[obol] Re: Why did the Oregon 2020 Morrow County blitz find...
- From: David Irons <llsdirons@xxxxxxx>
- To: paul sullivan <paultsullivan@xxxxxxxxxxxx>, OBOL Oregon Birders Online <obol@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 5 Jun 2014 08:20:55 +0000
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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