Other than a quick walk with the dog yesterday at Florida Lake Park after then rain subsided, Jeannette and I spent the rest of the day working on our Ark. Goodness, there’s been a lot of rain!

A ramble through Hedgehog Mountain Park this morning produced only a handful of Dark-eyed Juncos among the various resident birds. However, there are a lot of Golden-crowned Kinglets around right now – more than I can remember seeing last year, at least. Hopefully, they’ll stick around to provide sights and sounds to the Christmas Counts (which frighteningly are only a month away!!!)

So, the persistent onshore winds and abundant rainfall have certainly not been conducive to producing rarities, not to mention promoting birder activity to go out and find the rarities!

So far this late fall, the news has been the (relative) abundance of Yellow-breasted Chats. Although regular, there have been more in Portland alone then have been reported in the past few falls (Monhegan and Appledore Islands aside). Chats are a Southeastern species. Another Southeastern species that has been making a good showing are Carolina Wrens. Are these events related?

We have not had an unusual abundance of southerly winds, and we haven’t had a significant number of reports of other more southerly species – such as Yellow-billed Cuckoos – that would lead us to believe a southerly winds (which would either aid “wrong-way” migrants, or simply “blow” things northwards) were the only factor. If it was just the winds, why wouldn’t we have more (any?) Hooded Warblers for example.

I certainly don’t have an explanation. Global Warming perhaps (it's certainly aiding the expansion of Carolina Wrens and other Southeastern species, such as Red-bellied Woodpeckers and Tufted Titmice)?

Speaking of, here’s a news item today, which although it might be a touch alarmist, is something that we should all be thinking about – Global Warming’s effect on birds.