What a week it’s been for the Bering Sea! First a Blyth’s Reed Warbler on Gambell and now Cory Gregory and the St. Paul Island crew have turned up an apparent Pallas’s Rosefinch in the Pribilofs. This is a potential 1st record for this east Asian finch in the ABA Area.
Photo by Neil Hayward
The bird was calling with a distinctive non-Common Rosefinch call that was consistent with Pallas’s Rosefinch. It also showed extensive streaking on the mantle, flanks and frosty edges to the tail and secondaries, and hint of a wing bar, all of which differentiate it from the expected Code 4 Common Rosefinch.
Pallas’s Rosefinch ranges widely across east-central Asia, from Siberia to northeast China and the Russian Far East. It winters in the Koreas and western China. It is a rare vagrant west to Europe.