NFBB Vol. 21 1946
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Issued Quarterly by the Western Bird-Banding Association The Editors Resign New Members: A Bigger and Better W.B.B.A. Banded Gulls Pioneer OI~ithologist - Joseph Mailliard Results from Wildlife Service Files of Banded Robins Band-tailed Pigeons Nest in Colorudo Bandlng Activities with Birds of Prey in 1944 and 1945 Dea.d Owls and Mou.rning Doves Not How Many but How Rare California Blue Grosbeaks at Pomona Annual Report - 1945 Banders Who Reported for the Year 1945 Notes on Colorado Birds Banders at the Mission Nest Parasites Band Records Lost Traps Made Available Co-editors of the ~ President of W.E.B.A --- F. G. Crawford Mary M. Erickson, Santa Barbare'J Calif. 2782 Glen Avenue, Altadena, California Frank M. Erickson, Santa Barbara, Calif. Address all contributions to the ~ to Mrs. M. C. Sargent, P. O. Box 109, La Jolla, California At the request of P~esident F. G. Crawfo~d and with due modesty, the Editors give place to the following statement: "At its January meeting, the councillo!'s of W.E.B.A. extended to me the privilege of voicing their gratitude for the faithful and excellent editorial work that Dr. Mary M. Erickson and Dean Frank M. Erickson have devoted to the ~ for the past five years. It is certain that the entire membership of the Association joins the Council in this appreciution. We deeply regret that the co-editors find it necessary to conclude their editorial duties with this issue. "That the News hus continued to grow in quality is solely due to the efforts of our co-editors. We huve repeatedly received compliments, from within our Association as well as from ornithologists in the east,.on the Ericksons I work. We hope th~t, in some way, they have been Gna will be partiQlly repaid for their efforts in our behalf. The new editor, Mrs. M. C. Sargent, who demonstrated her superior abil- ity as editor of the ~ in the years 1936'to 1940, will begin official duties with the June issue. To her the present editors extend most cordial greetings and b~st wishes. In the September issue of the ~, we printed afew.lipes from "Autumn Eveningll, a poem by Robinson Jeffers. The lines were used with the kind permission of the Editor of Random House, Inc., publishers of The Selected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers, from which the quoted lines were taken. Mr. Jeffers is a California poet residing on the Mont~rey coast. The Western Bird~Banding Association is in need of new members to in- crease its strength in coritinuingits efforts toward the purposes for which it was founded; namely, to promote bird study by the banding method, to draw the pird banders of western North America into a community of in terests, to previde a m~d~ iurnfor the exchange of "ideas and information among the bird banders and other interested bird students. Now that the w~r is over, it is hoped that many more people can gratify their interests in bird banding; that present banders will become more active; that new people will become banders; that all banders and all bird students in the West who are interested in banding will reaiize that the advantages to be gained from membership in and participation in W.B.B.A. activities far outweigh the nominal cost involved in becoming a member. (see back cover). We request that all mem- bers, as well as non-member benders lose no opportunity to promote banding activ- ities in the Vlest,to the mutual advantage of the banding program in general and W.B.B.A. in particular. Your Council will welcome suggestions for 'improving our organization from every member. Please address your suggestions to the Secretary, H~rold Mich- ener, 4l8~orth Hudson Avenue, Pasadena, 4, California. Please send new member- ships and remittances to 'the Business Manager, Mrs. N. Edward Ayer, 1,300 Hillcrest Drive, Pomona, Californi&. Now that I tun back at triyoldstamping ground, I am ag!dn collecting mat- erial and records on color-banded gulls. 'With gas rationing over, and, many a bird enthusiast out of uniform again, how about some trips to gull colonies this summer, to look for color-banded adults? Write - Mrs. Marst~l C. Sargent, Box 109, La Jolla, California. ' The following item about Joseph Mailliard, long an active member of W.B.B.A., will be of interest to all readers of the'News. It appeared in the Oak- land Tribune, December 2,3, 1945. -, ,"Joseph Mailliard, who later 'became an ornithologist of int.ernational re- putation was 10 years o~d When, with his parents, he left New Jersey in 1868, for a ranch in Marin County. Many Californians, in his later life, knew him as CurE- tor Emeritus of the Department of Birds and Mammals at the California Academy of Sciences. Dr. Robert'C. Miller, director of the &cademy, tells me that "Joseph Mailliard's continuing reputation in his field is assured by the 160 scientific pa- pers he published and the fiJ}eco+leetionshe and his brother, John