A December Chipping Sparrow

During the breeding season, a report of a Chipping Sparrow is generally not a cause for excitement.  However after September, these small sparrows largely disappear from Eastern New York, replaced in late October by their larger, arctic cousins the American Tree Sparrow.

On December 12, I was on my way to run some errands.  As I opened my back door, I noticed a small bird on the feeder.  Quickly realizing that it wasn’t one of the normal hoard of House Sparrows that are normally there, I quickly went back inside (hoping the bird didn’t fly off!), grabbed my binoculars and there on the feeder was of all things, a Chipping Sparrow in December!

Now I went through my list of other possibilities and quickly ruled them out.  The dark eye-line pretty much eliminated the even rarer possibility of Clay-Colored Sparrow and the ultra rare Brewer’s Sparrow.

The bird was present again on December 13, but appears to be in poor shape.  The bird spent nearly all day at feeder, hardly moving (but feeding the whole time).  I last saw it at dusk, when it flew off for the night with a small group of Dark-eyed Juncos.

It’s Begining to Look a lot like National Audubon Society Christmas Counts…

Hi All,

Starting next week, hundreds of thousands of birders, across both North and South America, from the North Pole to South Pole, will be participating in the annual Christmas Bird Counts, organized by the National Audubon Society.  For 110 years now this program has been done, and we can now accurately research and study the changes to birds, their populations and distributions like we never have before.  But none of this is possible without volunteer help, so please check with your local Audubon Chapter, Bird Club, National Wildlife Refuge or other organization to see what counts are happening in your area.  This year I am doing 3, Catskill-Coxsackie on Tuesday, December 15, Southern Albany County on Sunday December 20 and Southern Rensselaer on Monday, December 28.  If you live within a count circle, keep track of the birds at your feeder that day, and if your able hook up with a group.  More eyes and ears = more birds!  Plus you never know what you might find!

For more information visit: http://www.audubon.org/Bird/cbc/

Happy Holiday’s and Good Birding!

Historical Bird Records: How much should we believe?

We are very lucky to live in an age, where most birders carry a digital camera out into the field.  If a rare bird appears, it can be quickly and definitively photographed and the pictures shared across the internet in a matter of minutes.  Obviously in the old days, this wasn’t possible.  Birders didn’t commonly lug cameras into the field, the camera’s were not nearly as good as they are now and you still had to develop the picture, which if you didn’t do it yourself, could take a couple of days.  This often meant the bird was gone before anyone knew what it was.

Recently I’ve been reading old reports from The Kingbird (www.nybirds.org) from 1950 on, about my home region (Region in Eastern New York.  While it has been fascinating to learn about certain species which used to occur in certain places (but certainly don’t anymore), every now and then a report makes the list (Which implies confirmation) which makes you just go huh?

remember there were no Avian Bird Record committees then.  If it made it to the Kingbird it was likely discussed by the editor of the region and the person who made the sighting.  In many cases, no details were given, but phrases such as “Convincingly described” or “Almost certainly this species” were used.  There are species reported and “Convincingly described” which would never be accepted by a records committee today. 

 With that in mind, how do we treat these historical records with little or no details?  Your thoughts?