[obol] Chats in Morrow County
- From: "Wayne Weber" <contopus@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: "OBOL2" <obol@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 7 Jun 2014 09:29:57 -0700
Oregon birders,
Just to add to the discussion about Yellow-breasted Chats in Morrow County,
I recorded four (4) chats along the Upper Rhea Creek road, within 15 miles
upstream from Ruggs, while taking part in the Morrow County blitz on June
1st. My data were not entered into eBird until yesterday (I only got home on
Wednesday), so it seems that there were twice as many sightings of chats in
the county last weekend as people were aware of when this discussion was
taking place.
There is nothing unique about the habitat along Upper Rhea Creek. There are
several similar ravines dropping down from the Blue Mountains in Morrow
County. Based on what I found along Upper Rhea Creek, and the comments of
Darrel Faxon and John Shewey in nearby Gilliam County, I would suggest that
Yellow-breasted Chat is probably a fairly common breeder in Morrow County.
I can't say the same for Common Yellowthroat, which I failed to find despite
briefly checking the locality where one was recorded near Exit 168 on
Interstate 84.
The Morrow County blitz was a very enjoyable experience for me; I added 13
species to my lifetime county list, and birded numerous localities that I
had never visited before. However, by looking on eBird at the Morrow County
list for 2014, it appears that there were at least 20 other bird species
seen over the weekend that WOULD have been new for me, had I seen them. Most
of these were scarce species that were recorded in only 1 to 4 localities.
To any of the keen county listers: I would recommend taking part in a county
blitz, then sticking around for another 3 or 4 days and tracking down all
the species you DIDN'T see on the weekend. (Most of the data are entered
into eBird very promptly, with very precise localities.)
The beauty of the Oregon 2020 approach, as others have pointed out, is that
the "hotspot squares" which are the focus of the project are located at
random within the 36-square-mile townships, so it gets birders into
localities that are rarely if ever birded. Not all these squares are great
birding areas, but some of them are, and we can be sure that numerous
unexpected discoveries will be made on every one of these county blitzes.
All the best,
Wayne C. Weber
Delta, BC
contopus@xxxxxxxxx
From: obol-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:obol-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf
Of David Irons
Sent: June-05-14 1:21 AM
To: paul sullivan; OBOL Oregon Birders Online
Subject: [obol] Re: Why did the Oregon 2020 Morrow County blitz find...
Paul,
This is a great question, the answer to which is likely multi-layered. A
couple of detections produced by an extraordinary weekend effort by no means
suggests that either Yellow-breasted Chat or Common Yellowthroat rise to
level of being even uncommon breeders in Morrow County. Based on my mostly
recent experiences birding the northern tier counties east of the Cascades,
I have only in the last few years come to appreciate that Common
Yellowthroat is a rare, if not extremely rare breeder in Wasco, Sherman,
Gilliam, Morrow, and Umatilla Counties and arguably rarer during
spring/summer in those counties than Yellow-breasted Chat. If you do an
eBird map query for June-July sightings of Common Yellowthroat, you'll find
virtually no reports from these counties. I believe that there was only one
report of Common Yellowthroat from the Morrow County blitz. In my
experience, Yellow-breasted Chat is only slightly more expected. Shawneen
and I made several stops along Willow Creek and McKinney Creek during the
weekend. There were a number of sites that had streamside riparian
vegetation that looked like potential chat habitat and we found a grand
total of one bird, so it seems reasonable to conclude that this is a rare
breeder as well. After the fabulous experience this past weekend, Morrow
County will be a more frequent birding destination for Shawneen and me and
paying close attention to distribution of Yellow-breasted Chats will be a
priority.
In other parts of the Pacific Northwest, Yellow-breasted Chats are rallying
a bit and colonizing or more likely recolonizing areas where they have been
mostly absent over the past several decades. Chats were absent in Clark
County, Washington until just the last 8-10 years, but detections of this
species in the county have been on the rise since the early 2000's. It may
be that chats are now more regular in Morrow County than they were during
the years when you lived nearby, but it's not as though there has been a
Eurasian Collared-Dove-like explosion in abundance.
To date, the number of Oregon birders contributing checklists to eBird is
still a comparative minority, but this is the sort of question that the
ongoing entry of eBird checklists may well answer in time. Recording
sightings in the eBird database is sometimes more work than even I-as a
committed user-want to do, but then I think about all the sightings of mine
that will never see the light of day or add to knowledge that others might
benefit from and I become even that more dedicated to making sure that what
I find from here on out is captured and archived in a usable database.
Dave Irons
_____
From: paultsullivan@xxxxxxxxxxxx
To: obol@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [obol] Why did the Oregon 2020 Morrow County blitz find...
Date: Thu, 5 Jun 2014 00:23:06 -0700
Why did the Oregon 2020 Morrow County blitz find two species I've never
found in ~30 years of birding there, Common Yellowthroat and Yellow-breasted
Chat? Craig Corder lived in the area and actively birded the county for a
half a century, and he rarely found those species. They're not easy. The
Breeding Bird Atlas data show only possible breeders in a few hexagons. I
found 214 other species before these two.
Possible reasons:
A. The blitz birders made a mistake. There are no yellowthroats or
chats in the county. NOT LIKELY.
B. The blitz birders are better birders that I am.
C. The blitz birders applied more hours than past birders have. GIVEN
THE EFFORT OVER YEARS OF SEVERAL LISTERS, I WOULD QUESTION THIS.
D. The protocol of the Oregon 2020 sampling scheme sent people to places
a birder wouldn't likely go. THE ATLAS PROJECT SENT ME TO PLACES I
OTHERWISE WOULD NOT HAVE VISITED. I PUT A LOT OF EFFORT INTO CORNERS OF
MORROW COUNTY. My effort to SEEK TARGET SPECIES for my county list took me
to likely locations for those species.
E. There are MORE chats and yellowthroats in the county now. There has
been a range expansion since the Atlas project. ISN'T THIS in part WHAT
OREGON 2020 IS TESTING? We'll see when the data are in. We've seen an
increase in locations where chats are found here in Yamhill County in recent
years.
Just food for thought.
Anyway, I'm glad they're out there.
Good birding, everyone,
Paul Sullivan
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