Vermont Weekly Bird Notes: Vagabonds from the North

November. Cold, cloudy, stick season. November is one of the less exciting months for birdwatchers. Serious birdwatchers may stand in the cold and wind along Lake Champlain or along a ridgetop searching for a rare gull or raptor to make their day.

But this November has been different. The Vermont birdwatching listserv is swamped with bird reports. Cold temperatures and a cone crop failure in Canada have pushed many birds south. We’ve highlighted many of these irruptive species the last few weeks in this column, such as the Pine Grosbeak and Northern Shrike. But what about those vagabonds that pluck every last berry from our trees and shrubs? Not the red Pine Grosbeaks, but those drabber ones that are easy to miss unless you are looking for them?

I am referring to waxwings. Many of us are familiar with these sleek, brownish birds with black mask, crested head, and yellow-tipped tail. Cedar Waxwings live year-round in Vermont and gardeners are delighted to successfully attract them to their yard with a fruiting shrub. But why would a common, year-round resident species have the birding community so charged?

Mixed in with our familiar Cedar Waxwings are their larger cousins from the north, Bohemian Waxwings. Look carefully to distinguish the two. Bohemians average more gray-bodied, slightly larger, and have cinnamon on the underside of their tail (Cedars are whitish). If you are better with sounds, listen for a lower-pitched trill which should stand out from the high-pitched trills and thin whistles of Cedar Waxwings.

Their reliance on fruit leads to the nomadic behavior of both species. They form flocks to share in the search for scattered, abundant fruit crops. Every few years when Bohemians come down from the boreal forest of Canada in search of food, birdwatchers look for them mixed in flocks with Cedars or in pure flocks. This year we are finding pure flocks of 25 or more Bohemians roaming our countryside.

As you enjoy the holidays this year in New England and New York, be sure to take a close look at those birds becoming intoxicated on berries—you just might join in on the birding excitement when you see two species where you might have thought there was only one.

Other Sightings

This week’s snow storm probably pushed a few of the lingering migrants south, such as the American Golden-Plover, American Woodcock, and juvenile Yellow-bellied Sapsucker seen early in the week. A few wayward Greenland Greater White-fronted Geese, a smaller cousin of the Canada Goose that breeds in Greenland and winters in England, were seen in the lower Connecticut River Valley in recent weeks. The latest sighting was at Herrick’s Cove in Rockingham on Nov 17.

You can explore all the birds reported last week in Vermont and add your own sightings at Vermont eBird.

-Julie Hart

Vermont Weekly Bird Notes: Loons Galore

Lake Champlain birders were faced with an intriguing and difficult identification challenge last week. On at least three days, multiple observers along the west shore of Grand Isle had close views of two different loons that were definitely not the Common Loon familiar to many of us. The first bird, sighted on November 5^th, was identified as an Arctic Loon, while a second bird seen two days later in company with the first was judged to be a Pacific Loon.

A sighting of either species is cause for excitement anywhere on the East coast, let alone in Vermont. Unfortunately for birders, identification of both Arctic and Pacific Loons is tricky at best. Until recently, the two were considered a single species. Nearly identical in size and appearance, especially in their non-breeding plumages, they can be reliably distinguished only by subtle characteristics that are seldom clearly visible. The Pacific Loon, of which there exist three accepted Vermont records, breeds on Arctic ponds in Alaska and northwestern Canada, as well as in eastern Siberia, and winters (as its name suggests) on both sides of the Pacific Ocean. Arctic Loons breed primarily across Eurasia, with a small extension in extreme west-central Alaska, and winter coastally on the Baltic and North seas, and eastern Atlantic. The Grand Isle individual, if accepted by the Vermont Bird Records Committee, would represent the first certifiable state record of this species.

Lake Champlain yielded other avian rarities during the past week. Foremost among these was a Dovekie sighted along the west shore of Grand Isle on November 7^th. This diminutive member of the auk family, a relative of the Atlantic Puffin, is rarely observed from land, spending most of its non-breeding season far at sea. Nesting in dense colonies in Greenland and the Canadian Arctic, Dovekies sporadically appear along the east coast in massive “wrecks” of stranded, starving birds. It is believed that strong, sustained easterly winds create unfavorable feeding conditions at sea and push the weakened, emaciated birds landward. The largest recorded wreck in North America, during the winter of 1932-33, saw Dovekies raining down on the streets of New York and large numbers washing up along the entire eastern seaboard, from Nova Scotia to Florida. Last week’s Dovekie sighting was only the fourth ever recorded in Vermont.

A Black-legged Kittiwake, also observed off Grand Isle on the 7th, may have been a storm-tossed bird that found its way onto Lake Champlain. November can be a rewarding month for Vermont birders willing to risk the elements! More “mundane” avian highlights of the past week included a Greater White-fronted Goose at the Brattleboro Retreat Meadows on the 10^th and another in Bellows Falls the following day. Four Ruddy Ducks were seen on Colchester Pond and a single bird on Lake Bomoseen. Among raptors, a migrating Golden Eagle was reported at the Helen Buckner Memorial Preserve in West Haven, while the season’s first Snowy Owl appeared in Weybridge. An award for hardiness has to go to a lingering Wilson’s Warbler that has been observed regularly in a Newfane backyard since October 23.

You can explore all the birds reported last week in Vermont and add your own sightings at Vermont eBird

--Chris Rimmer

Mopers?

