On 6 February, a Siberian Accentor was found and photographed by Russ Koppendreyer in Woodland Bottoms on Stenerson Road, located in southwestern Washington, about 30 miles north of Portland, Oregon.
The bird was with juncos on the north side of the road, before flying behind the westmost house on Stenerson Road. The bird was observed most mornings and some afternoons through the month of February near the same location, although sometimes it would appear only once every two hours. Relatively shy, it would often only make short appearances, so patience was required to see it. Many birders - sometimes up to 40 at a time - were rewarded with views of this rarity, most often around some small cedars, an apple tree, or even within reach of a nearby bamboo patch. At times, a scope was required to really study the bird.
Siberian Accentor, as its name might suggest, is a very rare bird in Washington. This individual represented only the third recorded sighting in the state. Normallyat this season, one would only expect to find Siberian Accentors from northeastern China to Korea, and very uncommonly in Japan. Siberian Accentors breed in the taiga zone across northern Russia.
Most North American records are from Alaska, especially the Bering Sea islands in fall. Besides the records for Washington previously mentioned, there are about half a dozen other records in the West outside Alaska, including from Montana, Idaho, and Alberta. The fall records suggest that they pertained to misoriented migrants, perhaps younger birds.
Some observers mused that the bird liked the Washington location because of the presence of a huge clump of bamboo behind a nearby house in the area, possibly similar to vegetation in the species' normal Chinese wintering areas. While highly speculative, this is nonetheless an interesting hypothesis.
A few photos can be found here by Tom Crabtree:
and here by Al Clark
ACCESS MATTERS: COURTESY AND COOPERATION
Observers of our chosen rarity-of-the-month, the Siberian Accentor, regularly mentioned the tolerance and friendly attitude of the neighbors in the area. This attitude is essential for maintaining birder-neighbor relations, especially where a rarity may make irregular appearances and where the rarity's visits are not at a feeder. Most winter and spring Siberian Accentors found south of Alaska have been birds visiting feeders, unlike the recent Washington bird.
A gaggle of 25-40 birders in a strange neighborhood may be fine for a day or two, but it can get trying when it goes on for a month or more!
Tolerant and friendly neighbors - especially those at the last house on the North side at the site - made the experience workable for all. Birders were simply asked not to trespass and to avoid blocking driveways or mail boxes. This, of course, should be standard practice in any neighborhood.
The flip-side of access is of course cooperation. Every indication is that the line of folks behind scopes, sometimes described as containing as many as 40 individuals, was orderly, helpful, and relatively quiet.Indeed, a cooperative scope-line at a rarity stakeout can be a godsend.
This example is just another case where access to a rare avian visitor was enhanced by courtesy and cooperation on the part of all concerned.
TIP OF THE MONTH: CONSIDER NEST CAMS
If you are a nest-box host, you may already have active and occupied Wood Duck, Hooded Merganser, or owl boxes... depending on your location.
So now it may be time to consider a live-streaming camera to monitor the nesting action taking place in your favorite nest boxes. This is an ideal season to add a live-feed cam to watch the activity from your computer or television monitor.
To do this you will need the right camera to suit the size of your box, along with a cable program, and an adapter. In addition, you may want to consider a home-made waterproof housing to protect the camera itself.
Don't be overcome by the seemingly daunting technical side of installing a nest box cam. It is easier than it looks. Some of the options are almost ready-made. For starters, try the initial advice from the folks at The Birding Wire:
They recently posted some good hints online that can take you further into the subject. Before you realize it, you can be watching ongoing nesting activity at your next box, whether it's for an American Kestrel, a bluebird, or a chickadee.
CANADIANS REVIEW RED LIST
Each year, the global extinction risk to all bird species is assessed by BirdLife International, the official "Red List Authority" for birds for The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. The most recent update was released in December, just a few months ago.
