[CT Birds] Scott's Oriole - What will happen?

[Greg Hanisek]

Carol Cimino asked what will become of the Scott's Oriole in NYC. No one knows for sure, of course, what will happen to this individual, but there is a history of vagrant birds returning to the same vagrant site two or more years in a row. This implies that they eventually went off somewhere and survived in good health. Whether they got to their natal area and mated is impossible to know (unless there are some banding records that imply this).

A famous Conn case, coincidentally, involves a male Bullock's Oriole that returned for I believe three winters to a feeder in Goshen. Of course it was assumed to be the same individual, as that is much more likely that 3 different individulas, all adult males, finding that same feeder.

When I lived in NJ there was an Oregon Junco that returned for a much longer run of years, maybe 6, but I don't remember exactly.

There also are much longer repeated wintering visits for species such as Barrow's Goldeneye and Eared Grebe outside their normal ranage.

Greg Hanisek
Waterbury