[obol] Escaped birds

[Wayne C. Weber]

Oregon Birders,

Alan and Jeff raise some good points here. Actually, there are
two separate issues: (1) what is a valid record from a Records
Committee point of view, and (2) what is "countable" from a personal
point of view.

To draw the distinction, I'll use the example of a Thick-billed Murre
which was found near Newport in a weakened condition, captured,
and then released nearby after being held for awhile in a rehab facility.
The bird was released offshore on a Bird Guide pelagic trip in
October 2001 which I happened to be on. Because I saw the bird
only for a short time just after it was released, I cannot count this
bird on any lists according to ABA rules (which coincide with the
listing rules I have always used myself). In fact, I still need this species
for my life list!  However, from the OBRC point of view, this is certainly
a valid record because the bird was wild and arrived in Oregon
under its own power. Had it turned up again in subsequent winters
(it would have to be marked to be able to prove that), it would have
been countable from both the OBRC and personal points of view. The
brief period (a few weeks?) in captivity does not invalidate the long-
term status of the murre as a wild bird.

However, I agree with Jeff that a bird that hatched in captivity should
never be considered a wild bird, no matter how long it may live or how far
it may wander. The problem is to determine whether or not a bird
was hatched in captivity (especially with waterfowl). Most of the time,
the best we can do is to make an educated guess based on probabilities.

In general, I feel that most Records Committees (OBRC included) are
a bit too lax about accepting records of possible escapees. For
reports where wild versus captive origin is not an issue, most
Record Committees prefer to be at least 95% certain that the bird
was correctly identified before accepting it as a valid record. But
for some reason, some committees (or at least some committee
members) do not seems to demand an equal degree of certainty
that the bird was of wild origin. Admittedly, judging the likelihood
of captive origin is difficult to do, and as I said, comes down
to educated guesswork.

When it comes to exotic waterfowl, I tend to strongly suspect captive
origin in many cases. This may be because of my long experience
in the Vancouver, BC area, where there are numerous waterfowl
breeders, not all of whom keep their birds wing-clipped, and a couple
of whom are known to have suffered numerous escapes. At least
one Vancouver area record of Smew is known to have been an
escapee, and we have had numerous sightings of such obvious escapees
as Ruddy Shelducks, Chiloe Wigeon, Red-breasted Geese, etc.

Unless we are dealing with extremely rare species though, Jeff is
correct that at some point, it ceases to matter very much if
a particular bird was raised in captivity or not, if it is now
free-flying and acting like a wild bird. A case in point is Gyrfalcon.
Gyrfalcons winter regularly, if rarely, in the Pacific Northwest from
BC south into Oregon. At least one well-known local birder, who
often talks to falconers, maintains that more than half of the Gyrfalcons
we see around Vancouver are escapees, and that we should not
be counting them. He may well be correct. However, as the Vancouver
area (and even NW or NE Oregon) is well within the normal winter range
of this species, few of us really care about the origin of any particular
bird, unless it shows obvious signs of having recently escaped
(e.g. jesses).

Lots of issues here to keep Records Committees working overtime!

Sincerely,

Wayne C. Weber
Delta, BC
contopus at telus.net



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jeff Gilligan" <jeffgill at teleport.com>
To: "Alan Contreras" <acontrer at MINDSPRING.COM>; "obol"
<obol at lists.oregonstate.edu>
Cc: <SGMlod at aol.com>
Sent: Sunday, February 04, 2007 11:23 AM
Subject: Re: [obol] Escaped birds


Alan:  This is the position that I would advocate at the OBRC in regard to
the issues that you raised.  My comments are interspersed with yours.  Jeff.


On 2/4/07 10:25 AM, "Alan Contreras" <acontrer at MINDSPRING.COM> wrote:

1: > Setting aside FADU Feet for now, the whole subject of what constitutes
a "wild" bird can get a little murky.  Is the question where and under what
conditions it hatched?

