Birdnotes: {BIRD NOTES} ~ October 28, 2013

Bird Notes

December 21 is the Brattleboro Christmas Bird Count

Mark Your Calendar and if you care to participate send an e-mail opting for feeder count or field observer to Al Merritt at chpmnkx@sover.net

Snow Geese at the Viewing Area in Addison, VT

It would be reasonable to say that the flock last Saturday (10/26) was over 5000 Snow Geese, one Ross's Goose (seen by others), and two Mallards. There may have been upwards of 5600 Snow Geese.
---Ian Worley

Turkey Season Opened 10/26

If you are planning to be out in the fields and woods birding, take into consideration that the hunting season is open for Wild Turkeys. If you hear turkeys calling it may not be a turkey giving out with the gobbles. Be cautious, it could be a lurking hunter.

Waxwings in the Thicket

There were a dozen or so Cedar Waxwings in the hedges at Thicket Hill Hinsdale, NH on 10/24. Right now the berries are plentiful !
---Dan Brown

Out of the Mouths of Babes

Overheard in a doctors office: A six year old girl was explaining that for Halloween she was going to be a bluebird and her two year old brother was going to be a bird watcher.

---Jan Drechsler, Brattleboro, VT

Winter Finch Forecast (Excerpts from Ron Pittaway’s Canadian Report)

This is not an irruption (flight) year for winter finches, but there will be some southward movement of most species into their normal winter ranges.. Cone crops are good to excellent in Ontario, and into southern Quebec, with heavy crops extending east through the Adirondack Mountains of New York and northern New England States. Winter bird species that you can expect to see, along with their food choice, in northern New England include Pine Grosbeak (mountain-ash, crabapple & buckthorn); Purple finch (berry seeds and feeders with sunflower seeds), White-winged Crossbill (white, red, black spruce and hemlock); Bohemian Waxwing (mountain-ash berries, small ornamental crabapples and buckthorn); Pine Siskins (spruce and hemlock) should be attracted to heavy cone crops in New York’s Adirondacks and northern New England, and to feeders filled with nyger seed; Evening Grosbeak--expanding spruce budworm outbreaks in northern forests will keep them in the north, but many will be attracted to sunflower filled feeders in northern New England.