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Articles

Vol. 44 No. 2 (2013)

REFUTATION OF WYOMING NESTING RECORD OF THE PACIFIC WREN

Submitted
November 19, 2025
Published
April 1, 2013

Abstract

The nesting status of the Pacific Wren (Troglodytes pacificus) in Wyoming is not clear. According to several sources (Hellmayr 1934, AOUI 1957, Peters 1960, AOUI 1998, Dickinson 2003, Clements 2007), Wyoming is not part of the distribution, but this is contradicted by several other sources. On the basis of two immature specimens (USNM 228577 and 228578), collected by Alexander Wetmore in the Tetons on 27 August and 15 September 1910, Phillips (1986) suggested there might be an undescribed subspecies that nests in northwest Wyoming. Saucier examined these specimens and confirmed they are Pacific Wrens, already in adult plumage, although they appear lighter and grayer than specimens from elsewhere. Cary (1917) is the only additional paper we have found mentioning these specimens. We cannot exclude the possibility that they were migrants from elsewhere in the distribution (Toews and Irwin 2012), as information on the schedule of the Pacific Wren’s migration in the Rocky Mountains is still lacking. Wyoming has two winter records of the Pacific Wren but none for fall. (D. W. Faulkner pers. comm.)

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