HAWFINCH!
Hawfinch Coccothraustes coccothraustes, Wooley Lagoon Road (Mile 40.5 Teller Highway), near Nome, 4 June 2009. Photo by Al Selin.
Found on a Wilderness Birding Adventures trip to Nome. Hawfinch is listed as Casual on the Alaska checklist, with most records coming from the Western and Central Aleutians, the Pribilof Islands and St. Lawrence Island. This is the first record for the Seward Peninsula and one of only three records from mainland Alaska. The other records from the mainland are one from the Noatak River, about 30 miles north of Kotzebue 15-20 June 1990 and a bird that came to a feeder in Dillingham 27 December 2003 to 23 January 2004 (Pranty et al. 2008).
Pranty, B., J.L. Dunn, S.C. Heinl, A.W. Kratter, P.E. Lehman, M.W. Lockwood, B. Mactavish, and K.J. Zimmer. 2008. ABA Checklist: Birds of the Continental United States and Canada, seventh edition. American Birding Association. Colorado Springs, CO.
