PEEPS

GRAY-COLLARED BECARD - Southeast Arizona

Perhaps the next new bird for the ABA Area, a female Gray-collared Becard (Pachyramphus major) was reported today, 5 June, by Jillian Johnston, Anne Pellegrini, and Ryan Davis.  The bird has been identified as the uropygialis subspecies which can be separated from female Rose-throated Becards by the "cinnamon-rufous crown contrast with broad black eyestripe, underparts and hindcollar pale lemon", The Birds of Mexico and Northern Central America, Howell and Webb).

Gray-collared Becard is a Mexican and northern Central American endemic, the western uropygialis subspecies found as close to Arizona as southern Sonora, where it is mostly found in oak/pine forests and is most easily separated to subspecies in birds in female plumage (The Birds of Mexico..., Howell and Webb).

Photographs are courtesy of Chris West.

 

The becards have recently been removed from their historical placement in the Tyrant-Flycatchers and by some authors who thought they should be placed in the Cotinga Family, but now reside in the newly created Tityridae alongside the other becards, the three tityras, Cinereous and Speckled Mourners, and White-naped Xenopsaris, all tropical species.

This bird may be a first year male.  The blackish scapulars and tertials are characteristic of male birds. 

Zenaida Dove - Florida

One of seven dove species in the Zenaida genus, Zenaida aurita is an ABA Code-5 species with only a handful of records from Florida.  Larry Manfredi found the most recent ABA-area Zenaida Dove in Key Largo on 4 June.

Aurita translates as having long ears and Zenaida was the first name of French ornithologist, prince Charles Bonaparte's wife (A Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names, Jobling).  All of the other Zenaida congeners have 14 rectrices (tail feathers) not the 13 found in this species (HBW, Vol. 4.).

Itis believed, Zenaida Dove was once an inhabitant of the Florida Keys with two specimen records from the late 1800s (ABA Checklist, Seventh Edition, HBW Vol. 4.). It is a resident from the Bahamas, the West Indies, and the northern Yucatan Peninsula.

Green Violetear - Texas

In the Edwards Plateau region of Texas, a Green Violetear was confirmed from photos taken by the bird's finder, Delyse Jaeger at Eaton Hill Wildlife Sanctuary in Sonora, Texas.  The Edwards Plateau has been the location for many of the Texas records of this species, Colibri thalassinus, many reported from mid-May through July (TOS Handbook of Texas Birds, Lockwood and Freeman).

This ABA Code-3 species is common in the Mexican Highlands and can be found south to the Andes of Peru, Bolivia, and extreme northwest Argentina (Clements Checklist of the Birds of the World, Sixth Edition).  Farther south in its highland range, Green Viloetear is fond of the common Inga and Erythrina trees, ones that are planted for the overstory of shade coffee plantations where the birds may be seen singing their monotonous "song" on exposed twigs; the males often with their violet "ears" flared (Birds of Northern South American, Vol. 1, Restall et al. ).  The A.O.U. Check-list Committee recently decided to remove the hyphen that used to separate violet from ear.

Cuban Black-Hawk - Georgia

On 10 April, Tim Banks, the gardens operation manager of Ida Cason Callaway's Fondation's Callaway Gardens in Pine Mountain, Georgia, e-mailed Peeps saying he photographed a dark raptor perched for two hours on a bird feeder post in the Gardens' backyard habitat exhibit. Raptors are kept and trained near the facility.  Not a birder himself, Tim inquired with the Callaway raptor staff who reported the bird as being a possible Great Black-Hawk.  Analysis of photographs suggests the bird is a Cuban Black-Hawk Buteogallus gundlachii. The remaining question is the bird's provenance. Any comments about the identification of this bird are welcome.  Photos courtesy Tim Banks.

 

In the Forty-Eighth Supplement to the American Ornithologists' Union Check-list of North American Birds, in The Auk, 124(3):1109-1115, 2007, Cuban Black-Hawk, formerly a subspecies of Common Black-Hawk, was split as a separate species based on difference in size, voice, plumage coloration and pattern. Cuban Black-Hawk is a mangrove specialist and endemic to coastal Cuba, the Isle of Pines, and several of the larger cays in the Cuban Archipelago (Field Guide to the Birds of Cuba, Garrido and Kirkconnell). While Common Black-Hawk is a slate-gray to blackish bird, Cuban Black-Hawk is chocolate brown. The most distinctive character differentiation is undersides of primaries and some secondaries forming a white patch, as compared to a patch grayish-brown in Common Black-Hawk. The most common alarm call in Cuban Black-Hawk consists of 3-4 notes which differs from Common Black-Hawk's 9-24 note call (Taxonomic status and biology of the Cuban Black-Hawk Buteogallus anthracinus gundlachii, Wiley and Garrido in J. Raptor Res. 39(4):351-364.

