More on Junco "Erruption"

Yes, I think we can call this an erruption of Dark-eyed Junco ... and it continues ( see previous post robin junco flip).

Let's see if eBird observations support that; let's compare this year (on the right) to last year, and then to previous years combined.

 Comparison of "Total" Dark-eyed Junco, East Kootenay, spring 2017 to spring 2018:

check out the scale on the left: 2017 upper limit = 420, 2018 upper limit = 1000

Comparison of "Abundance" of Dark-eyed Junco, East Kootenay, spring pre-2018 and spring 2018

again, check out the scale on the left: pre-2018 upper limit = 2.6, 2018 upper limit = 6.5

There are over twice as many juncos this year as we normally record.  What's up with that?  Are they coming here rather than heading to places that were burned up in forest fires last year?  Was it a good winter further south for them?

And they seem to be staying around a bit longer, rather than dispersing quickly to breeding territories.  Maybe because the snow is on the ground later and melting not so fast?

I know they are "thick" in my little yard - a dozen hanging around every day for the past two weeks.  There are still a couple of patches of snow back there but they seem happy and sing most of the day until late afternoon.

And yesterday I had quite a strange mix of birds.  Besides the juncos, and usual American Robin, there was a Mourning Dove,  a couple of Clark's Nutcracker, a Pileated Woodpecker, and a dozen Common Redpoll still!  AND a Varied Thrush later in the day.  (Redpolls seems to be holding back a bit this year.  Someone else reported a hundred of them out on a prairie.)

Nature! Always interesting!

And thanks! to all eBirders for reporting!  With so many more eBirders, we are going to be snowed under by volumes of data at this rate!

Solar veered

Long-billed Curlew "Solar" changed his mind on returning here, maybe. He was headed this way from California but veered East to Kalispell.

I posted on the Montana birding yahoo group in case anyone there could go look for him and low and behold someone did! They saw him, and maybe his new mate, and got pics of him eating a fat worm. Sweet! Thanks, Dick Walker! Great to know he is fine and has company. We shall see if he returns here or tries out a different place.

Meanwhile, Pine and Mojo were snapped on Skookumchuck Prairie and pics posted on eBird. Remote stalking is awesome! Getting out there and seeing for yourself is fun, too! Argyle is out there somewhere.