In late January, our colleagues at Birds Canada reviewed the Red List changes for the country, and they were relatively pleased. For 2019, only two regularly occurring species to Canada were featured in the update. The news for both species was cautiously optimistic. Global declines in the populations of Cerulean Warbler and Cassin's Finch appear to be slowing compared to a decade or so ago. As a consequence, their global threat category has been reduced, or "down-listed."
The Cerulean Warbler has been reclassified from Vulnerable to Near Threatened.
This may be the result of improved protection, and slowing rates of loss of mature deciduous forests in the core breeding range, or it could be a correction in our understanding of the numbers behind the trends due to new methods of analysis! In either case, Cerulean Warbler remains a top priority on the Canadian watch list because it is rare, and it is still declining.
For the Cassin's Finch, the global down-listing is from Near Threatened to Least Concern. The species' population decline has stabilized over the past decade or so, based on range-wide Breeding Bird Survey results, from southern British Columbia to northern Mexico. However, the data indicate that the small Canadian portion of the population, in southern interior British Columbia, is still prone to fluctuations and, most recently, has experienced a 50% decline.
See here for more details:
NEW SURVEY ON RESPONSIBLE CAT OWNERSHIP
A new poll - conducted in 2019, but just released - indicates that a majority of U.S. residents favor responsible management of domestic cats. In a survey by the American Bird Conservancy (ABC) of more than 2,000 individuals across the U.S., a majority of respondents supported permanent identification and sterilization, and half favored keeping cats indoors.
The U.S. pet cat population tripled from 1970 to 2010, and problems regularly occur when pet cats are permitted to roam outdoors. Cats are thought to be the largest direct source of mortality to birds in the U.S. and Canada, and they annually kill an estimated 2.4 billion birds in the U.S. alone. Outdoor cats are also a vector for the transmission of parasites and diseases. Cats are the top carrier of rabies among domestic animals in the U.S. and are more likely to expose people to the fatal disease than wildlife.
You can find more details on the survey from the American Bird Conservancy here:
IBA NEWS: HOPE FOR ISLAND NESTERS
South Island in Virginia has been a part of the well-known Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel, and for the last four decades, it has supported a thriving colony of Royal Terns, Sandwich Terns, Black Skimmers, several species of gulls, and Gull-billed Terns - a species listed as Threatened in Virginia. Researchers say the island has been the largest waterbird colony in Virginia, with over 20,000 birds.
By late November, however, construction crews finished paving the entire South Island to prepare for a huge $3.862-billion project, a Virginia Department of Transportation improvement effort to alleviate traffic congestion. The situation looked very grim, and it was not encouraging that the location fell exactly between the range of two Important Bird Areas (IBAs), but an actual part of neither. (The two IBAs are the Virginia Western Shore Marshes IBA and the Lower Delmarva IBA.)
In October, the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries had submitted a formal request to the Army Corps of Engineers to use dredged material to build an alternate bird-nesting island. That late effort could be delayed, with a still-unknown final price-tag.
But by the middle of last month, Virginia announced fairly substantial plans to help the waterbirds displaced by the construction. Emergency measures would be pursued to include the creation of alternative breeding habitat for this critically important colony. The package of specific measures designed to help the Hampton Roads colony includes the following:
- The creation of breeding habitat at nearby Rip Raps Island (formerly known as Fort Wool) and potentially on artificial barges, with a plan to attract the birds to the new habitat and to control predators.
- Moves to discourage birds from attempting to nest on South Island this spring, since paving and construction activities will render the habitat unsuitable.
- Restoration of habitat on South Island post-construction.
- Plans to create an additional, alternate nesting island in the longer term.
Many individuals and groups worked on the effort to help the Hampton Roads bird colony, and their concerns continue. Unfortunately, the clock is ticking, and these well-intentioned plans must move quickly to match the reappearance of the terns and other waterbirds expected to return to the colony site in the next month.
For more information see this summary:
For additional information about worldwide IBA programs, including those in the U.S., check the National Audubon Society's Important Bird Area program web site at:
