Western Birds Journal

Volume 41, No. 3

Published July 1, 2010

Issue description

Volume 41, number 3 of Western Birds, published 2010

Articles

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    JAMES E. PIKE, DAVID M. COMPTON (Author)

    THE 34TH REPORT OF THE CALIFORNIA BIRD RECORDS COMMITTEE: 2008 RECORDS

    The California Bird Records Committee reached decisions on 233 records involving 76 species, one species pair, and one hybrid combination evaluated during 2008, endorsing 200 of them. New to California was the Bluethroat (Luscinia svecica), bringing California’s bird list to 641 species, ten of which are non-native. A potential first state record of a Yellow-headed Caracara (Milvago chimachima) was not accepted on grounds of questionable natural occurrence, and potential first state records of the Great Black-backed Gull (Larus marinus) and Oriental Greenfinch (Chloris sinica) were not accepted on grounds of identification.

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    CHRISTOPHER C. WITT, MATTHEW S. GRAUS, HIRA A. WALKER (Author)

    MOLECULAR DATA CONFIRM THE FIRST RECORD OF THE LONG-BILLED MURRELET FOR NEW MEXICO

    A small acidid of uncertain identity was salvaged from a brine pool associated with a potash mine in Eddy County, New Mexico, on 12 July 2009. The carcass was brought to the Museum of Southwestern Biology, prepared as a specimen, and tentatively identified as a Long-billed Murrelet (Brachyramphus perdix), but identification based on measurements and plumage characteristics was not conclusive. DNA sequence from the mitochondrial gene cytochrome-b confirmed the specific identity but revealed a previously unrecognized mitochondrial variant of the Long-billed Murrelet. This specimen provides the first documentation of the Long-billed Murrelet in New Mexico, a record that was anticipated from the species’ established pattern of vagrancy across North America. This vagrant’s novel mitochondrial DNA haplotype reveals previously undescribed population genetic structure within the Long-billed Murrelet.

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    HEATHER M. RENNER, MARTIN RENNER (Author)

    COUNTING THE COUNTLESS: ESTIMATING THE NUMBER OF LEAST AUKLETS ATTENDING THE COLONY ON ST. GEORGE ISLAND, ALASKA

    Estimating the abundance of auklets at breeding colonies has proven extremely difficult, and no satisfactory method has emerged. Auklets nest in concealed rock crevices and socialize on the sea’s surface during portions of the day. Several methods of estimating population trends have been attempted, but a true census has so far been unattainable at any colony. On St. George Island, Alaska, an unusually late snow cover in 2008 made possible a photo count of Least Auklets (Aethia pusilla) attending the inland colony at Ulakaia Ridge. We estimated the number of birds in the colony on 15 May 2008 to be 88,263 ± 3,056. Because of the timing of the count and the known life history of the species, the count likely represented almost the entire population breeding at the colony that year.

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    MONICA L. BOND, DEREK E. LEE, RODNEY B. SIEGEL (Author)

    WINTER MOVEMENTS BY CALIFORNIA SPOTTED OWLS IN A BURNED LANDSCAPE

    The movements and habitat requirements of the California Spotted Owl (Strix occidentalis occidentalis) during the nonbreeding season remain poorly understood in comparison with those during the breeding season, and no data are available on the subspecies’ use of burned landscapes in fall and winter. From October 2006 to March 2007, we estimated the locations of daytime roosts of five radiomarked California Spotted Owls in an area of the southern Sierra Nevada that burned in a 60,985-ha wildfire 4 years previously. Our objectives were to determine whether these owls expanded their movements during the nonbreeding season and whether they roosted in the area burned. During the nonbreeding season, two males increased the distance between locations of successive roosts while still remaining within their breeding-season ranges. One pair migrated from its breeding territory for the winter but returned by 1 March. One female dispersed to a new breeding territory. Three of the five owls roosted in burned landscapes during the nonbreeding season, and 30% of all roost locations were within the fire’s perimeter. Burned forests may therefore represent important winter habitat for the California Spotted Owl.

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    EDWARD R. PANDOLFINO, PAM RISSER (Author)

    FIRST EVIDENCE SUGGESTING HYBRIDIZATION BETWEEN THE SUMMER TANAGER AND WESTERN TANAGER

    There are very few reported cases of hybridization among the four species of Piranga commonly found in North America north of Mexico, the Hepatic Tanager (Piranga flava), Summer Tanager (P. rubra), Scarlet Tanager (P. olivacea), and Western Tanager (P. ludoviciana). McCormick (1893) reported a bird presumed to be a hybrid between the Scarlet and Summer tanagers. Subsequently, Tordoff (1950) and Mengel (1963) described birds hypothesized to be products of hybridization between the Scarlet and Western tanagers. The one hybrid of Piranga regularly occurring in the United States is the Western Tanager × Flame-colored Tanager (P. bidentata) (Morse and Monson 1985, Rosenberg and Jones 2001, Williams 2007, Retter 2008, S. O. Williams pers. comm.). This hybridization is not unexpected, as the Flame-colored Tanager is at the extreme northern edge of its range in the United States (Arizona) and the two species are each other’s closest relatives (Burns 1998). Rosenberg and Jones (2001) suggested that, in Arizona, these hybrids may be more frequent than pure Flame-colored Tanagers, particularly in the Huachuca Mountains (G. Rosenberg pers. comm.). There are no published reports of hybridization between the Summer and Western tanagers, in spite of large areas of the southwestern United States in which both the Western Tanager and the western subspecies (cooperi) of the Summer Tanager occur.

