Bob Marcotte
“What an incredible, delightful experience . . . when I walk through the vacant lot across from my home (into Badgerow Park), the three cottonwoods at the end of the lot seem to be full of migrating songbirds: A Parula, Nashville, and Black-and-white warbler, Solitary Vireo, Red-eyed Vireo, female Rose-Breasted Grosbeak, just in these trees . . . The cottonwoods at the east face of the park’s East Wood are really loaded. At least 20 Nashvilles here and a half dozen yellow warblers. Another 6 to 8 orioles in just these trees. Highlight here is a male Golden-winged Warbler . . . I fill seven reporter notebook pages. Biggest tallies: 44 Nashville Warblers . . . 23 Black-and-Whites, 14 Ovenbirds, 19 Northern Orioles, 8 Great Crested Flycatchers. About 133 warblers all told.”-- Observer’s notes of species seen, 10 May 1996, Badgerow Park
On mornings like these, a half-dozen orioles amid the white blossoms of a single cherry tree set the heart to racing. And they might cause a birder to wonder: What if, on a particularly favorable May morning – when light showers follow a night of warm southerly breezes, when hordes of migrating birds are grounded all over the Rochester region alongside our resident cardinals and chickadees and house sparrows – what if all of these birds could be gently anesthetized and lined up in neat rows for birders to tally before they revived and flew off?
A casual backyard feeder watcher might well wonder: How many thousands of other cardinals occupy all of those suburban tracts beyond my own backyard? A more ardent birder would no doubt wonder how many scarce, out-of-range Worm-eating Warblers or White-eyed Vireos might have overshot their marks and drifted into our region. For that matter, how many totally unexpected bird species, previously unreported for our area, might turn up?
This is not mere whimsy. It illustrates a point: One of the pitfalls of attempting to profile “all of the species” that have been recorded in our region, including their relative abundance, is the sure knowledge that untold birds have occurred here but were never seen or were never correctly identified. Or if identified, were never submitted on a checklist or properly documented.
One reason for this is that there simply aren’t enough birders to be everywhere at once. Except for the systematic raptor counts at that marvelous collection point, Braddock Bay, or the waterfowl lake watch at Hamlin Beach State Park, most observations in our region are extremely limited in scope. They sample only a tiny percentage of birds, because they take place on only a fraction of the area where these birds occur. And even in these areas, coverage is often far from systematic.
Paradoxically, the other sure knowledge is that any list of birds and their abundance will instantly become obsolete. Even in the limited areas accessible to them, local birders are constantly producing new noteworthy sightings and records. Since the 31 December 2007 cutoff for this publication, for example, we have had a record tally of Bohemian Waxwings – 105 on 8 January 2008 (D. Tetlow) at Hamlin Beach. (LG, March 2008)
And yet, precisely because of the remarkable diligence and skill of local birders down through the years – and, above all, because of the records they have left behind – it is possible to present a reasonable picture of the various species they have observed here. It may not be a definitive picture – the published birding records leave too many loose ends for that (see the multitude of caveats below). Nonetheless, it is possible to indicate which species are more or less likely to be seen, and when and where, and to give some sense of what constitutes a large count of each.
The picture that emerges reflects the incredibly rich, complex mosaic of birding opportunities that occur year-round in our region. Much of this is profoundly influenced by the role of Lake Ontario as a barrier to migrating raptors and songbirds and as a magnet for transient or wintering waterfowl. Moreover, the higher elevations in the southern part of our region offer unique habitats that blend elements of more northern and southern forests, where the ranges of more southerly and northerly breeding species overlap.
As a result, we are uniquely blessed with at least three annual birding “occurrences” of national significance: the raptor migration that occurs over Braddock Bay in spring (and, to a lesser extent, in late summer), the remarkable concentrations of migrating waterfowl off Hamlin Beach State Park, and the startling range of nesting species, especially warblers, at Letchworth State Park.
In addition, we benefit from the sheer serendipity that makes birding such a fascinating pursuit. Perhaps it was mere coincidence, for example, that brought a Yellow-throated Warbler from the deep south and a Gyrfalcon from the far north to our region in December 1988. And yet, as Bill Symonds noted, “it is indeed strange that both were reported on the same day a mere 10 miles apart”! (LG, January 1989)
The startling diversity of bird species that visit our area or make it their home gives us ample cause to celebrate. But we will continue to enjoy this diversity only if we are careful stewards of the varied habitats that have not already been gobbled up by human development.
This is an exciting time to prepare these profiles. Today’s top birders are more knowledgeable than ever before, thanks in part to the cumulative experience they have inherited from the generations of birders who came before them. And yet, even with more than a century of observations on the books, birders continue to learn more and more about the various species that occur here, and continue to find species never before reported here. That’s not surprising considering the constant ebb and flow of species that continues to occur in our region as habitat changes, as various species expand or contract their ranges, and as the occasional vagrants wander into our region, far from their normal haunts. Moreover, our understanding of when and where to look for birds is continually expanding. No better example can be found than the lake watch at Hamlin Beach State Park. In the early 1980s local birders such as Bill Symonds, Chip Perrigo and Mike Davids began devoting long hours to observing waterfowl from the remarkable vantage point at Parking Lot Four. In addition to the traditional fall period, when the heaviest movements of brant, loons and other waterfowl occur, they began paying close attention in late summer, thereby documenting, for example, the late-summer occurrence of jaegers. Late summer lake watchers have also produced an avalanche of new record early arrival dates for just about every species of waterfowl.
More recently, local birders have extended their lake watching deeper into the winter, spring and mid summer. Symonds, in particular, has made this a specialty, spending countless hours at the park and coming up with startling counts at unexpected times.
Birders have also benefited from advances in technology that allow them to see farther and clearer (with remarkably powerful binoculars and spotting scopes), to quickly document rare findings with the latest digital technology, and to then instantly communicate their findings far and near (via email, online chats and birding web sites). This would have astounded birders of the pre-WWII years, many of whom lacked adequate binoculars and field guides. Some of them would occasionally climb into trees for a better look!
And yet, modern birders would not be where they are today if it weren’t for those earlier birding pioneers. We owe a huge debt to the likes of:Elon Howard Eaton, the pre-eminent New York ornithologist of the early 1900s, who did much of his birding in Rochester and Canandaigua, and who encouraged his colleagues to keep careful notes of what they saw and when. His Birds of New York, with its detailed, county-by-county list of species and occurrence, offers a wonderful base for comparison with modern times.
