Subject: New issue of Birders Journal
Date: Mar 22 11:12:25 1995
From: Michael Price - Michael_Price at mindlink.bc.ca


Hi Tweeters,

Just a short note regarding the latest issue of the relatively new but
excellent journal on Canadian birds called Birders Journal.

The latest issue, February 1995 (vol. 4, no. 1) contains a really good
article on Northern Wheatears, going into breeding distributions of the two
breeding races, the western arctic 'oenanthe' which migrates through Alaska
and winters in Asia, and eastern 'leucorrhoa', which nests in the
northeastern Arctic, northern Quebec and Labrador and migrates to Africa
through Greenland or cross-Atlantic to the Azores and then to the African
continent through Newfoundland. In addition, there's good discussions of
the somewhat complicated migration dynamics, patterns of vagrancy, and a
province-by-province analysis of occurrence. Very useful for birders
wondering about the possibilities of this species appearing here in the
Pacific Coast region.

Another article describes the historical and modern difficulties of finding
the nests, and particularly the eggs, of Red Knots -- one of the commoner
shorebirds breeding in the Canadian Arctic.

There's a product review, generally favorable, of the new set of CD's
containing the songs of 333 species from Monty Brigham entitled 'Bird
Sounds of Canada'

There's an interesting article with good color photographs on 'Nelson's
Gull' the name given to Herring X Glaucous hybrids. One photograph shows a
bird that, if it turned up at a West Coast landfill, might have people
thinking Basic 1 Glaucous X Glaucous-winged hybrid.

Speaking of gulls, there are some beautiful color photographs of the Ross'
Gull at Chambly, Quebec, and a stunning photograph of an Ivory Gull at St.
John's, Newfoundland. Other color photographs include a somewhat distant
but fully- recognizable shot of the Tofino BC Falcated Teal, and a 'gray
-crowned' race Gray-crowned Rosy Finch in Thunder Bay, Ontario, as well as
several others. BTW, both Rosies seen at feeders in the East this winter
*owned* those feeders: apparently each bird repeatedly ran off *flocks* of
Evening Grosbeaks and Pine Siskins, not exactly pushovers themselves!

Other good articles include an account of the first Sage Sparrow for
Eastern Canada in November last year (Brier Island, Nova Scotia), and an
account of a Virginia's Warbler(!) in Newfoundland to the E of the Canadian
mainland in September 1994.

There's the usual excellent line art by Peter Burke and A. Kingsley and a
province-by-province-by-territory round-up of bird sightings for December &
January 1995 (that's right, 199*5*! I'm personally very impressed with how
quickly and professionally these folks can publish a bimonthly national
journal).

And this issue contains a nice little goodie, a 24" x 18" poster on fine
paper of a proposed Canadian Checklist, again very professionally done on
fine paper, with some lovely line art by Burke and David Beadle.

Is this an objective, unbiassed account? Of *course* not! It's a naked,
unabashed shill for people to subscribe to what is (in my *completely*
unsolicited opinion) a really good journal of interest to birders in this
region as well as Canada. I hope fellow Tweets out there will indulge this
intrusion of commercialism into the discussions.

Well, I may as well be hung for a large sheep as a small lamb, so here's
the subscription info as well:

six issues per year, US$38 (cheque, money order, VISA)

Birders Journal
8 Midtown Drive
Suite 289
Oshawa, Ontario
Canada L1J 8L2


Cheers,

Michael Price
Vancouver BC Canada
michael_price at mindlink.bc.ca


PS Always wondered how tree ducks evolved ;-)