This morning (19 November 2012), between 7 and 9:20 a.m., Steve Kolbe
observed Red Crossbill, White-winged Crossbill, Common Redpoll, Evening
Grosbeak, Purple Finch, Pine Siskin, House Finch, and American Goldfinch
from the platform at Kiptopeke State Park. Brian Taber, Bill Williams, and
others were present for most/all of these. A Blue Grosbeak put on a show,
for an honorary ninth!
I enjoyed the crossbills and Purple Finches but had to get to work and so
left about 40 minutes before the Evening Grosbeaks. Fortunately, an adult
male Evening Grosbeak was behind Fig Street Inn (photographed), right in
Cape Charles, and redpolls are bopping around between Pine Street and Peach
Street (three photographed as of 12:02 p.m. today), so I managed to squeak
out eight species here - but not from a single location! To my knowledge,
there is no Virginia record of eight species of finch from a single spot.
Early reports indicate that Pine Grosbeaks and Bohemian Waxwings are also
on the move. Can Hoary Redpolls be far behind? Surely, this has been a
legendary finch winter thus far, and it's not even winter. Preliminary
analysis of recordings by Kolbe indicate that two "Types" of Red Crossbill
have been observed, Type 3 (widely reported this year) and Type 10,
including one mixed flock. More analysis will be done on the calls in the
near future.
Ned Brinkley
Cape Charles, VA
