I returned to the island Thursday last, December 7th.
Nothing too surprising happening, just the early winter transitions.
There are still a fair number of large gulls around but the mix now includes a few ICELAND GULLS and occasional GLAUCOUS GULLS.
HERRING GULLS are significantly fewer and well into their winter plumage.
GREAT BLACK BACKED GULLS are notably scarce, while KITTIWAKES are dispersed throughout the area, with periodic concentrated foraging 'round about the island.
GREAT CORMORANTS are about their expected winter normal; that is to say singletons and handfuls scattered around daily, feeding and roosting, but no real flocks.
DOUBLE CREASTED CORMORANTS are only occasionally seen.
A COMMON LOON or two can usually be found around the island, along with just a handful of COMMON EIDERS.
ALCIDS are seen daily scattered in the tide runs some distance offshore. Undoubtedly the bulk are RAZORBILLS but there should be some MURRES and perhaps the odd PUFFIN.
HARLIQUIN DUCKS are around in expected numbers with somewhere near 50 haunting the island waters and feeding in all the usual locations.
This season's cohort don't seem to have any favoured roosting locations and take their ease wherever is most handy.
I've seen EAGLES every day that the weather has been decent. Also 4 other raptors, with 2 PEREGRINES here together on Tuesday. The other 2 individuals were not identified for certain but one may have been a light phase ROUGH LEGGED HAWK.
At this time of years, we get the late migrants, stragglers and want-to-be winter residents, pretty much like the Mainland, with a couple variations.
As I've mentioned on previous occasions, our only breeding songbird is the SAVANAH SPARROW, but none of them overwinter. Instead, a very few SONG SPARROWS try to stay each winter. They are the only songbirds that even try to stay, in spite of the fact that they never summer here.
I've seen as few as 3 to 6 individuals try to overwinter in low years. As many as 20 have lingered in recent years.
Most years, they were lucky if any survived until spring. However, as the number that is staying increases, the survival percentage seems to be increasing, too.
But here's the wrinkle. This year there are no Song Sparrows at all. There were a couple WHITE THROATED SPARROWS last week but they appear to have departed.
There are three STARLINGS, three JUNCOS and one GRACKLE, all of which I expect to fade away as the winter deepens.
The Grackle is a bit of an outlier, though, because it is likely the same bird that's been on the island since September.
Stragglers often seem to have slightly odd traits and these guys are no exception. The Juncos barely touch the abundent White Mlllet and the Starlings completely ignore the suet cakes.
The population of PURPLE SANDPIPERS seems about low normal with about 3 dozen sprinkled around the shoreline. As usual, singles or handfuls make incursions to the lawns to forage among the buildings. There were 8 to 10 under our solar panels all day Monday, searching the puddles and unfrozen ground during the heavy wind and rain.
Also storm-driven to the lawn was a lone CANADA GOOSE, which, thankfully, departed by nightfall Monday. Nonetheless, it had time to leave lots of calling cards, requiring a wash down of the helicopter pad and adjacent boardwalk.
The star of the storm wasn't apparent until Tuesday, with the appearance of a grounded DOVEKIE. It was a juvenile and uninjured so it made haste for the open water when I tossed it at the shore.
This was only the 2nd Dovekie that I've seen on the island in 27 years and the other one was dead.
We only rarely see them on the water or flying past.
I know how they get stranded, often far inland, but grounding on such a tiny bit of land seems highly unusual.
Where this fella was found, no storm puddles form, there are no nearby lights and he could fly over the land, water to water in literally 5 seconds or less.
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