Ward Mailliard, gave the California Academy of Sciences." ,Dr. Miller lists the collection as com- posed of some 10,000 bird skins, a larger number o'feggs, rmd several hundred bird nests; Joseph Mailliard assisted in the preparetion of the John Ward Mailliard Mem- orial Collection of Birds of 'the Buy region which may be seen in North American Hall, Golden Gate Park, a tribute to his brother whowes'for many years a trustee of the e.cademy. "Joseph Mailliard began his bird collection as So boy, and later, when engaging in ranching actiVities, he trained his COWboys to observe and collect birds. His hobby of bird collecting was an absorbing in'terest in his life. He made an expedition to Chile in 1902, giving his collection to the academy. This was destroyed in the great fire of 1906. But Mr. Mailliarci's Alaskan collection is still in the academy archives. He was curator of birds and mammals at the academy from 1919 to 1926, when he was appointed curator emeritus." During the past year, two articles have been published which should en- courage all banders:, those who band few as well as those who b and many, to contin- ue to band as many birds as possible and to add the records of those birds to the files of the Fish and Wildlife Service. Both articles are based upon records of banded Robins sent to those files by banders in the region north of the Miss- ouri and Ohio Rivers and north of the southern boundaries of Pennsylvania and New Jersey; thus the studies are limited to the northern race. Turdus migratorius migra torius. Both articles require careful study if one wishes to understand the de- tails that were developed in making the analyses and to appreciate the wealth of comparisons with the results obtainedby' other workers, mostly European, on the subjects at hand. However, each article has a concise summary which gives the re- sults detailed in the main 'text. For both articles the prime assumption is that a group of birds of a species which were banded as young and SUbsequently recovered constitute a normal sample of the entire population of the species. Various aspects which might make the sample under consideration differ from the population as a whole and their possible influence on resulting conclusions if they should be effective are dis- cussed. & Groups and Longevity .in ~ American Robin, by Donald S. Farner. (Wilson Bulletin, 57, March 1945 : 56 - 74). For this study records were avail- able of 855 Robins which were banded before their first November 1 - and reported as returns or recoveries after their first November 1; thus the robin year is from November 1 to October .31, inclusive, and the high mortality between the time of banding and the first November 1, which cannot be determined accurately from banding data, is eliminated from consideration, except as it is discussed on a hypothetical basis. These records extend through the period 1920 ....1940. It is assumed the population is stable, 1oe., on each successive November 1 the total number is approximately the same and the proportion of the total in the various' age groups is the same. On this basis, «l any November 1, the number of birds for which this 1s their first November 1 is equal to the nwnber of birds that have died during the previous year and this number, expressed as a percentage of the total population, is the mortality rate for the whole population. Likewise, the number of birds for which this is not their first November 1, i.e., the sum of the second-year, third-year, etc. birds expressed .as a percentage of the total population, is the survival rate. The sum of these two rates equals 100%. A survival rate of about 47% and a mortality rate of about 5.3%,for this sample of 855 birds, are found. This also could be stated by saying that the populo.tion, as of November 1, is 5.3%birds that have arrived at their first November 1 and 47% older birds. Some other results found are that the age-group composition of the Robin popUlation is about as follows: 1st year birds, 5.3%, 2nd year 25%, 3rd year 14%, 4th year 5%, 5th year 2%, 6th year 1%; that the age-group composition in the wintering-area population is similar to that in the breeding-area population, in- dicating ncdifferential mortality according to ages during spring migration; .. that the average nat ural longevity is about 1.7 years, including a calculated .4 year from hatching to the first November 1; that the turnover period, the time re- quired for the birds hatched in a single year to shrink in numbers to an insignif- icant portion of the population, is about six years; that the life expectancy from the first November 1 to the third November 1, and hence for about 90% of the popula- tion, i51.2 to 1.3 years, ,and within these limits is apparently independent of the age of the bird;, that life expectancy figures calculated from the number of birds shot and from those killed by cats are similar to those for the total sample.