William L.G. Edson, considered by some to be the “dean” of Rochester birders, was a president of the Burroughs-Audubon Nature Club and later first president of the Genesee Ornithological Society. Beginning in the early 1900s, Edson and Richard Horsey carefully tracked arrival and departure dates of various species on cards kept at the Highland Park herbarium. Edson’s Weekly Bird Report, a Democrat and Chronicle bird column that appeared for nearly 30 years, is a wonderful resource. It is invaluable, for example, in tracking the arrival of Northern Cardinals, Red-bellied Woodpeckers, Northern Mockingbirds, Carolina Wrens and other “southern invaders.”
Howard Miller, another of the founding members of the Genesee Ornithological Society, overcame primitive optics with a keen ear and eye, and was a stickler for making correct field identifications. He set a very high standard for local birders.
Walt Listman was one of those early birders who, as a youngster, occasionally had to climb the trees for a better look. In his prime, Listman redefined what birding was all about in our region, providing many of the noteworthy records that appear in these profiles. Most importantly, he calculated when and where certain previously unrecorded species might be expected to pass through our region, and then went out and found them. His example has profoundly influenced top birders in our region to this day.
More recently, Laura Moon instituted the daily spring hawk watch at Braddock Bay, and, with her husband Neil, conducted the count each day during three to four month stretches, for nine years. Not only did she spend her days observing raptors; she then spent her nights carefully tabulating what she had seen so that detailed charts could appear in the next month’s Goshawk. From the standpoint of timely reporting alone, Moon set an incredible standard, one that too many birders, alas, are inclined to ignore.
Too often we forget what these early pioneers – and even more recent observers – have seen. Our monthly summaries of noteworthy sightings and our regional reports tout a recent sighting as the “first” or “earliest” for our region when, in fact, it isn’t. (More on this below.) Hopefully these profiles will help jog our collective memories. As a birding community – especially as a birding community with such a strong history and tradition – we ought to know what we’ve seen and what we haven’t – not merely for the sake of accuracy, but out of fairness to all those birders who came before.
It is one thing to prepare a list of birds and their occurrence, quite another to try to make some sense of it all. For example, does the fact that we are reporting a species with greater frequency or in larger numbers now, compared to 50 or 100 years ago, really mean that the species has increased in occurrence? Or does it mean we have a better accumulation of knowledge and more sophisticated tools to find and document birds that may have occurred here all along?
A number of factors have contributed to the latter possibility, making it tricky indeed to make comparisons between the first half of the 20th century and the post-World War II years. They include: 1) Increased access to automobiles after the war and a better highway system, allowing birders to travel farther afield. This made it easier, for example, to more frequently visit such outlying “hotspots” such Shore Acres, Hamlin Beach and Sodus Bay. Indeed, birders now routinely visit other parts of the country (and the world!) and become familiar with species not normally seen here. Consequently, when vagrants of those species wander into our region, birders are more confident in making an identification and filing a report.2) The great migration of city residents outwards into the suburbs. Many birders now live in key migration corridors or closer to prime birding habitat. This allows them to visit key birding areas more often. It also increases the chances they will come up with noteworthy sightings simply by looking in their yards or watching what comes to their feeding stations. 3) The willingness of top birders to continually expand their efforts into seasons that, in the past, were relatively neglected. Consider, for example, this excerpt from the minutes of a Genesee Ornithological Society meeting on 9 November 1938: “A vote was taken for or against winter hikes. 4 – yes. 5 – no.” (GOS, May/July 1948). Compare that attitude to the absolute relish with which today’s top birders, especially Mike Davids and Dave Tetlow, have ventured forth to compile “Big January” and even “Big February” lists. In doing so, they have greatly expanded our base of winter records. 4) The emergence of systematic banding and observation projects that have monitored birds on a daily basis, not just on weekends or whenever birders happen to be in the right place at the right time. These have included the Braddock Bay hawk watch, the Braddock Bay Bird Observatory banding station on Manitou Peninsula, the short-lived but ever-so-revealing daily Hamlin Beach Lakewatch project. (Note: Sponsored by Braddock Bay Raptor Research, the project staffed a daily fall lake watch from 1993-1999, resulting in Ewald and Sherony’s A Summary of the Hamlin Beach Lakewatch Fall and Winter Waterbird Migration Data, 1993-1999.)
So, for example, we now have nearly 30 years of detailed, daily, weather-correlated statistics on the number of raptors migrating over Braddock Bay each spring. Prior to 1977, when this daily watch was instituted, observations of this migration were often hit and miss. Note this telling passage from one of John Brown’s bird columns in 1965: “Monday being a work and school day, there were few experienced observers around to keep a tally on a sizeable hawk flight that developed with the sudden rise in temperature. Observers who did make it down to the hawk lookout in the afternoon counted well over a thousand Broad-winged hawks . . .” (BA, 6 May 1965) There is no telling how many Broad-wingeds actually flew over that day. As a result, it is very difficult to draw meaningful comparisons of migrating raptors pre- and post-1977.
Consider also the wave of new or increasing species – or ones that had not been seen since the turn of the century – that were reported here in the years after World War II. Some of these species were indeed increasing in occurrence here as their ranges expanded either into our region -- such as Northern Cardinal, Northern Mockingbird, Tufted Titmouse, Carolina Wren and Red-bellied Woodpecker – or along the coast, such as Glossy Ibis. Others, such as Brant, were rebounding from periods of decline. Black-legged Kittiwakes, on the other hand, may have been flying along the lakeshore in November all along. It wasn’t until Walt Listman and Harry Van Beurden began watching for them in the 1950s – and finding them –that birders became aware of them (Marcotte, p. 34).
Alfred Starling registered the same concern about Baird’s Sandpiper in 1963: “Early ornithologists considered this bird to be quite rare. We now term the bird a regular fall migrant, meaning that it is seen each year in the fall. I doubt that this bird has increased to any great extent but feel that the reason for the difference of opinion is that it was overlooked in the early days. With the ever-increasing interest in birding as a hobby, the use of binoculars and the availability of good field guides, much of our knowledge of ornithology is being changed.” (WBR, 9 September 1963).
