Western Birds Journal

Volume 17, No. 2

Published April 1, 1986

Issue description

Volume 17, number 2 of Western Birds, published 1986

Articles

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    DON ROBERSON (Author)

    NINTH REPORT OF THE CALIFORNIA BIRD RECORDS COMMITTEE

    The editorial staff of Western Birds is pleased to announce that Bushnell Corporation has underwritten the full cost of printing this report of the California Bird Records Committee. We know that members of Western Field Ornithologists will appreciate this special support from Bushnell.

    Bringing color photographs into the journal is costly, but it greatly enhances the quality and appeal of the report. CBRC reports are among the most popularly—and meticulously—read articles appearing in Western Birds.

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    WM. BRECK TYLER, KENNETH BURTON (Author)

    A COOK'S PETREL SPECIMEN FROM CALIFORNIA

    On the morning of 17 November 1983, Bob Moon found a Cook's Petrel (Pterodroma cookii) floundering in the driveway of his seaside home at 2-2702 East Cliff Drive, Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz County, California (37°N). Moon called the Native Animal Rescue Service, a local wildlife rehabilitation center, but the bird expired before the center's volunteers could respond.

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    BARRETT A. GARRISON (Author)

    OBSERVATION OF COPULATION BETWEEN A NON- NESTING ADULT AND SUBADULT BALD EAGLE IN CALIFORNIA

    Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) copulatory behavior has been described for wild and captive adult birds (Herrick 1932, 1934; Broley 1952; Gerrard et al. 1979; Wiemeyer 1981), but not, as far as I know, between adults and subadults. Gerrard et al. (1980) observed a marked 4-year-old female in subadult plumage adopt a copulation-solicitation posture with an adult male, but no copulation was observed. Breeding of subadults has been rarely recorded (Hoxie 1910; Bent 1937). A 3½-year-old male in adult plumage nested with an adult female and successfully fledged one young (D.A. Hammer, unpubl. data).

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    WADE L. EAKLE (Author)

    PREY REMAINS FROM GOLDEN EAGLE NESTS IN CENTRAL ARIZONA

    The food habits of the Golden Eagle (Aquila chrysaetos) in North America have been well documented. Olendorff (1976) summarized the available data to date from the literature. Bloom and Hawks (1982), Collopy (1983), and Marr and Knight (1983) documented prey remains collected from Golden Eagle nests in various regions of the western United States.

    However, the food habits of Golden Eagles in Arizona have not been described. Willard (1916) reported White-tailed Deer (Odocoileus virginianus) and domestic livestock being killed and fed upon by eagles, but this is the only information for the entire state.

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    Tim Manolis (Author)

    WESTERN BIRDS HAS A NEW EDITOR

    As long as anyone can remember, Alan Craig has been the editor of Western Birds. Thirteen years—and thirteen volumes—to be exact—ever since Western Birds emerged as the "mature adult" form of the fledgling journal California Birds, in its fourth year of publication.

    Actually, Alan was there at the beginning, as one of the original editors of California Birds. Indeed, Alan wrote the very first sentence that appeared on page one of the first issue of the first volume of the journal—just as he would later write the first sentence to appear in Western Birds.

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    Tim Manolis (Author)

    PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE

    The recent return of WFO's president, Dr. Laurence C. Binford, to Illinois has left a major gap—not only on the inside front cover of Western Birds, but in the ranks of bird students throughout the West. Laurie leaves behind a legacy of commitment and leadership that, as far as western field ornithologists are concerned, has brought us to the doorway of an exciting future for amateur field ornithology in western North America

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    CHARLES T. COLLINS (Author)

    IDENTIFICATION QUIZ

    A white goose with a pink bill and feet, and black primaries, should not present much of an identification problem: the choice would be either Snow Goose (Chen caerulescens) or Ross's Goose (C. rossii).

    Even so, a single adult individual that spent the winter of 1984–1985 in Upper Newport Bay, Orange County, California, caused a certain amount of consternation for many observers. Those viewing it at a distance—where body size estimates were difficult—noted the longer bill with a prominent “grinning patch” and tended to identify it as a Snow Goose.