Subject: ALDER FLYCATCHER NEAR DOT, B.C.
Date: Jul 5 08:32:33 2002
From: Wayne C. Weber - contopus at shaw.ca


Tweeters,

On July 2, while running the Canford BBS route, I found an ALDER
FLYCATCHER along Highway 8 between Merritt and Spences Bridge, BC. The
locality was about 0.5 km east of the easterly turnoff from Highway 8
to the Dot Ranch (it's a loop road). Dot is shown as a locality on
some BC maps, but it's really just a single ranch, about halfway
between Merritt and Spences Bridge along the Nicola River.

The bird was singing loudly and persistently, giving the
characteristic "fee-bee-o" song (or as I prefer to render it,
"ree-bee-wip"). As I had a tape recorder and some blank tapes with me,
I decided to try to record the song. I was able to stand at the foot
of the tree from which the flycatcher was singing and record its song.
Even though I used an inexpensive Radio Shack recorder and the
internal microphone, which is poorly suited for recording bird songs
in the field, I was able to record several clearly-audible songs
(admittedly, the signal-to-noise ratio was not good). I am sure a
sonagram would clearly establish this bird's identity, were anyone to
question it.

Alder Flycatchers are very unusual this far south in B.C. This is only
my third record from the Nicola watershed, all of which were found
during Breeding Bird Surveys. One Alder Flycatcher was found at a
different locality on the Canford BBS route in 1980 and remained there
for several weeks; another was found even farther south at Brookmere,
on the Brookmere BBS route, in 1984. In the Okanagan Valley, I believe
there is only one record of Alder Flycatcher, from Lavington (near
Vernon) in 1984. If there are more recent Okanagan records, I trust
that Dick C. or Chris C. will inform us.

The locality at Dot is about 120 km (75 miles) south of the nearest
regular Alder Flycatcher breeding habitat near 70 Mile on the Cariboo
plateau, and only about 145 km (90 miles) north of the U.S. border. In
view of the confirmed record of Alder Flycatcher in Okanogan County,
WA and the probable record in Lincoln County, WA this year, there
seems to be a pattern of Alder Flycatchers showing up south of their
normal breeding range in 2002.

Now, if I had only had a blank tape in 1991 to record the Alder
Flycatcher that I found on the Similkameen River near Nighthawk, WA--
I would be getting credit for the first Washington record of Alder
Flycatcher, rather than someone else!

Wayne C. Weber
Kamloops, BC
contopus at shaw.ca