Joe Roller Green Big Year Update

[Scott Somershoe]

All,

I've been slacking on blogging about rides and birds since I got back from eastern Montana for field work in mid-June. The Northern Great Plains are in fairly severe drought, and per previous threads here on CO-Birds about Breeding Bird Survey routes, I'd add I had record low numbers of Baird's Sparrows and Sprague's Pipits on my BBS routes. I have the best route for pipits in the world, with 20-36 pipits each year. This year I had seven, and under perfectly calm conditions. The birds just weren't there. However the drought was good for Chestnut-collared and Thick-billed Longspurs, which is not a surprise. I had personal high counts for them on a few routes including 88 Thick-billed on one route (all within the last 15 stops too)! I also got to band and release a Mountain Plover, which was pretty darned awesome. 

Anyway, back to the green big year birds. I managed to get in some rides between my trip to Montana and a trip in late July to Pennsylvania to see family. I snagged some "tough for me" birds, cleaned up some uncommon local breeding species, which are rare this year, and continued to NOT find some species (nemesis birds!!). I lumped a few rides into one post with a summary of numbers through July 12 here:

https://jrmemorialgreenbigyear.blogspot.com/2021/08/late-june-and-july-round-up.html  

I've had some more birds in early August, including a long overdue Rufous Hummingbird. I also snagged one of my major green year nemesis birds this week! I had gone 0-9 for this species! That post is coming soon.

Fall migration is about to come fast and furious. I hope I'm rested for this and can get out after birds a lot! It's going to be a ton of fun. I can't wait.

For those who subscribed to my blog to get an email when I post, Blogger doesn't support that feature anymore, so this old dog had to learn some new tricks about email management systems. I hope I didn't just email the entire world! 

Good green birding!

Scott Somershoe

Joe Roller Memorial Green Big Year 2021 blog

Co-Author of Birds of Tennessee: A New Annotated Checklist