Similarly, on 7 August 1980, Brown speculated that Laughing Gulls might frequent Lake Ontario more often than previously thought, because “regular, expert coverage of the lakeshore at this time of the year has often been lacking in the past” (BA, 7 Aug 1980).
So, the lack of records or lower estimates for a given species in the writings of Eaton, Horsey and Edson do not necessarily mean the birds were not occurring. It may simply mean that fewer birders were in the field – or not in the right places – using equipment that would be considered inferior today. This would especially affect observations of waterfowl on Lake Ontario. This is why, in the profiles that follow, dramatic changes in occurrence are noted, but occasionally may be left unexplained, simply because it wasn’t clear to this writer which of several possible factors were responsible.
Unfortunately, the increasing sophistication of birders has had its down side as well. The emphasis of many birders – many would argue overemphasis – is on finding rarities and compiling personal life, year, and month lists of species they have seen. This has often led birders to concentrate their efforts in a few well-known, lakefront hotpots where migrants tend to congregate and where chances are greatest for finding something unusual. As early as 1953, “the majority of reports received (for the year) were for areas along the lakeshore between Durand Eastman Park and Hamlin Park,” the GOS statistical committee reported. (GOS, November/December, 1953, p. 58) Ten years later, Brown noted that birders were concentrating on the Lake Ontario shoreline and the vast Montezuma refuge to the exclusion of most other birding spots. “This results in some rare records and in large and interesting lists of birds, but in some cases it also projects a distorted picture of the status of certain species,” he wrote. For example, he noted, many birders were commenting on the apparent lack of bluebirds. And yet, a Rochester attorney and his wife, driving near Naples, told Brown of seeing 24 of them in that area alone. (BA, 19 September 1963)
Steve Taylor, in his commentary on July 1980 noteworthy sightings for the Little Gull, observed that not a single screech owl had been reported that month, and Cerulean and Chestnut-sided warblers on only a single day each. Did this reflect actual population changes, he wondered, or “a changing emphasis and focus on the part of the birding community. . . Have the personal list and the reporting of rare birds become the objects of our hobby, with seemingly little concern for the subjects of study, the birds themselves?” (LG, August, 1980)
“With few exceptions,” Robert Spahn added in his Kingbird regional report for spring 1978, “there is little planned enumeration of migrants. Numerical data mainly are received as a result of some unusual movement that catches and holds the interest of an observer for some period.”
The resulting gaps in our understanding of local bird species become especially apparent during the Breeding Bird Atlas projects, when birders are forced to canvass areas they normally don’t frequent. Reading through the birding newsletters and quarterly reports, one sensed that Vesper sparrow, for example, was teetering on the brink of local extirpation – until the first Breeding Bird Atlas came along, and, voila! By the end of the project, Vesper Sparrows were being “quite easily located” by atlasers “in suitable habitat.” (KB 34:244). This doesn’t mean Vesper Sparrows hadn’t declined considerably, even drastically, from their peak levels in the early 1900s, and weren’t continuing to do so. But apparently they were not as hard to find as many birders believed.
This is not meant as a criticism of the birding community. Far from it. Valuable, meaningful observations of bird population trends are obtained only as the result of highly structured, long-term monitoring projects. This can be a wearisome, time-consuming job indeed, well beyond the reach of many birders who, like most people, have full-time jobs and family obligations, and often are limited to weekend birding.
The point is simply this: A great many of our bird observations are hit and miss.The devil is in the details
Most of the statistical information in these profiles – dates, numbers, locations of noteworthy sightings – is derived primarily from four sources: - The monthly lists of noteworthy sightings in the 1948-2004 Goshawk, the newsletter of the Genesee Ornithological Society.
- The monthly noteworthy sightings in the 1975-2007 Little Gull, the newsletter of the Rochester Birding Association.
- The 1950-2005 region 2 summaries in the Kingbird quarterly of the New York State Ornithological Association (previously called the Federation of New York State Bird Clubs).
- The Birds of Monroe County, New York, Annotated List (1985).
These constitute the bulk of the published records of birding in Region 2. And therein lie several dilemmas.
First of all, because these reports represent the tail end of the reporting process, they often contain errors. It is understandable that this occurs. From the moment a birder sees something interesting, to the point that the noteworthy sighting appears in a club newsletter and eventually in the Kingbird quarterly, the information must pass through several stages of “processing.” It must be: - accurately entered by the observer on a checklist.
- reviewed by a statistics committee.
- culled from all the other observations submitted for that month and typed up with other noteworthy sightings on a separate list.
- submitted for publication in the club newsletter or Kingbird report, entailing, at least before the advent of email, yet another round of retyping.
At each step of the way, the opportunity exists for a noteworthy record to be overlooked, mis-communicated or typed or retyped incorrectly. For example, was that an incredible tally of 20 Sharp-tailed Sparrows at Island Cottage Wood on 18 October 1959, as listed in the unpublished noteworthy records of the Genesee Ornithological Society – now filed with bound copies of the Goshawk at Rush-Rhees Library – or 20 Fox Sparrows as reported in the Kingbird for the same date and location, with a single Sharp-tailed reported at Brighton? (KB 9:163) I strongly suspect the latter!
Somehow a startling total of 32 Glaucous Gulls, reportedly seen by this writer and Richard O’Hara on 8-11 January 1996, ended up in the Goshawk noteworthy records – though neither of us can recall ever seeing anywhere near that many. (Note: This writer’s diary entry for that date indicates 3 to 4 Glaucous Gulls were at Charlotte.
Second, unless the compiler/editor of a monthly newsletter or quarterly summary has the time and/or access to review 50 some years of records – and beyond – it may be hard to determine whether an unusual sighting really was unprecedented.
For example, that “first regional winter record” for Lincoln Sparrow, as reported in the Kingbird in 2005 (KB 55:172), actually wasn’t. One spent the winter in Greece during January-March 1960, and was observed by Listman and many other members of the birding community, as reported in the same publication. (KB 10:25) Our “first” Lawrence’s Warbler was reported from Powder Mill Park on 15 May 1965, according to the Kingbird (KB 15:166) which, ten years later, reported our “first” Lawrence’s Warbler at Canadice Lake on 14-21 June 1975. (KB 25:216) A Piping Plover at Braddock Bay in November 1991 was reported in the Little Gull as only the third record in our area (LGNR), when in fact there appear to have been at least eight previous sightings (see below).
