Volume 9, number 2 of Western Birds, published 1978
Between 6 June and 8 July 1975 I was a seabird observer on a cruise from Hakodate, Hokkaido, Japan to Kodiak, Alaska, via the south central Bering Sea, aboard the Hokkaido University Faculty of Fisheries training/research vessel, TV Oshoro Maru. This paper reports the distribution and relative abundance of species observed within the regions visited.
In their discussion of the Northern Three-toed Woodpecker (Picoides tridactylus), Bailey and Niedrach (1965:507) stated: “This species, with the Downy [Picoides pubescens] and Hairy [P. villosus] Woodpeckers, was a great help in the preservation of the forests in western Colorado threatened by the destructive bark beetles in 1939.” They went on to quote a statement by Noel D. Wygant regarding this event: “In some of the large outbreak centers, woodpeckers built up a population as heavy as a pair per acre.”
The island of Lanai is a pear-shaped shield volcano, covering 361 km², the sixth largest of the Hawaiian Islands. At its extremes, the island is 29 km long and 21 km wide, with the highest point at Lanaihale, 1027 m (Figure 1; Armstrong 1973). Mean annual rainfall varies from 25 cm along the coast to 89 cm near the summit (Armstrong 1973), although a substantial quantity of water, estimated to be as much as the annual rainfall, is directly intercepted from the cloud cover by the vegetation in the upper mountain areas (Ekern 1964).
On 28 June 1977 Stephen B. Vander Wall observed White-winged Crossbills (Loxia leucoptera) at an elevation of 2500 m on the crest of the Bear River Range, 13 km west of Laketown, northern Cache and Rich Cos., Utah. Having censused this area monthly since May 1976, I am certain the species was not present before the last week of June 1977. This occurrence in itself is surprising since only two small flocks had previously been reported in Utah (Worthen 1973, Behle and Perry 1975). Subsequently, I suspected breeding activities in early July and made weekly observations to verify breeding.
Also, I captured, examined and banded 19 White-winged Crossbills at a small (<75 m²) stock pond adjacent to a subalpine meadow on 28 July (7 captured), 6 August (8) and 16 August (4). The pond was the only source of surface water within several km² during 1977’s extreme summer drought in the region. Many species, including Red Crossbills (L. curvirostra), regularly visited the pond and were easily mist-netted. The nets were baited with salt to attract crossbills (see Samson 1976). Birds stopped visiting the pond in mid-August when it dried up. However, the addition of 200 l of water on 14 August was effective in attracting many species including crossbills.
The Swainson’s Hawk (Buteo swainsoni) was once a common raptor inhabiting eastern San Luis Obispo County (Louis Silveria pers. comm., Fred Truesdale field notes). It is now an uncommon breeding species throughout California and nesting in San Luis Obispo County is extremely rare. I attempted to locate Swainson’s Hawk nesting territories during spring 1977 while conducting other research in the Coast Ranges of California.
A pair of Swainson’s Hawks was reported to nest in 1976 on the San Juan Creek, San Luis Obispo County (Ron Walker pers. comm.). The nest was occupied in 1977 by Red-tailed Hawks (Buteo jamaicensis) (Lynette Shirley pers. comm.). I observed this nesting territory in 1977. It consisted of a large, isolated, dead cottonwood (Populus sp.) in the dry floodplain of San Juan Creek which runs through oak woodland, grassland and agricultural plant communities. The nest was placed on one of the few remaining large horizontal branches of the tree. It appeared that the nesting Red-tailed Hawks had added fresh sticks to the bulky stick nest.
On 4 June 1977 Sayre Greenfield, Alan Contreras and I observed a pair of Northern Waterthrushes (Seirus noveboracensis) on the south bank of Crescent Creek at Crescent Creek Campground, south of Davis Lake on the east side of the Cascade Range in Deschutes County, Oregon. Although there have been at least three previous sightings of the Northern Waterthrush in Oregon (Gabrielson and Jewett, Birds of Oregon, 1940:508-509; Kridler, Auk 82:496-497, 1965; E. G. Whiteswift pers. comm.), apparently this is the first time a pair of this species has been seen in the state.
Nancy Hunn and I observed a single adult Black-throated Sparrow (Amphispiza bilineata) 16 May 1976 at the Pt. Grenville Coast Guard Station, Grays Harbor Co., Washington. The bird was feeding actively on the lawn of the Coast Guard facility with a flock of about five Savannah Sparrows (Passerculus sandwichensis), three American Goldfinches (Carduelis tristis) and one White-crowned Sparrow (Zonotrichia leucophrys). The Coast Guard Station perches on a high promontory facing the Pacific Ocean and surrounded by second growth coniferous forest typical of the coastal Sitka Spruce (Picea sitchensis) zone (Franklin and Dyrness 1973: 58-63).
Color photographs obtained with the aid of K. C. Johnstone of the U. S. Coast Guard are not of publishable quality but do allow the bird to be identified. Copies of these color slides have been deposited with the Washington Bird Record File at the University of Washington Museum. A sketch drawn while the bird was under observation is also in that file.
An adult Trumpeter Swan (Olor buccinator) was illegally shot and killed on Bear Canyon Reservoir in the Mimbres River Valley east of Silver City, New Mexico, on or about 23 February 1977. One of my students, Wyatt Pickering, salvaged the bird from the reservoir and although it had been partially eaten by fish or turtles, I prepared it as a study skin (DAZ 2660) which presently is housed at Western New Mexico University.
Sometime during the morning of 6 July 1976 William Haggard of Santa Paula, Ventura County, California noted a strange hummingbird at one of his feeders, located in an oak-chaparral canyon. He identified the bird as a Violet-crowned Hummingbird (Amazilia verticalis). On 17 July we visited the feeders and observed the hummingbird several times at very close range.