Subject: Re: Eastern Kingbirds in BC
Date: Jun 12 11:08:37 1995
From: Dennis Paulson - dpaulson at ups.edu


Jack Bowling wrote:

Eastern Kingbirds are denizens of (believe it or not) the back muskeg
swamps of the lowland boreal plains in the Fort Nelson area of NE BC,
latitude 59N. They shun town itself until August when "families" of
birds-of-the-year and adults swoop down on the red-osier dogwoods and
charge up on the fruit before departing southward. I wouldn't be surprised
if some of the recent survey work in the NW Territories has turned up EAKI.
Must be nice to be a species which eats mosquitoes and black flies instead
of suffering them.

Interesting comment about the fruit-eating. The species becomes an
ecological turncoat on its wintering grounds in the Amazon basin. They
wander around above the tropical forest canopy in *flocks*, stopping to
gorge when they discover a fruiting tree. Very different creature from our
territorial insect-eater up here, but the Fort Nelson birds obviously are
getting into the swing for the winter.

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