The official counting season at Hawk Ridge Bird Observatory for the fall 2014 season ended on November 30th. Although the raptor migration was fairly average with a total of over 59,000 raptors counted, the non-raptor migration was the best ever, with a total of over 357,000 non-raptors counted (this is over 38,000 birds above the previous high season, and over 70,000 birds above average). Much of this high count is due to the amazing count of 111,320 finches, including 15,276 Purple Finches, 38,440 Common Redpolls, and 52,389 Pine Siskins. This is the highest season to date for all three of these species, but where did they all go? Judging from mou-net postings, no large numbers of these finches have been reported south of Duluth. It would seem that a major invasion of these species is underway, so it will be interesting to see when and how many of these birds show up in the south. Duluth is certainly one of the best places in the country to see finch migration, but this year the numbers were simply overwhelming! For those who did not witness the daily barrage of flock after flock after flock of finches moving down the shore, it may be difficult to conceive just how many birds these totals represent. Even more amazingly, radar work by the USFWS suggests this diurnal migration counted at Hawk Ridge may just be the tip of the iceberg, with unknown additional thousands of finches potentially moving over at night. Interestingly, this is not the first time a major invasion of redpolls passed through Duluth without being recorded in the south, since the same thing happened in 2011 when over 37,000 Common Redpolls were counted at Hawk Ridge (mostly in late October). Although Common Redpolls are generally thought to be on a biannual cycle, current data from Hawk Ridge shows high numbers of Common Redpolls every three years, including 20,139 in 2008, 37,759 in 2011, and 38,440 in 2014 (most of which were in November). So will redpolls show up at your feeder this winter? I sure think so!
Karl Bardon Count Director Hawk Ridge Bird Observatory (www.hawkridge.org) Daily updates of migration throughout the season are provided at www.hawkcount.org/hawkridge, and weekly blogs summarizing the count are provided at http://hawkridgeblog.blogspot.com ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