The same problem can crop up with other kinds of records. Rough-winged swallows, reported as tying the record early arrival date on 8 April 2002, and then setting a new one on 4 April 2005 in the Kingbird (KB 52:243, 55:272), were actually six and two days later than the four reported record early on 2 April 1995 in the Goshawk. (GNR) Of the six species of warblers reported as arriving “record early” in 2001 (KB 51: 695), four had actually been reported as arriving on earlier dates in prior years! (Note: see Blue-winged Warbler, KB 44:206; Tennessee Warbler, KB 40: 165, 177; Nashville Warbler, KB 36:152; and Yellow Warbler, KB 26:160.)
And then there were the 240 American Golden-Plover along the west lakeshore on 10 September 2004, touted as a “record high fall inland” count (KB 55:51) when, in fact, higher fall tallies have been recorded here during three prior shorebird groundings, including 1,000 on 7 September 1981. (KB 32:40)
The difficulties for a researcher trying to sort through all these conflicting entries are compounded when a given list of noteworthy sightings may not even be correctly labeled with the proper month. Note, for example, how all or parts of the noteworthy sightings in three consecutive issues of the Little Gull – October, November and December 1992 – are all labeled “October.” The Grasshopper Sparrow that, at first glance, appears to have been sighted record late on 20 October, was actually seen on 20 September, well within historical ranges of occurrence.
Even the Monroe County Annotated List, containing records through 31 December 1983, and compiled over a more leisurely time frame of several years, appears to contain significant discrepancies.It indicates, for example, that there had been no satisfactory records of Piping Plover after 1953. And yet, the Kingbird mentions additional sightings during the 1950s into the early 1960s by such reliable birders as Walt Listman and Dick O’Hara. (See species profile.)The annotated list was intended to refer to records “confined strictly to Monroe County and covers no adjacent areas.” (AL, p. 7)However, it lists “7-10 April 1976” among its dates for Arctic Loon. An Arctic Loon seen on 8-10 April that year was at Pultneyville in Wayne, not Monroe County. (LGNR; GNR; KB 26:159) Its sole winter date for Blue-winged Teal – 11 December 1983 – was a bird at Conesus Lake, in Livingston County. (LGNR; KB 34:112) It lists a record for Blue Grosbeak on 5 September 1977. That bird was in Lima, also in Livingston County. (KB 28:41; LG October 1977) And one of its dates for Tricolored Heron – 20 April 1978 – was a bird at Kendall, in Orleans County. (GNR; KB 28:170, which gives date as April 1) Moreover, it lists an “August 1975” record for a Western Kingbird that does not appear anywhere else: not in the Goshawk, Little Gull, Kingbird or even in the weekly newspaper columns.Finally, in setting out the range of dates during which various species occur, the annotated list appears to have omitted several previously published record early or late dates. Was this by design or omission?
Such discrepancies are not confined to local publications.
Bull’s Birds of New York, published in 1998 after a supposedly exhaustive review of region reports in the Kingbird, inexplicably lists the inland spring maxima for Red-necked Grebe at only 130 and 73 (Levine, p. 101), despite occurrences of 1,000+ along the Region 2 Lake Ontario shoreline in the spring of 1958, 1977, 1982, and 1996 (see species profile). It similarly omits Region 2 record fall inland counts in 1979 and 1981 for American Golden-plover. (Levine, p. 230)
The National Audubon Society’s Christmas Bird Count Web site opened up another can of worms. Granted, it provided this researcher easy access to the yearly species-by-species tallies for each of the three counts conducted in this area. However, it was puzzling that NO House Sparrows were listed at this site for the Letchworth-Silver Lakes count in 1996. It turns out the 713 House Sparrows tallied that year are incorrectly listed as Eurasian Tree Sparrows instead! Similarly, the 466 Snow Buntings seen on the Little Lakes CBC for 1980 are listed as Smith’s Longspurs!
So this writer carefully checked the Audubon web site tallies against the results printed in the local Goshawk newsletter to see if there were any other discrepancies. There were. He then consulted count coordinators to resolve those differences. His confidence that at least one of these two sources – Audubon or Goshawk – must be correct was shaken, however, when in two instances count coordinators came back with a third, completely different tally!
This, too, is not offered as a criticism. The compiling and publication of birding records is a tedious, thankless task. Errors are bound to occur – and this researcher has no doubt that a fair share will occur in this publication as well.
Unfortunately, the only way to ensure the accuracy of the literally thousands of dates, numbers and locations cited herein would be to track down each one to the personal checklists or verification reports where the information originated – to the extent those checklists and reports are even available – and then double check every checklist or verification report ever submitted in Region 2, just to be sure nothing comparable had been overlooked! And that, quite frankly, was far beyond this writer’s time constraints.
This publication, then, should be regarded as the “first pass” at setting down the occurrence of birds in our region. We will not boast a more definitive account until a more intensive search through the records, published and unpublished, can be conducted using several sets of “fresh” eyes.
Bottom line: The potential for errors and discrepancies in the reporting of local birding records, in this and in other publications, is huge. Reader, beware.
A couple of other cautions are worth noting.
Analyzing the tallies from longstanding censuses, such as the Christmas Bird Count, also can be tricky. Comparing numbers from pre-1950s Rochester CBCs with those held since is like comparing apples and oranges. The early counts were often held on more than one day, by a much smaller number of observers who made no effort to coordinate their censusing and may have crisscrossed the same areas, duplicating the count of some birds and missing others entirely. Only after World War II was the count circle divided into sectors, and each assigned leaders, so the count could become truly organized and systematic, and include critical lakefront areas to a greater extent. (Marcotte, pp. 55-57) Moreover, the count circle would occasionally be “stretched” to include “interesting areas.” Thus, the 1948 count included a Barn Owl seen at Scottsville outside the circle! (GOS, February 1994)
A word of caution is also in order about accounts written before the current regional boundaries were established in 1954. When Edson, for example, refers in his newspaper column to a sighting of a given species as being the fifth in our “region,” some of those earlier sightings may have been at places such as Oak Orchard or Montezuma, which are actually just outside what is now known as Region 2. I have tried to discard those sightings in the profiles that follow.