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    DAVID L. RIENSCHE, CAITLIN ROBINSON-NILSEN (Author)

    KILLDEER OBSERVED DEPREDATING A WESTERN SNOWY PLOVER NEST

    Since 2001, the East Bay Regional Park District has managed nesting habitat for the California Least Tern (Sternula antillarum browni) at the Hayward Regional Shoreline (37° 37′ 47″ N, 122° 8′ 46″ W) on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay, California. As has happened elsewhere in coastal California (Powell and Collier 2000), our efforts have resulted in the recent attraction of breeding Western Snowy Plovers (Charadrius alexandrinus nivosus) to the site. In 2008 and 2009 the plovers attempted one and four nests, respectively, within the Least Tern colony.

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    SANDRA GALLO-CORONA, RICARDO RODRÍGUEZ-ESTRELLA (Author)

    NESTING OF THE GOLDEN EAGLE IN THE GUADALUPE VALLEY, BAJA CALIFORNIA, MEXICO

    The Golden Eagle (Aquila chrysaetos) has a wide global distribution (Kochert et al. 2002), in North America covering Alaska, Canada, the contiguous United States, and Mexico. In Mexico its distribution ranges from the Baja California Peninsula east to the highlands of northeastern Sonora (Russell and Monson 1998) and Chihuahua and south to Colima, San Luis Potosí, Guanajuato, and Querétaro (Howell and Webb 1995). In Mexico, the Golden Eagle inhabits temperate forest, grasslands, and xeric scrub (Rodríguez-Estrella 2002). It may be extirpated as a breeding species in the central area from Guanajuato and Querétaro (Kochert et al. 2002) and is listed as a threatened species in the Norma Oficial Mexicana (SEMARNAT 2002) as a result of mortality caused by electrocution, pesticide poisoning, hunting, and habitat loss. In the Baja California Peninsula, juveniles as well as adults of the Golden Eagle have been reported (Rodríguez-Estrella et al. 1991, Rodríguez-Estrella 2002, Erickson et al. 2002, Ruiz-Campos et al. 2005), but there is little information about nesting sites. Nesting in Baja California has been reported previously from San Telmo (30° 49′ N; Anthony 1893, cited by Grinnell 1928), San José (30° 48′ N; nest in good repair, Hill and Wiggins 1948), and along the Río Santo Domingo (30° 45′ N; active nest, Erickson et al. 2002). But no systematic effort to find Golden Eagle nests has been made in northern Baja California (L. F. Kiff pers. comm. through R. A. Erickson).

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    RICH HOYER (Author)

    SOFTWARE AND BOOK REVIEWS: DIGITAL REVOLUTION IN PACKAGING RECORDINGS OF BIRDS

    There are many reasons birders and field ornithologists use pre-recorded bird sounds in the field, and we used to have but one option: a tape player and cassette, and our choices for sounds were limited to a very few commercially available recordings or our own. Through a dizzying series of technological steps over the past 20 years, we have arrived at solid-state digital players, the most advanced today being the popular iPod Touch.

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    CHUCK TROST (Author)

    BOOK REVIEW: Birds of Wyoming

    Birds of Wyoming is a handsome book with a color photo of a Great Gray Owl  on the cover. It is a grand first attempt to summarize the distribution and status of  birds in one of the most lightly birded states in the nation. The entire human population of Wyoming is only about 550,000, with a land area of roughly 100,000  square miles. 

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    NANCY BELL (Author)

    FEATURED PHOTO - CAROTENISM IN CASSIN’S FINCH

    The red hues of a typical male Cassin’s Finch can be described as crimson. In March 2009 I noted an aberrant male, with yellow-orange coloration instead of crimson visiting seed feeders in the company of a large flock of normally colored Cassin’s Finches 19 km west-southwest of Livermore, Larimer County, Colorado, elevation 2440 m.

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    MICHAEL J. SAN MIGUEL (Author)

    IN MEMORIAM - MICHAEL R. SAN MIGUEL, 1939–2010 PRESIDENT OF WESTERN FIELD ORNITHOLOGISTS, 1999–2003

    While attending California State University, Long Beach, in 1990, I had a course in marine biology.
    One of the labs for this class involved a field trip to Upper Newport Bay and Bolsa Chica to study coastal flora and fauna of southern California. It brought back many of my memories as a child in the 1970s, when my father and I ran around the state looking for birds. I recollect phoning my Dad and suggested that we spend a day birding, just like we had done in the “old days.” From that day forward, he was hooked all over again, and obsessed with an enthusiasm and passion that never waned for the next 21 years of his life. He was an unstoppable presence in the birding community of California and the West until his untimely death on 14 July 2010. Not only did I lose my father, I lost my best friend in the world.