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Hoary Redpoll

Known for their fascinating white and brown plumage (and a red spot on their heads), these birds prefer the northern hemisphere

Seldom encountered during the breeding season because of their far northern range, Hoary Redpolls are more familiar during the winter months when they move slightly farther south, often on a 2-year cycle related to seed availability. Hoary Redpolls are very similar to Common Redpolls, but are somewhat larger and paler.

Unlike many other songbirds, Hoary Redpolls will sometimes forage in flocks even during the breeding season. In winter, they are usually seen in flocks, sometimes with Common Redpolls, and will visit bird feeders.

 

Description of the Hoary Redpoll

BREEDING MALE

The Hoary Redpoll is a small finch with an extensively “frosty” appearance, with brownish-streaked upperparts, pale underparts, boldly streaked flanks, large white wing-bars, a red cap, and a stubby, conical, yellow bill.  Redpolls often have a very fluffy appearance.

Males have a pale pink wash across the breast.  Length: 5 in.  Wingspan: 9 in.

Female

Females lack pink on the breast.

Seasonal change in appearance

None.

Juvenile

Juveniles are similar to females but lack a red cap.

Habitat

Hoary Redpolls breed in brushy tundra, and are found in weedy or brushy fields in winter.

Diet

Hoary Redpolls eat primarily seeds, but also some insects.

Behavior

Hoary Redpolls forage in weed patches, trees, shrubs, or on the ground, usually in flocks during the winter, and often mixed in with Common Redpolls.

Range

Hoary Redpolls breed in northern Canada and Alaska, and winter across southern Canada and parts of the northern U.S.

Fun Facts

The Hoary Redpoll is among the most hardy of North American birds, surviving in bleak Arctic habitats year-round, and seldom coming even as far south as the lower 48 states.

Vocalizations

The song is a series of notes and trills, very similar to that of the Common Redpoll. The flight call consists of a “chif chif chif”.

 

Similar Species

  • Common Redpoll
    The Common Redpoll averages darker, with less of a frosty appearance. Male Common Redpolls also tend to have more and darker pink on the breast. 

Nesting

The nest is a cup of grass and plant down and is usually placed low in a dense shrub, but sometimes on the ground.

Number: Usually lay 4-5 eggs.
Color: Pale green or blue-green with darker markings.

Incubation and fledging:
The young hatch at about 9-14 days, and leave the nest in another 9-14 days, though continuing to associate with the adults for some time.

 

Bent Life History of the Hoary Redpoll

Published by the Smithsonian Institution between the 1920s and the 1950s, the Bent life history series of monographs provide an often colorful description of the birds of North America. Arthur Cleveland Bent was the lead author for the series. The Bent series is a great resource and often includes quotes from early American Ornithologists, including Audubon, Townsend, Wilson, Sutton and many others.

Bent Life History for the Hoary Redpoll – the common name and sub-species reflect the nomenclature in use at the time the description was written.


HOARY REDPOLL

ACANTHIS HORNEMANNI EXILIPES (Coues)
HABITSContributed by PAUL HERBERT BALDWIN

The hoary redpoll is a circumpolar inhabitant of arctic regions. Its range extends wholly across northern Eurasia and the North American continent from Ungava to northwestern Alaska. It breeds in the far north and winters in northern and temperate latitudes southward to the northern United States. It is noteworthy for its sporadic appearances and for its sudden fluctuations in number from year to year in the wintering range. It is rarely seen in settled districts.

This bird is similar in appearance to the common redpoll (Acanthis ftammea flammea) , but it is whiter and often lacks the streaking on the under tail coverts. Apparently the darker individuals of this race are difficult to distinguish in the field from the common redpoll, with which it is very often found in company.

The southern parts of its breeding range extensively overlap the northern part of that of the common redpoll, where its habits are said to be indistinguishable from those of the latter species (Nelson, 1887).

In northern Alaska the hoary redpoll may be found breeding generally in the tundra biome where scattered low shrubs occur. It seeks the willows and alders of the drainage channels or hillsides and tends to avoid the fiat tundra. However, in midsummer, cottongrass (Eriophorum) seeds mature and provide a food resource attracting the redpoll to open places it may not have visited earlier in the summer. In late summer it wanders around joining other species and races of redpolls to travel in mixed flocks throughout the winter.

Territory: The hoary redpoll is not a territorial bird. Its nests may be grouped closely together, often with several nests in one small clump of bushes. The adult birds freely leave the vicinity of the nest. Gregarious behavior continues through thenesting season with the birds flitting about in loose flocks or all stopping to feed together in some spot that attracts them.

