Western Birds Journal

Volume 55, No. 4

Published October 1, 2024

Issue description

Volume 55, number 4 of Western Birds, published 2024

Articles

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    RYAN S. TERRILL, THOMAS A. BENSON, ROB FOWLER, DEBORAH J. HOUSE, ALEX M. RINKERT, ADAM J. SEARCY (Author)

    THE 47TH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE CALIFORNIA BIRD RECORDS COMMITTEE: 2021 RECORDS

     From its last report through 2021, the California Bird Records Committee reached decisions on 177 records involving 184 individuals of 71 species and one species group, endorsing 151 records of 158 individuals. The first accepted records for California of the Mexican Duck (Anas diazi) are outlined in this report. The committee also voted to add naturalized populations of the Nanday Parakeet (Aratinga nenday), Mitred Parakeet (Psittacara mitratus), Red-masked Parakeet (Psittacara erythrogenys), and Lilac-crowned Parrot (Amazona finschi) to the state list. These additions bring California’s total list of accepted species to 681, of which 17 represent established introductions. Other especially notable records detailed in this report include those of California’s second through fifth Tundra Bean-Geese (Anser serrirostris), second Purple Sandpiper (Calidris maritima), third Ross’s Gull
    (Rhodostethia rosea), fourth Eurasian Skylark (Alauda arvensis), and fourth Common Crane (Grus grus).

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    DEBORAH J HOUSE (Author)

    FALL MIGRATION OF THE NORTHERN SHOVELER AT HYPERSALINE MONO LAKE, CALIFORNIA

     From 2002 to 2022, waterfowl were surveyed at Mono Lake to evaluate the their response to lake-level changes under the State Water Resources Control Board’s landmark Decision 1631, in which the public trust doctrine was first applied to water rights. From September through mid-November, the total numbers of Mono Lake’s most numerous dabbling duck, the Northern Shoveler (Spatula clypeata), averaged 13,018 ± 1571 (standard error), ranging from a high of 27,400 in 2008 to a low of 2719 in 2018. Annual peak counts averaged 5562 ± 709, ranging from a low of 768 in 2018 to the highest single-day count of 13,793 in 2012. Annual totals were higher under conditions of monomixis than under the stratified condition of meromixis. In a generalized linear model, the combined effects of survey period, biomass of Mono Lake brine shrimp (Artemia monica), and regional drought explained 67.8% of the variation in Northern Shoveler numbers at Mono Lake, i.e., higher Artemia biomass and more severe drought in northeast California resulted in higher shoveler counts. Lake level, a key component of waterfowl-habitat restoration, showed no effect within the range of lake levels observed. These results suggest that food resources and regional drought have been the most important factors influencing Northern Shoveler use of Mono Lake, so far overriding any small-scale influences of habitat variation due to lake-level changes.

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    JACK J. WITHROW, ASHLEY M. SPICER, DAVID W. SONNEBORN (Author)

    MITOCHONDRIAL DNA DEMONSTRATES THAT A HEN HARRIER (CIRCUS CYANEUS) REACHED ATTU ISLAND, ALASKA

     A partial wing of a juvenile male harrier salvaged at Attu Island, Aleutian Islands, Alaska in June 1999 has long been discussed as an example of the Old World taxon Circus (cyaneus) cyaneus on the basis of morphological features and a geographic deduction. This identification took on additional weight after many taxonomic authorities decided to treat the Old and New World forms as separate species—C. cyaneus and C. hudsonius, respectively. Mitochondrial DNA (1887 base pairs) clearly group the specimen with C. cyaneus, and thus the specimen represents the first record for North America of the Hen Harrier.

