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Dec. 22, 2007 - KINGSTON CHRISTMAS BIRD COUNT -- I drove to Tremont, southwest of Greenwood, to join Sheila Hulford for the day in mostly slowly driving the secondary roads in very cold but clear weather -- -17 C. in early morning, warming to -4? in mid-afternoon. Sheila and I had a very early MAJOR HIGHLIGHT only a few houses west of her home and just west of the home of the Count Compiler, Wayne Neily: a very striking nearly-all-white HOARY REDPOLL!! We found active feeders at 551 Messenger Road at Tremont, with ³Larocque² on the mailbox. At the feeders were perhaps 25+ COMMON REDPOLLS, 12+ AM. GOLDFINCHES, etc., and this very white redpoll stuck out like the proverbial sore thumb. We watched it with both binoculars and Œscope at fairly close range from the driveway to the house. Its beak did not seem particularly smaller than those of the common redpolls, and the face did not seem very ³pushed in², either. But nearly the entire bird, except for some dark colour on the wings and back?, and of course the dark around the beak and red ³poll², was very white (it¹s tempting to say ³Tide white²). Neither Sibley nor Nat. Geogr. guides show any plumages of common redpolls that are even hinting at this degree of whiteness. Our bird showed no pinkish on breast, but this in male hoaries is supposedly very little and washed out anyway. I know that the most recent detailed information on various species and subspecies of redpolls is quite complicated, but I haven¹t yet tried to access that, even though Wayne very recently sent such out on e-mail. To get to Messenger Road at Tremont, drive south from Kingston to Greenwood, turn right at Kentucky Fried Chicken, go west about half a km., turn south at Avery¹s Farm Market onto Tremont Road; then follow the road to Tremont for several kilometres, past a small church on the left to the next road to the right, which is Messenger Road; then drive west to house number 551. Other than that, Sheila and I didn¹t have many other highlights. We saw 5 PINE GROSBEAKS, including an adult male, and EVENING GROSBEAKS at Wayne¹s feeders. We were surprised that there were no roadside JUNCOS in the 30+ km. (60 km. in total) we drove, nor any roadside sparrows. Despite the mostly frozen fresh water, an open part of a fast stream held 4 AM. BLACK DUCKS. We saw 7 RED-TAILED HAWKS (mostly basking by facing the Sun), but no other raptors. We were very perplexed by a flying flock of 15+ very white birds, very bright in the Sun, but too distant and gone in a flash -- they were probably too big and otherwise not right for snow buntings, and we just are at a loss as to what they may have been (they may not have been all white, and maybe someone has a flock of white pigeons or doves?). Cheers :-) from Jim in Wolfville, 542-9204 --------------------- Jim (James W.) Wolford 91 Wickwire Avenue Wolfville, Nova Scotia, Canada B4P 1W3 phone (902)542-9204 (home) fax (902)585-1059 (Acadia Univ. Biology Dept.) e-mail <jimwolford@eastlink.ca> ---------------------- ³In wildness is the preservation of the world.² -- Henry David Thoreau ----------------------
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