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GBBC and wandering birds




Okay, just for fun, from a South Carolina perspective -

Pine Grosbeak - an outside possibility - SC has records for Pine Grosbeak -
amusingly, one is from Winnsboro - unfortunately not mine      

Northern Hawk Owl & Great Gray Owl - both owls are irruptive and tend to
irrupt southward but I think the Deep South might be a little too far south
- I drove 4 hours for a Snowy - I'd drive 8-10 hours for either of these!
 
Juniper Titmouse - not known for vagrancy but then again how many of us
carefully inspect titmice?

Willow Ptarmigan - is there any habitat for ptarmigan in NC?  are these kept
as game birds?  an escape perhaps?

Crested Caracara - there is the Florida subspecies (or has it been promoted
to a species now?) - SC has 2 sight records of Crested Caracara, both
considered escapes - NC has one(?) record, also considered an escape

Three-toed Woodpecker - not known for vagrancy and something of a habitat
specialist - they do wander in search of suitable habitat but I think 1300 -
1400 miles east might be a little too far

Western Scrub-Jay - a distinctly amusing thought for a member of one of the
most sedentary of all avian families

Bell's Vireo - SC has a specimen record - there are two other sight records
for the state, one undocumented, one documented - all were recorded during
migration (two in fall, one in spring)

Trumpeter Swan - an escape? a return to historic winter range? 

Iceland Gull - has occurred

Snowy Owl - has occurred

Canyon Wren - this one is also amusing - did you folks in western NC miss one?

Wood Thrush - a summer resident but this is winter - a tough ID for winter

Northern Shrike - doesn't NC have a specimen record of Northern Shrike?  -
and I think that's what it would take to get this one past the NC Records
Committee!

Saffron Finch - well, the orange variant of House Finches are a kind of
saffron color so does that make them "saffron finches"? - seriously, an escape?

Lapland Longspur - has occurred

Selected simply of the basis of the "chuckle" factor, I'd have to go with -
gee, it's tough - Canyon Wren.  I once walked a sparsely-vegetated, dry
canyon in Arizona in search of a singing Canyon Wren.  Somehow, imagining
the cascading song of a Canyon Wren, one of the voices of the desert
Southwest to me, in any of the green, moist ravines of the Southern
Appalachians just tickles my brain!

Donna Slyce Bailey
Winnsboro, SC

e-mail: dsbailey@conterra.com

URL: http://www.conterra.com/dsbailey
     "Where are the Birds?  Migration across South Carolina"