In 1953 P. H. Baldwin and E. B. Reed (Baldwin, MS.) found that at Umiat, Alaska, territorial behavior was either lacking or at a low ebb during the middle and late parts of the breeding period. They recorded no singing as taking place on perches near nests. On one occasion, however, a male was seen to chase another male from the nest. Gregarious behavior continued through the nesting period, as the birds frequently gathered in small groups to feed and move about. On June 12, a flock of 8 to 10 mixed males and females flitted from willow to willow constantly chirping in flight. These birds bounded up and down, ascending to heights of 50 to 75 feet, whence they dropped with folded wings. In late June, while nests were still being completed, male redpolls flew around a good deal and often gathered into small, noisy aggregations.

Nesting: Walkinshaw (1948) notes that the hoary redpoll nests closer to water, often over shallow water, whereas the common redpoll nests in the willows on the higher tundra. He found that five nests of the hoary redpoll averaged 71 cm. above ground (30.5 to 99), 48.8 mm. in inside diameter, and 37.0 mm. in depth, while the outside measurements were approximately 104 mm. in diameter and 78 mm. in depth.

A. C. Bent (MS.) found eight probable hoary redpoll nests in little willow patches near Nome, five of the nests in one small patch. Both species of redpolls were represented in nearly equal numbers, as far as he could tell. They were very tame, and he identified them by their colors as they sat on their nests or perched nearby. The nests were all placed in crotches of the willows, from 18 to 36 inches above the ground; they were generally in plain sight, but some were partly concealed in the foliage. They were all much alike in construction, made externally of either scraggly twigs or coarse weed stems, internally of finer grasses, and lined with feathers and white willow down.

A nest in the Bent collection taken by F. Seymour Hersey on the Yukon Delta, June 24, 1914, was placed 3 feet up in a dwarf alder; it was made of coarse weed stems and grass and lined with dark feathers in the bottom of the nest and with white ptarmigan feathers about the rim.

L. H. Walkinshaw (1948) writes: “Brandt * * * states that the Common Redpoll builds the greater portion of the exterior of its nest with small twigs whereas the Hoary Redpoll uses bronze-tinted grasses interwoven with silvery plant down and threads of bark. This was true inï the nests we found [near Bethel, Alaska].” Bent (MS.) found both types of nests near Nome; those with the twig foundations probably he thought belonged to the common redpolls and the others to the hoary redpolls, although this was not positively determined.

In 1952 T. J. Cade and G. B. Shaller (in Kessel, Cade, and Shaller, 1953) found a redpoll nest at Etivluk in the Brooks Range on June 12, 12 inches off the ground and with one egg. They found 11 more occupied nests between this date and July 15 at various localities along the Colville River. All 12 nests were believed to be those of Acanthis hornemanni exilipes. All were lined with ptarmigan feathers and some with caribou hair as well.

In 1953 Baldwin and Reed examined 25 nests of the hoary redpoll near Umiat on the Colville River about 75 miles south of the Arctic Ocean. Of these nests, 16 were in or under willow, 6 were in alder, 1 in an unidentified shrub, and 2 were on artificial substrates at camp. The height at which these nests were placed varied from ground level to 84 inches.

The female redpoll constructed the nest but was accompanied during her work by the male. The whole nest apparently was built in 3 days, and the lining of fine materials and ptarmigan feathers added in less than 24 hours. The main nesting materials were the coarse grasses Aretigrostis latifolia and Calamagrostis sp., and also cotton from cottongrass and willow. Lesser amounts of alder and willow twigs, heath shrub roots, caribou hair, and vole (Mierotus) fur were used in some nests. All nests seen were lined with ptarmigan feathers.

Eggs: The number of eggs varies from three to six, with four or five most frequently comprising the set. They are ovate or short.. ovate, and slightly glossy. The ground may be either “bluish glaucous” or “pale Niagara green,” delicately spotted and speckled, with shades of reddish browns such as “warm sepia,” “snuff brown,” “Mars brown,” and a few specks of black, with undermarkings of “light drab,” “light cinnamon drab,” or “pale brownish drab.” Some eggs may be marked only with the light undertone spots of “light cinnamon drab,” while in others the shades of brown such as “snuff brown” or “Mars brown” predominate. There is, in general, a tendency for the markings to become heavier toward the large end where sometimes a fine, loose wreath may be formed; or again there may be very fine indistinct specklings scattered over the entire egg.

