Hi all, FinchFest 2020-2021 continues I went to one of my local central NY patches yesterday, and ended the day with 120 Red Crossbills (all sounded like type 10; some recordings obtained), 11 White-winged Crossbills, 188 Common Redpolls, 12 American Goldfinches, a few Pine Siskins, 16 Purple Finches, 1 House Finch, 21 Evening Grosbeaks and a fairly close flyby immature/female type Pine Grosbeak -- Only dipped on Hoary Redpoll for the 10 eastern finches. A friend went to another local patch and also had a Pine Grosbeak and much of the same — So that makes for a few Pine Grosbeaks south of the Ontario lakeplain. I think there's a 70-75% a couple small flocks make it to northern PA. Here's the main checklist from yesterday. https://ebird.org/atlasny/checklist/S76563061
stay safe everyone! Matt P.S. Here's a couple articles the Finch Research Network has published on this year's finch superflight. https://finchnetwork.org/irruption-alert-redpolls-ride-south-in-perhaps-their-largest-push-in-almost-a-decade https://finchnetwork.org/irruption-alert-evening-grosbeaks-are-moving-in-largest-numbers-in-20-years On Sun, Nov 22, 2020 at 8:34 PM Shaibal Mitra <shaibal.mi...@csi.cuny.edu> wrote: > The Block Island Veterans Day Count was conducted for the 25th time on 16 > Nov 2020 by five participants in four parties. Despite the smaller than > usual number of participants, coverage was strong, with 32 party-miles on > foot and two boat crossings during daylight. Wind was an issue, especially > early in the day, with sustained winds of 24 mph and gusts up to 40 mph > making the morning ferry ride one of the roughest in memory. The wind > undoubtedly hindered detection of many species of landbirds also, and the > general paucity of these birds was noted by all participants: 47 landbird > species were eight fewer than average, and 67 landbirds per foot-mile were > 55 fewer than average. Even so, no species was missed for the first time. > > Despite the irruptions of many boreal species this fall, our count managed > to fall on a poor day. We missed Purple Finch, Common Redpoll, and Red > Crossbill, which have been moving strongly in the region, and barely eked > out two Pine Siskins, one very vocal Evening Grosbeak, seven Red-breasted > and three White-breasted Nuthatches, and a Hairy Woodpecker. Lingering > migrants, often a very interesting feature of this count, were almost > completely absent: Eastern Phoebe, Lincoln’s Sparrow, Indigo Bunting, and > Baltimore Oriole were all missed, and the total of three warbler species > (Cape May and Palm in addition to Myrtle) was surely the lowest ever for > this count. A White-eyed Vireo, a third record for the November count and > two Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers (a species recorded for just the ninth time > in 25 years) were the most notable exceptions to this pattern. The regular > CBC half-hardies were all notably scarce: seven Golden-crowned and five > Ruby-crowned Kinglets, four Hermit Thrushes, two Gray Catbirds, zero Brown > Thrasher, and five Eastern Towhees were all notably below average. The > overall pattern of scarcity of thicket birds extended to the common > species, as American Robin (39, a new minimum), Myrtle Warbler (23, also a > new minimum), Song Sparrow (184, 34% below average), and White-throated > Sparrow (78, 64% below average) were scarce across all parts of the island. > > In contrast, waterfowl and gulls were well represented, which helped to > bring the overall species total up to 94, nine fewer than average. Seven > Virginia Rails and 1420 Northern Gannets set new maxima, whereas a total of > nine Common Loons was a new minimum. No rare species were found, but a > number of scarce species were tallied, including Snow Goose, Blue-winged > Teal, Harlequin Duck, American Kestrel, Iceland Gull, and two Lesser > Black-backed Gulls. > > Full data with summary stats are attached. > > Shai Mitra > Bay Shore, NY > > -- > > NYSbirds-L List Info: > http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME.htm > http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES.htm > http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm > > ARCHIVES: > 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/nysbirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html > 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L > 3) http://birding.aba.org/maillist/NY01 > > Please submit your observations to eBird: > http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ > > -- -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME.htm http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES.htm http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/nysbirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L 3) http://birding.aba.org/maillist/NY01 Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
