Thought I'd make the subject line a little more specific ...
Dave Irons answered this in part. The northern population of Streaked Horned
Larks that nest in the south Puget Sound area (and a few small patches along
the coast) are migratory. Indeed, the Center for Natural Lands Management
(CNLM) has been asking for reports of banded Horned Larks for some years now.
Much of the Willamette Valley breeding population seems to be sedentary, or
close to it. If you go out in winter in areas where Streaked Horned Larks nest
in decent numbers (such as along Livermore Rd. in Polk Co., or Glaser Dr. in
Linn Co.) you can usually find Horned Larks. Ditto for Corvallis Airport.
During his grad student days, Randy Moore checked suitable winter habitat all
the way down to the Medford area, but my recollection is that he didn't find
many "streakers" wintering south of the Willamette Valley.
A few years ago I coordinated an effort to check winter lark flocks for banded
birds, in the mid- and upper Willamette Valley region. This piggybacked on a
previous effort by Portland Audubon to do this in the Portland Metro area.
Experience from this effort indicated that it's quite difficult, even for
reasonably skilled birders, to identify Horned Larks to subspecies in the
fields.
Turning to eBird and the realities of its review process, I think it's asking
too much of eBird's volunteer reviewers, to assess the accuracy of HOLA
subspecies identifications. If there's a high-quality photo, perhaps you could
do this for one or two birds in a flock. But what about the other 5 or 10 or 20
larks in that flock? I don't think "guilt by association" is dependable because
you can see mixed flocks in winter.
On the other hand, if you see a banded lark then BINGO! you have something that
you can report with confidence. The Portland Audubon effort yielded one or two
such birds, in many dozens of hours of trained volunteer effort. Our mid/upper
valley effort yielded none, despite decent scope views of about a hundred larks.
So this is not something that happens often. It's more rare than finding a
Chestnut-collared Longspur. If you do find a banded lark, reporting it to OBOL
would be a more sure method of making sure that your sighting reaches the right
research group, than if you try to report it as a particular subspecies on
eBird.
Joel
----- Original Message -----
From: "Robert O'Brien" <baro@xxxxxxx>
To: "clearwater" <clearwater@xxxxxxxx>
Cc: obol@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Friday, March 15, 2019 3:20:05 PM
Subject: Re: Reporting birds to subspecies and how your local eBird reviewer
well I certainly get your point. and although I neglected to mention it
specifically. I was actually referring to Winter sightings not so much as to
the breeding season. is it known where streaked horned larks winter? as I
mentioned a month or twp ago a Seattle researcher was requesting sightings of
his banded horn Larks in either Washington or the Willamette Valleh.
On Friday, March 15, 2019, < clearwater@xxxxxxxx > wrote:
To clarify some unclear prose, New Mexico Fish & Game opposed the recent
USFWS proposal to list Western Yellow-billed Cuckoo.
It's nearly always a mistake to pack more than one idea into a single
sentence, but I still do it all the time.
________________________________
From: "clearwater" < clearwater@xxxxxxxx >
To: obol@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: "Robert O'Brien" < baro@xxxxxxx >
Sent: Friday, March 15, 2019 11:12:20 AM
Subject: Re: Reporting birds to subspecies and how your local eBird reviewer
Bob and All,
I said some of this already in my reply to Roy Gerig's question about lark
numbers in the valley this winter, but I want to make sure I've said it
clearly.
I appreciate the level of caution that Dave Irons expressed, with regard to
listing of subspecies. He couched this in terms of science but it also makes
sense in terms of conservation.
"More reports" of threatened/endangered subspecies don't translate into
recovery of the subspecies. Adding such reports to eBird may inflate the
apparent numbers, and give support to opponents of their T/E listing.
As one example of how eBird data have already been misused by opponents of
T/E listing, please look up the comments on the proposal to list Western
Yellow-billed Cuckoo by New Mexico's fish & game department (which opposed
listing, along with several other state F&W agencies). A consulting firm
aligned with anti-conservation groups fed them a dubious "analysis" that was
aimed to undercut both the idea that "Western" YBCU was a distinct, listable
subspecies and the idea that riparian corridors are primary habitat.
If you do find "Streaked" Horned Larks during breeding season, in a habitat
that is threatened by *non-agricultural* modifications such as
residential/industrial development, you can help recovery by contacting USFWS
and advocacy organizations such as Portland Audubon.
Note that *agricultural* modifications to lark habitat are exempt, under the
terms of the current listing as "Threatened." So if you see larks using a
grass field that's being converted to filbert/hazelnut orchards or vineyards,
there's nothing that USFWS can do to protect that habitat, under current
rules.
Sorry for the bad news, but that's the reality we're facing ...
Joel
On Fri, 2019-03-15 at 01:06 -0400, obol@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
From: "Robert O'Brien" < baro@xxxxxxx >
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2019 20:06:23 -0700
Subject: [obol] Reporting birds to subspecies and how your local eBird
reviewer
This sounds like a totally reasonable solution.
At the same time in your discussions with eBird perhaps you could bring up
the situation with Streaked Horned Lark (striata). eBird does not allow
the sub specific designation of this threatened bird. Due to increasing
interest from Oregon birders, detailed observations have been documented
with photographs that could be reviewed by the eBird reviewers for
veracity. Such observations could be important for the recovery of this
threatened subspecies, and might well contribute to even more observations.
bob obrien
--
Joel Geier
Camp Adair area north of Corvallis
