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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Palatino;color:black">Gary,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Palatino;color:black"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Palatino;color:black">Thank you for posting this astounding datum. I’m impressed by two aspects of it: the number of flickers—boy would I give a lot to have witnessed that—and the precision of the counting. My mind
is boggling trying to picture both of those phenomena.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Palatino;color:black"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Palatino;color:black">Trileigh<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Palatino;color:black"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Palatino;color:black"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Lucida Bright",serif;color:#1F4E79">Trileigh Tucker<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Lucida Bright",serif;color:#1F4E79">Pelly Valley, West Seattle <o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Lucida Bright",serif;color:#1F4E79"><a href="http://naturalpresencearts.com/"><span style="color:#033160">NaturalPresenceArts.com</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Palatino;color:black"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><b><span style="color:black">From:
</span></b><span style="color:black">Gary Bletsch via Tweeters <tweeters@u.washington.edu><br>
<b>Date: </b>Friday, September 6, 2024 at 5:41</span><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black"> </span><span style="color:black">AM<br>
<b>To: </b>Tweeters <tweeters@u.washington.edu><br>
<b>Subject: </b>[Tweeters] large numbers of flickers<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Bookman Old Style",serif">Dear Tweeters,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Bookman Old Style",serif"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Bookman Old Style",serif">Thanks to Carol Riddell for posting her friend's friend's question, about large numbers of flickers. I could not remember ever seeing any large concentration of flickers, so I did a little
digging on eBird.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Bookman Old Style",serif"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Bookman Old Style",serif">One way to explore this would be to use the "Explore Regions" tool on eBird. I started with the United States, then clicked on "Bird List." Then I clicked on the tab for "High Counts."
Then it's easy to find the highest all-time count of any species, simply by going Ctrl + F for "find," and typing in "Northern Flicker."
<i>Voila</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Bookman Old Style",serif"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Bookman Old Style",serif">Wow. The largest count of NOFL ever for anywhere on Earth was 22,721 flickers on 1 October 2003 at Cape May, New Jersey. That's a lot of flickers. The highest count for the Eastern Hemisphere
is one; for example, a single flicker showed up in Portugal one time; that would have been a very rare bird over there, indeed.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Bookman Old Style",serif"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Bookman Old Style",serif">For Canada, the high count was 1254 flickers on 10 April 2023 in Lambton, Ontario.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Bookman Old Style",serif"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Bookman Old Style",serif">Washington State's high flicker count was 150 birds at Discovery Park on 20 September 1998.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Bookman Old Style",serif"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Bookman Old Style",serif">Oregon's was 325 birds on 26 September 2018 at Bonney Butte, Hood River County.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Bookman Old Style",serif"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Bookman Old Style",serif">Michigan's was 790 birds on 9 April 2023 at Saugatuck Dunes State Park.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Bookman Old Style",serif"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Bookman Old Style",serif">New York State's highest was 4000 birds on 13 April 2001 at Robert Moses State Park, Long Island.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Bookman Old Style",serif"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Bookman Old Style",serif">A high count of 773 flickers was tallied at Lake Erie Bluffs Metropark, a short ways east of Cleveland, Ohio. Hey, that's not that far from where I live now--maybe I should run over there
in a few weeks!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Bookman Old Style",serif"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Bookman Old Style",serif">Neither Skagit County nor even Clallam County have had any three-digit flicker counts, at least not that show up on eBird. I would have guessed that maybe Neah Bay might be a place for
such a phenomenon, but the high count there was just 36 birds on 26 September 2009.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Bookman Old Style",serif"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Bookman Old Style",serif">I myself do not recall ever seeing a large flock of migrant flickers. My poor old AviSys birding software has suffered a serious crash--which I should be trying to fix right now, instead
of rooting around knee-deep in Flicker data on eBird! Anyway, by using eBird, I was able to ascertain that, despite doing tons of birding over the course of fifty years, especially in Washington State, the only two-digit counts I've had have come on Christmas
Bird Counts, especially on the Bellingham CBC, for some reason. Those were modest counts of ten to twenty birds.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Bookman Old Style",serif"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Bookman Old Style",serif">So I would say that it is a rather rare event to find a big flock of migrant flickers, which is what these big flocks seem to be. The two best times of the year appear to be April, and
then early autumn. I am guessing that the great birding magnet spots, such as Cape May and Pt. Pelee, might be likely spots to search for such a thing, offering slightly better odds than does the lottery.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Bookman Old Style",serif"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Bookman Old Style",serif">Yours truly,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Bookman Old Style",serif"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Bookman Old Style",serif">Gary Bletsch<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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