Finally, in any pursuit that people take passionately – and birding is certainly one of them – differences of opinion are bound to arise. Disputes over whether so-and-so really saw a previously unrecorded species scooting by along the lake or disappearing over a distant tree line, or whether that birder simply misidentified a more common bird, can become downright acrimonious.
Many of these disputes raise a basic question about what constitutes a proper identification. For example, to what extent was the sighting of a rarity based primarily on a process of elimination – well, it wasn’t X, and it wasn’t Y, therefore it must be Z, which is always bound to raise questions – and to what extent on a more straightforward, positive identification of the distinguishing field marks and mannerisms of a given species?
And to what extent was an unusual sighting influenced, at least subconsciously, by the fact that the observer was lacking that species for a life or year list and, hence, was predisposed to “see” it?
“With the growth in popularity of birding as a hobby and a concomitant growth in the sport of listing birds competitively, the need for a system of careful review of reports of rarities and potential additions to state lists of species is more important now than ever before,” Charles Smith noted in 1997. This problem was not new, Smith added. He quoted Ludlow Griscom, an early 20th century pioneer of birding, to illustrate why errors of identification sometimes occur: “Mental attitude of the observer: By this I mean, in part, list-crazy enthusiasts, whose one idea is to get as large a daily, monthly, or yearly list as possible, and whose greatest happiness is to add some rare or casual visitant to their list. As this attitude is neither ornithological nor scientific, their observations are unavoidably open to suspicion.” (KB47: 259)
Those suspicions, alas, abound to this day. Once a birder gets a reputation for being too quick to take a questionable sighting and try to “turn it into something” unusual, that reputation sticks. It casts a shadow of doubt on all of that birder’s subsequent uncorroborated sightings, no matter how extensively that birder attempts to document what he or she saw.
Equally frustrating, on the other hand, are the birders of stellar reputation, who argue the most strenuously for acknowledging only properly identified rarities, and yet do not even document what they see! One of the main reasons for requiring written verification reports is so that they can be “read and believed by examiners now and in the future who have no personal knowledge of the credibility of the observer.” (GOS, January 1992)
As Clark Beardslee and Harold Mitchell so astutely note in Birds of the Niagara Frontier Region: “We know now that merely to list a species as having occurred on the authority of a certain observer, with absolutely no further data being given, does not constitute a record which will look convincing after fifty years.” (B&M, p. 69)
And so the statistics committees face an almost impossible balancing act. If they are too picky about what they acknowledge, they alienate birders, the flow of checklists dries up, and the statistics committees, in effect, are left in the dark. If they are too lenient, all sorts of uncorroborated, even undocumented sightings make their way into the noteworthy lists.
This, too, creates immense problems for anyone trying to go back years later and figure out what was solid, what wasn’t.
For example, the notes accompanying the March 1989 noteworthy records in the Goshawk explain that certain of the unusual records “are listed at this time due to circumstances which strongly favor their validity. However, lacking written verification reports by the end of the season, they will no longer exist as part of the local or NY State avian records, and simply be considered very strong rumors.” (GOS, May 1989)
That may have been the intent of the editor and the statistics committee at the time, but who will know, 50 years later, which of those records, if any, were ultimately deemed unacceptable? In other words, once a sighting makes its way into the Goshawk, Little Gull or Kingbird, it becomes an indelible part of the “record,” UNLESS SPECIFICALLY RETRACTED – IN THE SAME PUBLICATION – AT A LATER TIME.
At one time, the only sure way to document a rarity was to shoot, or “collect” it. “What’s missed is mystery; what’s hit is history,” birders liked to say. To which now might be added, “what’s printed is history,” whether it is accurate or not.A description of our region
Shortly after the current regional boundaries were established by the Federation of New York State Bird Clubs in 1954, this description of Region 2 appeared in the Kingbird, the quarterly publication of that organization: “This region consists of the counties of Monroe, Wayne and Livingston, the eastern halves of Orleans, Genesee and Wyoming, and the western portions of Ontario County. It is an area of level to hilly farmland interspersed with large to small wooded areas, several marshes and small lakes and bays. Large sections of the area are under constant cultivation, but the southern part of the region averages higher in elevation and is more heavily wooded, less cultivated. “The only prominent stream of the area is the Genesee River, which flows north across the entire region, originating a short distance south of our border in Pennsylvania and emptying into Lake Ontario at Rochester. The Barge Canal crosses the region in an east-west direction just south of Rochester. Several small inland lakes are present – Conesus, Hemlock, Honeoye, Canadice and Silver. These lakes usually freeze over in January and February. Lake Ontario, which forms the northern boundary of our region, has several interesting Bays. The largest are Sodus, Irondequoit and Braddock Bays. “Elevation varies from about 248 feet above sea level at Lake Ontario to over 2000 ft. on the Allegheny Plateau in the south. The highest point in the region is Gannett Hill (2256 ft.) in the Town of South Bristol approximately 5 miles north of Naples, N.Y. “As one ascends the plateau toward the south the sub-carolinian bird fauna of the Ontario Lake Plain takes on a more sub-canadian aspect. Here on the higher hills and in the cool glens which cut the plateau may be found nesting Juncos, Hermit Thrushes, Magnolia Warblers and an occasional Blue-headed Vireo. Most of the trees are of the northern hardwoods and oak-hickory associations with white pine and hemlock the commonest conifers. Native Red Pine, larch and pitch pine occur in isolated stations. One of the largest stands of Red Pine in western New York occurs along the Genesee River in Letchworth State Park. Here is located a small colony of Pine Warblers. The spruce-fir association is confined in our area to small bogs and swampy areas. The most interesting ornithological areas are the Lake Ontario Shore, the Genesee River Valley, Bergen Swamp and the hilly areas to the south. The Lake Ontario shore is an excellent area to observe migrating and water birds while the other areas produce a wide variety of nesting birds. Shore Acres, a few miles north of Hilton, N.Y., along the lake shore, is one of the best shore bird areas in western New York. Here such rarities as Marbled and Hudsonian Godwits, Willets and Buff-breasted Sandpipers have been seen on migration. In this region the spring hawk flight and the fall duck migration are outstanding in number of species and individuals . . . “The Lake Ontario shore and the area around Rochester are the regions most thoroughly explored. We seldom receive reports from observers in the Genesee Valley, the southern section or Sodus Bay. We would greatly appreciate help in recording bird data from these areas.” (KB 4: 46). This is still a good working description of the region, but it is important to note some significant changes that have occurred during the last 50 years. As recently as 1940, for example, more than 300,000 acres in Monroe County were devoted to farmland; now only about 93,000 acres are cultivated. Much of the rest has been lost to subdivisions, frontage lots and commercial strips. (Marcotte, p. 69)Moreover, there has been a change in the type of farming that occurs on the agricultural land that remains. There is a greater emphasis on row crops, at the expense of grasslands and pasture; many of the hedgerows that provided cover and nesting opportunities for birds have been removed to increase the size of fields. The impact of this upon a variety of bird species, for better or for worse, is detailed in the individual profiles that follow.
