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RARITY FOCUS
This feature in the Birding Community E-bulletin, highlighting one mega-rarity from the previous month, is admittedly biased. This is primarily a geographic bias that your editors invariably favor. After all, any “rarity” for North America almost often will appear somewhere on the “edges” of the continental U.S. or Canada, showing up in the areas of New England or Atlantic Canada, Florida, the length of the U.S./Mexican border, the U.S. Pacific coast of the West into British Columbia, or in Alaska.
It’s a special delight to feature a rarity that appears elsewhere, especially when the location is in the deep interior of the continent. And such was the case last month.
On Valentine’s Day, 14 February, Tim Oksiuta of Moquah, Wisconsin, found an odd-looking bird flying with a group of Blue Jays at Prentice Park, in Ashland. Oksiuta used his digital camera to take a quick photo of the bird, an image he later e-mailed to his friend Ryan Brady, a conservation biologist at the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. Brady identified the bird in the photo as a Fieldfare, a bird that had never previously been identified in Wisconsin.
A Fieldfare is a large thrush that normally breeds across Eurasia, including Iceland, and since the late 1970s southwest Greenland, to eastern Russia. Fieldfares normally winter in Europe and the Middle East. It is, however, occasionally a very rare late-fall-to-winter vagrant to Atlantic Canada, and sometimes even New England. There have also been late spring records of this bold robin-sized gray-and-brown thrush in Alaska, and there are even some outlier records for Minnesota, Ontario, Saskatchewan, and elsewhere.
We are not certain, but this Wisconsin Fieldfare may be the 16th ABA record and the 9th for the Lower 48 United States.
The Fieldfare remained in the area where it was first found through the end of February, sometimes appearing skittish but, curiously, often in the morning and often in the general company of Blue Jays. Many birders came to Prentice Park for the opportunity to see the bird.
For an article on this rarity – including the original photo by Tim Oksiuta – see this article from the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/news/fieldfare-a-thrush-native-to-europe-spotted-for-first-time-in-wisconsin/ar-BB1iBvmn
This event presents two clear reminders for all curious and regular bird watchers:
1 You never know when you will happen upon a surprise bird, no matter where you are.
2 It always pays to take a photo – even if only from your phone – of whatever bird may puzzle you.
IBA NEWS: THE BIGGEST IBA IN NORTH AMERICA?
In our IBA feature, we usually focus on a particular Important Bird Area (IBA) that merits special or newsworthy attention.
This month, however, we highlight a unique ecosystem plan that may impact tens of millions of acres in the West, and an area that been frustrating bird conservationists and biologists for decades.
We have covered the plight of the sagebrush ecosystem – with a special emphasis on Greater Sage-Grouse – many times in the Birding Community E-bulletin. But last month, the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) released plans to invest in millions of acres of these sagebrush ecosystems across the American West.
As part of a new “Sagebrush Keystone Initiative, the DOI has identified “Sagebrush Collaborative Restoration Landscapes” in which to collaborate with ranchers, state and local leaders, tribes, conservation and sportsmen organizations, the outdoor recreation sector, private landowners, and others to deliver restoration actions in sagebrush country. Initial funding should support a dozen key projects to help address major threats to sagebrush habitat for intensive conservation and restoration.
The sagebrush ecosystem has long been threatened by prolonged drought, pinyon-juniper encroachment, and cycles of invasive grasses and wildfire. We have seen a loss of an estimated 1.3 million acres of functioning sagebrush habitat a year to development, degradation, and encroachment by invasive species. In the past three decades, an estimated 14 million acres of this habitat have been lost. The ecosystem is home to iconic bird species including Greater Sage-Grouse, Golden Eagle, Ferruginous Hawk, Gray Flycatcher, Sage Thrasher, and Sage Sparrow.
You can find more details on how to conserve the sagebrush biome and “promote community and economic sustainability,” from the Department of the Interior’s multiple bureaus and offices efforts to “defend and grow the core” approach to conserve as much remaining intact sagebrush habitat as possible here:
https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/bipartisan-infrastructure-law-investments/science/sagebrush-keystone-initiative
Although this is no “magic bullet,” it is a very important and encouraging development.
The general approach of the Sagebrush Plan is also described by National Audubon here:
https://www.audubon.org/news/department-interiors-long-term-commitment-sagebrush-health-wins-praise-sportsmen-conservation
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:
https://www.audubon.org/important-bird-areas
WILSON’S PHALAROPE PLAN REVISED
And before we completely leave the subject of IBAs and the bird species that uniquely characterize certain IBAs, we will highlight the updated version of the Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network’s “Conservation Plan for Wilson’s Phalarope.”
The first plan for Wilson’s Phalarope was released by WHSRN in 2010. But an updated version was deemed necessary, primarily because of the disturbing decline and drying up of North American staging habitat, particularly saline lakes, due to water diversion and climate change.
We previously covered this subject in April 2022 with our IBA focus on the deteriorating Great Salt Lake situation:
https://conta.cc/3ji9GVR
And the situation is equally alarming at Lake Albert, Oregon, another Wilson’s Phalarope staging area and a site that became almost completely dry in 2014-15 and again in 2021-2022. Although Mono Lake in California has a guaranteed legal water right, in 2022 its surface elevation was 13 ft. below the mandated target level. Smaller and more ephemeral wetlands used by Wilson’s Phalaropes in the Great Basin are similarly threatened by upstream water diversion and drought related to climate change.
Although exceptionally large snowpacks in the winter of 2022-2023 may relieve some of these situations, these should only be viewed as temporary and unreliable solutions.
In addition, the continuing loss of breeding habitat in North American prairie grasslands and
associated wetlands only add to the dismay facing Wilson’s Phalaropes.
You can review the updated version of the Wilson’s Phalarope Conservation Plan from WHSRN here to better understand current knowledge about this species and its related conservation concerns:
https://whsrn.org/updated-version-of-the-wilsons-phalarope-conservation-plan-available/
FLACO: NO LONGER WITH US
Flaco, the Eurasian Eagle-Owl whose escape from New York City’s Central Park Zoo in early February 2023 and subsequent life in Manhattan, died late last month after colliding into a building on West 89th Street in Manhattan.
Flaco’s travels across Manhattan, especially at different locations in Central Park, drew both adoring crowds and online fans, and his acquired survival skills surprised those who did not think he could last outside his zoo enclosure.
In fact, Flaco developed into one of the city’s most beloved characters. When not in Central Park by day, the owl might lounge in a treed Manhattan courtyard or perch on a building fire escape. Apparently, he spent nights hooting atop water towers and preying on the city’s supply of abundant rats.
You can read more about Flaco, his celebrity status, and his demise here, along with photos, timelines, and an associated map of past viewing locations in Manhattan:
https://abcnews.go.com/US/flaco-famous-owl-world-dies-zoo/story?id=107509917
In response to the death of the owl, the proposed Bird Safe Buildings Act in Albany is being renamed the FLACO Act (“Feathered Lives Also Count” Act) to honor the impact that Flaco had on New York City. This law would require any new or significantly altered state buildings to incorporate bird-friendly designs, particularly in their windows. See details here:
https://www.nysenate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2024/brad-hoylman-sigal/legislators-advocates-rename-statewide-bird-safe
LAST WORD
Finally, if you have friends or co-workers who might wish to receive the free monthly Birding Community E-bulletin, you could forward this issue to them and suggest that they sign up via this link:
https://bit.ly/35Xd3hO
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