Western Birds Journal

Volume 36, No. 1

Published January 1, 2005

Issue description

Volume 36, number 1 of Western Birds, published 2005

Articles

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    PAUL E. LEHMAN (Author)

    FALL BIRD MIGRATION AT GAMBELL, ST. LAWRENCE ISLAND, ALASKA

    Gambell, St. Lawrence Island, Alaska, is located in the northern Bering Sea. Birders and ornithologists have visited Gambell, primarily during the late spring, for many decades. Regular coverage in fall, however—primarily between late August and early October—commenced only in the early 1990s and has continued through the present, making this site one of the most studied in western Alaska during the autumn season. Between 1992 and 2004, I spent a total of 251 days at Gambell between mid-August and early October, studying the birdlife. Many additional autumn avian records from there and elsewhere on St. Lawrence Island date back to the 1930s and earlier. Through 2004, 174 species had been documented at Gambell during the period August–November. Besides many species of western Alaska, this avifauna combines a seabird spectacle rivaled by few places in the world, the regular passage of many migrant shorebirds and “trans-Beringian” passerines, and numerous vagrants from both Asia and the North American mainland. The most intensive autumn coverage began only in 1999, but since then this site has hosted four first North American records—plus additional second and third sightings—as well as records of a number of North American species previously unrecorded in the Bering Sea region.

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    THOMAS A. BENSON (Author)

    NOTES: BREEDING VERMILION FLYCATCHERS IN CISMONTANE SAN BERNARDINO COUNTY, CALIFORNIA

    During the 2003 and 2004 breeding seasons I observed a pair of Vermilion Flycatchers (Pyrocephalus rubinus) make several nesting attempts on the campus of California State University San Bernardino (CSUSB; 34° 10′ 54″ N, 117° 19′ 03″ W), in San Bernardino County, California. Following two failed attempts in 2003, the pair’s second attempt in 2004 produced two juveniles. This paper briefly reviews the species’ breeding range in southern California, including extralimital occurrences, and provides details on the nesting efforts at CSUSB.

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    ERIC MELLINK, MÓNICA RIOJAS-LÓPEZ (Author)

    NOTES: BREEDING SEABIRDS OF MORROS EL POTOSÍ, GUERRERO, MEXICO

    Information on the seabirds of northwestern Mexico has accumulated for several decades now, but seabirds along the country’s southern Pacific coast remain little studied. Morros El Potosí (17° 31′ 57″ N, 101° 29′ 18″ W; known as “White Friars Rocks” in the American navigation literature) consist of three small islands and several rocks 3 km offshore and 15 km east of the city of Zihuatanejo, Guerrero (Figure 1). The main islands are 50–65 m high (Hydrographic Office 1937) and very steep, with vertical cliffs that rise from their faces.

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    BRYAN L. SHARP, BONNIE L. PETERSON, BARBARA E. KUS (Author)

    NOTES: PUNCTURE-EJECTION OF OWN EGG BY LEAST BELL’S VIREO AND POTENTIAL IMPLICATIONS FOR ANTI-PARASITISM DEFENSE

    We video-recorded an adult Least Bell’s Vireo (Vireo bellii pusillus) puncture-ejecting one of its own eggs. The behavior was detected during analysis of footage from 25 vireo nests that we videotaped continuously along the San Luis Rey River near Bonsall, California, in 2000 (Peterson 2002, Sharp 2002). The ejection occurred at 0622 on 21 July 2000 in a nest containing two 5-day-old vireo nestlings (both fledged on 27 July) and the unhatched vireo egg. Prior to ejection, one adult stood in the nest cup and the other was perched on the main branch that supported the nest. The former adult flew away, and the latter moved to the edge of the nest, looked into it, pecked the unhatched egg three times with its closed bill, stopped, and looked into the nest again. This cycle of striking the egg three to five times then looking into the nest was repeated over 44 seconds, during which the adult pecked the egg 27 times. Following the last strike, the adult grasped the egg with its bill on either side of the hole it had created and flew away from the nest with the egg. A vireo returned to the nest 9 seconds later, looked into the nest, but did not lower its head into the nest cup. We could not confirm the adult’s sex, and they did not vocalize during the time observed. This report is the first of puncture-ejection of an egg by a Least Bell’s Vireo.

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    Steve N. G. Howell (Author)

    BOOK REVIEWS: San Diego County Bird Atlas: by Philip Unitt. 2004. Proceedings of the San Diego Natural History Museum, No. 39. 644 pages, numerous color maps and photos. Hardback $80 (ISBN 0-934-797-21-8).

    San Diego County, in southernmost California, boasts the largest number of species for any county or area of comparable size in the United States—almost 500, more than most states. Commensurate with this large total comes this heavy tome, packed with information and looking more like the avifaunal work for some states than for a “mere county.” As well as a large avifauna, San Diego County lays claim to a burgeoning human population which, as Unitt notes, combines third-world growth rates with first-world consumption rates. The inevitable result is increasing pressure on all habitats throughout the county. The production of the San Diego County Atlas (hereafter Atlas) coincided with the development of a multiple-species conservation plan for metropolitan San Diego and similar plans for other parts of the county. Thus, the Atlas offers a timely benchmark from which the efficacy of such plans can be evaluated, as well as an exhaustive model of how a regional avifaunal work should be approached.

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    Steve N. G. Howell (Author)

    BOOK REVIEWS: Oklahoma Breeding Bird Atlas: by Dan L. Reinking (editor). 2004. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman; www.oupress.com

    What does Oklahoma have to do with western birds you may ask? Well, this attractively laid out and informative work (hereafter the OBBA) should help answer such a question. Almost 230 bird species are known or assumed to have nested in Oklahoma, which straddles the biogeographic divide in North America between “East” and “West.” Species breeding in this under-regarded state range from the Henslow’s Sparrow to the Black-throated Sparrow, from the Wood Thrush to the Mountain Bluebird. Indeed, within a single atlas block there were breeding records for both Chuck-will’s-widow and Common Poorwill! So, while Oklahoma is not a western state, it does offer a view into where the West starts from an avian perspective, and why.

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    STEVE N. G. HOWELL (Author)

    FEATURED PHOTO: REVISITING AN OLD QUESTION: HOW MANY SPECIES OF SKUA OCCUR IN THE NORTH PACIFIC?

    The taxonomy, identification, and distribution of skuas (currently genus Stercorarius but formerly Catharacta, AOU 2000) have long been, and continue to be, the subject of debate and uncertainty. Most authors now recognize six taxa constituting four species: the Great Skua (Stercorarius skua), breeding in the North Atlantic; the Chilean Skua (S. chilensis), breeding around southern South America; the South Polar Skua (S. maccormicki), breeding around Antarctica; and the Brown Skua (S. antarctica, with subspecies antarctica, lonnbergi, and hamiltoni), breeding widely on islands in the southern oceans (Malling Olsen and Larsson 1997).