The measurements of 40 eggs average 16.7 by 12.5 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 18.5 by 12.7, 17.8 by 18.5, 14.0 by 11.9, and 17.3 by 10.9 millimeters.

Cade and Shaller (Kessel, MS.) in 1952 found nests with from one to six eggs between Ju.ne 12 and July 15. One nest contained one egg, one had two eggs, one had three eggs, four had five eggs, and one had six eggs. Between June 25 and July 4, they found four additional redpoll nests containing five eggs and young mixed, or just five young.

Baldwin and Reed in 1953 found the average clutch size to be five eggs in 13 clutches under observation at the time the first egg hatched. However, when seven nests discovered after at leaM one egg had hatched were considered, the average came down to 4.7 eggs per clutch. The range was three to sir (1 nest with three eggs, 5 nests with four eggs, 13 nests with five eggs, 1 nest with six eggs).

Incubation: Walkinshaw (1948) notes that incubation is apparently by the female alone. Baldwin and Reed (1955) found the incubation time, defined as the interval between the laying and the hatching of the last fertile egg, to be 11 days. Incubation began following the laying of the second or third egg, the incubative behavior lasting an average of 14.4 days (four nests). Variations in the period were due to differences in promptness of starting incubation and in the number of eggs in the nests. The female did all the incubation and was fed on the nest by the male.

They also observed that during the period of incubative behavior, the male engaged in courtship feeding of the female, and the female begged food from the male. The incubating female usually became excited and restless a few seconds before the male became visible to the observer. How she became aware of his approach beyond the willow thickets is not known. At one nest, on July 3 (3:15 p.m.), the female on the nest became excited; the male came and fed her several insects; she rose to the edge of the nest to be fed, and as soon as the male finished feeding her and left, she settled down on the eggs again. This response by the female was not evoked by a wandering juvenal redpoll passing close to the nest.

Young: Walkinshaw (1948) says: “At a nest found on June 9, three young hatched on June 10 and the fourth on June 11. On June 19, two of these young left the nest when 9 days old; the others remained at least until June 20.” His notes seem to indicate that the female did all the brooding of the young and all the feeding and nest cleaning; once the male fed his mate, however. His table shows that the young increased in weight from 1.3 grams at hatching to 6.5 grams at 7 days; during the same period, the wing increased in length from 5.3 to 20.3 millimeters; the first primaries were in evidence at the end of the first week.

Baldwin and Reed (1955) found the hatchings at afl redpoll nests to occur between June 6 and July 8 in 1953. Hatching occurred at any hour of the day or night. Brooding was by the female only, and the amount of time she spent settled on the nest declined progressively as the days went by. Starting with 85 percent the first day of brooding, the time on the nest decreased to 30 percent on the fourth day, to 27.5 percent on the seventh day, and to 1 percent on the tenth. By this time the nestlings were large, well-fledged, and crowding the nest, and the female ceased brooding. Both ï parents fed the nestlings throughout the time they stayed in the nest. The female fed the young intensively at first and somewhat less frequently after a few days had elapsed. The male, on the other hand, fed the young just half as often as did the female the fourth day, but gradually increased his feeding until it equaled the female’s on the tenth day.

The dates of departure from the nests extended from June 20 to July 21, with the young in 15 nests leaving between June 20 and June 30. The departure of a brood was either sudden and complete or a gradual occurrence over a day or more. Nest departure occurred from 12 to 14 days after hatching, with 14 days representing the typical period of ‘nest life.

Plumages: E. W. Nelson (18S7) gives the following description of young hoary redpolls in juvenal plumage in July: “The feathers on the top of head, back, and rump, sides of neck, breast, and body each with a shaft-streak of dull blackish-brown, and feathers of crown and rump edged with more or less ashy or grayish, and in some cases the gray extends down the middle of the back. Ear-coverts, edges of dorsal, and scapular-feathers buff, or dull fulvous-brownish. The two wing-bars and tertiaries are edged with a lighter shade of buff; edges of primaries and rectrices grayish, washed more or less heavily with a fulvous shade; the abdomen ashy-white; chin occupied by a concealed patch of sooty-brown feathers with a dull white wash

The red crown is acquired at the post-juvenal molt, when a first winter plumage is assumed which is very similar to the spring plumage but is more or less tinged with buff and shows broader white edgings on the wings and tail. The annual molt of adults at Umiat occurs between mid-June and mid-September.

Food: The hoary redpoll feeds predominantly on plant materials, especially seeds but also buds. Insects are eaten to a limited extent.

