Western Birds Journal

Volume 48, No. 3

Published July 1, 2017

Issue description

Volume 48, number 3 of Western Birds, published 2017

Articles

  1. Cover image V48(3)

    JOHN A. TROCHET, ANDREW ENGILIS, MELANIE L. TRUAN, IRENE E. ENGILIS, ROBERT A. WALSH, EDWARD WHISLER, KRISTEN E. DYBALA (Author)

    NEW AND EXTRALIMITAL RECORDS OF BREEDING BIRDS FOR PUTAH CREEK, CALIFORNIA

    We report on extralimital and new breeding records from a 16-year study of birds along lower Putah Creek, Central Valley, California, that began in 1997. Surveys for breeding birds have confirmed 74 species nesting on the creek, while nesting of 17 further species remains probable. Among rare or extralimital species, we documented nesting of the Hooded Merganser (Lophodytes cucullatus), Selasphorus sp., Pileated Woodpecker (Dryocopus pileatus), Pacific-slope Flycatcher (Empidonax difficilis), Bell’s Vireo (Vireo bellii), Warbling Vireo (V. gilvus), Chestnut-backed Chickadee (Poecile rufescens), Brown Creeper (Certhia americana), Wrentit (Chamaea fasciata), Orange-crowned Warbler (Oreothlypis celata), Dark-eyed Junco (Junco hyemalis), and Western Tanager (Piranga ludoviciana). The records of nesting of the Brown Creeper, Chestnut-backed Chickadee, and Western Tanager are the first confirmed for those species on the Central Valley floor. Nine of these species have experienced recent expansions elsewhere in their California ranges, and Bell’s Vireo has begun to reoccupy a few other sites in the Central Valley, from which it had been extirpated for decades. We also present evidence for probable breeding by the Hairy Woodpecker (Picoides villosus), Western Wood-Pewee (Contopus sordidulus), California Thrasher (Toxostoma redivivum), Yellow Warbler (Setophaga petechia), and Yellow-breasted Chat (Icteria virens). These breeding records attest to the pioneering nature of birds and to the importance of Putah Creek in the maintenance of riparian species in the Sacramento Valley.

  2. Cover image V48(3)

    SAMUEL COWELL, KIM SULLIVAN, HANNAH DOMGAARD, SARA LORSCHEIDER, MARIAH PANOUSSI, LINDSEY PARRISH, TARYN RODMAN, TERESA LORENZ, PHIL FISCHER (Author)

    TAG-TEAM TAKEOVER: USURPATION OF WOODPECKER NESTS BY WESTERN BLUEBIRDS

     Woodpeckers provide important ecological services by excavating nesting cavities that are used by many forest birds and other animals. Demand for nesting cavities by secondary cavity nesters can lead to intense competition for this limited resource. The Western Bluebird (Sialia mexicana) is known to usurp nests from its own and other species. However, the process by which bluebirds take over nests from woodpeckers larger than themselves has not been well documented. In order to understand this process, we analyzed 112 hours of video footage of nests of a Black-backed (Picoides arcticus) and a Hairy Woodpecker (P. villosus) located in the Okanogan–Wenatchee National Forest in Washington. Usurpation first involves a short period of physical confrontation followed by a prolonged period of constant presence around the nest. The male and female bluebirds cooperate by taking turns harassing the woodpecker and guarding the nest. This may be of concern to managers as the Black-backed Woodpecker is considered a species at risk in certain locations.

  3. Cover image V48(3)

    DIEGO C. BLANCO, DEVON A. DeRAAD, JAMES M. MALEY (Author)

    GEOGRAPHIC VARIATION AND INTERGRADATION IN THE ELEGANT QUAIL

    The Elegant Quail (Callipepla douglasii) is restricted to western mainland Mexico from Sonora south to Jalisco. It comprises five subspecies, described primarily on the basis of differences in plumage color and patterns. To assess patterns of differentiation in the Elegant Quail, we examined 114 specimens representing these five subspecies in the Moore Laboratory of Zoology. We measured wing chord, tail length, exposed culmen, and tarsus length, finding that males were significantly larger than females but that the only significant size difference between subspecies was that nominate douglasii has a tail longer than in the other four. Thus size is a minor component of the Elegant Quail’s geographic variation in comparison to that in plumage color and pattern. We examined the plumage of specimens from southern Sonora and northern Sinaloa and found that several appeared to be intergrades between C. d. douglasii and C. d. bensoni and between C. d. bensoni and C. d. languens.

  4. Cover image V48(3)

    BRYCE W. ROBINSON, LUCAS H. DeCICCO (Author)

    NOTES ON EURASIAN BARN SWALLOWS IN ALASKA, INCLUDING THE FIRST DOCUMENTATION OF SUCCESSFUL BREEDING IN NORTH AMERICA

    The Barn Swallow (Hirundo rustica) is a widespread and polytypic species comprising six to eight subspecies (see Vaurie 1959, Peters 1960, Cramp 1988, Brown and Brown 1999, Dickinson and Dekker 2001, Turner 2004, Dor et al. 2010, Dickinson and Christidis 2014). The New World subspecies (H. r. erythrogaster) breeds over parts of South America (Grande et al. 2015) and most of North America, north and west to Alaska (Brown and Brown 1999). In Alaska it is a fairly common or uncommon breeder, respectively, in southeastern and south-central Alaska, and a casual visitant elsewhere in the state (Gabrielson and Lincoln 1959, Kessel and Gibson 1978, Gibson and Kessel 1997, Gibson and Withrow 2015). Historically the species bred more widely in Alaska; however, sometime in the past century its range contracted substantially (Kessel and Gibson 1994, Gibson and Withrow 2015). Additionally, two Eurasian subspecies occur as visitants in Alaska. Both differ from erythrogaster in having whitish rather than rufous underparts (Phillips 1986): H. r. rustica, which breeds across Europe, the Middle East, and western Asia, and H. r. gutturalis, which breeds south and east of rustica from Amurland and Ussuriland in the Russian Far East south to northern China, Korea, and Japan (Turner 2004). There are no previous confirmed records of the Eurasian taxa breeding in North America. Here we review and update the status of the two Eurasian taxa in Alaska and document the successful breeding of a pair of H. r. gutturalis in western Alaska.

  5. Cover image V48(3)

    LUKAS J. MUSHER, PETER PYLE, DAVID S. IRONS, JAMES R. TIETZ (Author)

    IDENTIFICATION OF MALE EUPHAGUS BLACKBIRDS IN FRESH FALL PLUMAGES

    Distinguishing the two species of blackbirds of the genus Euphagus represents an identification challenge in North America. Many field guides (e.g., Dunn and Alderfer 2008, Crossley 2011, Sibley 2014) address this problem, but some intermediate plumages are not well covered by the literature or in depictions in field guides.