>Tweeters --
>
>A very blustery wet walk on the shortened Nisqually NWR trail saturday
>morning (Nov. 19) yeilded very few birds, but among the few was an
>AMERICAN BLACK DUCK, conveniently paddling around with two male and one
>female mallards for easy comparison. Back at the "interesting bird
>sightings" list at the office, someone had noted the same duck with
>mallards on Oct. 28. Other birds out braving the elements included a
>peregrine falcon, a rough-legged hawk, at least one northern harrier,
>buffleheads, golden-crowned kinglets, chickadees, yellow-rumped warblers
>and a great horned owl.
>
>Sunday morning (Nov 20) at the Montlake Fill were a northern shrike,
>coopers hawk, a pair of kingfishers, and numerous northern flickers, at
>least two of which were yellow-shafted. Does anyone know how common the
>yellow-shafted flickers are here? I was under the impression that "ours"
>are supposed to be the red-shafted variety, yet the first flicker I ever
>identified (2 years ago) was also yellow-shafted. Thanks.
>
>Katie Sauter
>sauter at u.washington.edu

Katie, "yellow-shafted" Northern Flickers are present throughout the
Northwest in small numbers during the winter. I think they are especially
common along the coast, where birds coming from the north collect, along
with "myrtle" Yellow-rumped Warblers. There are also innumerable "hybrid"
flickers, combining traits of yellow- and red-shafted, especially in winter
but some of these birds are among the breeding populations.

There's a lot lost in the lumping. The new field guides show a single range
map for the species, so you get no chance to learn where yellow-shafted and
red-shafted should be. The NGS guide says "yellow-shafted east of Rockies,
red-shafted west," but it doesn't tell you that the yellow-shafted occurs
also north of the Rockies, occupying the entire *northern* part of the
species' range, nor that these populations migrate south into the range of
the red-shafted. And then it tells you that intergrades are "regularly seen
in the Great Plains and southwest," leaving us Northwesterners (where
intergrades are common) out of the loop entirely. Peterson's western guide
at least tells you that yellow-shafted occurs in the north, but again
there's no indication that intergrades occur in this region! Wow, there's a
lot of room for improvement in our guide books.

"Hybrid" flickers aren't really hybrids in the sense of hybrids between
species but just represent the mixing of genes over a long distance between
"pure" yellow-shafted and red-shafted populations. They may look exactly
like red-shafted but have a red bar across the nape, they may have
wing/tail color intermediate between the two parental types, males may have
mixed black and red malar stripes, or some combinations of these
characters, for example a flicker that's been in my yard lately that has a
head pretty typical of yellow-shafted but has reddish wings and tail. And
note in the book the different head color of the two forms; some
intergrades have an entirely brown head (and perhaps some an entirely gray
head; I haven't seen that).

The black duck sighting is quite interesting. But is it a recently escaped
captive, a wanderer from the rather small Everett and Ladner populations,
or a bona fide vagrant from the East? I guess we'll never know (until we
can capture all such birds and compare their DNA with known samples....).


Dennis Paulson phone: (206) 756-3798
Slater Museum of Natural History fax: (206) 756-3352
University of Puget Sound email: dpaulson at ups.edu
Tacoma, WA 98416