JULY 7, 8, 9 – CASSIA COUNTY, IDAHO: Scouting for Cassia Crossbills, led by Faye & Diane, limited number. Sign up with Diane at Avosetta@hotmail.com.

This is not the usual field trip where the leaders have been before, but actually a scouting trip for everyone on this Very First Field Trip to search out sites together for this newest species in the U.S.!

We will spend a day traveling to Twin Falls, then a day going south into Cassia County looking for Crossbills, then back to Twin Falls that night, and home the 3rd day. Participants may stay in the hotel in Twin Falls where Faye and Diane will be or camp in one of the many campgrounds that we will be investigating Sunday for crossbills. If you want to camp and find out the details on campground reservations, please share with the group once we have a participant list.

Recommend 4WD or AWD high clearance vehicle, and be ready to help in case any of us has a flat tire. We will be on dirt roads in the mountains. Should be dry by July with campfires prohibited. Bring your FRS radios, as there will be doubtful cell coverage.

Cassia Crossbill with Lodgepole pine cone (Ornithologi.com)

From Cornell: “Cassia Crossbills are year-round residents in Idaho’s South Hills and Albion Mountains in the county that gives the crossbill its name. They tend to be more numerous in older and more open lodgepole pine forests.”

Dr. Julie Smith told me in an earlier e-mail: “Even if other call types are passing through, the other call types will be rare compared to the Cassia crossbill. The vast majority of birds that you see will be the Cassia crossbills.”

Other study materials:
1. ABC meeting report with Dr. Julie Smith of PLU: http://abcbirding.com/september-2014-meeting-report-crossbills/
2. An eBird report that includes photos and sonograms from last summer: https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S38430005
3. A really great article from High Country News by Nick Neely: https://www.hcn.org/issues/49.13/endangered-species-will-the-wests-newest-species-go-extinct
4. A site guide from BirdWatching magazine to the area we’ll be exploring, with tips for camping: https://www.birdwatchingdaily.com/hotspots/266-porcupine-springs-campground-sawtooth-national-forest-idaho/
5. An excellent blog post, new this spring: https://ornithologi.com/2018/03/05/idahos-endemic-the-cassia-crossbill-loxia-sinesciuris/

DAVE SLAGER ENTERTAINS ABC’ERS April 24, 2018

BE SURE TO SEE UPDATE AT BOTTOM!

Dave Slager at ABC

ABC loved Dave Slager. He was a fount of the kind of info that we want to know and ready to talk on anything we wanted. He is a doctorate student at the U. His areas are research science and ornithology, but he says these are colored by the fact that he is a lifelong birder.

Dave and Slater Museum director Peter Wimberger examine crow specimens

ABC now has the lowdown on the Northwestern Crow vs American Crow question. Picture Dave in a Clean Room wearing a Hazmat suit to make sure nothing sullies his extraction of DNA from antique crow specimens from several museums. Then you’ll know why he was selected to present his paper on the crow question a couple of months ago, results of which should be published soon and will cause a sensation among corvid scholars and birders. We are just the second group after that august gathering to hear his crow results.

Why we are at the epicenter of the Northwestern Crow controversy

Antique specimen DNA studies do not differ much from modern Haplotypes

Dave’s conclusions are that there are definitely two haplotypes that our crows fall into, but that interbreeding occurs at all levels and has been occurring since before “civilization” befell our corner of the continent. But the two types tended toward speciation in prehistoric times, which stopped at some point, and has led now to crows in the northwest breeding together and having various amounts of both signatures.

Some of Dave’s conclusions

Because he has shown two historic types, even though they are evolving away as we read this, he says we should enjoy having Northwestern Crows on our lists while we still can, and he will probably add them to his personal list when he birds Alaska this summer.  In the event of a lump by the AOS checklist committee, he says birders will also gain from many upcoming splits, so don’t mourn the loss.

The Corvid Family Tree

He showed a relationship chart of the Corvids, which was pretty interesting on its own, showing that our Ravens are more closely related to Old World Ravens than to our Crows, and the same for New and Old World Crows. He mentions how poor the western hemisphere is in Corvid species compared to the eastern hemisphere, as well. And the Fish Crow appears to be more closely related to ravens than the crows!

Dave talks about more than just crows.

After discussing some eBird complaints, Dave took some time at the end to talk about sound recording and how exciting that is. He said he can take a photo, and it won’t add much to the body of knowledge since there are so many good photos of any given bird, but a song recording might, since there are many fewer recordings. He was able to take a course from Cornell/Macaulay that really inspired him, and of course eBird is encouraging us to post sound recordings these days. Two of his tips were about amplifying your recordings to an acceptable level, as well as using wav vs mp3 to capture more nuances of birdsong. And try to get recordings of crossbills!  We are still learning many things about the occurrence and distribution of the different call types, and what a challenge they are to record as they fly off into the distance!

Dave had to be dragged away from avid ABC’ers due to his willingness to answer any and all questions, including that he agreed Willets are two separate species, and much more. We’ll definitely be wanting him back at some point!

UPDATE FROM DAVE!  DEC 11, 2018:

Some of you might be interested in reading about our recent UW research on the American Crow / Northwestern Crow hybrid zone, which is currently in the peer review process.

Short version:  Our crows are hybrids!

