Bulletin board postings are naturally slanted to positive news and don't do such a good job recording disappearances, either of particular individuals (is the Hooded Crow still being seen?) or of populations. The recent discovery of two Henslow's Sparrows in a field near Ames (Montgomery Co.) got me thinking: are these are the only sightings for New York State this season?
Looking at eBird (a better resource for this type of question) says no, but only just. Evidently, small numbers (the entries are for 1 bird each) are still present in Fort Drum and the nearby Perch River WMA (Jefferson Co.) and a little to the north in St. Lawrence County. But according to eBird, that's it. I suspect official surveys will have come up with a few more at these sites but still. Have other traditional breeding sites in western and central NYS been checked and found negative? Is total extirpation as a breeding species imminent? At what point should Henslow's Sparrow be added to the NYSARC review list? Heady questions. It would give me peace of mind to know if other breeding sites still exist. Precise locations are not necessary, just enough to know whether or not the breeding population in now confined to a relatively small area in the St. Lawrence Transition. Unfortunately I don't have the *The Second Atlas of Breeding Birds in New York State* (McGowan and Corwin 2008) at hand but I am sure this indispensable resource for state birds has much to say on this troubling topic. In 1999, the DEC reclassified the sparrow as Threatened (from Species of Special Concern) but my sense is that the decline has continued unchecked. -- Angus Wilson New York City & The Springs, NY, USA http://birdingtotheend.blogspot.com/ -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/nysbirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NYSB.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
