Another Western Rarity
There are scattered very rare western birds continually being spotted across the Northeast. A gorgeous male Painted Bunting in New York City’s Prospect Park made some big news recently, and yesterday Stefan Martin found a Townsend’s Solitaire in the Cos Cob section of Greenwich, Connecticut. Masschusetts, Vermont, Maine and New York have also had Townsend’s Solitaires recently, as you can see on this eBird occurrence map for the species – orange markers are less than 30 days old while others are from October and early November. Keep your eyes open for all sorts of...
Read MoreWinter Bird Forecast #2 – Wonderful Waterfowl
The second Winter Bird Forecast of the 2015-2016 season from Audubon Connecticut and the Roger Tory Peterson Institute of Natural History is up at WXedge.com, focusing on a true regional and national rarity. This Pink-footed Goose was found in Connecticut on Friday, one of many wonderful waterfowl species now entering the Northeast. Read on here!
Read MoreWinter Bird Forecast #1 – Western Invasion!
The first Winter Bird Forecast of the 2015-2016 season from Audubon Connecticut and the Roger Tory Peterson Institute of Natural History is up at WXedge.com and focuses on a western invasion of birds including the massive Franklin’s Gull incursion across the Northeast. See more here!
Read MoreGray Ghost
The past week yielded a very large push of migrant Northern Harriers throughout the Northeast, with a sizable percentage of these birds being gray ghosts – adult males – like this one. The strong north and northwest winds following this current cold front should help many more migrants come through our area in the next few days. Will there be more southern and western November rarities with them? Probably, so keep an eye out for everything from the Swainson’s Hawk to the Townsend’s Warbler. Don’t forget we are only a couple weeks away from December 1 and the...
Read MoreAsh-throated Flycatcher
Early this morning Tina Green and AJ Hand reported an Ash-throated Flycatcher (Myiarchus cinerascens) at Sherwood Island State Park in Westport, Connecticut, the sixth record for the species in the state. I was able to run over and join our friends to watch this awesome, hungry and active bird as it flew from tree to tree while feeding in lovely sunny, calm weather. Here are some record shots… Birds like this come to us via the same mechanism as those Cave Swallows, as so many November rarities do – steady southerly flow pushing birds through the continental U.S. followed by...
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