Wisconsin Statewide Birding Report 9.28.12The fall season has officially arrived and recent northwestern winds over the weekend brought in a huge influx of passerines and marked the beginning of the downward slide for Neotropical migrants like warblers, hummingbirds, vireos and thrushes. Birders across the state are reporting the first large waves of short-distance migrants including kinglets, creepers, towhees, rusty blackbirds, yellow-rumped warblers and large numbers of sparrows. Birders reported Harris? sparrows from many locations in northwest and central Wisconsin. This is a great plains migrant that barely gets into Wisconsin each Fall. Other sparrows reported included song, swamp, Nelson?s, white-throated, white-crowned, fox, Lincoln?s and the first juncos of the fall. Lapland longspurs, a winter resident from the arctic, were reported in large numbers across northern Wisconsin this week. Listen for their rattle calls as they fly around agricultural fields and dry grasslands/wetlands looking for seeds. Blackbirds are starting to congregate in wetlands. Birders are reporting the first large pushes of rusty blackbirds, a severely declining boreal nester, in floodplain forests and wetlands across the state. Listen for their ?rusty-gate? calls as they forage in large flocks in dry wetlands and wooded ponds in floodplain forests. Shorebird migration is mostly complete, but late September marks the peak for American golden and black-bellied plover migration. Check mudflats and wetter agricultural fields for these spectacular migrants. Hawk migration is now past peak for broad-winged and sharp-shinned hawks. Look for good numbers of falcons to be moving through the state, especially on days with strong southwestern winds along the Lake Michigan lakeshore or the Driftless Area bluffs. Finally, the first influx of migrant loons was reported this week from Chequamegon Bay. Check area lakes and flowages after cold fronts as loon, grebe and waterfowl numbers should begin to build into mid-October. As always, report sightings to Wisconsin Ebird (
www.ebird.org/WI) to help better track migratory bird populations.
