An almost rainbow-colored male painted bunting has been at a feeder in Falmouth this first week of January. In the past decade there have been sightings in Falmouth and on Nantucket but not here. Is it fair that they get this southern vagrant while we do not? Falmouth and Nantucket have each had three sightings in the past decade but we have not had any in that period.
Since 1967 we have had five sightings. Multiple observers saw one at a feeder from May 14 to 17, 1967; Eleanor Waldron spotted one at a Tiah’s Cove feeder on May 18, 1992; Gus Daniels found one near the Aquinnah Town Hall on Dec. 3, 1994; Jeff Chapman spotted one along South Water street on April 23, 2004; and the quartet of Alan Slater, Susan Whiting, Lanny McDowell and Ken Magnuson saw one on Chappaquiddick on May 14, 2014.
Wait a minute. The last three sightings were in 1994, 2004 and 2014. That is one every decade, so we were due to see one last year. That Falmouth bird was supposed to come here but it must not have had a reservation.
Winter has come.
It has been cold this week and that can impact our birds. The extra food that bird feeders provide can make the difference for their survival. It would be even more critical if there were snow covering the ground (snow is not in our forecast as I write this). Birds can sense changes in air pressure, so some of our lingering species (such as American oystercatchers, greater yellowlegs, American kestrel, brown thrasher, and orange-crowned and palm warblers) may depart. On the other hand, the cold may encourage birds to arrive from further north: canvasback, redhead, Barrow’s goldeneye, northern shrike, red and white-winged crossbill and redpoll. The ducks will congregate where there is still open water, and the songbirds may congregate at your feeders.
We are exceedingly unlikely to find all the species that are on the Island in any Christmas Bird Count. One hundred square miles is a lot to cover even with 13 field teams and multiple feeder watchers out there searching. Five species have been reported this week that were not seen on the Dec. 29 Count. Question of the day (that has no known answer): were they here and we missed them or did they only recently arrive?
Rich Couse spotted a rose-breasted grosbeak at the Hoft Farm on Dec. 31 and Chris Scott saw a peregrine falcon at Bold Meadow on Jan. 2. David Benvent, Bob Shriber and Nancy Nordin each observed one redhead at Squibnocket Pond on Jan. 1, the same day that Luanne Johnson, Nancy Weaver and Rob and Pam Davey found the lingering Eurasian wigeon at Crystal Lake on Jan. 1.
David Benvent discovered another Eurasian wigeon on Squibnocket Pond that day and Bob Shriber saw this latter bird again on Jan. 5. And at Town Cove, Charles Morano, Bob Shriber and Nancy Nordin watched four killdeer on Jan. 5, in addition to 12 Wilson’s snipe (more than the eight reported on Count Day) and 17 greater yellowlegs (we did not have any yellowlegs in Town Cove on count day).
The Aquinnah team spotted 10 razorbills flying past on the very foggy Bird Count. Ahh, what might have been. David Benvent counted 1116 razorbills streaming south past the Gay Head Cliffs on Dec. 31. Did the razorbills know it was time to move south because of the approaching winter weather?
With 65 years of Christmas Bird Count data for the Vineyard now in hand, a cursory look at species population trends is possible. Four species set new high counts. We counted 152 American wigeons, which is a tad higher than the 148 we found in 2015. Double crested cormorants are becoming a more common winter resident; we counted 105 of them, about a 60 per cent increase from the previous high of 66 counted in 2020. In the early years of the count we might see one or two of them.
Ipswich sparrows (a pale form of savannah sparrows) doubled their previous high with a count of 14 this year, while the previous high was seven individuals in 1984 and again in 2009. The 347 lesser scaup observed this year is approximately 2.4 times highe3r than the previous high of 145 reported in 2003.
Northern pintails came close to their previous high. We spotted 23 of them this year while their highest count was 25 in 1995.
Four species tied their previous highs, although two of these species may not be signs of a population increase since there are multiple occurrences of these high counts. Orange-crowned warblers have been seen 12 times, usually single birds, but three were seen in 1981 and 2002 and four were seen in 2015 and this year. House wrens were first recorded in 1996 and have been recorded seven times since then, in each of those years a single individual was recorded.
We observed nine common ravens this year, equaling the number observed on the 2022 count. Remember that a little over a decade ago the first ever raven was seen on the Island at Mytoi Gardens in April 2014. Four great egrets were seen this year and four were also seen on the 2023 count. This species has been recorded 10 times with one observed seven times between 1992 and 2022, while two were seen in 2015.
Please email your sightings to birds@vineyardgazette.com.
Robert Culbert is an ecological consultant with Nature Watch living in Vineyard Haven.
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