PEEPS

Green-breasted Mango - Georgia

Green-breasted Mango, Anthracothorax prevostii, is an ABA Code 4 bird.  In Dublin (Laurens County), Georgia, a Green-breasted Mango has been coming to a feeder at a private residence since at least October 2007!  It is currently being seen most often at the Jacksons' residence.  The Laurie and Marshall Jackson residence is located at 226 Brookwood Dr., on the corner of Monterrey St. and Brookwood Dr., Dublin, GA.  The Jacksons have been welcoming birders who come to view their visiting rarity.  It has been seen as recently as 27 February 2008.

Mangos, the hummingbirds, not the fruit, are in the genus Anthracothorax meaning black (as in anthracite coal) thorax or chest.  The species name prevostii, is from the French artist and author, Florent Prévost.  Mangos are hummingbirds of tropical lowlands with some species ranging as far south as Argentina and Brazil.  Green-breasted Mango was first documented in North America in 1988 where it was first identified as a Mango sp., but later called a Green-breasted (Lasley in Howell, Hummingbirds of North America).  Although Green-breasted is the only mango documented in the U.S., and the only one expected, other mangos are very similar in immature plumages  (Veraguan and Black-throated Mango, e.g.).  Only in-hand inspection can be used to separate individuals to subspecies, the nominate prevostii is the one to be expected. 

Fork-tailed Flycatcher - Louisiana

On February 17, Phillip Wallace from New Orleans and David Muth discovered a Fork-tailed Flycatcher in Alliance, Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana.  Fork-tailed Flycatcher is an ABA Code 4 bird.  The bird moves around a lot and is most recently, February 24, being seen along the S. Belle Chasse Hwy., just north of Ironton, LA, south of New Orleans.

Fork-tailed Flycatcher is a long-distant migrant with a history of overshoots.  Most U.S. records are of the longer-winged South American nominate subspecies, Tyrannus savana savana, but in neighboring Texas there is a wintering record of the Mexican subspecies T.s. monachus. It is currently suspected, based on photos and video that the LA bird is of the northernmost, monachus subspecies.

When first found, the Fork-tailed Flycatcher was in the company of a Scissor-tailed Flycatcher and 15 Western Kingbirds.  It is currently associating with Western Kingbirds in its new location. 

This  is a sensitive area to private landowners, all whom have requested that birders stay off of their property.  Anyone looking for this bird should only park on the highway right-of-way, be very aware of local traffic, and always be respectful of private property.

Flamingos in Texas

On Friday, February 22, a USFWS pilot spotted two flamingos while conducting a waterfowl survey in the hypersaline Laguna Madre, approximately 3-5 miles south of Baffin Bay in Kenedy County, Texas.  It has not been confirmed whether or not these were the countable Greater Flamingo, the Old World roseus subspecies, or any other flamingo species.  It appears that the only viewing can be accomplished from the Intracoastal Waterway via a boat.  Padre Island National Seashore (PINS) runs parallel to Laguna Madre, but it is uncertain whether the flamingos would be viewable from the bay side part of PINS.  A 4-wheel drive sandy beach is accessible to visitors, and the approximate spot where one would walk west (if permissible) to the bay side would be between mile 13-15.  There is a Milepost 10 marker and a Milepost 15 marker.  It appears that Milepost 10 is at the same latitude where Baffin Bay enters Laguna Madre.

As of 2001 there were only four accepted Greater Flamingo (ABA Code 4) records from Texas, plus a number of well-documented occurrences of the escaped Old World roseus Greater Flamingo, which is sometimes considered a different species from "American" or "Caribbean" Flamingo.

A healthy and locally common population of native Greater (American) Flamingos exists along the northern coast of the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico.

Ivory Gull, South Dakota

On February 16th, Ricky Olson of Fort Pierre, South Dakota found a first-cycle Ivory Gull near Lake Oahe Dam, South Dakota (about 10 miles north of Fort Pierre). The gull disappears for hours, sometimes moving two miles up from the dam where it has been seen standing on the ice, feeding on a goose carcass. Directions to the sites can be viewed here. People have waited as long as four hours for the bird to return to the carcass in windy, below zero temperatures.

