MA - February notes on Redpolls 3 : flammea (variants)

Common Redpoll Acanthis flammea flammea - Whately, Franklin Co., MA. February 12th, 2021.

Relatively lightly streaked auriculars and a hint of caramel-ochre coloring around the face and upper breast sides, as well as relatively 

light streaking on the undertail coverts. 

From a Franklin County perspective, the current incursion of winter finches has produced relatively few Hoary Redpolls. This certainly hasn't been down to a lack of effort and I don't mind admitting that I'm a little surprised as I was expecting/hoping that careful sorting through redpoll flocks would have turned up more than we've actually seen. On the other hand, the search for Hoaries has been a stark reminder of the somewhat bewildering variation within flocks of Common Redpoll Acanthis flammea flammea. Last week I spent a lot of time observing birds much like this one featured in Whately, primarily because of their overall similarity to some Hoary Redpolls but also because some, like this particular bird, were incredibly approachable. Seen at distance with other redpolls, it did stand out as being pale and somewhat Hoary-like. Watching at closer range, I was surprised how many of the features changed with posture and attitude, especially the undertail coverts which appeared only lightly streaked at some angles but well outside the acceptable range for Hoary Redpoll in others. The bill and head shape looked fairly typical for a Common Redpoll. 

This pages features the same individual Common Redpoll with images taken within a few seconds of each other, and without any adjustments to camera settings or photoshop use. 

Overall quite pale, grayish and white with white fringes to the flight and tail feathers plus a suggestion of a white rump and relatively lightly streaked undertail coverts. 

Still appears quite white from below but with multiple dark shaft streaks visible on the undertail coverts

along with a fairly broad blackish 'smudge' on the longest undertail covert. 

Overall quite pale and 'frosty' but the bill length and shape, flank streaking and undertail coverts point towards a  relatively pale  flammea?

A change of posture affecting how the light falls on the feathers and subsequently the overall appearance. 

Multiple streaks on the undertail coverts and rather broad, blurry streaking along the flanks. 

MA - February notes on Redpolls 2 : the Whately flock

 

Common Redpolls - Whately, Franklin Co., MA. February 12th, 2021. Some of the 75 birds present.

Disconcerting numbers of pale/whitish rumped birds within the Whately flocks, most of them with variable amounts of streaking on the rump. 

The fallow fields of Whately became the favored feeding haunt for fluctuating numbers of redpolls this week. While I'd noted redpolls in these fields on previous during the winter, February 6th produced only nine pretty skittish Common Redpolls so to find numbers had suddenly increased to c.300 birds on February 8th came as a genuine surprise. At that point I decided to check the flock more thoroughly and regularly with a view to keeping an eye on numbers throughout the week. February 9th was the biggest day with a minimum of 475 redpolls swirling about the fields during a winter weather event that deposited 2 - 4 inches of drizzly, wet snow over Franklin County. While the 9th was a tough day for actual observations, the fields had clearly 'sucked' in numerous redpoll flocks from the surrounding countryside that converged to form one impressive heaving mass. Numbers then dropped steadily during the remainder of the week (250 on the 10th, 120 on the 11th and 75 on the 12th). My morning session  on the 12th ended abruptly at 10:45 am when a Merlin swept through the fields dispersing the entire remaining flock of 75 birds. They headed off SW without returning. 

Common Redpolls - Whately, Franklin Co., MA. February 11th, 2021. Some of the 120 birds present that day.

Common Redpolls and Snow Buntings - Whately, Franklin Co., MA. February 10th, 2021. Some of the 250 redpolls present on that specific day.

Out of focus but certainly worthy of a second glance, notice the huge, hulking dark brown redpoll to the right and rear of the middle Snow Bunting.

Surely a candidate for A.f. rostrata? 

Common Redpolls and Snow Buntings - Whately, Franklin Co., MA. February 9th, 2021.

The biggest day of the week for numbers with some 475 redpolls present during a winter storm. 

Snow Buntings - Whately, Franklin Co., MA. February 9th, 2021. Some 120 birds arrived during the winter weather event. 

Common Redpolls - Whately, Franklin Co., MA. February 8th, 2021. A tiny portion of the 300 or so birds present.

The large numbers of passerines within the Whately fields became a major draw for raptors too with the regular presence of 2 - 3 Northern Harriers, 2 - 3 Red-tailed Hawks and a Cooper's Hawk as well as the previously mentioned Merlin. Aside from the redpoll flock the fields were positively flush with other passerines and, while numbers varied from day to day, it was possible to see up to 120 Snow Buntings, 35 Horned Larks, 140 American Tree Sparrows, 65 Dark-eyed Juncos, 12 Savannah Sparrows, 12 Song Sparrows and about 9 White-throated Sparrows though the latter tended to stick close the surrounding hedgerows rather than the open fields. 

