29 August 2023
Olive-sided flycatchers (Contopus cooperi) are uncommon birds in Pittsburgh. Now not most effective have they declined 78% since 1970, however they’re most effective provide on migration after which only one or two in keeping with season. When 3 people have been discovered at the similar day, Friday 25 August, in Allegheny County it used to be uncommon certainly. Those 3 weren’t the similar fowl:
- Sewickley Heights Borough Park at 8:20am, observed just lately on Monday 28 Aug
- Hartwood Acres, Saxonburg Fields at 10:50am
- Homewood Cemetery at midday
Even though olive-sided flycatchers nest from Alaska to Newfoundland and southward into the Cascades and Rockies, no longer a lot is understood in their migration routes. Within the fall the jap birds in most cases float westward inside Canada, then dangle a left at Minnesota and migrate during the Nice Plains and jap Rockies. You’ll see their relative abundance from the third week of August during the third week of October on this slide display.
Olive-sided flycatcher weekly relative abundance from eBird Standing and Traits
Alaska’s breeding olive-sided flycatchers are declining unexpectedly and feature some of the longest migrations of any flycatcher — from Alaska to Peru. Migratory stopover websites are crucial for his or her survival however no person knew the place they went so a learn about staff, headed through Julie C. Hagelin, made up our minds to trace the birds’ migration through catching them in mist nets and attaching geolocator backpacks.
What they found out when the birds returned is that Alaskan breeders fan out around the Rockies on their method south, some as a ways east as Texas, ahead of they head thru Mexico to South The usa. Additionally they discovered 13 essential stopover websites which can be important to the birds’ survival on migration. Their favourite spots are somewhat other in Central The usa in fall as opposed to spring. Two of the 13 websites are within the U.S. Cascade Mountains. The entire websites are on those maps.
and non-breeding spaces of a boreal songbird in
steep decline)
Pittsburgh by no means figures closely within the olive-sided flycatcher’s go back and forth schedule although this yr we gave the impression to be a ravishing stopover. Our birds almost definitely come from breeding websites in jap Canada.
Are our olive-sided flycatchers preventing on the similar puts in Central The usa because the Alaskan team? We gained’t know till some runs a an identical learn about in jap Canada.
(picture from Wikimedia Commons, abundance maps from eBird, stopover maps from DeGruyter; beginning hyperlinks are within the captions)