Just a quick post about Yellow-headed Blackbird occurrence in Bruce County.
A quick overview of records:
- Bruce has 11 records of YHBL on eBird, of these 8 are from the month of April.
- The 8 April records are all in the window of April 9th-25th (so a span of 16 days).
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| - April Yellow-headed Blackbird records (eBird) |
I know of a few records that aren't on eBird, which also fall in between April 9-25. Huron county has two YHBL records, on April 25th and April 27th. As you can see above, there's no real pattern with the location of records, although all the South Bruce YHBL have been within a few kilometres of Lake Huron (this may be partially due to the relatively high birder coverage of the shoreline area). YHBL joins mixed blackbird flocks on migration, so anywhere that with large blackbird numbers could have one. Like other blackbirds, yellow-headed is a diurnal migrant, which means you could detect it actively migrating. It's a good candidate for a morning flight rarity, at least at my house (I can hope right?). A weather systsm with a good Southwest wind would help. My only Bruce YHBL (April 19th last spring) was hanging out with Common Grackles and Red-winged Blackbirds just south of Tobermory and was first seen a few days eariler after a strong S wind, so that likley brought it up. It's hard to determine the origin of these blackbirds, but they are likely from the western population and were blown off course. They could also be overshoots from the disjunct population in southwestern Ontario/Michigan, or they could have followed other blackbirds up from their wintering grounds.. but that's all nobody really knows.
So yeah.. since most people are birding around home more due to Covid-19, check your local blackbird spots (marshes, farm fields, feeders) out throughout April and you might get lucky!
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