Michael Sanchez is no birder. But the 41-year-old Vancouver man has been getting into photography. So, on a trip to the coast, he woke up before dawn last Sunday and carried his new Sony camera to Hug Point, where he hoped to snap a shot of the picturesque waterfall just after daybreak.
“I shot my pictures, then turned behind me, and I see this little bird,” said Sanchez, the middle school band director at Camas’ Skyridge Middle School. “It was still a little bit before sunrise, still a little dark, so to my eyes, it looked like a tiny bird that was black. I only realized once I got home and was processing my photos that it had this really pretty blue and chestnut color.”
After posting his photos to Facebook, Sanchez learned that his pretty bird was none other than a blue rock thrush, a native of Europe and Asia that is beyond rare in North America. In fact, bird experts later told Sanchez they believe it’s among the first times a wild blue rock thrush has been spotted in North American history, at least with this much documentation.
“Keep in mind I’m not a birder, at all,” Sanchez said. “But one of my friends told me he thought this might be a very rare bird. And now this whole week there have been people gathered at Hug Point trying to find it.”
According to Oregon Bird Records Committee chairman Tim Janzen, a blue rock thrush was previously spotted in British Columbia in 1997, but experts there were not sure whether it was a true vagrant — aka a bird that traveled to the area on its own — or a caged bird that was released or escaped.
“These things are a moving target,” Janzen said. “Certainly the BC record is confirmed. The only question is whether the bird is wild or not. That’s a problem we face with a lot of these records, especially for the super rare ones. We don’t necessarily know how the bird got here. It could have hopped on a ship, it could have come up over through Alaska and then down. Or it could have just flown all the way across the Pacific.”
According to Janzen, a blue rock thrush was also recently spotted on the Farallon Islands off California. And on April 26, a person retroactively reported spotting a blue rock thrush in Seaside in January. Janzen says that while he doesn’t speak for the entire committee, he believes Sanchez’ bird will be confirmed as a blue rock thrush.
“Some birds are tough to identify,” Janzen said. “This one is not. That blue back and orange front, that’s very unique. Everyone who has looked at these photos has agreed on the identification.”
He added: “It’s extremely rare.”
But if Sanchez couldn’t see the color of the bird’s plumage, why did he bother to take the picture?
“I’m new to photography, so I’m just kind of taking pictures of everything,” Sanchez said. “I figured, maybe I’ll catch a picture of it doing something cute. And it was a really good model for me. It sat on the sand for a minute or two while I adjusted my camera, then flew up to the rocks for a few more moments. I was just happy to shoot a bird. Turns out I got a bit more bird for my buck.”
Sanchez was asked to write a report for the Oregon Bird Records Committee detailing where and when he spotted the bird. If approved, the case will be taken up by the national bird rarities committee. Despite being an amateur photographer, Sanchez said birding friends said there’s no doubt of what kind of bird is in his pictures.
“To have photographs of this quality, there’s no question as to what it is,” Sanchez was told. “They just have to go through the procedures of making it official.”
After his find, is Sanchez considering adding birding to his list of hobbies?
“I don’t think I have a choice at this point,” Sanchez said. “The folks in the birding community have been so excited for me. And I’ve received such a warm welcome into their world.”
— Michael Russell; mrussell@oregonian.com
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