I never did post the answer this. Brett Fried was the first to answer correctly. Eastern Phoebe! (via text)... Be afraid, I have a few other quizzes in mind... One is rather tough... Will wait and see when they emerge...
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SMALL cormorants roaming the Great Lakes?! Are we ignorantly being invaded ?
I usually keep things like this quiet, because most probably think I'm crazy enough as it is... But twice this year I've seen very small cormorants flying with DCCO's from my condo... The first was about 10 days before the Whitby sighting, and the most recent was about 2 weeks before the Hamlin sighting... Both too far to care about, and I generally ignored them... But now I feel like we're reaching a problem - what are they all ?
In May - Dave Bell and I also had a small-ish cormorant fly right over the point.. I took 4 photos as it flew away - and you couldn't see a darn thing - so I deleted them and we really didn't care...
But it still raises the question - what are the limits of "size variation" in DCCO? I know I can pick out "large" individuals in October/November that I try to turn into Great Cormorants... And I also know that I already have NECO on my "self found" list for Ontario - so I really don't care about finding another.. To be honest, I keep hoping I can find a Great Cormorant so I can ignore the family totally...
"Caution: species in photo was rarer when it appeared"
Anyways, it will be fun to watch how reports of NECO's continue to unfold around the Great Lakes over the next few years...
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Fall Rarity Forecast (short) -
It has been cool in 2013... All spring I ranted about how abnormally cold/slow migration would unfold (in March/April)... It hasn't stopped... Our area was darn cool in July...
3 things about this map:
1. - american weather data is better than canadian
2. - some of the coolest rare birds come from our south (rare fly's etc) - so it's fun to look at them...
3. - a lot of our weather comes from the SW
Therefore it makes some sense to always use these american maps - but it shows that cold air continues to pour out of the arctic - the constant cold fronts we've been experiencing every few days.... It made for a slow-moving spring - but perhaps is setting up for a LOT of good weather for fall migraiton.....
Does it mean we will have a lot of good birds? Or does it mean they can easily leave? Not really sure, but I'll be watching to see how it unfolds...
The outlooks for Sep and Oct look like it will continue...
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