Subject: [Tweeters] Re: status of Black-capped Chickadee in the San Juan
Date: Mar 26 22:21:56 2012
From: Charlie Wright - cwright770 at gmail.com


Hi Charles,
Thanks for starting this discussion about chickadees, the San Juans, and eBird.

Black-capped Chickadee is certainly rare out there on the islands, but
not completely unheard of. That said, it is likely that visiting
birders sometimes hear chickadees and assume "Black-capped" without a
second thought. We're now going back and e-mailing those birders
(that's right, including Kenn Kaufman!) to see if they can help with
details. Incidentally, we've just finished a brand new filter for San
Juan County (it had previously been on a coastal filter) that should
be in place later this week, and will flag Black-capped Chickadee
reports for reviewal from now on.

The spate of Black-cap reports on Orcas Island (including the CBC
reports Barb mentioned) might indicate a small population there, but
only time will tell. It will be interesting to see if they ever do get
a toehold out there, and if so how rapidly they'll increase.

Cheers,
Charlie Wright
Puyallup, Washington

Charles Swift wrote:

Interestingly there is an old Black-capped Chickadee record for San Juan
Island in eBird from one Kenn Kauffman! But in response to my email I have
received no first hand reports of Black-capped Chickadee for the islands
although I did get an intriguing second-hand report of BC Chickadees
regularly coming to a feeder outside of Friday Harbor. If this is the case
it should be possible to document them relatively easily and I have passed
that report along to a resident birder on San Juan Island. There are
additional recent eBird records around Friday Harbor so it is possible
there is small population here but this needs to be confirmed.? Like others
I assumed based on the reference mentioned and limited personal experience
that BCCH are not present in the islands.

It does appear that the San Juan County eBird filter for BC Chickadee is
set so that records can be submitted without confirmation. There are in
fact a good number of BCCH records in eBird for San Juan county - I counted
about 30 pins and some of those pins represent multiple records. So
probably these records need to be reviewed by the WA eBird folks (in case
they are reading). I did look at southern Vancouver Island in eBird and
there are no BCCH records there.

thanks, Charles.