In northern Alaska, according to Joseph Grinnell (~900a), “redpolls when feeding seldom utter a note, but if alarmed the flock takes flight from the brush in scattering succession with a chorus of calls. The seeds and buds of the alder, birch and willow constitute their sole food supply. When feeding, the redpolls assume all manner of postures, most often clinging beneath the twigs, back downward and picking to pieces the pods.

I. N. Gabrielson (1924) reported on the contents of the stomachs of 11 hoary redpolls. Six of these were collected by E.’ A. Preble in the Athabasca: Mackenzie region and contained seeds of birch and alder. The remaining five were from Michigan and Maine and contained seeds of knotweed (Polygonum), stink grass (Era gro.stis), sedge (Carex), pigweed (Amaranthus), and an unidentified seed.

Baldwin and Reed (1955) made observations on the foods and feeding of hoary redpolls at Umiat in northern Alaska from. June to August, 1953. From June 12 to 16, redpolls were occasionally seen feeding in situations suggestive of hunting for insects, as when a pink-breasted male fed from tall willow branches carefully and quickly searching stems and crotches. Leaves were not yet out on the willows. Frequently the birds sought seeds. Another male was seen foraging on the ground at the edge of slow-moving water under the willows, and a parent from one nest foraged on the leaf-covered ground under the willows. Willow catkins attracted the redpolls, and they often probed the cottony willow pods.

The adults fed the young a white mash of seed kernels which between July 20 and 29 was determined to be composed almost entirely of kernels of the seeds of cottongrass. The mash taken from one adult collected had insect parts mixed in it. One juvenal not long out of the nest was seen feeding at cottongrass, and the bird had cotton on its bill.

The parents ate the egg shells after the young hatehed and often ate the nestlings’ fecal sacs. One adult female was seen to feed its ycmng several insect larvae. Another adult redpoll was watehed 15 minutes while it industriously foraged at brown willow pods which were opening.

As the cottongrass seed heads began to mature in late July, the redpolls spent much more time on the open tundra away from the willow brush, though the willow catkins also attracted them. By August 11 the birds became much scarcer on the tundra, and examination of the cottongrass heads revealed few seeds left in them; some only had empty husks.

Field marks: The smaller hoary redpoll is distinguished from the larger Hornemann’s (Greeland) redpoll (Acanthis h. hornemart.ni) by its size and somewhat darker color. The hoary redpoll often associates with the common redpoll (Acanthis]. i’lammea) in winter flocks and is distinguished from the latter at such times by its frosty appearance. P. A. Taverner (1934) says of Acanthis A. ezilipea: “Characteristic adults [have) feather edgings light so that a typical bird looks like a Common Redpoll * * * seen through a white veil * * ~ However, the colors are frequently so similar that many hoary redpolls “are inseparable from the Common Redpoll except by other characters.”

Enemies: G. M. Sutton (1932) says that jaegers and the duck hawk are the principal enemies of the redpolls. Baldwin and Reed recovered feathers of a hoary redpoll and a fox sparrow that had been fed to two young duck hawks near their nest on a cliff at Umiat Mountain.

Winter: Grinnell (1900a) says that in the Kotzebue Sound region in northern Alaska these redpolls: were present in unvarying numbers throughout the year. They were obviously less noticeable up to the middle of September, or until the summer birds had all left; but during the long winter, from September 15 to May 15, they were by far the most numerous species. The days of extremest cold were invariably calm and clear, and on such days one could walk scarcely a half-hour in any direction from camp without meeting with flocks of from ten to fifty redpolls. In the morning especially, they kept constantly on the go, flying about from place to place with a continuous medley of chit-chat notes. Later, in the short winter day, they would be less noticeable, and were to be looked for in the thickets of alder and willow, where their presence would be first betrayed by the rustle of pods and dead leaves. *** On windy days, which were very numerous in the fore part of the winter, one had to look for the redpolls in the most sheltered situations, and sometimes he would fail to find them at all. But the next calm day would bring them out again in full force.

Taverner (1934) says the hoary redpoll is the only subspecies of Acan,thi,s hornemamni so far reported for southern Canada. During occasional winters this race occurs in varying numbers with large flocks of the common redpoll, but there is no regularity in its visits. Ludlow Griscom (1949) finds the hoary redpoll a rare winter visitor in the region of Concord, Mass., occurring in marked flight occasional years only.

