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Low altitude Snowfinches (1 Viewer)

bittern

Well-known member
Switzerland
I had always believed that (White-winged) Snowfinches were never found below about 1'500 metres altitude, the Collins says 1'000. I recently saw a group of about a dozen among a mixed finch flock in a field at only about 550 metres ASL. That started me thinking and I did a search on ornitho.ch and found that recently three were observed on the aerodrome at Locarno (Ticino) which is at only around 200 metres ASL.

I guess that this is nothing new but my personal lowest altitude sighting many years ago had been of a small group in the Jura at 1'400 at the Creux du Van. They are very rare in the Jura.

How common are sightings away from the mountains? Both the recent sightings were close to the Alps.

Mike
 
In 1999 there were 2 Snowfinches at Cabo de São Vicente headland, Portugal at the extreme southwest point of Europe. They were using the shortly vegetated clifftop slopes by the sea. Since there have been 3 records in Portugal at Cabo da Roca on the west coast just north of Lisbon and last winter there was a west coast bird in the north western Algarve.
 
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