I got a text from Jason Horn around 10:00 AM stating that a Far Eastern Curlew, the largest shorebird in the world, had been found in Quebec on Tuesday, the 1st, and had been refound this morning. Jason knew that I had missed seeing this bird in Alaska by about a week, so he knew I'd be interested in it. He also contacted his friend, Marjorie Keefe, who also had not seen this bird. The bird's location was "Blanc de Carleton" on Chaleur Bay in the town of Carleton. "Blanc de Carleton" translates to the "Carleton Sandbar" in English. I looked on Google Maps at the location and realized that it would be at least a 14-hour drive to get there. There was no way I'd be able to try doing this drive by myself, but it would be doable with the three of us sharing the driving. I checked the weather for that area and found that rain was supposed to move in around noon, so we wanted to get there in the early morning. In order to do that and despite the short time to prepare, we all agreed to meet at my house at 3:30 that afternoon where we started the 850-mile drive.
Wednesday, September 3, 2026
As it became Wednesday, we headed up through Maine and crossed the border into New Brunswick, Canada at Houlton, Maine. We still had another four hours to go, plus we would lose another hour because of entering the Atlantic Time Zone. Sunrise came a little while before we crossed the bridge into Quebec. We finally arrived at the "Carleton Sandbar" around 7:00 AM. We grabbed our gear and headed towards the point. Luckily, a group of birders had already found the bird out near the southern end of the spit. I started taking photos of my life Far Eastern Curlew!
It occasionally flew around to different parts of the area.
A Hudsonian Whimbrel was its 'sidekick'. They were often seen together. I got a nice comparison photo of the two, which showed the huge curlew dwarfing the whimbrel in overall size and bill length.
The two eventually flew up the spit towards the parking lot, allowing me to get some flight shots of this rare visitor.
We spent about a hour-and-a-half there. It was tough to leave such a fantastic bird, but we got great looks at it and we knew we had a long drive back home. Even as we left, it was feeding in the longer grass next to the entrance road.
We left Quebec and New Brunswick and went back through customs at Houlton. We had a nice conversation with the border patrol officer about the bird. He had another car of birders pass through earlier and was interested in what the bird looked like, so Jason showed him one of his photos. We drove back through Maine, New Hampshire, and into Massachusetts where we stopped to eat and took an hour "power nap" before continuing down through Massachusetts and Connecticut.
Thursday, September 4, 2026
We cleared the rest of Connecticut and checked off New York and New Jersey, getting back to my house at around 2:30 AM. We drove around 28 hours, covering roughly 1,700 miles. The curlew's appearance was the first record for eastern North America! It was a 'life bird' for Marjorie and I and a 'Canada bird' for Jason, who had seen one previously in Alaska.