Maurice Broun observed hoary redpolls at Hawk Mountain, Pa., in 1956 and writes (in litt.): “During the mid-afternoon of 18 March of this year, at the height of the blizzard which struck the Northeast, my wife and I, and my assistant, Alex Nagy, studied four extremely lightcolored redpolls that moved restlessly in the lilacs and among the lower limbs of a black birch by Sanctuary headquarters. * * * Three were females. We concluded that these birds could be nothing else than hoarys, for the birds were white as the snow. The next afternoon they returned and again we studied them. * * * Meanwhile we had a flock of 30 or more common redpolls. But the hoarys did not associate with the other redpolls * * * these birds were a distinct homogeneous unit.”

L. E. Hicks (1934) says of a specimen he collected in Ohio on Mar. 16, 1931: “The bird was engaged in feeding in several weedy patches along the margin of an extensive marsh area, a half mile south of the Lake Erie shore. This individual was exceedingly active, darting rapidly back and forth between weedy patches and several fence posts or mounting to some telephone wires or tree tops to emit repeatedly from three to five rapid indescribable notes which recalled at the same time those of both the Purple Finch and the Goldfinch.”

DISTRIBUTION
Range: Alaska, Canadian Arctic, Norway, and U.S.S.R. to northern United States, England, former East Prussia, and Kamchatka.

Breeding range: Breeds in northern Sweden, northern Russia, and northern Siberia east to the Chukotski Peninsula, south in eastern Siberia to south central Khabarovskj and in western and northern Alaska (Hooper Bay, Bethel), northern Yukon (La Pierre House), northern Mackenzie (Fort McPherson, Anderson River, Caribou Rapids of Hanbury River), northeastern Manitoba (Churchill), northern Quebec (Fort Chimo), and northern Labrador (Nachvak).

Winter range: Winters irregularly south to England, former East Prussia, Kamchatka, the Komandorskie Islands, southern Alaska (Kodiak Island, Chitina), southern British Columbia (Okanagan), eastern Montana (Miles City), southwestern South Dakota (Black Hills), Minnesota (Faribault), northern Illinois (Mount Carroll, near Chicago), northwestern Indiana (Mineral Springs), northern Ohio (Lucas County), New Jersey (Bergen Co.), southeastern New York (Bronx), Connecticut (East Haven), Massachusetts (Nantasket Beach), and New Brunswick (Petitcodiac).

Casual records: Casual in Hungary, Maryland (Berlin), Saint Lawrence Island, Sakhalin Islands, and northern Japan.

Egg dates: Alaska: 12 records, June 1 to June 29.

HORNEMANN’S REDPOLL
ACANTHIS HORNEMANNI HORNEMANNI (Holboell)
HABITS

Contributed by OLIVER L. AUSTIN. JR.

In the few notes he left in his files on this redpoll, with which he was not familiar in the field, Mr. Bent characterizes it as “the largest and whitest of the redpolls, a lovely bird when in full plumage, with a delicately rosy breast and a pure white rump.” It is also one of the rarest in continental North America of the five forms of this puzzling genus currently recognized by the A.O.U. Check-List. According to the 5th edition of the Check-List, it breeds “on Ellesmere Island (Slidre Fiord), Baffin Island (Clyde Inlet), and in the northern half of Greenland (Inglefield Land to Orpik on the west coast, Germania Land to Scoresby Sound on the east coast). Has been taken in summer months in Spitsbergen and Jan Mayen Island.” It winters mainly in the southern half of Greenland, but sometimes wanders irregularly southward to Manitoba, Michigan, Ontario, Quebec, Labrador, Sweden, Scotland, England, and France.

One of the few ornithologists familiar with this form on its Greenland breeding grounds, Finn Salomonsen (1950), considers its “general life-habits are very similar to those of the Greenland [greater] Redpoll. * * In the breeding-time Hornemann’s Redpoll is restricted to the interior country, where it frequents hill-slopes and mountain-sides at some altitude. The temperature is higher there than at sea level the vegetation richer and taller. * * * The presence of willow or other shrub of some size is indispensable to it. In the valleys and in the coastal areas, which have a more rough climate, all plants trail along the ground and do not form actual bushes.”

Of its status on Southampton Island, George M. Sutton (1932) reports: “Hornemann’s Redpoll does not, so far as I have been able to determine, nest anywhere on Southampton. It is irregularly common as a migrant, being about equally numerous in autumn and spring. * * * During migration it associates with all the other species of redpolls which are to be found in this region, so that it is sometimes difficult to identify the birds, as they fly about together. It lingers later in the fall than the other redpolls, however, and apparently returns a little in advance of them in the spring. It is rarely seen even in mid-winter when it feeds on such seeds as have not been buried under the snow.”

