Hi Tweets,

On the way home, an American Kestrel Falco sparverius over Kits heading S.
So, my crank theory is that a lot of birds which migrate through or over
mountains and passes are hard-wired not to migrate but to turn around and
head back to sealevel and wait if they see significant snow-cover as soon as
they hit altitude. Apart from snow covering migrational staging/forage
sites, snow this far south at this time of year probably triggers a
hard-lessons-learned circuit which says if it's this bad this far south,
there's no point in heading for breeding areas further north because they're
likely worse.

I was thinking about this, and wondering why, in re the Gray-crowned Rosy
Finches Leucosticte tephrocotis that seem to be backing up around the Fraser
Delta and the Townsend Solitaires which seem to silting up valley-bottoms
throughout the Interior---nice to have as rarities for the year-list but
their belated presence and that of the kestrels seem to be ominous signs
that as long as they're here exciting birders, they're not there where they
normally would be breeding.

The questions then become, what effect is this massive, unmelted snow-pack
on our mountains going to have on breeding success of montane species?
Should we start looking for an early southbound failed-breeder migration,
and if so, when? Or will many of these species be so driven by their
procreative lash that they'll nest in non-typical habitat? How will that
affect brood-survivability? Perhaps this a good year for banders to be
comparing notes on their juvs/Basic 1 catches and for those birders who
bother to age their birds to see if the southbound migrations contain a
larger proportion of adults than is customary. Some species may be about to
take a population hit if they can't nest this year because of deep snow too
late into the summer.

Oh yeah, a big fat wave of Western Tanagers Piranga ludoviciana was going
through Kits early this AM; every big tree had at least one bird clucking
away and about every fifth tree a male gritting out its marble-mouth song.
Maybe twenty birds between W 1st Ave and Broadway (W 9th).

Michael Price
Vancouver BC Canada
mprice at mindlink.net