[obol] Escaped birds

[Jeff Gilligan]

Thanks Wayne for your thoughtful comments. I have added my comments
interspersed in yours.  Jeff Gilligan.


On 2/4/07 2:06 PM, "Wayne C. Weber" <contopus at telus.net> wrote:

> 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).

(I think that the particular circumstances have to be considered.  For
example, if the murre was released near where it was found, returned to its
normal habits, and a day passed, I would consider I to be countable for
one's list.  The factors being:  time since release, location of release,
and whether the bird returned to a wild state of being.  I agree of course
that from the perspective of the OBRC it would be accepted even if it died
in surgery...)


 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.


(My calculator doesn't have a function for determining the probability of
whether a bird is an escapee. This is not a quantifiable matter. I think
though that we basically agree, judgment must be exercised.  I tend to look
at it in a legal way - what is the presumption, and has it been rebutted.
This of course requires a judgment as to whether a species is a reasonable
candidate to occur as a vagrant.  My test is if it is a species that can
reasonably occur as a vagrant, it is, unless the totality of circumstances
or specific evidence indicates otherwise.)


> 
> 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.)
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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