J. Dewey Soper (1946) observes: “As in other parts of Baffin Island, Hornemann’s Redpoll does not appear to inhabit Foxe Peninsula during the summer months. In the autumn, however, these birds begin to make their appearance in varying numbers, usually in small flocks, but groups of upwards of one hundred individuals have been noted. * * * ~ occurs, apparently, only as an irregular migrant on Baffin Island.”

Nesting: Salomonsen (1950) briefly outlines its nesting habits as follows: “The nest is placed on hill-slopes in low shrub of willow or dwarf-birch * * * , or in crevices in the rock covered by trailing twigs of willow. * * * The nest is built of dry grass, rootlets and willow down * * * . Egg-laying takes place from the end of May to the end of June, as a rule about 1 June. Eggs, ‘probably of this race’ measure on an average 18.2X13 mm (14 eggs; Jourdain). Clutch-size: Up to 7 eggs recorded. Incubation lasts 11 days, fledging 11: 12 days * * * . The earliest fiedgings have been observed 16 June * * * . After the breeding-period the adult birds with their young wander about for some time before they start the migration.”

Food: The only report on the food of Ilornemann’s redpoll is that of Manniche (1910), who identified seeds of Luzula and various Cyperaceae in the stomach contents of birds he examined in northeast Greenland.

Voice: Again according to Salomonsen (1950), its “song and other notes are exactly similar to those of the Greenland ~greaterJ Redpoll.”

Fall and winter: To quote Salomonsen (1950) once more: “Homemann’s Redpoll is resident in Greenland and only rarely leaves the country. The northernmost parts of its breeding-area are vacated in the autumn, but it is known to winter as far north as Thule District on the West-coast and the Mackenzie Bay region on the East-coast. It spends the winter in the interior country, frequenting wind-swept plateaus, hilly plains and mountain-slopes where it feeds on bushes and herbs protruding above the snow. The inner, desolate parts of the country are only exceptionally visited in winter by man, and very little is known about the life-habits of llornemann’s Redpoll there. When mountain-winds blow with high temperatures, bringing a thaw, Ilornemann’s Redpoll appears in flocks at the settlements on the coast * * ~. Hornemann’s Redpoll, in contrast to the Greenland [greater] Redpoll, has never been recorded from Davis Strait in the migration time, a fact which indicates that it leaves Greenland only exceptionally. This holds good also of the East-coast population.”

DISTRIBUTION
Range: Eastern Canadian Arctic and Greenland to south central and southeastern Canada.

Breeding range: Breeds on Axel Lleiberg Island, Ellesmere Island (Slidre Fiord), Baffin Island (Clyde Inlet), and in the nortbern hail of Greenland (Inglefield Land to Orpik on the west coast, Germania Land to Scoresby Sound on the east coast). Has been taken in summer months in Spitsbergen and Jan Mayen Island.

Winter range: Winters in southern half of Greenland (in migration casually north to Peary Land); casually south to northern Manitoba (Churchill), Keewatin (Southampton Island), northern Michigan (McMillan, Sault Ste. Marie), southern Ontario (Galt), northern Quebec (Fort Chimo), Labrador (Kamarsuk), Scotland (Unst, Fair Isle), and England (Whitburn, Spurn).

Casual records: Accidental in Sweden (Gallivare, Lule Lapfmark) and in France (Abbeville).

Migration: Data apply to the species as a whole. Late dates of spring departure are: New Jersey: West Englewood, April 1. New York: Tuckahoe, March 24. Massachusetts: eastern Massachusetts, March 20. Michigan: Blaney Park, March 17. Wisconsin: Duran County, March 26. Minnesota: Kittson County, April 11. Alberta: Glenevis, April 10. British Coiumbia: Cranbrook, April 20.

Early dates of fall arrival are: British Columbia: Atlin, September 30. Montana: Moiese, November 27. Minnesota: St. Vincent, October 26. Wisconsin: New London, November 7. Quebec: Montreal, November 23. Maine: Skowhegan, November 25. Massachusetts: Swampscott, November 16.

About the Author

Sam Crowe

Sam is the founder of Birdzilla.com. He has been birding for over 30 years and has a world list of over 2000 species. He has served as treasurer of the Texas Ornithological Society, Sanctuary Chair of Dallas Audubon, Editor of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's "All About Birds" web site and as a contributing editor for Birding Business magazine. Many of his photographs and videos can be found on the site.

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