>Hi Tweeters,
>
>There's also a basic-pl. Pacific Golden Plover on Boundary Bay at 112th St
>in Vancouver BC, seen again today, that's been here over a month. It's a
>heck of a commute to that part of Washington, so pretty sure it's a
>different bird.
>
>It's our second-ever winter golden-plover (the first was a plover sp. in Jan.
>1993
>that the observer was pretty sure was a Pacific), and our first
>definitively -identified Pacific for January and February--and by extension
>it was a first winter record for the species in Canada.
>
>Any candidates for a good wintering species on this part of the coast to
>use as a possible global-warming "This far north and no farther!"
>'thermometer'?
>
>Michael Price

As Pacific Golden-Plovers winter regularly in central California, this
isn't too surprising. Even more surprising is an apparent Stilt Sandpiper
that was reported from the first slough north of hwy. 20 on the
Bayview-Edison Road, with a flock of dowitchers on 9 February. Effort
should be put into relocating this bird and confirming it (I talked with
the observer; sounds like a Stilt Sandpiper to me). But again, Stilt
Sandpipers regularly winter at the Salton Sea in southern California. A
Red Knot was seen in winter on the Samish Flats last year (or the year
before, time warps on), but they winter sparingly north to Washington (not
usually in flooded fields). But there are bona fide winter records in
North America of shorebirds that winter normally far to the south in
southern South America (e.g., American Golden-Plover), so just about
anything is possible.

For Michael's global-warming indicator species, we need one the winter
range of which approximately ends somewhere in this region. That's true
for several shorebirds--Least and Western sandpipers, Long-billed
Dowitcher, Semipalmated Plover, Whimbrel, Ruddy Turnstone, and others.
Maybe one or more of these species will increase in the PNW (PSW, Michael).
Has that godwit/curlew flock at Tokeland increasd over the years?
Interestingly, I noted in my shorebird book that Rock Sandpipers (for which
we are more or less the southern end of the winter range) have declined
substantially in this area. Pulling back? No sign of decline in winter in
Alaska, as far as I can tell.

It's going to be difficult over the short haul to make much of changing
winter ranges (not that they don't change fast, but this is usually from
human effects), as most species just attenuate in numbers as they get to
the edge of their ranges, and increases will presumably be very gradual (5
birds this year instead of 3 or 38 instead of 25, and the noise in the
system--up-and-down fluctuations--will surely occlude the signal).

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