(I think that the bird would have to be of wild origin, i.e. that it was
hatched by birds not held in captivity.  That the parent birds were raised
in captivity in itself would not invalidate the origin of their progeny.  So
for instance, if a human-raised pair of California Condors have a chick that
as an adult strays to Oregon, the origin of the parent birds would not
invalidate the occurrence of their offspring from being countable.  Whether
a species is established in the wild is another matter.  In the case of
condors, since it once was established in Oregon, and since the offspring
bird was hatched in the wild in its native range, I think it would be
countable.  Sharp-tailed Grouse...lets talk about it.  Maybe we should be
counting the birds in northeast Oregon.  I haven't seen them yet and would
like to know more about them.)



 What if it flies all over the world for years
> afterward?

(If it is not from wild origin and flies all over the world it would still
not be acceptable. A good example is the Dalmatian Pelican that was
photographed at the Faralon Islands, CA. That bird was presumed to be an
escape from somewhere that somehow got the Faralons (although it whether it
was hatched in the wild is unknown).  I once saw a flamingo in the Columbia
Gorge.  I don't know where it came from, but the totality of the
circumstances indicate that it didn't hatch in the wild, although it may
have gotten to the Columbia Gorge on its own.  If a California Condor that
is known to be one of the human-reared birds reaches Oregon, it too should
not be a countable record.)



What if it was hatched in the wild, captured and treated for an
> illness for three months, then released and spends years in the wild?

(Cha-ching...Count it unless it was transported out of the range where it
was taken into captivity.  The range should be consider in an expansive
sense.  A bird taken into captivity after injury in Portland and released in
Eugene should be countable in the Eugene area after it has been released.)

>


> I don't see why the conditions of hatching are necessarily the sole
> determinant of status in a bird like a goose, crane or another species
that
> has such vast migrations.  It's not as though they are like a Eurasian
Tree
> Sparrow that stays more or less where it hatched. One can certainly have
> some fascinating discussions about Trumpeter Swans in North America, for
> example.

( I assume that you meant Whooper Swan when you referred to Trumpeter
Swan...My presumption in regard to birds like Whooper Swans that can readily
occur as true vagrants is that they are true vagrants, unless there is very
strong evidence to conclude otherwise (such as a band or unequivocal proof
of the hind toe having been clipped),   We are not talking about curing
cancer or world peace.  If an occasional human-raised bird passes itself off
as a vagrant... so what.  That is better than having a lot of true vagrants
rejected as possibly being of other than wild origin.  Presuming that birds
that can occur as true vagrants are in fact true vagrants is usually
correct. At the site of the Kent, Washington Baikal Teal there was a
curmudgeon (Alan: not to disparage the title) who hung out there just to
tell people that the bird was a certain escape- a position that is almost
certainly wrong. Not only incorrect, but he must not be a lot of fun at a
party.)

>
> I recall seeing a Barnacle Goose at Finley NWR maybe 25 years ago.  It was
> hanging out with a large flock of Duskies as I recall.  As far as I know,
no
> one knows where it came from or went to, but it surely came and went, it
> didn't waddle into a farm pond and honk for its dinner.  Assuming that it
> escaped at some point in its life from a breeder, does it spend its whole
> life as an "escape" even if it lives ten more years, breeds with another
one
> somewhere and has a normal goosy life?


(The same can be said for the Red-breasted Geese that have been with the
large goose flocks in the Willamette valley, and for the mysterious
Pink-footed Goose photographed somewhere near Eugene and shown to the OBRC
in its early days (apparently no record of that exists and an earlier
inquiry to OBOL resulted in no one but me remembering the photo...)  For
these species we should keep information about the occurrences. Future
records in Oregon and elsewhere may make the picture more clear.  I recall
when early reports of Red-shouldered Hawks (even in Curry County!!) were
very much questioned by the regional editors of American Birds as being
possible escapees.  Crested Caracaras were dismissed as being likely
escapees in all of the Pacific states until very recently.  The OBRC was the
first to recognize them as being vagrants.)