I'm not proceeding chronologically as I had hoped; the Smews are of order by a couple of days. Coming back to a couple of birds that I don't want to forget and which deserve recognition.
Grey Wagtail (Motacilla cinerea)
Wagtails are such great birds; I wish we had them in North America. This bird is somewhat difficult to find in Finland and has shown up here for the past couple of years. While my photo is poor, it is still easy to see that Grey Wagtail is an attractive bird. The location it has chosen to occupy, an out of season ski resort, led to a discussion on how good the Finns are at ski-jumping. Legendary athletes like Matti Nykänen and Toni Nieminen are just two. Matti Nykänen won five Olympic medals, four of them gold in the 1980s. He had, however, a sad history. Apparently, he was an alcoholic from the age of 14 and died at a relatively young age. Finland continues to have a roster of both men and women who are successful ski jumpers. The next Olympics will be the Winter games! The Grey Wagtail was at the Ruka Ski Resort, near Kuusamo in Northern Ostrobothnia on May 27th.
Above and two below: Siberian Tit (Poecile cinctus)
I took about twenty images of the Siberian Tit from this perch. They all look basically the same. I randomly selected the three above. Siberian Tit also sparked a little discussion for this is the North American named Gray-headed Chickadee. Some European tits and North American chickadees have very similar appearances. Others, like (European) Blue and Great tits, are quite different. North Americans might be forgiven for referring to the Willow, Marsh or Somber tits as chickadees, only in a different country, for the congruence in their appearances. Indeed, they occupy the same genus - Poecile. Siberian Tit and Gray-headed Chickadee fall into this category.
What's in a name?
Our tour leader, Nigel Redman, from Norfolk, England has enjoyed a lifetime of bird study, birding and bird guiding and in an earlier career was a book publisher with Helms Field Guides and Bloomsbury Publishers - to say the least, extremely knowledgable with an impressive career. He was adamant that this bird is properly named Siberian Tit. It is mostly and widely a Siberian breeder and occupies only a tiny range in Alaska. "Gray-headed Chickadee" he added, with mock derision. I half expected him to say that Gray was also spelled incorrectly. This was, to a lesser degree, discussed with divers vs. loons and Common Merganser vs. Gooseander - of course, all in fun. This appeals to me because it is one of the aspects of birds and birding that I enjoy knowing and reading about.
Later a discussion about how the AOS is changing the names of birds that are named with eponyms. (I used the term honorifics - but honorifics is not exactly correct with a dictionary definition that implies or expresses high status, politeness or respect, such as titles like Sir, Madam, Dr., Lord, Lady, etc.). After attending Amar Ayyash's Keynote Address titled Man and Gulls at the BWIAB conference in Ohio just prior to leaving for this trip, I happened to mention that Bonaparte's Gulls nest almost exclusively in trees, preferring black spruce trees, and that one of the names being considered for renaming it might be Spruce gull. Using the McCown's Longspur to Thick-billed Longspur name change (PDF in link) as an example, Nigel disagreed with the AOS endeavor to rename birds. He added that he understood what they were trying to do, but that in doing it, all of the history on how the bird was discovered and described would be lost. As it happens, Nigel also published The Eponym Dictionary of Birds. I learned a new word - eponym - in this discussion. The renaming of birds (and also birding organizations) might be examples of the woke chasm that is impacting American politics and dividing the country - e.g. removing statues from public places, removing paintings, removing books from libraries, renaming birds, to be a made-up construct used primarily by one political party to create the furor necessary to win elections. It certainly worked in the most recent election. (Woke was originally used with a very different meaning.) In this way, I agree with Nigel, history will be lost. On the other hand, what does the name Bonaparte's really tell us about a small, graceful and pretty gull. Nothing. It seems that carelessness and inattention to detail would play a greater role in losing bird history. Here I am editorializing to remember this discussion. None of the woke parts of what I wrote above occurred in the van.
The Siberian Tit was seen in the late afternoon in an area called Kuusamo — Vasarankangas, Northern Ostrobothnia on May 27th. By the late afternoon the clouds had disappeared and, weatherwise, it was one of the most enjoyable afternoons of the whole trip.
Afternote: I can't recall why I happened to mention Bonaparte's Gull in the discussion we had in the van. All discussions seemed to occur in the van and ended quickly. It is exclusively a North American gull and there are only a few records in Northern Europe.