Very rare in the Lower 48 (but records from as far south as SoCal, Colorado, and Tennessee), Ivory Gull is associated with ice and has fairly well-developed claws adapted for standing on the ice. It is the sole member of the genus, Pagophila, from the Greek meaning ice-loving. The species name eburnea is from Latin, meaning like ivory in whiteness.

This is probably the hardiest of all the gulls, a circumpolar two-cycle gull and Holarctic breeder, nesting in colonies, often on the snow or on ice-covered cliffs, in a moss-lined hollow. Ivory Gull may have undergone recent significant population declines (Howell and Dunn, Gulls of the Americas). Early accounts suggest that Ivory Gull fed almost exclusively on polar bear and seal dung, now largely dispelled as false, but instead an aggressive scavenger.

Although Ivory Gull was known as early as 1609 to Arctic mariners, it wasn’t described until 1774 by C. J. Phipps from a specimen collected in an attempted voyage to the North Pole. Taxonomically, it has distinctive structural and behavioral differences from other gulls. Short legs and stout, but rather long bill, is unique along with its tern-like flight, however some authors have placed it in the genus Larus.

Bananaquit in Hollywood, Florida

Discovered by Joe Kaplan, a valentine Bananaquit, was sent on Wednesday to Hollywood, Florida.

Directions and instructions, including those reminding birders of private property, should get you close to where this bird has been feeding.

What is a Bananaquit?  A rare migrant to Florida from the Bahamas, this nectar-eating species has had, and continues to have a checkered taxonomic history.  In 1998, the A.O.U. Check-list, placed this small bird, with its long curved bill, in the monotypic family, Coerebidae.  Today, Coerebidae has uncertain taxonomic placement, Incertae Sedis, where all our former tanagers, the Pirangas reside (as does the former warbler, Yellow-breasted Chat), in front of the Emberizidae.

Elaenia Species Found - South Padre Island

Elaenias are tyrant flycatchers found in two genera, Elaenia and Myiopagis (smaller than former and often resembling tyrannulets), all representatives native to the Caribbean, Central, or South America.  There is one accepted North American record of a Greenish Elaenia, Myiopagis viridicata present on High Island 20–23 May '84 and another elaenia, one not accepted to species but thought to be a Caribbean Elaenia, from Santa Rosa Island, Escambia County, FL on 28 April '84.

On February 9, Dan and Honey Jones found an elaenia species on the Sheepshead Road, South Padre Island (SPI), Texas.

As many birders to South America know, elaenias are very difficult to separate. Elaenias in the genus Elaenia are mostly frugivorous birds of the forest edge.  First thought to be Yellow-bellied Elaenia, Elaenia flavogaster, a species which breeds north to the southern Mexican states of Veracruz  and Oaxaca, the SPI bird is now thought to be a subspecies of the highly migratory southern subspecies of the entirely South American White-crested Elaenia, Elaenia albiceps chilensis, a species that breeds as far south as Tierra del Fuego, Chile.  The chilensis subspecies spends the Austral winter as far north as Brazil, arriving by March.

John Arvin, from the Gulf Coast Bird Observatory, explains that highly migratory southern populations of species (longer wings) are often the ones that are found as extralimital, and not the northern populations that are usually short distance migrants.  If identified (calls recorded) and accepted, this exciting discovery would become a first North American record.

If chasing this rare Tyranid, consider a search for "Mangrove" Warbler, which are now known to be year-round residents near the mouth of the Rio Grande.  For information on seeing Mangrove (Yellow) Warblers contact the South Padre Island Nature Center at (956) 299-0629.  The distinctive Mangrove Yellow Warbler (chestnut head on males) is thought by some authorities to be a species separate from our widespread Yellow Warbler.