I posted a summary explanation on Twitter here:
https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fdlslager%2Fstatus%2F1072353359041085440&data=02%7C01%7C%7Cc0f27135155a475ad62208d65fb9fecb%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C636801649774470123&sdata=inD%2B%2BXfVgVF1ZQu2D3EPg7AFKpVtNgzpqwhhu0brklM%3D&reserved=0

For those interested in the nitty gritty, you can read the full
manuscript for free by going to this link and clicking “Download PDF”
<https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.biorxiv.org%2Fcontent%2Fearly%2F2018%2F12%2F10%2F491654&amp;data=02%7C01%7C%7Cc0f27135155a475ad62208d65fb9fecb%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C636801649774470123&amp;sdata=9u0Ewhc%2FX%2Fts1yFk0zK725U9TCS68E%2Bqsyd1RkQtb4k%3D&amp;reserved=0>.

Happy crow watching,

Dave Slager
Seattle, WA
______________

KAY PULLEN

We are sad to say good-bye to Kay Pullen, who finally lost her battle to cancer in March. She was a workhorse for the ABC Club, right up to her last week. Although she could never be replaced, we will carry on as she would have liked us to.

Kay Pullen pauses and smiles in front of a waterfall at Frenchman Coulee on one of the ABC field trips to Eastern WA

SPRING 2018 MOUNTAIN QUAIL OUTINGS, March 31 & April 1

Looks like we’ll have to keep doing these, as they fail to produce those quail about half the time, and we’re getting a backlog of people who have tried and failed.

On our first dawn visit to Mary Hrudkaj’s house on the Tahuya peninsula on March 31st, the first of our two cars flushed a couple of quail as we drove up to her house. Car #2 didn’t even get that brief look. We did see lots of other good stuff at Mary’s, but not as much as we’d hoped due to a sweep of the area by a resident Sharp-shinned Hawk, one who had just finished off a quail a couple of days earlier. She had her house set up as a little theater again with chairs facing the picture window out to the feeding area that the Quail frequent.

Teri, Carolyn, Wayne, Margie, and in foreground Mike waiting for quail (not pictured – Art)

When we finally gave up, we traversed several known areas for quail on the way down her mountain, and 3 were seen on the side of the road running into the undergrowth. Again car #2 didn’t even get that poor look.

The Band-tails came in on Sunday, bolder than Saturday

Mourning Dove chowing down at Mary’s (photo/Richard Smethurst)

Steller’s Jay cracks a hard nut (photo/Richard Smethurst)

On our second visit to Mary’s the very next day (set up to accommodate a long wait list), we got there a little earlier, but cooler weather and a sharp breeze seemed to keep the quail in their dens. No sightings, either at Mary’s or on the road, but Band-tailed Pigeons, Mourning Doves, Varied Thrush, Golden-crowned Sparrows, Towhees, a Ruby-crowned Kinglet trying to convince us it was a vireo, both hummingbirds, Steller’s Jays, and a FOY (at least for me) Turkey Vulture, kept the time from being tedious.

Mary’s indoor cat enjoying the company

Douglas Squirrel at the bird feeder

One of Mary’s indoor cats and two cheeky Douglas squirrels kept the entertainment level pretty high.

Our hostess Mary with field trip leaders Diane and Faye, showing our little gift (Photo/Art Wang)

Although this is a good time of year to catch these quail due to setting up breeding territories and calling back and forth, we may try again in the last summer when their numbers are swollen by young. Stay tuned to ABC for more info as that approaches.

NEW ZEALAND AND KIWIS WITH MALCOLM WILEY – MARCH 21, 2018

About 15 ABCers, plus a spouse and some of Malcolm’s co-workers (including his boss) met on March 21, 2018, 6:45 PM, at the University of Puget Sound – Thompson Hall, to hear about New Zealand, conservation efforts and Kiwis!

Map of New Zealand showing sites of restoration work

Malcolm gave us a wonderful presentation about his 12 years working as a biodiversity ranger for the New Zealand Department of Conservation. He studied plant ecology at college, but in New Zealand most conservation work is focused on bird species so he started as a volunteer and ended up leading a kiwi monitoring project for Great Spotted Kiwi in a mountain valley in the South Island of New Zealand. By the way, chasing Kiwis is hard! They have to use specially trained dogs to help out on the scrubby steep mountain sides that are the right habitat for Great Spotted Kiwi.

Restoration work on the many islands of New Zealand

He also spent some time letting us know about several other bird species that he did conservation work with. His slides, audio and video clips were great. We even got to see some of the introduced predators caught on video. The head/bill butting that an adult male Kiwi gave to a stoat (weasel family), to defend the Kiwi nest, was worth cheering about.

He gave us the overview and some really good information about New Zealand’s DOC, the responsible agency for conservation efforts in the 600 islands that make up New Zealand, not just the North and South Islands that the world is most familiar with. He was involved in invasive species control projects including a couple of island rat eradication projects trying to create safe havens for bird species, including a park in the North Island that is used as a pre-release/readying for living in the wild zone for Kiwis. This place also brings in the community to observe and feel a part of the efforts to bring back and hold onto the unique avian diversity of New Zealand.

He also gave us the timeline for the extinction and percentages of the avifauna that has been lost due to man’s arrivals in the islands, both the Maori and Europeans. The bright notes are some of the conservation successes and one or two bird species that were thought to be gone, but small populations have recently been refound!

Malcolm Wiley explains his work with Kiwis in New Zealand

He has lent a couple of books to ABCers, one on the Extinct Species of New Zealand and the other about the geology/geography of the archipelago and sub-antartic islands. Shelley Parker has the second book as she and her husband are planning a trip for January 2019. I have the other and have already read through it. Because Malcolm’s mother-in-law works at the health department, as do I, please contact me for a chance to read these books and return them as well. You can use my gmail e-ddress (knasnan@gmail.com) to text for checking out and returning them during my work week in Tacoma as the health department is located on the corner of 37th and Pacific Ave, fairly central for Pierce County.

Reported by Laurel Parshall