From Wikipedia.org I copied the following from the Bonaparte's Gull (Chroicocephalus philadelphia) page: "The species is named after Charles Lucien Bonaparte, a French ornithologist (and nephew to the former French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte) who spent eight years in America, contributing to the understanding of the taxonomy and nomenclature of birds there and elsewhere. Its genus name, Chroicocephalus, is a combination of the Greek words chroikos, an adjective form of chroa meaning "colour", and kephalē meaning "head". This refers to the dark heads that most gulls in this genus show during the breeding season. The specific epithet philadelphia is a Latinized adjective meaning "from Philadelphia", a reference to the location from which the type specimen was collected."[9] Sandrock, James; Prior, Jean C. (2014). The Scientific Nomenclature of Birds of the Upper Midwest. Iowa City, Iowa, US: University of Iowa Press. p. 42. ISBN 978-1-60938-225-4. Retrieved 15 December 2015.
This lends support to Nigel's assertion that with the changing of bird names, the bird's history will be lost. This said, it doesn't need to be lost. In this example, it's easy to see where adding just a sentence or two leaves the whole history intact. The Wikipedia page also shows a photo of a Bonaparte's gull nesting in a black spruce tree.
Addendum 07/21/2025
In response to the July ABA Birding Magazine article Lost on the Frontier - read below - I wrote the following for 10,000 Birds: Missing Gray-headed Chickadee. Published today.
Addendum 07/22/2025
A sad addendum. This month's ABA Birding Magazine, vol 57, No 4, July 2025, pages 31-45 has an article that strongly suggests the Gray-headed Chickadee (Poecile cinctus) may be extirpated from North America. Titled Lost on the Frontier by Brad Meiklejohn of Eagle River, Alaska, this is an excellent article with beautiful accompanying photos. The article is extensive and any measly summary I could provide here will fall short. I checked the link and, if not an ABA member you will not be able to open. Perhaps you can find it on a newsstand at your local bookstore or borrow from your local library. From the article, you could tell that there are a lot of people deeply saddened about this. I am one of them. I did also send the link to our tour leader, Nigel Redman, mentioned above, and I was disappointed when he was unable to open it.
Addendum 07/25/2025
* The July 2025 edition of the ABA Birding magazine (Vol 57, No 4, pages 30-45) published an article suggesting that Gray-headed Chickadees may be extirpated from North America - both Alaska and NW Canada. They have not been seen since 2018. It's a good and extensive article; it's a sad article. Undoubtedly, the search will continue and, hopefully, Gray-headed Chickadees will be relocated. After all its range is vast! But, this also makes my statement above completely false. When I wrote mere decimal point above, this article had not yet been published. Instead, I was trying to make a birding-style joke about the disputed name Gray-headed Chickadee that I write about in my Siberian Tit post. (The range of Red-throated Pipit is indeed a decimal point in NW Alaska. That part is still true.)
I would post a link to the article, titled Lost on the Frontier by Brad Meiklejohn, but having already posted it elsewhere, I know that non-ABA members are unable to access it. If interested, and I highly recommend it, you may be able to find it on the newsstand of your local bookstore, or at your local library. There is a photo of Loggerhead Shrike on the cover. Finally, you can always join the American Birding Association. It's a good organization and its monthly magazine has gotten better.
The last birds to have disappeared from the US are Eskimo Curlew and Bachman's Warbler, both last seen in the early 1960s and both now believed to be extinct. The last confirmed Eskimo Curlew sighting was in Galveston, Texas in 1961, and the last Bachman's Warbler sighting was of a singing male in I'on Swamp near Charleston, South Carolina in 1962.
The article mentions Aplomado Falcon (Falco femoralis) and Thick-billed Parrot (Rhynchopsitta pachyrhyncha) as analogs to the chickadees (page 44), but both are still present in good numbers in adjacent Mexico and it is conceivably possible for either to re-establish in the US. In fact, Thick-billed Parrot had been given some help and seems to be hanging on as a breeder and Aplomado Falcon has also been occasionally seen.
Addendum 09/04/2025
Today, Nate Swick, host of the American Birding Association podcast interviewed Brad Meiklejohn, author of Lost on the Frontier for "Where Have the Gray-headed Chickadees Gone?" If you haven't been able to read the article, you can listen to the podcast. Just over 40 minutes long. Highly recommended.
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