Towheeblog

I once heard some South Texas birders go gah-gah over a stray Black Phoebe along the Rio Grande–never mind the Altamira Oriole or Chachalaca or those field strollers, the caracara. I once off-handedly mentioned seeing a Lesser Scaup at a lake in northern Scotland and the local went nuts…it was just an ordinary bird to me, for them it was the first-ever county record! I laughed aloud when I heard some British birders plotting their trip to Ireland to pick up a vagrant AMERICAN Robin one winter.

Well, eat our hearts out, Oregonians. Brandon Breen sent me these shots of his parents’ feeders in Traverse City, Michigan–redpolls:

Brandon lived several years here in Oregon and knows the bird-envy this arouses. I last spoke to him on the phone as he watched a cardinal out the window….but, remember, those Michiganders are never likely to see a Varied Thrush or Steller’s Jay and will never see a Lesser Goldfinch, impoverished finch-wise as they are, stuck with only the American Goldfinch.