Northern Harrier (male) - Whately, Franklin Co., MA. February 9th, 2021. Hunting passerines during the winter storm. 

Merlin (female) - Whately, Franklin Co., MA. February 8th, 2021. 

One of several raptors with a keen interest in the large numbers of passerines foraging in the fields. 

Hoar-frosted morning - Whately, Franklin Co., MA. February 10th, 2021. 

MA - February notes on Redpolls 1 : rostrata?

 

1a. putative 'Greater' Common Redpoll Acanthis flammea rostrata with American Tree Sparrow - Whately, Franklin Co., MA. February 11th, 2021.

Clearly large for a redpoll with dark, dense blurry streaks across the breast and along the flank towards the undertail coverts, Very broad black bib. 

Like many across the North-east United States and Eastern Canada, I've been enjoying the current irruption of winter finches, in particular the redpolls. While relatively small flocks have cropped up in Gill, Turner's Falls, Montague, Sunderland and Buckland throughout the winter, very few have been sticking to any particular favored feeding area making them extremely difficult to work with. Recently, through diligently searching the snowy wastes and fields of Franklin County I did come across a decent sized flock of redpolls in Whately and managed to spend a couple of hours with them each day this week. The nervous, swirling flocks were not at all easy to observe but eventually, with some patience, I was able to get to grips with at least some of the taxa that I'd been hoping to see. The identification of any of these redpolls should certainly be regarded as tentative and I'll be delighted to receive comment and corrections on any of them. 

1b and 1c. putative 'Greater' Common Redpoll Acanthis flammea rostrata with American Tree Sparrow - Whately, Franklin Co., MA. February 11th, 2021.

Same bird as image 1a, with dense blurry streaks across the breast and along the flank to the undertail coverts, broad black bib.

The first of these taxa included several putative 'Greater' Common Redpolls Acanthis flammea rostrata, a sub-species breeding in Baffin Island, Southern Greenland, and Northern Iceland. 'Greater' Redpolls can apparently be found wintering in the Eastern US in incursion years and the handful that I noted were not at all easy to pick out from the hundreds of nervous redpolls within the main flock. But, by watching carefully in the field and working with the camera, I do seem to have come up with several decent candidates. Even so, as mentioned, the IDs are intended to be tentative and I remain open to the possibility that these birds are not rostrata but simply dark, heavily streaked flammea that merely looked large and heavy. 

2a. putative 'Greater' Common Redpoll Acanthis flammea rostrata  - Whately, Franklin Co., MA. February 11th, 2021.

Dense blurry streaks across the breast and along the flanks, broad black bib. Seems to exhibit the 'swarthy' look about the face reported in some rostrata.

2b and 2c. putative 'Greater' Common Redpoll Acanthis flammea rostrata  - Whately, Franklin Co., MA. February 11th, 2021.

Dense blurry streaks across the breast and along the flanks, broad black bib. Shows a curved culmen as reported in rostrata.

2d. putative 'Greater' Common Redpoll Acanthis flammea rostrata  - Whately, Franklin Co., MA. February 11th, 2021.

Same bird as in 2a, 2b and 2c. Very heavily streaked rump though I wonder if the whitish ground color to the rump would contradict the ID of rostrata? 

3a. putative 'Greater' Common Redpoll Acanthis flammea rostrata  (right) - Whately, Franklin Co., MA. February 11th, 2021.

In flight with three A. f. flammea. The bird on the right is clearly a much larger, thicker-set bird than

the three flammea with a broader black bib and rich brown-ochre coloring around the face and upper chest. 

MA - a little more on Long-eared Owls

 

Long-eared Owl - Salisbury Beach State Reservation, Essex Co., MA. February 4th, 2021.

Yawning away and looking pretty relaxed!

My recent interest in Long-eared Owls has admittedly been bordering on obsession, primarily spurred on by the degree of difficultly that I've had in finding the species in Franklin County. It's been a real slog finding them but as I hinted in my recent blog post on Franklin County Owls, I did meet with success in a remote spot in Whately on January 22nd but even then I had to be content with scope views and no photos. 

Long-eared Owls - two birds at roost, Salisbury Beach State Reservation, Essex Co., MA. February 4th, 2021.

On February 4th, having already had a brilliant morning with the Redwing at Capisic Pond Park in Maine, my interest in Long-eared Owls then steered me towards Salisbury Beach State Reservation where I knew a couple of roosting owls had been found in the pines sometime around January 25th followed by many subsequent reports to ebird. Other than being aware of a coned off area to protect the birds from over enthusiastic photographers, I wasn't quite sure what to expect and set up my scope anticipating distant views. I needn't have bothered! I was very surprised to see one bird roosting fairly openly in the Pitch Pines drinking in the most of the late afternoon sun. Further searching revealed two more with another in the same stand of Pitch Pines and one buried deep in the Eastern Red Cedars. After a very enjoyable hour I headed for home feeling quite satisfied with the views (and experience) capping off an absolutely brilliant day of coastal birding.

