BRITISH COLUMBIA NEST RECORD SCHEME 56th Annual Report 2010 Nesting Season British Columbia Nest Record Scheme 56th Annual Report - 2010 Nesting Season compiled by R. Wayne Campbell, Linda M. Van Damme, Mark Nyhof, Patricia Huet Biodiversity Centre for Wildlife Studies Report No. 13 May 2011 Contents Biodiversity and Breeding Birds..............................................................................1 The 2010 Nesting Season..........................................................................................4 Summary...........................................................................................................4 Noteworthy Events...........................................................................................6 New Breeding Species..............................................................................6 Range Expansion and Isolated Nesting......................................................7 Early and Late Nesting Dates....................................................................9 Nesting Failures.....................................................................................12 Unusual Nest Sites.................................................................................15 Noteworthy Species Information Since The Birds of British Columbia..........18 Highlights.........................................................................................................23 Families and Species..............................................................................23 Brown-headed Cowbird Parasitism...........................................................25 Coverage........................................................................................................27 Participants.....................................................................................................29 Quality of information.....................................................................................32 Historical Information......................................................................................38 Total Breeding Records - Family and Species...............................................39 Total Contributors - 2010 Nesting Season and Historical Records................46 Long-Term Inventory and Monitoring Projects.....................................................50 Inventory of Colonial-nesting Marine Birds.....................................................50 Inventory of Colonial-nesting Fresh-water Birds.............................................51 Inventory of Colonial-nesting Terrestrial Birds................................................61 Monitoring Nesting Birds of Prey....................................................................62 Monitoring Nest Boxes....................................................................................65 Notes from the Field................................................................................................67 Field Tips and Techniques......................................................................................79 Bald Eagle Chicks: Colour, Size and Estimated Age......................................79 Publications in Short..............................................................................................80 Use of the British Columbia Nest Record Scheme in 2010.................................82 Requesting and Submitting Cards.........................................................................83 Acknowledgements.................................................................................................84 Appendices...............................................................................................................87 Appendix 1. Plumage Development of Young Waterfowl................................87 Appendix 2. Guide to Timing of Visits to Nests of Songbirds..........................88 Appendix 3. Stages of Nestling Songbird Growth..........................................89 Appendix 4. Correct Terminology for Ages of Birds........................................90 Appendix 5. Monitoring Cavity-nesting Birds..................................................93 Biodiversity and Breeding Birds property. For the purpose of this report, species of breeding birds are the biodiversity focus. In the 2009 annual nesting season report, The cordilleran landscape and ecology of we introduced “The International Year of British Columbia make it the most diverse Biodiversity”, a program initiated by the United region in Canada. Within our province, we have Nations to emphasize the significance of 35 mountain ranges with varying altitudes biodiversity in human lives and in sustaining and aspects, 26,000 kilometres of coastline, life on earth (Figure 1). The objectives of numerous large and small offshore islands, a the program centered on increasing public diverse geology, and many rivers, some of which awareness, enhancing public understanding of are major and flow into the Arctic and Pacific the biological processes, and working together oceans. There are areas of low biodiversity, to achieve realistic goals. such as alpine habitats, and “hotspots” like estuaries where many hundreds of different species occur. Our topography lends itself to the creation of specialized habitats that occur in small areas of the province, such as scrub desert which attracts Sage Thrashers or occur in patches such as the association of green alder and trembling aspen woodlands favoured by Canada Warblers. As a result, more bird species occur and breed in British Columbia than anywhere else in Canada and the province contains more federally listed species at risk, most of which are peripheral. For many species, British Columbia is a major part of a bird’s world range and may be the only location in Figure 1. With the increasing number of people Canada where it occurs (Figure 2). interested in wildlife viewing it was an opportune time to promote the concept of biodiversity and what it means to the emotional, physical, and financial well being of humans and sustaining life on earth. Englishman River, BC. 8 April 1994 (Photo by R. Wayne Campbell). The new word in the conservation field is Biodiversity. The term was really set in stone when it became the buzzword for the Rio Earth Summit in 1992. This major world conference, held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, was sponsored by the United Nations to discuss the “Environment and Sustainable Development” and attracted over 17,000 participants. The main reason for this focus was world concern about increasing impacts from human activities on biodiversity, including classic examples relating to habitat fragmentation, rainforest destruction, species extinction, water and air pollution, and altered Figure 2. All of Canada’s population of Black natural biological processes. Oystercatcher occurs along a narrow strip of the Biodiversity can be simply defined as the British Columbia coast. In 2010, 465 breeding number of species found within a given area records were added to BCNRS files bringing (e.g., biological richness), so in British Columbia the total to about 3,100 cards dating back to this could be as broad as the entire province 1895. Norris Rock, BC. 4 July 1974 (Photo by or restricted to a regional park or residential R. Wayne Campbell). 1 Many participants in 2010 went into the From 1997 through 2010, BCFWS members field with “biodiversity” on their minds and and others have contributed thousands of spent more time thoroughly searching different volunteer hours to transfer historical breeding habitats and confirming precise breeding infor- records to nest cards from a variety of sources mation. In many cases, incidental behavioural as well as electronically entering occurrence observations such as birds singing on territory records dating back to 1896. It has been 14 were also gathered and submitted with nest years since the first independent annual nesting cards. report was published and a great milestone When established in 2004, part of the has been reached in 2010. A total of 97,159 mandate of the Biodiversity Centre for Wildlife historical records of nests or broods have been Studies (BCFWS) was to archive historical transcribed to nest cards (Figure 4) along with wildlife information, an approach that was not electronic data entry for 5.1 million incidental being addressed by any of the other 22,000 bird observations. The main focus for this long- registered non-profit societies in the province. term investment of time was to update the four- It also got some of our members thinking about volume set The Birds of British Columbia how they could contribute to the biodiversity that was published between 1990 and 2001. of their home province. Despite decades of biological inventories and diverse research by museums, provincial and federal governments, universities, and conservation groups, we still are in the infancy stages of understanding the factual biodiversity in British Columbia. We have a fairly good grasp on the larger and more easily observed bird species in the province (Figure 3), especially those that are hunted or live in endangered habitats, but our knowledge of many smaller species is incomplete. This is a serious omission if we are to protect our provincial biodiversity. Figure 4. This old photograph of a Red-necked Grebe nest with five eggs was discovered among a collection of colour 35 mm slides that were donated to the Biodiversity Centre for Wildlife Studies. Details were transferred to a nest card. Douglas Lake, BC. June 1962