Eurasian Bullfinch - Petersburg, Alaska

On 14 April an ABA Code-4, female Eurasian Bullfinch (Pyrrhula pyrrhula) was found in the willows in Tana Ellis’s Petersburg, Alaska, yard and is perhaps the same individual found there on 22 March. 

The first ABA-area record of Eurasian Bullfinch occurred along the Yukon River at Nulato in January 1867 (ABA Checklist, Seventh Edition, Pranty et al.).  It is primarily recorded in the spring in the western Aleutians.  However, there are records from Gambell, St. Lawrence Island, from Nunivak Island, one from the Priblof Islands and 9 from the Alaskan mainland.  Eurasian Bullfinch is a Palearctic breeder with the majority of birds wintering in Europe south to the Mediterranean region, North Africa, the Middle East, the Arabian Peninsula, South Korea, and southern Japan.