Long-eared Owl - Salisbury Beach State Reservation, Essex Co., MA. February 4th, 2021.

This was the most difficult of three to observe buried deep within this cedar, breast facing left. 

Habitat for roosting Long-eared Owls - Salisbury Beach State Reservation, Essex Co., MA. February 4th, 2021.

Inspired by the views the previous day, I returned to the Whately 'owl site' on Feb 5th with my good friend Brian Kane who's something of a birding ace and a guy with a real penchant for Long-eared Owls. As the darkness closed in we'd almost given up when Brian spotted an owl flying behind a hedgerow in the fading light - it was a Long-eared Owl! Though views were somewhat distant, the snow covered ground gave some illumination and provided enough ambient light to watch it foraging, moth-like, along the woodland fringe for the next ten minutes or so - quite the privilege! There's every chance that this was the same Long-eared Owl that I first noted on January 22nd but with a two week pause in sightings and the fact the Long-eared Owls often roost communally, I'll treat this as a separate record for the time being, only the sixth Franklin County record that I'm aware of. 

Long-eared Owl - Salisbury Beach State Reservation, Essex Co., MA. February 4th, 2021.

While I'm not big on keeping lists, I clearly remember Long-eared Owl becoming my 600th ABA area bird when Eyal Shochat and I watched a single bird hunting in the middle of a bright afternoon at the Riparian Reserve at Gilbert Water Ranch,  deep in the greater suburbs of Phoenix, Arizona. That was way back in December 2000.

ME - a REDWING in Portland!

 

Redwing (1st-winter) - Capisic Pond Park, Portland, Cumberland Co., ME. February 4th, 2021.

Few ABA area birds have haunted me more than two Scandinavian thrushes - Redwing and Fieldfare. Having grown up in the UK both species were familiar winterers, and migrants often occurred in spectacular flights of thousands (literally) during sustained migration watches carried out at my local park in Sheffield. The key period was late autumn but mid-winter flights or 'hard weather movements' would sometimes involve thousands of birds and rival the biggest days of fall migration. Outside of Atlantic Canada, there can be little doubt that the New England states offer slim but realistic opportunities for seeing both species. In fact, I've already narrowly missed chances to see a Fieldfare in Carlisle, Massachusetts (mid-March 2013) and a Redwing in Hollis, New Hampshire (mid-March 2018), both of which directly overlapped with my traditional spring migration tour in Israel. Needless to say, when I learned (last Saturday) of a Redwing being seen incredibly well in a city park in Portland, Maine, I became distinctly 'edgy' and waited patiently for a pause in family commitments before heading out towards the Maine Coast.

February 4th saw me join a modest group of no more than ten birders at Capisic Pond Park, Portland at about 09:45 am. Early reports from birders leaving the site had been favorable offering plenty of room for optimism. The day was warming up nicely with periods of bright sunshine and conditions simply 'felt' good. It wasn't long before the Redwing flicked from ground level up through the undergrowth but stayed faithful to its favored thicket. It put on the most fantastic show devouring Multiflora Rose berries right in front the assembled birders. After 20 minutes or so I was surprised to find myself alone with the Redwing, nothing short a surreal experience given its 'mega' status and not something I'd envisaged on the drive out. But there was the Redwing in plain sight, feeding and soft-singing only feet away with no one in the audience but myself! It seems that my field companions had already seen what they wanted to and moved on to chase the other rarities present within the park. 

While trying to assign Redwings to sub-species in the field isn't recommended and might not be reliably possible, the dark brown upperparts with an olive tint, the dense blurry streaking on the underparts and the brown rear flanks appear to favor coburni, the Icelandic breeding form. 

Breeding, migration and winter range of Redwing Turdus iliacus in the Western Palearctic. 

Courtesy H. Shirihai and L. Svensson from the Handbook of Western Palearctic Birds, Volume 1. (2018)

While I was aware of other rarities being seen in Capisic Pond Park, I hadn't appreciated that they'd be such a compelling draw for visiting birders. But, having already had views of the Redwing that couldn't be bettered, I wandered off to check for the previously reported Dickcissel and a Black-headed Grosbeak, finding the Dickcissel with ease and eventually having satisfactory views of the Black-headed Grosbeak. The latter was perhaps the most tricky of the three rarities present within the park and just happened to be my first in the New England states so was well worth the wait. 

