Chirps and Cheeps

A Photo Journal of My Birding Experiences & Observations

My birding blog site


  November Surprises

Published: November 13, 2019
Tags: Rarities, northern parula, vesper sparrow, grasshopper sparrow, northern harrier, american kestrel, american pipit, fox sparrow, horned lark, white-crowned sparrow

As I finished a non-eventful walk through Sturgeon Point, I saw a flash of yellow in some sumac bushes.  What???  Sure enough, it looked like a warbler - a very late warbler.  A few poor photos quickly gotten before he flew off showed it to be a Northern Parula, a young male, I suspect.  Now that’s a late bird that could be very sorry he didn’t get moving before now as some wintry storm conditions were building on the near horizon.

As predicted, we did get a wintry blast three days later.  The morning after, Gale V discovered a spectacular bird at the Dunkirk Airport that was most likely fallout from the short but heavy snowfall.  A very rare and beautiful LeConte’s Sparrow was slowly foraging along the roadside in front of someone’s home that borders the airport.  The poor thing was probably exhausted from the storm and she was able to walk up quite close to it before it flushed.  Unfortunately, no one was able to find it afterwards, in spite of the many pairs of eyes searching HARD for it.

Here are a few photos of the birds seen while searching for that special sparrow, which include a few fun surprises and most likely more fallout.

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Northern Parula at Sturgeon Point

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Vesper Sparrow at the Dunkirk Airport

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Grasshopper Sparrow at the Dunkirk Airport

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Northern Harrier

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American Kestrel

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American Pipit

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Fox Sparrow

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Immature White-crowned Sparrow

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Horned Lark




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