This is anecdotal. But each year I do an informal survey of the singing males at New Michigan State Forest in Pharsalia Chenango County, NY. I try very hard to not recount birds and I have been doing this almost yearly since 2009. This is a boreal like forest...one of the few you can find outside the Catskills and Adirondacks in the highlands of central NY. This year I found all typical boreal breeders to be as common as past years. BLACKBURNIAN, MAGNOLIA WARBLERS were most abundant like other years as well as tons of OVENBIRDS. My total numbers were a bit down but I did not have time to do a couple roads that I did past years. If I did these roads I have no doubt numbers who have been comparable to other years. The dawn chorus was very active. This is just one spot....so hard to make any conclusions here.
I am assuming this is just this year for many of you? If so, it has to be weather related. If it is a gradual decline through the years...then one would think it could be habitat changes...possibly wintering grounds and/or breeding grounds?? Of course, if resident birds are not as common either as has been stated...is there a disease affecting birds??? let's hope they rebound. Quite spring/summer woodlands is just downright depressing. ________________________________ From: Joan E. Collins <joan.coll...@frontier.com> To: 'Christopher T. Tessaglia-Hymes' <c...@cornell.edu> Cc: 'NYSBIRDS-L' <nysbird...@list.cornell.edu>; 'NFC-L' <nf...@list.cornell.edu>; 'Sean O'Brien' <nypizza...@gmail.com>; 'Chris Rimmer' <crim...@vtecostudies.org>; northern_ny_bi...@yahoogroups.com Sent: Monday, June 17, 2013 3:35 PM Subject: RE:[nfc-l] [nysbirds-l] Minimal Migration or Population Decline? Hi Chris/All, I am out every day and I have not noticed any improvement. As I walk through the forest (or bogs), the lack of birds is all I can think about. I am surprised this has not been a dominant discussion on our NYS Birds list serve. It is so disturbing and everyone is anxiously awaiting BBS data for this year – but of course roadside surveys don’t work well for many species. I can barely find a Lincoln’s Sparrow (I jump up and down when I hear one now) – a species that is normally abundant in our Adirondack bogs. Canada Warbler numbers are way down. I have also noticed the same lack of species that you listed (although, I have not noticed a lack of Ruby-throated Hummingbirds in northern NY). Indigo Bunting is another species that is hard to find. Scarlet Tanager, Veery….I could keep going… Chris Rimmer, Director of the Vermont Center for Ecostudies, emailed about the lack of neotropical migrants in e-central VT, and he is hearing the same thing from others – how quiet the forests are this spring. He has noticed that Swainson’s Thrush numbers are down up on Mount Mansfield in VT. I’ve been finding a few more on dawn tours up Whiteface Mountain since the Memorial Day Weekend 3-foot snowfall melted away. I plan to conduct the Mountain Birdwatch survey of that peak on Thursday, and the results should shed some light on Swainson’s Thrush numbers (at least in high elevation), in addition to numbers for all the other species we tally for that survey (I have the data from last year to compare to). Jeff Nadler, photographer, just emailed about a 3 day trip he took to boreal habitat areas in northern VT & NH, which he visits every year, and the lack of birds this year. He noticed not only a lack of neotropical migrants, but also a lack of year-round boreal species! He echoed the same thing everyone is noticing – the forests are “quiet” with no loud dawn chorus. I think we are all wondering the same question: “What happened?” I hope this question will eventually have an answer. Joan Collins Long Lake, NY From:Christopher T. Tessaglia-Hymes [mailto:c...@cornell.edu] Sent: Monday, June 17, 2013 11:17 AM To: Joan E. Collins Cc: NYSBIRDS-L; NFC-L; Sean O'Brien Subject: Re: [nysbirds-l] Fwd: Minimal Migration or Population Decline? Thank you, Joan, for this anecdotal evidence. Since it has been a couple of weeks now, I'm curious to know if anyone has noted an improvement in their local area birding spots, or if it has been more of the same. For me, I've noted a serious lack of typical neighborhood birds that used to be a regular part of the acoustic atmosphere: Rose-breasted Grosbeak, Baltimore Oriole and Red-eyed Vireo, just to name a few. I've also noticed a lack of Ruby-throated Hummingbirds this year – usually, they are zipping around and chittering in the neighborhood. Not so this year, yet anyway. If this is region-wide, I'd think it critically important to collect as much data as possible to help monitor or track this seeming dearth of activity. I expect this fall migration to be fairly telling, if there was a pop-ulation-wide impact of some kind. Sincerely, Chris T-H -- NFC-L List Info: Welcome and Basics Rules and Information Subscribe, Configuration and Leave Archives: The Mail Archive Surfbirds BirdingOnThe.Net Please submit your observations to eBird! -- -- NFC-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NFC_WELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NFC_RULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NFC-L_SubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/nfc-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NFC-L 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NFCL.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