The population of the three counties that constitute the bulk of Region 2 – Livingston, Monroe and Wayne –increased from 585,212 in 1950 to 893,436 in 2000. Much of Monroe County’s growth during that period was directed outward from the city of Rochester into outlying suburban and rural areas. This has resulted in some ugly examples of suburban sprawl.As a result, some of those prime birding spots of 50 years ago have been lost or are no longer accessible. The Ling Road marsh behind Russell Station in Greece, one of New York State’s premiere birding spots in the 1950s, was mostly filled in by Rochester Gas and Electric. (BA, 31 January 1957)
Shore Acres, along the lakeshore in Hamlin, survived construction of the Lake Ontario State Parkway through its midst, but is no longer the premiere shorebirding spot it was in the 1950s and 1960s. Tall stands of cattails and other vegetation crowd the edges of the pools that remain there. This may be the result of the regulation of Lake Ontario, which has kept water levels relatively high year round compared to the seasonal fluctuations that occurred in the past. Rose’s Marsh in Parma appears to have suffered a similar fate. Regulation has also greatly reduced the amount of exposed lakefront mudflats in late summer and early fall – and greatly reduced opportunities for observing fall shorebirds, veteran birders contend.
Farther afield, large parts of the Groveland Flats, a superb waterfowl gathering place west of Groveland in Livingston County, were drained for farming. “As a result, one of the best waterfowl resting places in the area has been about wiped out in favor of agriculture,” John Brown reported in 1967. (BA, March 16, 1967) Later, I-390 was built across many of the former swamps and the lowlands that remained. The site still attracts migrating waterfowl, but not in the numbers it once did. (See Fox, p. 11) As Dominic Sherony noted when he worked blocks in this section for the second Breeding Bird Atlas Project, “the marshes that made up the valley at Groveland have all been drained off with canals and all the duck species that nested there twenty years ago are now gone.” (LG, November 2001)
Ongoing loss of habitat, even when it occurs on a relatively small scale, can produce very personal feelings of loss. A vacant field near Janes and Long Pond roads in Greece, where this observer watched his first Rough-legged Hawk hover-hunting for prey, is now an office complex; indeed, almost all of Janes Road, once open fields where this observer participated in one of his first Christmas Bird Counts, is now crowded with houses.
Even the more remote fields in Parma and Hamlin, where this observer spent hundreds of hours sorting through Canada Geese for neck-banded birds, are now often fronted by large new homes, each with its sterile, carefully mowed lawn.
For many birders, this now means having to travel farther and farther afield to find suitable habitat for observing certain species.
But there have been positive developments as well. The increased emphasis on conservation of “open space” and habitat preservation has resulted in some important gains. Additional state wildlife management areas, including Conesus Inlet, Honeoye Creek, Galen (Marengo Swamp) and Lake Shore Marshes have been established in Region 2. Galen and Lake Shore Marshes, in particular, have yielded some excellent bird records. Recent additions to the Braddock Bay WMA offer a fine example of the kind of multi-agency cooperation needed to preserve large tracts of valuable habitat. (Marcotte, p. 78)
The Nature Conservancy and local land trusts have been actively engaged in setting aside valuable habitats, not just for birds, but for plants and other wildlife.
Some former birding hotspots have not been lost but have simply fallen out of favor as birders concentrate elsewhere. Reed Road Sanctuary in Chili and Tryon Park, Howard Miller’s favorite haunt on the southwest side of Irondequoit Bay, are examples.
On the other hand, systematic monitoring projects in recent years have helped us better understand the importance of other historic birding spots that are still in favor. Mapping projects, for example, have documented nesting by some two dozen warbler species in Letchworth State Park. Similarly, the sheer scale of the migrations that occur along and off the Lake Ontario shoreline are now more clearly understood as a result of the Braddock Bay Hawkwatch, the bird banding on the Manitou peninsula and the waterfowl lakewatches at Hamlin Beach State Park.
Kurt Fox, Jim Kimball and others have answered that plea for more reports from Livingston County with a multitude of sightings in recent years. Fox’s Birds of Livingston County, was an invaluable resource for this publication.
It is a tribute to this region’s birders that they have accumulated such a wealth of data about so many of the species seen here. And yet, there are several areas in which further observations would be useful. The following wish list may be impossible to realize, for any number of reasons, but is perhaps worth contemplating.
- A reinvigorated Braddock Bay Raptor Research or comparable group to continue monitoring the hawk flights at Braddock Bay. It would also be nice, at some point, to have a comprehensive analysis of what has been tallied there to date, along the lines of Ewald and Sherony’s excellent summary of the Hamlin Beach lake watch project.
- A “passerine watch” at the lakeshore. Each spring, migrating blue jays, crows, robins and grackles are seen streaming in ragged flocks over the west spit at Braddock Bay, the parking lot at Island Cottage Wood, at Russell Station outlet and Ontario Beach park. These flights begin as early as February and sometimes continue well into June. It would be interesting, for example, to see what kind of tally would be produced today if somebody replicated Dwight Chamberlain’s 1963 daily spring crow count at Sodus Bay.
- An expanded, coordinated lake watch encompassing points all along our lakeshore could also be tremendously revealing. Waterfowl movements off Hamlin Beach get a great deal of coverage, and deservedly so. However, Allen Kemnitzer, Tom Tetlow and other birders used to come up with some outstanding counts of loons, grebes and other waterfowl between Irondequoit and Sodus bays at times when there apparently was little comparable activity along the west lakeshore. And what about those intriguing accounts of Brant and shorebirds turning south over the lakeshore at Sodus Bay and other points to the east? There is still much to learn about the routes used by migrating waterfowl and shorebirds in our region. It would be fascinating to compare numbers from a spring or fall lake watch at Pultneyville or Sodus Point, with observations from Hamlin Beach on comparable days.
