amydavis

Four Red-legged Honeycreepers were discovered in Louisiana and the Florida Keys on the same day in mid-Oct 2022 in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Karl. Subsequently, reports kept surfacing until an astonishing total of eleven locations in three Gulf Coast states and The Bahamas had played host to the species.

Hurricane Fiona tore through the West Indies before heading north all the way to Canada’s Atlantic Region, where it was the strongest recorded storm for the latitude. It brought with it Canada’s first Trindade Petrels, as well as Sooty and Bridled terns, White-tailed Tropicbird, Black-capped Petrel, and Magnificent Frigatebird.

The 2021−2022 invasion of Northern Lapwing into the ABA Area continues into spring as several more reports of this striking Palearctic plover occurred in Mar 2022. Read all about the lapwings that turned up from Newfoundland and Labrador south to Virginia, as well as the weather phenomenon that brought them to the ABA Area.

The arrival of Bat Falcon in south Texas was only a matter of time: the species has undergone a dramatic northward range expansion, but that fact made its discovery at Santa Ana NWR no less exciting.

On 26 Nov 2021, Susan Zelek photographed an unusual bird at Waukegan Beach, Lake Co, Illinois. It turned out to be a Small-billed Elaenia—the fourth ever for the ABA Area, following two other ABA Area records in 2021 and the ABA Area’s first, also in Illinois, in 2012!

A potential ABA Area first, a Lesson’s Seedeater, appeared at Pointe-aux-Outardes, Québec, an intriguing location where a misoriented South American migrant might be expected to turn up. As always with out-of-range seedeaters, especially the striking adult males, provenance must be considered, but could this bird plausibly be a wild vagrant?

Hurricane Nora walloped the Pacific coast of Mexico, making landfall 28 Aug 2020 south of Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco. ABA Area birders realized the impact of Hurricane Nora in the form of a trifecta of spectacular out-of-range storm birds: two Yellow-footed Gulls and a Magnificent Frigatebird.

Fall 2021 has been exciting at Gambell. Highlights from late Aug through mid-Sep include a “Siberian” Common Chiffchaff (representing one of no fewer than four Phyllloscopus species present) and an especially cooperative Middendorff’s Grasshopper Warbler. Common Snipe, Willow Warbler, Dusky Warbler, Little Bunting, and Mountain Bluebird were also notable.

Hurricane Ida slammed into Louisiana on 29 Aug 2021, then veered northeast toward New England and the Canadian Maritimes. In the following days, storm-chasing birders encountered the usual post-cyclone waifs such as Sooty Tern and Magnificent Frigatebird, plus astonishing records of Bulwer’s Petrel and Wedge-tailed Shearwater.