PEEPS

Common Crane - Nebraska

On 25 March, a visitor to the Nebraska Rowe Sanctuary in south central Nebraska saw and photographed an ABA Code-4, Common Crane (Grus grus) from one of the sanctuary’s viewing blinds. 

Common Crane was first reported from the ABA Area in 1957.  A few Common Crane records in the ABA Area include birds mated with a Sandhill Crane and producing hybrid offspring. One ABA-area Common Crane is a known escapee from a farm in upstate New York (NAB54: 24, 55:152) and it paired with a Sandhill Crane producing offspring.  Most reports of Common Crane in the ABA Area come from two time periods, September-October and March-April (ABA Checklist, Seventh Edition, Pranty et al.). Nebraska is the state from which Common Crane is most often reported, mostly found associating with large flocks of Sandhill Cranes.

Seven of the world’s 15 crane species are threatened (Handbook of the Birds of the World, Volume 3).  However, Common Crane has an estimated population of 220,000 to 250,000 birds, having been extirpated from much of its historical range in western, southern, and Eastern Europe.  Common Cranes breed from Scandinavia and northeastern Europe to north central China and the Russian Far East, thus overlapping with Sandhill Cranes in Siberia where on occasion they follow Sandhills across the Bering Straits and south into the U.S. and Mexico during fall migration.  Common Cranes mostly winter in France, the Iberian Peninsula, northwestern and northeastern Africa, the Middle East, Pakistan, India, and southern and eastern China.

White-throated Thrush - King Ranch, Texas

Another Texas White-throated Thrush (Turdus assimillis), ABA Code-4, was found at a water feature on the private (fee area) Norias Division of the King Ranch on 22 March by Jim Sinclair while he was leading a birding trip there. Additionally, the previously mentioned Masked Duck is still present on the Norias Division of the ranch.

For those who keep track of ABA Code-4 and Code-5 species, White-throated Thrush is currently classified as a Code-4 or Casual species.  The definition of a Code-4 bird is: “… a species that is reported irregularly (i.e. less than annually) in the ABA Area, with six or more reports overall AND three or more reports within the past 30 years.”  In 2008, the list of Code-4 ABA-area birds was 100 species (ABA Checklist, Seventh Edition, Pranty et al.). 

A Code-5 or Accidental species is: “… a species that has been reported in the ABA Area five or fewer times overall AND/OR fewer than three times within the past 30 years.”  In 2008 there were 107 ABA-area species in this category.

Aplomado Falcon - New Mexico

On 21 March Susan and Bill Birky saw and photographed an ABA Code-3, Aplomado Falcon (Falco femoralis) west of the green chile capitol of the world, Hatch, New Mexico.

The northern population of Aplomado Falcon was federally listed as endangered in 1986.  In the 1980s, The Peregrine Fund took over the reintroduction of captive-reared Aplomados from the Chihuahuan Desert Institute of Alpine, Texas, with support from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Following the release of over 100 captive-reared young Aplomados into the Texas Gulf Coast region, the first breeding from those individuals occurred in 1995 and by 2002 at least 37 Aplomado pairs produced over 92 young in the wild.  In 2002, the reintroduction program was approved to be expanded into the desert grasslands of western Texas and southern New Mexico.  When the first releases came in August 2006, the entire Aplomado Falcon population from this region was given an experimental, non-essential population status under section 10 (j) of the Endangered Species Act, even though some individuals may be wild birds from the grasslands of Chihuahua, Mexico. 

In 2007, 39 Aplomado Falcon chicks were delivered to New Mexico and Texas release sites. In 2008, 70 Aplomados were released into New Mexico from two sites, one on Ted Turner’s Armendarias Ranch, and the other on the White Sands Missile Range; by year’s end 50 birds were considered to be free-flying. In 2009, four Aplomados were introduced onto the private Delk Ranch near Demming, New Mexico, within the natural range of the species. By 2010, over 120 Aplomados had been released at sites in southern New Mexico and about 1,500 birds had been released on to private lands at 6 locations in West Texas.

This Aplomado captive release partnership was expanded to include: BLM, DOD, New Mexico Game and Fish Department, USFWS, The Peregrine Fund and other partners with plans to continue to introduce more birds into this region after the 10^thCircuit Court sided with the USFWS and against a legal challenge from the environmental group, Forest Guardians.  Forest Guardians asserted that naturally occurring birds were being jeopardized by the experimental status of the released birds.

Effect of Japan's Tsunami on Midway Atoll Breeding Birds

As reported by the USFWS’s Midway Atoll NWR, the deadly tsunami generated by the 9.0 earthquake off the coast of northeastern Japan struck Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge at 11:36 P.M. on Thursday, 10 March and continued for the next few hours.  Midway residents received approximately four hours of advanced warning and successfully implemented their tsunami emergency plan.  No one was injured and no major damage occurred to the island’s infrastructure, however nesting seabirds were not so fortunate.

The single, successful Short-tailed Albatross nest was washed over but the chick was found unharmed about 35 meters away and it was subsequently returned unharmed to its nest area.  A minimum of 1,000 adult and sub-adult Laysan Albatrosses and tens of thousands of Laysan Albatross chicks were killed. Thousands of burrowing Bonin Petrels were buried alive. Spit Island completely washed over while Eastern Island experience a 60% wash over and Sand had a 20% wash over.  Thousands of dead fish were found in the interior of Eastern Island.   The impacts on Laysan Ducks and on monk seals are currently unknown. 