Black-headed Grosbeak - Capisic Pond Park, Portland, Cumberland Co., ME. February 4th, 2021.

Dickcissel - Capisic Pond Park, Portland, Cumberland Co., ME. February 4th, 2021.

Capisic Pond Park, Portland, Cumberland Co., ME. February 4th, 2021.

It's hard to imagine that a  Redwing was lurking the hedgerow to the left when this shot was taken - and nary a birder in sight!

On drive the home I thought about how obliging the Redwing had been, seemingly quite content keeping company with House Finches, Song and White-throated Sparrows. In fact, given the quality and crispness of the New England winter light, I doubt if I've ever had better views of a Redwing anywhere! 

As always, gracious thanks to the finders of these fine rarities. While I was hopeful of simply seeing the Redwing, the close, intimate experience that I had with this bird was way beyond anything that I could have expected. Thank you!

MA - Harlequin still settled on the Millers River

 

Harlequin Duck (first-winter male) - Millers River, Erving, Franklin Co., MA. February 2nd, 2021.

First found by Anne Jemas on Jan 1st, 2021. 

Echoes of the Grand Tetons this morning as I walked along a mostly frozen Millers River, the faster flows exposing a narrow channel through otherwise snow covered ice. The latest Nor'easter dropped 6 - 8 inches of fresh sticky snow throughout much of Franklin County, more on the higher ground. Warmer temperatures made for a pleasant walk along the river and I had little trouble finding the long staying Harlequin Duck, the only duck present. The Harlequin looks settled, healthy and content and, having been there for over one month, I can certainly envision it spending the remainder of the winter on the Millers through to the end of February at least. 

Harlequin Duck (first-winter male) - Millers River, Erving, Franklin Co., MA. February 2nd, 2021.

Harlequin Duck (first-winter male) - Millers River, Erving, Franklin Co., MA. February 2nd, 2021.

Harlequin Duck (first-winter male) - Millers River, Erving, Franklin Co., MA. February 2nd, 2021.

The Harlequin is resting at the edge of the snow left of center.

Lesser Black-backed Gull Center) - sub-adult, Franklin Co., MA. February 2nd, 2021.

The continuing first-winter male Barrow's Goldeneye came into roost at the Turner's Falls power canal again this evening where a sub-adult Lesser Black-backed Gull joined the modest roost of about 300 gulls. 

Horned Larks - Pine Meadow Road, , Franklin Co., MA. February 2nd, 2021.

MA - Hoary Redpoll in Buckland

 

Hoary Redpoll (center) - with Common Redpolls, Buckland, Franklin Co., MA. January 31st, 2021. 

This bird showed a numbers of features that I associate with Hoary Redpoll including the largely white, unstreaked rump, white lower scapulars merging into the mantle, 

tiny 'pushed-in' bill, minimal flank streaking and minimal black about the face. All in all, looked a like hoar-frosted, gray and white puffball. 

The ongoing irruption of winter finches has certainly produced it's fair share of Common Redpolls in Franklin County and throughout January I've been trying hard to spend some quality time with the flocks that I've come across. Groups of 15 - 85 have turned up at spots like Caldwell Road and Pine Meadow Road in Northfield, North Cross Road in Gill, the Turner's Falls power canal, along the Deerfield River in Charlemont, Meadow Road in Montague and the former Pilgrim Airfield on the county line at Whately. With so much scope for viewing and seemingly plenty of flocks to work with, it's been genuinely surprising to find out just how skittish these birds have been. As a result, looking for and finding any potential Hoary Redpolls has been a slow, finger-numbing process! 

Hoary Redpoll (center-right) - with Common Redpolls, Buckland, Franklin Co., MA. January 31st, 2021. 

Hoary Redpoll (center) - with Common Redpolls, Buckland, Franklin Co., MA. January 31st, 2021. 

Dorsal view showing overall light gray cast with pure white rump. 

Yesterday (Jan 31st) my luck finally changed, hopefully a turning point in the winter that should result in a few more Hoary Redpolls being found during February. After a largely fruitless couple of hours scanning for raptors in Buckland and Charlemont I just happened to come across a large, busy flock of redpolls right by scenic Route 112 on the Buckland side of the Ashfield/Buckland town line. I only had ten minutes to spend with the flock which proved to be every bit as skittish as the others that I'd seen during the winter. But, I did manage to first spot and then photograph a decent candidate for a Hoary Redpoll as the images above hopefully show. 

Common Redpolls - Buckland, Franklin Co., MA. January 31st, 2021. 

A mere portion of the 120 birds present. 

Common Redpolls - Buckland, Franklin Co., MA. January 31st, 2021. 

Lots of drama with swirling, skittish redpolls buzzing around.