The question still remaining is the origin of this bird and will it be added to the ABA Checklist.  Since Cuba is part of the A.O.U. area, Cuban Black-Hawk is already on the A.O.U. Check-list.

Bahama Mockingbird, Florida

On 17 April a Bahama Mockingbird Mimus gundlachii was reported by Carl Goodrich at the botanical gardens on Stock Island, FL.  This is an ABA Code 4 bird that gets reported mostly from early April through mid- June.  There was one bird that spent four summers at Key West, 1991-1994, built a nest and was reported to hybridize with Northern Mockingbird (AB 46:414, 47:407, 48:103 in ABA Checklist, Seventh Edition).

Bahama Mockingbird is a resident of the Cuban cays, Jamaica, and the Bahamas.  It is larger (11 inches) and browner than a Northern Mockingbird, with streaks on its flanks and neck.  In flight, it lacks the white wing patches that are prominent in Northern Mockingbird (National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of North America).

Ruff - Florida

A Ruff Philomacus pugnax was reported by Rex Rowan in Columbia County, Lake City, Alligator Lake Recreation Area, Florida on 17 March.  This ABA Code 3 species is one of the more interesting of all shorebirds.

There are three kinds of males in all Ruff populations.  All males have stable genetic polymorhphism in mating behavior (David B. Lank, Ruff project report, www.sfu.ca/biology/wildberg/ruff.html. The least- known male Ruff types are female mimics called "faeders" (Permanent female mimics in a lekking shorebird, J. Jukema and T. Piersma. Biology Letter, Royal Society Publishing).  According to the authors, Ruff is the only bird species where three, permanent alternative mating strategies exist.  Jukema and Piersma believe that "feader" Ruffs act as sneaks, slightly larger than females, but with greatly enlarged testes during the  lekking season, combining both male and female plumage characteristics in order to appear to other male competitors as females.

The two well-described male Ruff types include darker, larger males (territorial) which defend clustered mating leks (85 percent of the males) and lighter-plumed, non-territorial satellite males (15 percent of the males) who form temporary alliances with territorial males. All male types mate with females that visit the lek. Of particular interest, all three of these male Ruff types do not change plumage types over time, but are genetically "stuck" with the role they are born into (Lank).

Lank presents some interesting notes on Ruffs, which he has studied in the wild and in laboratory conditions since 1984.

• feather patterns in male ruffs are as varied as coloration in domestic cat fur.
• male Ruffs are silent during their lek displays.
• studies using DNA fingerprint analysis show more than half of all female Ruffs, Reeves, have broods resulting from more than one male.
• the highest mating rates occurred on leks with both satellite and territorial males.
• complex plumage differences occur between non-breeding satellite and territorial males too.

 

Western Spindalis - South Florida

Jerry Sniderman reported a male Westerm Spindalis Spindalis zena in Evergreen Cemetery, Ft. Lauderdale (Broward County), Florida, on 12 March. No news yet if the bird is of the expected black-backed nominate subspecies or if it is a representative of the greenish-orange townsendi, the subspecies restricted to Abaco and Grand Bahama (National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of North America, Fifth Edition).

The genus Spindalis is endemic to the Greater Antilles; a peripheral population is on Cozumel lsland, east of the Yucatan Peninsula, and is part of that island's West Indian element (Taxonomy of the Stripe-headed Tanager, Genus Spindalis Aves:Thraupidae of the West Indes, O.H. Garrido et. al. Wilson Bulletin, Vol. 109, No.4. pp. 561-800.) 

Before the forty-second supplement to the American Ornithologists' Union Check-list of Birds, one name covered the then 8 recognized subspecies of Stripe-headed Tanager.  After that publication, Striped-headed Tanager was split into four recognized Spindalis species and there are proponents for more island endemic splits. The splits were based on differences in vocalizations and in plumage characters of both females and males.  The other recognized Spindalis species are Hispaniolan Spindalis (S. dominicensis) from the island that includes Haiti and the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rican Spindalis (S. portoricensis) endemic to Puerto Rico, and Jamaican Spindalis, (S. nigricephala) another island endemic. 

Currently, there is a taxonomic argument as to what a tanager is. The four common ABA-area tanagers, the Pirangas, plus the Spindalis tanagers and a few other species are considered to be polyphyletic, "meaning that they are more likey related to members of other families than they are to each other, Smithsonian Field Guide to the Birds of North American, T. Floyd). 

In the next few years this topic will most likely receive considerable discussion so don't be surprised if in the end all the current tanagers in the ABA Area will have been moved into a different family or families. 