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    TONJA Y. CHI (Author)

    FIRST RECORD OF THE NORTHERN SPOTTED OWL NESTING IN FOREST BURNED AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL OF SEVERITY

     An instance of the Northern Spotted Owl (Strix occidentalis caurina) nesting successfully in severely burned forest indicates that under some circumstances, such habitat may indeed provide the species suitable habitat. Current forest-management approaches treat wildfire as the primary cause of habitat loss for both the Northern and California (S. o. occidentalis) Spotted Owls. Assumptions that severely burned forest does not provide any viable nesting or roosting habitat for these Spotted Owl subspecies has resulted in substantial post-fire logging and removal of burned trees throughout both owls’ ranges. In addition, forest management intended to prevent severe fires may entail thinning of unburned Spotted Owl habitat to reduce tree density and potential fuel loads. In the Mendocino National Forest of western Glenn County, California, I followed a pair of Northern Spotted Owls nesting and roosting deep within a large patch of severely burned forest two years after a fire, in a stand with no post-fire salvage logging, pre-fire thinning, fuels reduction, or attempts at restoration. A pair of Spotted Owls had used this location consistently since 1990, and the territory remained occupied with owls roosting and nesting successfully in 2022, despite 73% of the territory burning at high severity in 2020.

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    JOHN MARK SIMMONS (Author)

    ANNUAL VARIATION IN HABITAT SELECTION OF LECONTE’S THRASHER

     Surveys of Tule Springs Fossil Beds National Monument near Las Vegas, Nevada, in 2021, after an exceptionally dry winter, revealed LeConte’s Thrasher (Toxostoma lecontei) only in uniform stands of Atriplex polycarpa on flat terrain. But in 2022, after a winter of rainfall 2.7 times greater than average, several LeConte’s Thrashers, including at least one nesting pair, appeared in Mojave Desert scrub on a rockier substrate and more sloped terrain, in an area where they had been absent the previous year. Thus habitat use by LeConte’s Thrasher may vary in response to annual fluctuation in rainfall.

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    XAVIER MORENO, GONZALO DE LEÓN-GIRÓN, HIRAM RAFAEL MORENO-HIGAREDA, LORI HARGROVE, ENRIQUE D. ZAMORA-HERNÁNDEZ, DANIEL OLGUIN, HORACIO DE LA CUEVA (Author)

    NORTHERN HARRIER BREEDING IN BAHIA DE SAN QUINTIN, BAJA CALIFORNIA

     The Northern Harrier (Circus hudsonius) reaches the southern limit of its current breeding range at San Quintín Bay, Baja California Mexico, where the tidal salt marsh is home to possibly as many as 15 pairs. In 2023 one pair had a nest with three eggs hatching 25–26 April. Two young fledged by 17 June.

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    EDWARD R. Pandolfio (Author)

    BOOK REVIEWS: The Birds that Audubon Missed: Desire and Discovery in the American Wilderness

     I was prepared to NOT like this book. So much so that I first downloaded a free Kindle sample. I am most certainly not a fan of Audubon or his art. I find the setting of his paintings often overly dramatic or just plain wrong (Mountain Plovers shown in the mountains…). The grossly contorted poses of the birds are bothersome, even though I understand they are intended to show all the key features for identification. Art aside, the man’s difficult relationship with the truth and overwhelming ambition led him to commit several acts of gross scientific fraud.

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    DANIEL S. COOPER (Author)

    BOOK REVIEWS: Small Mountain Owls

     Some ornithology books are one-offs. How would one review Dawson’s Birds of California, or Pyle’s Identification Guide to North American Birds? Such works fall into the category of “here’s everything I know” and are as much a reflection of the author as the material. There’s also the phenomenon of a researcher’s “permanent place”—Alexander Skutch in Costa Rica, Glen Woolfenden in central Florida— your mental list of these pairings is probably as long as mine, since a researcher’s geographical setting frequently becomes inextricably linked to his or her output. Scott Rashid, who majored in art in college but who has spent his entire career in ornithology, is one such place-expert. His place is the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, and Small Mountain Owls is the culmination of four decades of banding, photographing, rehabilitating, and searching for the nests of owls around Rocky Mountain National Park.