- Will there ever be a “Birds of Wayne County”? More observations are needed from a county that constitutes roughly a third of the Region 2 area but, in the past, has received, proportionately, far less coverage.
- An annotated list for all of Region 2, along the lines of the annotated list prepared for Monroe County and published in 1985. This would greatly help clarify record early and late dates, and the status of various species.
Finally, this writer owes an immense debt of gratitude to scores of birders whose writings, research, conversations and editing have contributed so much to this effort. They include Douglass Bassett, Elizabeth Brooks, John Brown, Mike Davids, Frank Dobson, Elon Howard Eaton, William Edson, Brett Ewald, Kurt Fox, Kevin Griffith, Richard Horsey, Howard Miller, Richard O’Hara, Chip Perrigo, Dominic Sherony, Jeanne Skelly, Robert Spahn, William Symonds, Steve Taylor, Leo Tanghe and Dave Tetlow.
But this is only the tip of the iceberg. The real heroes are all those local birders down through the years who have not only gone out to look for birds, but have taken the time to fill out their checklists and prepare verification reports. Without all that documentation, these profiles would not be possible.
How profiles are arranged
“This species (Red Crossbill) is gentle and approachable in disposition, exhibiting very little fear of mankind. I have frequently stood under a hemlock or a spruce for some time without realizing that 20 or 30 crossbills were scattered throughout the top of the tree, twisting the seeds from the cones, until the little wings which they had cut from the seeds came floating down and advised me of their presence. . . . They are very dexterous in their work of extracting seeds from the cones, climbing about and hanging by their feet and bills almost as expertly as parrots.”– Elon Howard EtonBirds of New York (2: 267)
Birds are more than numbers, dates and locations. They are creatures of endless fascination, touching our lives in many ways. As many as 300 different species are reported in our region each year, and those who try to see as many of them as possible know it is a year-round pursuit, filled with challenge, excitement and moments of high drama. So rather than simply reduce the birds we’ve seen to dates, numbers and locations, I have tried to begin each of the profiles with some anecdote or description that might, in some way, convey the appeal of these birds and the joys and challenges of watching them.Especially helpful were Eaton’s descriptions from Birds of New York; the newspaper columns of William Edson, John Brown and Frank Dobson; field trip accounts and other reports published in the Goshawk and Little Gull; verification reports; Richard O’Hara’s diaries; and interviews with other birders. Only as a last resort have I drawn upon my own personal observations (attributed to “this birder”).
The profiles are then broken down into the following sections:
Background: This provides a broader context for each of our species, explaining their overall continental ranges, habitat preferences and population trends as reported in The Birds of North America profiles.
Local history: Many people are surprised to learn that Northern Cardinals did not arrive as a permanent breeding species until the 1940s. And that is just one example of how the occurrence of even commonplace species have changed over the years. This section looks at the earlier records of birds in our region, primarily from the late 1800s through the 1970s. Main sources for this information are: Eaton’s Birds of New York; Horsey’s list of birds seen in Rochester and Monroe County from 1913-1936; Edson’s Weekly Bird Report in the Democrat and Chronicle from the 1930s to early 1960s; Leo Tanghe’s tabulations of species seen during 1951-1954 and his 1953 list of breeding birds in the Rochester area; John Brown’s weekly Birds Afield column in the Times-Union beginning in the 1950s; Beardslee and Mitchell’s Birds of the Niagara Frontier published in 1965 and Bull’s Birds of New York, published in 1974.
Status: Brief descriptions of each species frequency of occurrence and relative abundance, based primarily on those used in The Birds of Monroe County, New York Annotated List (1985) and Fox’s The Birds of Livingston County, New York (1998). See definition of terms used below.
Occurrence: More specific information about a species’ occurrence, generally since 1980.For extremely rare species, recorded 25 or fewer times, all known sightings are listed, including date, location and observers. Whether or not NYSARC accepted those sightings is also indicated – not in any way to impugn the skills of the observers involved (see discussion under hypothetical), but simply to illustrate that the number of sightings in many cases is open to debate. Where no NYSARC determination is listed, it is usually because the observer did not submit a report. Readers may draw their own conclusions.For other species, recorded at least 25 times but still considered rare, a chart indicates the number of times that species has occurred by month, as indicated by Kingbird citations. This is NOT weighted by actual numbers seen, since the purpose is primarily to indicate times of year this species is most likely to be encountered, whether as a single bird or a flock.
For our more common species, occurrence is more generally discussed including, where applicable:- a season by season look at the range of dates when it occurs as set out in the Monroe County annotated list, with any subsequent earlier or later dates cited.
- season by season maximum tallies.
- breeding status, including number of blocks where it was found during the two Breeding Bird Atlas projects (see caution below).
- tabulations of the species’ occurrence as reported by the Braddock Bay hawkwatch, Braddock Bay Bird Observatory banding, the annual January waterfowl census and the region’s three Christmas Bird Counts.
Misc.: More anecdotes, observations and also some examples of banding returns.
Clearly, numbers and dates are the meat and potatoes of any attempt to describe the occurrence and abundance of various species. Both types of data must be treated with caution, however.
For example, these profiles include a sampling of many of the largest counts ever recorded in our region for many species. This can be somewhat misleading, however, since smaller numbers are more likely to be encountered year to year. This is especially true of migrating shorebirds, which can be grounded in exceptionally large numbers by storms. These large counts are included, however, because they help convey the relative abundance of various species, help put subsequent tallies in perspective, and, if nothing else, demonstrate the potential for large numbers among some species.
Of course, counts are more meaningful when the context is carefully defined. It is interesting, for example, that 70+ Vesper Sparrows were found on 20 April 1983 in “Wayne County.” But how much of Wayne County? A couple of fields? Or a dozen? A single BBA block or several? Only with that additional information can we determine to what extent this tally is indeed cause for celebration. This tally is included in the Vesper Sparrow profile anyway, in part because there are so few other tallies available for this declining species.
Similarly, reports of maximum counts from the “west lakeshore” can be hard to compare. “West lakeshore” is a big area! Were they seen, for example, along a five-mile stretch of roads in Hamlin, or all the way from Braddock Bay to Point Breeze?
