Tweeters

The starling continues in Tofino. The best option now for viewing the bird that frequents the second fairway is to drive down Grice Bay Road that parallels the course to a point 50 meters before reaching the barrier. There is a noticeable pile of sticks on the roadside marking a point through some brush to the edge of the second fairway where the bird can be viewed without trespassing and thus at any time of day. So far it seems that 7-7:30 am and again in the late evening are the best times.

In addition to the fact that the bird's range is too far south for natural migration, starlings/mynas are not capable of flying great distances over water so they would not be able to make the distance between the Alaskan islands. This in particular is the reason for the bird definitely being an escape or ship-assisted and the reason for the Homer bird being rejected by the Alaskan record committee.
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> The ABA accepts ship assisted birds but the bird could be an escape as well leaving doubts of its origin. Although only a small percentage of caged birds are registered, I have written the Vancouver Island cage bird society for info. Should a ship assisted bird actually be seen leaving the boat to be counted? If this bird is accepted should the Eurasian Tree Sparrows seen in Stanley Park Vancouver some years back be counted as they were rejected as ship assisted?
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> Although most if not all Dusky Warblers in California are likely ship assisted, they are capable of natural migration across the Aleutians thus doubt exists as too their origin and should be counted. If a bird is not capable of the journey it should be rejected. After all is ship assistance not man assisted?

From ABA Blog:
> Easily the biggest head-scratcher of the week was a well-photographed White-cheeked Starling in Tofino, British Columbia, on the south side of Vancouver Island. The identity of the migratory east Asian species is not in doubt, the question is where it came from. Is it an escapee? Is it ship-assisted (which officially doesn?t matter, but still clouds consideration of such birds)? These are the questions that hung over a bird of this species found in Homer, Alaska, in 1998. That individual was ultimately not accepted by the state?s record committee and never considered by the ABA. We?ll see how this bird is treated.
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> Keith Taylor
> Victoria BC
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> Sent from my iPad
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