But you can’t see them all.