Mope: to move slowly or aimlessly. Newfoundlanders gave the pine grosbeak the nickname “mope” in honor of its relative tameness. I found out why when I recently encountered a small flock feasting on berries.

For once I did not need the binoculars that I had left at home. True to their reputation, the pine grosbeaks allowed me to approach, affording views of their strong, thick, aptly-named beaks and their two white wingbars. The males’ red head, breast, and belly contrasted with the olive-green and gray females.

Although easily approached, pine grosbeaks that breed in subarctic and subalpine coniferous forests in Canada and Alaska are hardly “mopes.” When winter food is scarce in the north, these finches “irrupt” south into the U.S. in search of alternative sources of buds, seeds, and fruits. The last irruption occurred in the winter of 1998-99, when grosbeaks ventured as far south as West Virginia and Kentucky.

Pine grosbeaks that breed in the mountains of western United States are more sedentary. They are altitudinal migrants, moving down the mountains to lower elevations, where food is more abundant in winter. These populations are seldom encountered more than a few kilometers from their breeding habitat.

An unusual characteristic of all pine grosbeaks is the pair of buccal pouches in the lower jaw on either side of the tongue. This built-in luggage holds a paste of insects and vegetable matter that is regurgitated to young. Pine grosbeaks feed their young mostly insects, but this adaptation allows them to also provide vegetable matter in a digestible form.

In non-irruption years, a few pine grosbeaks still make their way into Vermont. They are most likely to be seen in roads picking up sand and salt, or in fruit-bearing trees and bushes. This week they have been reported in Huntington, Woodbury, West Brookfield, South Royalton, and Norwich. Are we seeing the beginning of a pine grosbeak irruption? Time will tell.

In the meantime, the big buzz in Vermont bird news this week is an arctic loon along the west shore of Grand Isle. If verified, this would be a first for the state, and birders are scrambling to document the bird. Other waterbirds on Lake Champlain include common loons, red-throated loons, horned grebes, red-breasted mergansers, Bonaparte’s gulls, white-winged scoters and black scoters.

Rafts of “several hundred” ducks were seen at Sandbar Wildlife Management Area, including ring-necked, wood, and black ducks. Other sightings include a red phalarope in Grand Isle, a male northern harrier hunting the fields in West Brookfield, and a vesper sparrow in Moretown. “Regulars” for this time of year are making appearances throughout the state, including rough-legged hawk, northern shrike, snow bunting, common redpoll, bohemian waxwing, fox sparrow, American pipit, and evening grosbeak.

Rosalind Renfrew

Vermont Weekly Bird Notes: Not Your Average Songbird

The butcher bird is a songbird like no other. It kills its prey by disarticulating vertebrae and then impaling the victim on a thorny tree or barbed wire fencing, or wedges them into the fork of a tree. This is the northern shrike and if you were a small songbird, you would fly away with fear at the mere sight of one.

Shrikes have been known to kill more prey than they can immediately eat causing them to be characterized by early ornithologists as “wanton killing,” but in reality, they simply are storing excess prey to eat later. This is an adaptation for making it through lean times.

The Latin species name of the northern shrike, Lanius excubitor, means "Butcher watchman." It typically sits and waits on an exposed hunting perch to spot moving prey. Shrikes attack prey on or near the ground by diving down from the perch and flying fast and low directly to the prey.

The northern shrike breeds in taiga and tundra and winters in southern Canada and the northern United States. Its migration patterns are irruptive and irregular with large numbers appearing south in some winters. This irruptive pattern has been both cyclic, about every four years, and irregular in time. The last major irruptions in the eastern United States occurred in the fall and winter of 1995–1996 and again in 1999–2000. And it appears from reports from observers over the past week that we are in for another big migration this year.

While most of the individuals are probably young birds hatched just this year, there is evidence that the adult birds spending the winter here might be regular visitors. Vermont Center for Ecostudies biologist Chris Rimmer found that a few shrikes he banded in late fall in Vermont were old friends he captured in years before. And he had the scares to prove it. These birds have sharp bills that cause a finger laceration in the blink of an eye. Chris looked into the recovery record of banded shrikes reported throughout the Northeast and found 12 shrikes had been recaptured on or very near where they were originally banded one to three years earlier. This site fidelity may be an important strategy for surviving the non-breeding season.

Shrikes have been reported from around the state this week including, South Starksboro, Brattleboro Retreat Meadows, Norwich, Waitsfield, Saxtons River and Lyndonville. Keep your eyes open for them in semi-open areas and around your bird feeders.

Other highlights this week included, black vultures roosting each evening in Brattleboro; two pairs of pine grosbeaks - one on Snake Mountain on the 25^th and one in South Royalton on the 26^th – and a very late migrating Wilson’s warbler in South Newfane on the 23^rd Other late warblers this week included a palm warbler at Woodside Park in Essex Junction on 22nd, and two common yellowthroats at Herrick's Cove on 24^th.

Up to 5,000 snow geese have been reported from Dead Creek. A pair of peregrine falcons was seen sitting on the steeple of Grace Church in Rutland on the 22nd. A late-departing Virginia rail was spotted at Tinmouth Channel on the 25th. High numbers of American pipits were seen this week, with over 150 seen at Herrick's Cove on the 24th.

You can explore all the birds reported last week in Vermont and add your own sightings at Vermont eBird.

Kent McFarland