Hi Jim and Tweeters,

The recent surge of irruptive finches got more interesting this morning
when I had several WHITE-WINGED CROSSBILLS fly over my yard in northwest
Seattle! I believe there is just one other record from Seattle itself. I
see in eBird that Jim also had a White-winged Crossbill down in Clark
County since his post last week. Today the White-wingeds were mixed in with
a couple dozen Red Crossbills. Red Crossbills have been in the neighborhood
for the past month, though have increased in number during the past couple
of weeks. Most have been Type 3 and Type 4, but I've heard and recorded
Type 2 on 10/22 and 10/30 which is generally pretty rare in western
Washington.

Siskin numbers have also been higher than normal through the summer and
early fall in the neighborhood, but in the past month the numbers have
increased dramatically. My highest counts were of actively migrating flocks
at Carkeek Park with 1185 flying past the morning of 10/11 and another 970
the next day. This was a nice situation for counting them since the flocks
were all flying south with no indication of hanging around the area so
there seemed to be little to no risk of double-counting. I have also been
hearing Pine Siskins migrating at night fairly regularly during the past
few weeks which apparently is not a common occurence.

Small numbers of Evening Grosbeaks have also been around with usually one
or two detections per week for the past month or so, which have usually
been birds flying over.

Good birding,
Ryan Merrill
Seattle


---------- Forwarded message ---------

> From: Jim Danzenbaker <jdanzenbaker at gmail.com>

> Date: Wed, Oct 28, 2020 at 12:43 PM

> Subject: [Tweeters] Larch Mountain, Clark County winter finch

> migration/irruption

> To: tweeters tweeters <tweeters at u.washington.edu>

>

>

> Hi Tweeters,

>

> It sounds like many of you on the west side have been experiencing the big

> Pine Siskin flight over the last month or so. It's certainly been

> entertaining. I've been heading up to Larch Mountain in my home county as

> much as time will allow. I'm seeing about 500-800 siskin blasting through

> each day. Today, the Pine Siskin number was lower but the Red Crossbill

> number has started to go way up. My previous high for the last ten years

> or so has been 64 which I had on Monday. Today's count was 153!!! That

> was thrilling to see but that was eclipsed when I heard a double noted call

> that sounded vaguely familiar. Several minutes of searching and I finally

> located the bird - a female type PINE GROSBEAK!!! This is not only the

> first one I've ever seen in Clark County, I think its the first one I've

> ever seen in Washington!

>

> eBird report: https://ebird.org/checklist/S75530249

>

> The actual site is about 1.5 miles west of the hotspot dot.

>

> I also had a pair of flyby Wood Ducks and a Common Loon which were both

> new site birds (elevation here is about 2000 feet). Species list for this

> location is now 114.

>

> Anybody else seeing an incursion of northern finches other than siskins?

> It would be interesting to figure out if this is more of a local movement

> or whether the same numbers of northern finches are moving south much

> further north. Could White-winged Crossbills be coming soon?

>

> At this same location on Monday, I had 33 raptors moving through:

>

> https://ebird.org/checklist/S75452560

>

> Keep your eyes and ears skyward.

>

> Jim

> --

> Jim Danzenbaker

> Battle Ground, WA

> 360-702-9395

> jdanzenbaker at gmail.com

> _______________________________________________

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> Tweeters at u.washington.edu

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>

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