Following a period of westerly winds, an ABA Code-4 Gray-streaked Flycatcher (Muscicapa griseisticta) was found in the lower Polovina Quarry on St. Paul Island, Alaska, on 24 June.
Gray-streaked Flycatcher breeds from northeastern China, southeastern Russian, southern Kamchatka, Sakhalin and Kuril Islands, moving south to winter in Taiwan, the Philippines, northern Borneo, Sulawesi, the Moluccas, and western New Guinea. It is uncommon in its breeding range (although rare in Russia), nesting in larch (tamarack) forests and forest edges (Handbook of the Birds of the World, Volume 11). This species was formerly called Gray-spotted Flycatcher and also Spot-breasted Flycatcher.
Three days earlier, an ABA Code-4 Fork-tailed Swift (Apus pacificus) was seen flying over the Polovian Crater near the LORAN station. Fork-tailed Swift, called Pacific Swift in Handbook of the Birds of the World, Volume 5, is a large swift with long pointed wings, deeply forked and long tail and a striking white rump band. It occurs over a vast range of habitats during both summer and winter including the low arctic and the tropics; it ranges from sea level in the tropics to over 13,000 feet in Nepal. It is commonly seen around human habitation. There are four ABA-area specimens, all of the subspecies A. p. pacificus the long distant migrant, the other subspecies being more sedentary. The nominate race breeds from Siberia east to Kamchatka and Japan, south to northern China and southern Japan. They winter in Indonesia, Melanesia, Australia and possibly in northeastern India (Handbook of the Birds of the World, Volume 5).
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