Subject: Fw: Alder Flycatchers
Date: Jun 29 09:28:40 1999
From: WAYNE WEBER - WAYNE_WEBER at bc.sympatico.ca


Dear Mike,

Thanks very much for your clarification about the status of Alder
Flycatchers in Oregon, plus the list of reported sightings. My
statement that there were Alder Flycatcher records which had been
accepted by OBRC (Oregon Bird Records Committee) was based partly on
the species' inclusion in an Oregon bird checklist, issued by the
OBRC. On this list, the Alder Flycatcher is listed with an asterisk--
an asterisk signifying that "at least one record [is] verified by
photograph, specimen, or video or sound recording". It sounds like
someone was mistaken about this one. The checklist in question is a
few years old, but carries no date ( a pet peeve of mine on
checklists). Hopefully, state bird checklists issued by OBRC now carry
a date so one can tell which "edition" it is.
It must be fairly uncommon for a species to be added to, then
later removed from, a state list by a records committee. It is good to
know that OBRC is not afraid to do so when the documentation (or lack
of documentation) merits this action. Perhaps the Vancouver, B.C.
records committee should reconsider the 1981 Alder Flycatcher sighting
in North Vancouver.
From the brief description in your message, the P ranch
flycatchers definitely sound like Willow, not Alder Flycatchers.
However, based on considerable personal experience in Oregon as well
as in other parts of the Pacific NW, I can hear no difference in song
patterns between coastal and interior populations of Willow
Flycatchers. If there really is a difference, this needs to be
documented on tape as well.
So it looks like the challenge I proposed to Washington birders,
to document a "for-real" Alder Flycatcher on tape, applies to Oregon
as well.

Now, about those darned Pacific-Slope/Cordilleran
Flycatchers........ :-) !

Wayne C. Weber
114-525 Dalgleish Drive
Kamloops, B.C. V2C 6E4
Phone: (250) 377-8865
wayne_weber at bc.sympatico.ca


-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Patterson <mpatters at oregonvos.net>
To: tweeters <tweeters at u.washington.edu>
Date: Tuesday, June 29, 1999 8:22 AM
Subject: Re: Fw: Alder Flycatchers


>
>There are NO accepted records for Oregon. There have been birds
>seen making 3-part calls. I was in the the record from the
>Wallowa Fish Hatchery. We saw and heard the bird. For a few
>years these were accepted, but the committee threw them out on
>reconsideration for exactly the same reasons Eugene Hunn mentioned
>yesterday.
>
>The Malheur birds that hang out at the P-ranch have a sneezing
>"fwitz-be-oh" song that is cleanly three part unlike the
>"rritz-bew" I hear in the wetland and clearcuts of the coast.
>
>The only Alders I've ever hear are East Coast Birds and I would
>describe their song as "wway-b-yoh" throaty, but not sneezy.
>
>
>If you check out the Oreron Records committee site at:
>http://www.cyber-dyne.com/~lb/obrc.htm
>
>You'll discover that all Alder Flycatcher Records are in the
>not accepted column.
>
>Records not accepted--- Alder Flycatcher. Empidonax alnorum.
>
>466.1-80-01 Wallowa Fish Hatchery, Enterprise, Wallowa Co., 1
> singing on 21 June 1980.
>
>466.1-82-02 P Ranch, Malheur N.W.R., Harney Co., 1 from 13-16 June
1982
>
>466.1-82-03 Tiller, Douglas Co., 1 on 9 July 1982.
>
>466.1-82-04 Tumalo SP, Deschutes Co., 1 on 2 October 1982.
>
>466.1-83-05 1.5 miles NE of Red Bridge State Park, Union Co., 2 birds
> and nest with 4 eggs . Nest and 3 eggs collected.
> Nest and eggs at ODFW Regional Headquarters in
> LaGrande. 4 June to 2 July 1983.
>
>466.1-83-06 P Ranch, Malheur N.W.R., Harney Co., 1 singing on 3 & 4
June 1983.
>
>466.1-84-07 P Ranch, Harney Co., 1 singing bird on 10 June 1984.
>
>466.1-84-08 1.5 miles NE Red Bridge State Park, Union Co., 1 singing
> bird on 16 June 1984.
>
>466.1-84-09 P Ranch, Harney Co., 1 singing bird on 2 June 1984.
>
>466.1-92-10 Malheur NWR, Harney Co., 1 singing bird on 5 June 1992.
>
>
>
>WAYNE WEBER wrote:
>>
>> An interesting sideline to the Alder Flycatcher discussion is
the
>> species' status in Oregon. There are a number of records of migrant
>> Alder Flycatchers from Malheur NWR and Fields in SE Oregon, and
>> several records of territorial birds in NE Oregon, including a
claimed
>> breeding record near La Grande. At least some of these birds have
been
>> accepted by the Oregon Records Committee, and the bird is
>> on the "official" state list. However, in "Birds of Oregon: status
and
>> distribution" (1994), by Gilligan et al., doubt is cast on all
Oregon
>> records of the species, and the authors state that "we prefer not
to
>> give Alder Flycatcher full standing on the Oregon list." Were NONE
of
>> these birds tape-recorded?? Perhaps I have stumbled onto a hornet's
>> nest of dissention among Oregon birders here :-). Mike Patterson or
>> others, do you have any comments?
>
>--
>Mike Patterson I don't swear for the hell of it.
>Astoria, OR Language is a poor enough means of
communication
>mpatters at orednet.org and we've got to use all the words we've
got....
> Besides, there are damn few words anybody
understands
> Henry Drummond in "Inherit the Wind"
>
>http://www.pacifier.com/~mpatters/bird/bird.html
>