BirdCapeMay.org

Since 1999 I have been spending over a month every fall at Gambell, St Lawrence Is., in the northern Bering Sea, with sporadic, shorter visits before that. During years here with very high abundance of Red-throated Pipits and japonicus American Pipits during late August and September, there has followed a month later a major flight of these same two species down the Pacific Coast, mostly in California and Baja. "Poor" years here have meant poor years in California. So far the corelation has been good most every year. This year has been only so-so for those two species here: about average or perhaps just slightly below. (Although the season is not over yet!) So, if the correlation holds again, there will be only a few individuals here and there along the Pacific Coast (again, mostly in coastal California) between late September and early November, not a huge slug!

However, in contrast, there already has been a veritable invasion of Arctic Warblers in southern California, with 3 birds there during the past week or so. There were only two or three previous California records! And while three individuals does not exactly an invasion make, this fall here in the northern Bering was only barely average for this regular fall "trans-Beringian" migrant, which is recorded here at Gambell in moderate numbers in autumn as it heads back west from Alaska nesting areas to Southeast Asia for the winter. But maybe folks on the West Coast should be on the lookout this fall for Willow Warblers (given there have been three this year at Gambell so far)...!! It HAS been a very good fall to date this year for Asian landbirds out here in the Bering Sea region, so we'll see if there is any sort of "Siberian Express" event this fall along the West Coast.

--Paul Lehman