Andy Stepniewski writes:

>I talked to Bill Tweit about Orange-crowned Warblers on the east slopes of
>the Cascades last night. He will send me the data from his BBS from White
>Pass to Rimrock Lake for the years for which I don't have data. To the best
>of his recollection, he has but one observation in the June period during
>which he undertakes his survey. He states (without me prompting) that
>"OCWA's cease singing early in the breeding season, therefore I'm missing
>them. This is what I stated.

Hmm, this smacks of about the most circular reasoning I could imagine. How
can anyone say "the reason I didn't encounter a species there is because it
must have stopped singing?" Does he have a lot of field time spent there a
month earlier, when Orange-crowns were singing from the same areas? I'm
not saying they're not there, but Bill's *data* can be interpreted in no
other way but that Orange-crowned Warblers are scarce to absent along his
BBS route.

>I want to impart my view on the atlas data at this point. The fact there are
>so few "confirmed" nesting of OCWA's on WA should not be construed the
>species is a migrant or not nesting. I wonder what a table for all
>passerines in the atlas database such as what Michael Smith has presented on
>OCWA's would look like. I suspect it might show a high percentage of
>observations in the "observed" to "possible" and "probable" category but
>relatively few in the "confirmed. (snip)

>How many "confirmed" Townsend's Warbler observations or nests were found
>though this is a characteristic summer resident of many coniferous forests
>in WA? Or Golden-crowned Kinglets? And so on!

I agree entirely with Andy here that most reports will be no more than
probables, but I still wonder if he and Bill aren't taking west-side
evidence (Orange-crowns stop singing early, with which I tend to agree,
although Russell told us something quite different, and he's the man in the
field right now) and extending it to considerably higher elevations in the
interior. I wouldn't expect interior Orange-crowns to have the same
breeding season as those in Seattle, say. I'm darned sure the ones up at
4,000' in the Northeast aren't on that schedule, and I wouldn't think the
ones somewhere up near White Pass would be on that schedule. We find all
the other warblers in our early June field work, why not Orange-crowned?
Again, I'll ask what's the evidence that Orange-crowned is that much
earlier than, say, Nashville in its breeding schedule *where they occur
together*.

>This is not meant to devalue the atlas program. The scale of the project is
>enormous. Necessarily, coverage by volunteers (for a good part of the
>project) means most areas (especially east of the Cascades) have received
>thorough coverage. However, the atlas program stands on the shoulders of
>well over a 100 years of ornithological work throughout WA. The collective
>wisdom of work before us is enormous. We are simply refining their results
>and incorporating the very significant habitat changes (mostly degradation)
>that have occurred in WA.

I agree with this, too, but it's apparent to me that as of 1953, when
Jewett et al's book was published on WA birds, that ornithological work was
pretty spotty in many areas. The two warblers that started this thread are
good examples of what was known from the interior, and I'm not convinced
that much more was known about them when the BBA project was started.

>I suspect that to those who know their terrestrial
>plant communities, substrate and slope in WA, a fairly high degree of
>predictability about the breeding avifauna is possible without even visiting
>the site. This is precisely what I find so wonderful about the maps churned
>out by Michael.

Here I agree entirely, yet bird species *are* lacking from some sites that
seem appropriate habitat for them, and that in part is what the Gap
Analysis program was set up to determine.

>I am waiting for a call from those who want to see OCWA's along the east
>slope of the Cascades. I will drop what I'm doing on a weekend and we'll
>make a search, even if it takes a forced march. We will find the little
>buggers (before 5 July)!

I wish I had the free time, Andy. Please, someone take him up on this.
The report that Mike sent seems to indicate Kittitas Co. records come only
from fairly high elevations, above the Nashville Warbler zone, so maybe
they are from areas I rarely visit. Perhaps all I should say is that they
are distinctly *not* where the Nashville Warblers are in that county.

>I, of course, am going to focus on this troublesome Vermivora. I'm willing
>to retract my assertion that it is a "fairly common summer resident of
>brushy habitats along the eastern slopes of the Cascades."
>Maybe it needs refining to "locally, a fairly common summer resident in
>moist brushy habitats along the eastern slopes of the Cascades."

Hmmm, by "locally" do you mean "fairly common everywhere moist brushy
habitats are found", or do you mean "common in only a few localities in a
vast apparently suitable landscape?"

>Jeez ...Tweeterites, this is fun!

And it's so much more important than determining whether someone really did
see Washington's first immature Broad-tailed Hummingbird or not!

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