Woe to those of us who live in black bear country and will not put feeders out until late November, lest we feed the bears, then bear witness to the mayhem they create knocking feeders down and around. Purple finches and red-breasted nuthatches move early. In the winter, some head south and end in un-Arctic places like Connecticut In the boom years, snowy owls can feed their owlets well. Lemmings have boom-and-bust reproductive cycles - lots scurrying some years, almost none the next. They live out on the Arctic tundra, depending on lemmings for their main food source. Jeff Jacobs: Memory of Jimmy McGrath celebrated by 'one community,' a sea of baby blue at Fairfield Prep-Shelton game.Connecticut High School Football recap: Fairfield Prep, St.'The Watcher' on Netflix starring Jennifer Coolidge takes place in New Jersey, but filmed in Westchester, NY.Some CT hospitals are seeing emergency department backups, but it's not just COVID causing problems.The Week 8 CT High School Football Scoreboard / Schedule.Stratford's Danny's Drive-In closed amid sale and uncertain future.13 CT diners open for late-night (or all-night) eats.There’s been an outbreak of spruce budworms in the Canadian spruce forests, Hoar writes in his report, giving some species - including purple finches and evening grosbeaks – plentiful worm and larvae sustenance. Larger flocks -moving to find more food - result. Sometimes, if there’s double rations, there’s lots of food to feed babies. It’s not only too little food that brings irruptive species south. “We’ve had red-breasted nuthatches here as early as August,’’ Elkins said. That’s a good sign other irruptive species may follow. MacLean said he’s heard purple finches singing as they’ve flown over the Greenwich Center this fall, indicating they’re already on the move.īoth MacLean and Ken Elkins - director of Connecticut Audubon Society’s Coastal Center at Milford Point - said they’ve also been seeing and hearing red-breasted nuthatches along the coast. “In November, 2020, we had so many pine siskins here that they weren’t just eating at our bird feeders, they were eating seeds out of our hands,’’ said Ryan MacLean, bird education specialist at the Greenwich Audubon Center, owned by Audubon Connecticut.

I had a gathering of redpolls at my feeder on Christmas morning in 2012. These birds live in the Far North Woods in Canada and while they migrate south in winter, they don’t usually travel across the border.īut if cone, seed and fruit crops are poor in their usual wintering grounds, they can come south, often in flocks.

“In eastern North America westward to northwestern Ontario and the upper midwestern states, there should be a flight year for several species,’’ Hoar wrote in his prediction for the coming winter finch season. The battering the Maritime Provinces took from Hurricane Fiona in September may disrupt food supplies there, bringing more birds to New England.īut according to the Finch Research Network in Canada, led by ornithologist Tyler Hoar, there's a good chance we’ll see at least some of these birds. It’s all a bit of a crapshoot - wind, weather, seeds and berries to our north - can keep these species from our state. “People come in and they get excited at seeing new birds,’’ he said. When it happens, he said, the human chatter in the store picks up. “I hope to see them,’’ said Phillip Robbins of Wild Birds Unlimited, a birding shop in Brookfield.

“It might be,’’ said Patrick Comins, executive director of the Connecticut Audubon Society There could even be red crossbills, pine grosbeaks or Bohemian waxwings. Maybe - cross your fingers - there will even be evening grosbeaks, in all their yellow, black and white glory, scarfing down black-oiled sunflower seeds. Which means backyard feeder usual suspects may get some uncommon company - common redpolls, pine siskins, purple finches. This fall and winter, there’s a chance that irruptive birds from the Canadian boreal forests will move south in good numbers.

Robert miller veeer