The interpretation of dates can also be problematic. “Spring” migration for some species begins with the first thaws of February and, for other species, including shorebirds, stretches into the middle of June. And yet, the “fall migration” for some of these same species of shorebirds can begin as early as the end of that month!
This can wreak havoc with any attempt to determine whether a June shorebird is “record late” (i.e., still northbound) or “record early” (i.e. southbound).
Consider also species known to nest in the hills in the southern part of our region. When one of them appears in July or early August along the lakeshore, is it a really a record early southbound migrant from other parts of its breeding range in Canada, or a bird dispersing from breeding grounds just to the south, or a “floater” that never succeeded in attracting a mate and has been wandering through the region all summer? Straggling Common Loons and other waterfowl not known to nest in our region sometimes linger on our lakes, bays and ponds through the entire summer. This, too, can make it hard to determine whether a Bufflehead that shows up in August, for example, is indeed an early migrant or simply a summer visitor that spent the entire summer somewhere on Lake Ontario. Often the determination is nothing more than an educated guess. In any event, these unusual dates help illustrate that many of our species are capable of showing up at unexpected times.
A common syndrome among birders is to exhaust themselves during the spring migration, then “take a break” in June and July. Unfortunately, that is the most critical time for observing and documenting breeding birds. No wonder local statistics chairpersons are left scratching their heads during the inevitable fall-off in summer checklists: are the birds really that scarce, or is there just a lack of observer effort?
Thank goodness for the Breeding Bird Atlas. Indeed, no single tool has provided more insight into the breeding status of birds in Region 2 than these ambitious projects, conducted statewide in 1980-85 and again in 2000-2005. Our region was divided into 338 blocks (including some extending just beyond the periphery of our region’s formal boundaries). For each of our breeding species, there are tallies showing in how many of those blocks breeding was possible (PO), probable (PR), or confirmed (CO). However, even here, caution must be applied in interpreting the results. For example, some of these blocks – especially those in outlying areas – may not have received nearly as much coverage as others that lie within easier traveling distance of the population centers where most birders live. Moreover, various participants in the atlas project bring entirely different skill sets and time constraints to the project. This birder, for example, has had very little experience with nesting marsh birds, and work hours prevented him from doing any owling in blocks he worked on. Hopefully, other observers visiting those blocks were able to compensate, but there is no guarantee.
Hence, the fact that a species was not reported, or was reported as only possible or probable in a block does not mean that it wasn’t actually nesting there.
On the other hand, just because a species was confirmed in a block does not necessarily mean it is common there. Once observers documented a single instance of nesting by a given species, they usually began concentrating on other species. The BBA, then, is a useful indication of a species’ range and habitat preferences. It is NOT, for the most part, a measure of abundance.
Arrangement of species
This list reflects the latest groupings, and both common and scientific names, as determined by the American Ornithologists’ Union. Species listed as endangered, threatened, or of special concern by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation are indicated as follows:* (Endangered, meaning a native species is in imminent danger of extirpation or extinction in New York State.)** (Threatened, meaning the species is likely to become an endangered species within the foreseeable future in New York State.)*** (Of special concern, meaning a species for which there is a documented concern for its welfare, or risk of becoming endangered.) For a full listing of all wildlife species on these lists, visit www.dec.state.ny.us/website/dfwmr/wildlife/endspec/etsclist.html Abbreviations
AL: Monroe County Annotated ListBA: Birds Afield column by John Brown, see Rochester Times-Union on date cited.BBA: New York Breeding Bird AtlasBBS: Breeding Bird SurveyB&M: Beardslee and Mitchell’s Birds of the Niagara FrontierBNA: Birds of North America seriesCBC: Christmas Bird Count.DEC: New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.D&C: Rochester Democrat and ChronicleGNR: Goshawk noteworthy records for the month of the sighting, usually in edition printed two months later.GOS: Goshawk monthly newsletter of the Genesee Ornithological Society.KB: Kingbird, cited by volume and page number.LG: Little Gull monthly newsletter of the Rochester Birding Association.LGNR: Little Gull noteworthy records for the month of the sighting, usually in following month’s editionmob: multiple observersNWR: national wildlife refugeNYSARC: New York State Avian Records CommitteeSP: state parkSRA: State recreation areaTU: Rochester Times-UnionUA: Rochester Union and AdvertiserWBR: William Edson’s Weekly Bird Report. See local section, Democrat and Chronicle, on date cited.WMA: wildlife management area
How frequency and abundance are defined
The use of terms like “Common” and “uncommon,” or “regular,” “irregular” and “occasional,” may have different meanings depending on the source cited. Here’s how Elon Howard Eaton defined the terms as he uses them in Birds of New York State (Eaton I: 86):
Abundant: “applied to such birds as the Robin and Song sparrow, which are very common in the locality.” Common: “indicating a less degree of abundance.” Fairly common: “birds are such as are found in limited numbers at the proper place and season, like the Scarlet tanager, or Migrant (Loggerhead) shrike in western New York. Uncommon: “birds are such as can not be called rare and yet are of unusual occurrence. Occasional: “Those which are not observed each season but appear at intervals of a few years.” Rare: “one which has been recorded only a few times and yet can not be regarded as accidental.” Accidental: “species which live so far from our borders, and are found here so rarely, that their occurrence may be regarded as accidental.”
Here’s how The Birds of Monroe County, New York Annotated List and Fox in The Birds of Livingston County, New York, use these terms (AL, pp. 59-60; Fox, p. 17):
Frequency: Regular: “recorded every year.” Irregular: “recorded less often than every year, but more often than one year in four, on an average. Occasional: “recorded between one year in every four and one year in every nine, on an average.” Sporadic: “recorded between one year in every ten on year in every twenty, on an average.” Casual: “recorded less often tan once in twenty years, on an average.” Exotic: “recorded, but because of its range not expected to occur again.”
Abundance: Abundant: “occurring in such numbers that a competent observer at the proper time and place might see 500 or more in a single day.” Very common: “occurring in such numbers that a competent observer at the proper time and place might see 100 to 500 individuals in a single day.” Common: “. . . 25 to 100 individuals…” Fairly common: “ . . . 5 to 25 in a single day.” Uncommon: “ . . . 1 to 5 in a day, and no more than 25 in a season.” Rare: “. . . not more than 5 in a season.” Very rare: “ . . . not more than 1 in a season.”