A few years back, I belive it was the winter of 2017/2018, we had a Redpoll irruption in Helena. Our deck feeder was overrun. at one point i shot a vidoe that showed weel in excess of 300 Redpolls feeding on sunflower seed. This year, we had a smaller irruption- we never went over 125 individuals, but nonetheless, we had our second redpollpocalypse and it was fun to see them again. The local Dark-eyed Juncos and Chickadees (Mountain and Black-Capped) were a bit put off by the spectacle, but that’s ok.
Twenty-twenty-two opend up very nicely. I walked the Lab in the pre-dawn darkness and came home to have coffee and await my daughters’ appearance for the day. We always make a decent birding effort on Jan-1 to start the year off as strong as possible. As we were sitting at the table, eating and discussing our trip for the day, a Peregrine Falcon stooped over the house and just over the deck feeder. The little birds scattered like their lives depended on it. But the Falcon had larger prey in mind- it was heading from its roost on the cliffs above our house to the duck pond about a a mile and half away.
We’ve never had a Peregrine as the third species of the year- and may not ever again. But it certainly set the day up nicely. We also listed a Great Horned Owl, Stellar’s Jay, a group of Wild Turkeys, and a White- breasted Nuthatch for our efforts. Along with 30 other species, we hit a very decent 34 species for the year before 2pm.
Not too shabby.
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