Western Spindalis - South Florida

On 16 March Carl Goodrich found a female, ABA Code-3 Western Spindalis (Spindalis zena) at Fort Zachary Taylor State Park in Key West, Florida.

Except when foraging, Western Spindalis has been described as being difficult to see, often perching high in trees.  Its calls are described as seeip notes and when in a group, members can give soft tsit-tsit-tsit calls (The Tanagers, Natural History, Distribution, and Identification, Isler and Isler).  It is a resident of the Bahamas, Cuba, the Cayman Islands, and Cozumel Island. Three races have occurred in Florida with the black-backed nominate race from the central Bahamas being most frequently reported (ABA Checklist, Seventh Edition, Pranty et al.).

Western Spindalis is currently the only remaining ABA-area tanager—all of the Piranga tanagers have been moved into the Cardinal and Allies family.  This species is now an annual visitor and occasional nester in south Florida having been recorded in the region in every month. The black-backed Central Bahamas subspecies is the most frequent visitor to the area, but a detailed description of this current bird has not yet been posted.

 

Masked Duck - South Texas

On 8 March an ABA Code-3 Masked Duck (Nomonyx dominicus) was found on the Santa Gertrudis Division (Kleberg County) of King Ranch, Texas, by Tom Langschied and 9 other birders. This area is private and has limited access.

In some locales called White-winged Lake Duck because of its distinctive white wing patches seen in flight, Masked Duck has been moved by many authors out of the Oxyura genus it formerly shared with Ruddy Duck and other stiff-tailed ducks into a monotypic genus.  Its range is large, extending from freshwater wetlands with lots of emergent vegetation, south from the West Indies and Mexico to northwestern Peru and east of the Andes to northeastern Argentina.

Although Masked Duck is mostly sedentary, it periodically undergoes wide-ranging dispersive movements.  Dispersal includes movement into the ABA Area, notably to Florida and Texas where it has bred, but also to other Gulf States and it has even been reported from Vermont (Handbook of the Birds of the World, Volume 1).  In most of its range it is uncommon, but because of its secretive habits it seems to be rare. Noteworthy, up to 500 Masked Ducks winter on Jocotol Lagoon in El Salvador and 80–100 have been recorded in Baja Submeriodinales in northeastern Argentina (HBW, Volume 1).

Pink-footed Goose - New Jersey

On 7 March Chris Takacs and Rob Fanning found and ABA Code-4 Pink-footed Goose (Anser brachyrhynchus) on Washington Lake and more recently, Schlegel Lake in New Jersey. The goose was scrutinized by several observers for a few hours and reported as being wary. If accepted by the New Jersey records committee, it would likely become the first state record.

As mentioned before in PEEPS, the Greenland and Iceland breeding populations of Pink-footed Goose was estimated at 10,000 pairs in 1989 and increased to approximately 270,000 by 2005 as reported in Wetlands International’s Waterfowl Population Estimates, 4^th edition.

Most ABA-area records of Pink-footed Goose have occurred in the past 25 years and occur in both spring and fall.  Pink-footed Goose has a very small breeding range.  Besides breeding in Iceland and southeastern Greenland, there is a population on Svalbard (Spitzbergen).  Birds breeding in Greenland and Iceland winter mostly in Scotland and in northern and eastern England (Handbook of the Birds of the World, Volume 1).

Ivory Gull - Nova Scotia, Canada

On 5 March an ABA Code-3, adult Ivory Gull was observed by Syd and Betty-June Smith off Baccaro Point, the southernmost point of mainland Nova Scotia and an important seabird-watching site. Baccaro comes from the Basque word meaning cod-fish. The gull was being harassed by two Great Black-backed Gulls as it flew along the west shore of the peninsula.

Ivory Gull is often associated with ice and they have 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. 

Ivory Gull is likely 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 moss-lined hollows.  Ivory Gull may have undergone recent significant population declines (Gulls of the Americas, Howell and Dunn).  Early accounts suggest that Ivory Gull fed almost exclusively on polar bear and seal dung, now largely dispelled as false, but instead is 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. 

Long-billed Murrelet - Northern California

On 3 March Craig Strong found an ABA Code-3 Long-billed Murrelet (Brachyramphus peridix) off the northwestern tip of Point Saint George, about 8 miles northwest of Crescent City, California.

Long-billed Murrelet has been recorded from Florida, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, and Newfoundland.  Additionally, it has been found far inland to Colorado, Indiana, Montana, Ohio, and Wyoming.  There are at least three records from Europe.

Like its close relative Marbled Murrelet, but unlike Kittlitz’s Murrelet, Long-billeds nests in old growth forests.  Until 1998 it was considered a subspecies of Marbled Murrelet when a Condor paper showed mtDNA variation was greater between Marbled and Long-billed murrelets than between Marbled and Kittlitz’s murrelets (Friesen et al. Condor 98:681-690).  In Handbook of the Birds of the World, Volume 3, Long-billed Murrelet is treated as a subspecies of Marbled.  The breeding range of Long-billed Murrelet is thought to be entirely within Asia (Mlodinow, Birding 1997:12).