On 18 May John Yerger detected an ABA Code-5 Brown-backed Solitaire (Myadestes occidentalis) while he was hiking in Morse Canyon on the west side of the Chiricahua Mountains, Arizona. The bird was heard only as it moved to the west side of the canyon. A fire currently burning in Rucker Canyon may close this trail and it is speculated the fire may move the bird into West Turkey Creek.
There are only two accepted records of Brown-backed Solitaire in the ABA Area, one male in Miller Canyon, Arizona, found and photographed by participants of the youth birding camp, Camp Chiricahua, on 16 July 2009. Likely the same bird then moved to Ramsey Canyon, AZ, where it was present 18 July – 1 August where it was photographed and audio-recorded (ABA Checklist updates). Another report of this species was of a photographed bird from Arizona 4 October 1996 but the report was rejected by the Arizona Bird Committee because of the species’ uncertain origin and a pattern of vagrancy has/had not been established. Helen Snyder, a biologist living in the Chiricahua Mountains, reported hearing a Brown-backed Solitaire singing in 1994 in a small canyon on the west side of Cottonwood Canyon, the Chiricahuas.
Brown-backed Solitaire is a close relative to Townsend’s Solitaire (and other solitaires from Central and South America). It is an endemic to the highlands of Mexico and northern Central America breeding as close to Arizona as southern Sonora and Chihuahua or about 320 miles from the Arizona/Mexico border (Birds of Mexico and Northern Central America, Howell and Webb).
The song is heard year-round and is a characteristic sound of highland forests (Birds of Mexico, Howell and Webb). A link to this songsterand other bird vocalizations can be heard on the excellent xeno-canto site, http://xeno-canto.org/browse.php?query=sp:3014.00
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