Graylag Goose, Connecticut

Sure, Graylag Geese show up in many states and provinces.  They are common in avicultural collections and some inevitably escape.  In 2008, Graylag Goose Anser anser was added to the ABA Checklist based on the only current accepted record of this species in the ABA Area. Between 24 April and 2 May 2005 a Graylag Goose was photographed on a drill ship about 200 kilometers southeast of St. John's, Newfoundland (North American Birds 59:396).

Photo of the Connecticut Graylag Goose is courtesy of Mark Szantyr.

Graylag Goose is an abundant breeder in Iceland and across northern Europe (ABA Checklist, Birds of the Continental United States and Canada, Seventh Edition). Of three populations, the Iceland population is the only migratory one.  It could be argued that it was only a matter of time before this species would be recorded again in the ABA Area. Perhaps a result of global warming, Graylag Goose in Iceland (the closest known breeding to the ABA Area) grew from 3500 pairs in 1960 to 18,500 pairs in 1973 (HBW, Vol. 1).  Between 1960-1987 Icelandic breeding Graylags wintering in Britain increased from 30,000 in 1960 to 105,000 in 1987 (Population dynamic of Icelandic-nesting geese, A.D. Fox et. al Ornis Scandinavica 20:289-297). The population estimate, an increase also due to thousands of introductions in Britain (BTO Graylag Goose survey 1992-2006) showed a 9.4 percent increase per annum for the species, even with an estimated annual harvest of up to 30,000 Graylags in Iceland before fall migration. 

There has been a decline in the number of sightings of Garganey in the ABA in the past decade and a corresponding decrease of numbers of that species on its breeding grounds.  It appears that waterfowl whose populations dramatically increase on their breeding grounds have a greater likelihood of appearing in winter in the ABA Area and vice versa.  Between 1980 and 1988 Pink-footed Geese, an Icelandic and Greenlandic breeder wintering in Britain, doubled their numbers.  This species is now reported annually in New England states. Don't be surprised to read more in the future about Graylag Goose in the ABA Area.

La Sagra's Flycatcher - Florida

Fort Zachary Taylor State Park in Key West, Florida, has had some very good sightings in the past few years.  Last week, Carl Goodrich thought he had a La Sagra's Flycatcher Myiarchus sagrae but the photo of the bird as seen from the back wasn't conclusive. On 22 February the bird was relocated and identified.

One of 22 species in the very difficult to identify Myiarchus genus, La Sagra's Flycatcher was first reported in the ABA Area in 1963 in Orrville, central Alabama, thought to be of the Cuban race, M.s. sagrae.  Since that time at least 7 records and numerous reports have been recorded, all in South Florida, birds thought to be of Bahamian origin, M. s. lucaysiensis (ABA Checklist, Birds of the Continental United States and Canada, Seventh Edition).

La Sagra's Flycatcher has been considered at times to be conspecific with Stolid Flycatcher M.stolidus, but vocal differences were used to separate the two taxon as separate species, although the dawn song of the nominate race of M. stolidus is similar to the dawn songs of the two races of La Sagra's Flycatcher (HBW, Vol. 9). La Sagra's is often identified by its unusual leaning posture and flat-headed appearance (HBW, Vol. 9). Although not considered threatened, the entire range of La Sagra's Flycatcher is the Bahamas, Cuba, and Cayman Islands (Birds of the West Indies, Raffaele et. al.).

Probable Bananaquit - Florida

On 25 February a probable Bananquit Coereba flaveola was discovered by Rick Newman in the Spanish River Park in Boca Raton, Florida.  Bananaquit is an ABA Code 4 bird with at least seven accepted records and many reports, almost always of single birds even though two of the reported birds built nests, although no breeding occurred (ABA Checkist, Birds of the Continental United States and Canada, Seventh Edition).  The majority of reports occur between January and March and are thought to represent the subspecies C. f. bahamensis.

Banaaquit is a common species in its range including the Caribbean (although absent from Cuba) and from the central Veracruz state of Mexico, south to northeast Argentina.  This species has had a very interesting taxonomic history.  In the November 2008 supplement to the Clements Checklist, Bananaquit was placed in a monotypic family, Coerebidae.  The ABA Checklist Committee and the A.O.U. Check-list Committee place Bananaquit into Incertae Sedis, uncertain origin, and place it temporarily near the Tiaris grassquits also currently waiting proper placement.

"A fearless little busybody...suspending its nest from tall bushes and small trees...many are dormitories, not used for breeding" (Birds of Northern South American, An Identification Guide, Volume 1, Restall et. al.). This species is known to use its curved bill to pierce holes at the base of flowers to steal nectar.  Pairs maintain only loose contact when foraging (Birds of Northern South America, Volume 1, Restall, et. al.).