First Documented Record of Marsh Harrier for the West Indies and The

First document dce rd of lV arsh Harri r for th est Indi s nd th New x dd

tinued searchingand finally found the the photographs,and Clark cited the AnthonyLevesque bird on 14 December,confirming that it "classicshape, rufous upper tail coverts, AEVA- AMAZONA was without doubt a Marsh Harrier, at and facepattern of palecrown and throat that pointon the basisof field-guideillus- with a wide, dark eyeline between"as Pointedes [h•teaux trations.That day,AL succeededin taking confirmationof thebird's identity 10 color photographs.five of which have The combination of features in this dis- 97118Saint Fran•;ois been deposited at VIREO in Philadelphia, tinctiveplumage of Circusa. aeruginosus Guadeloupe,French West Indies Pennsylvania (accession numbers is sufficientto rule out superficiallysimi- v06/49/001, v06/49/002, v06/4c•/003, lar plumagesof AustralasianMarsh Har- ([email protected])v06/49/004, and v06/49/005), and three rier (C. approximans)and African Marsh of which appearhere (Figures1-3). It Harrier(C. ranivorus),as well as the spi- was observedon 12 days between 14 lonotussubspecies of MarshHarrier (Fer- December2002 and 19January 2003, and guson-Leesand Christie 2001), some- LaurentMalglaive the last datesof observationwere 29 Jan- times accordedstatus as a full species, AEVA uary,13 February,17 March,and 5 and 14 Eastern Marsh Harrier (Amadon 1978). April 2003. When the nominate form ts considered a Braõeloõne distinctspecies in itself,the name "West- Description ern MarshHarrier" is sometimesapplied 97118Saint Fran•;ois The bird was overall an even chocolate (e.g., Beaman1994). Guadeloupe,French West Indies brown, with the crown, the center and sidesof thethroat, and the inner fore edge Discussion of thewing creamybuff-white. The ochre Several species of Western Palearctic Field encounters colorof crownand throatwas divided by migrantsthat winter in Africa are known On 11 November 2002, an unidentified a broadline throughthe eye,widest pos- to haveoccurred as vagrants to the West- medium-sizedraptor was discoveredby teriorlyAll of thesecharacters arc clearly ern Hemisphere. Migrants following thejunior author(LM) and Guy Belairat visiblein AEsphotographs. The plumage alongthe westcoast of Africapresumably Grand Cul-de-SacMarin, Guadeloupe, is that of a juvenile,possibly a female;the occasionallyget caughtin strongeasteft) French West Indies. EighteenNational uniformityand freshness of plumagealso trade winds and are carried across the Parks rangersfrom Franceobserved the supportageing as a juvenile (Beamanand Atlantic to arrive in northeastern South bird too, but none of them was sure of its Madge1998, Forsman1999). Allan Keith America, in Florida, or in the Lesser identity. One ranger proposedthat it and William S. Clark examined several of Antflies,somctimcs resting or riding for might possiblybe a kite (genusMi/vus), but from the description, the senior author (AL) suspectedthat it mighl be a hawk (genusButeo), as there have been recordsof at least two Buteospecies on Guadeloupein the past. The next day, AL searched for the bird but could not locate it. On 28 November, what LM believed to be the samebird reappearedat the same placeand was also seen the followingtwo days.On 29 November,it wasvideotaped by LM, and a morecomplete description was obtained.Based on LM'sdescription. AL suspectedthat the bird might be a Marsh Harrier, Circus ae•uginosus,a specieswith which he wasvery familiar in France,and the suspicionwas confirmed on viewingthe videotape.AL tried again to locate the bird but in vain. The bird Figure1. MarshHarrier, Circus a.aeruoinosus, atGrand Cul-de-Sac Marin, Guadeloupe, French West Indies 14 December reappearedon 11 December,and AL con- 2002.Note the creamy-buff capand throat and otherwise mostly chocolate-brown plumage. Photo9raph byAnthony Levesque.

564 NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS also owed to Richard C. Banks, Allan R Keith, and Pierre YOsou, who reviewed the manuscript,and to Wilham S. Clark and Allan Keith who confirmed the iden- tification of this individual.

Literature cited Amadon, D. 1978_ Remarks on the tax- onomy of some Australasianraptors. Emu 78: 115-118. American Ornithologists'Union [A. O. U.] 1998. Check-listof North American birds. Seventh edition. American Ornithologists' Union, Washington, D.C. American Ornithologists'Union [A. O. U.] 2000. Forty-secondSupplement to the American Ornithologists' Union Check-listof NorthAmerican Birds. Auk 117: 847•858. Beaman, M. 1994. Palearctic birds: a checklistof the birdsof Europe,North Africa and Asia north of thefoothills of the Himalayas. Harrier Publications, Stonyhurst,England. Beaman,M., and S. Madge. 1998. The Handbook of bird identification for Europe and the Western Palearctic. Princeton Universit), Press, Princeton, New Jersey. Clark, W S., and B. K. Wheeler. 2001. A Field guideto hawksof North America. Second edition. Houghton Mifflin, Boston. Ebels.E. B. 2002. Transatlanticvagrancy of Palearcticspecies to the Caribbean. DutchBirding 24: 202-209. Feldmann, P, and C. Pavis. 1995. An Alpine Swift ( Tachymarptisalba) observed in Guadeloupe, Lesser Figures2-3. Twoviews of the Guadeloupe Marsh Harrier inflight 14 December 2002. The species isrelatively heavy Antilles: a fourth record for the West- ofbuild and wide-winged compared toother harrier species, thus the impressions, from certain angles, of an ern Hemisphere.El Pitirre 8: 2. OldWorld kite (Milvus) or even a Buteo.œhoto9raphs byAnthony Levesque. Ferguson-Lees,J., and D.A. Christie. some distanceson oceangoingvessels. coteague, Virginia, USA (Shedd et al. 2001. Raptorsof theworld. Houghton The occurrenceon Guadeloupeof Alpine 1998; Clark and Wheeler 2001). Excel- Mifflin, Boston. Swift (Apusmelba; Feldmann and Pavis lent field drawingswere made and pho- Forsman,D. 1999. The Raptorsof Europe 1995) and Wood Sandpiper(Tringa glare- tographsof poor quality were taken of and the Middle East:a handbookof field ola; Levesqueand Jaffard 2002) are prob- this individual, and the report has been identification.T & AD Poyser,London. ably attributableto suchphenomena, and acceptedprovisionally by that state'sbird G6nsbol, B. 1999. Guide des rapaces Ebels (2002) and Mazar Barnett and Kir- records committee in its Category 2 diurnesd'Europe, d'Afrique du Nord et du wan (2002) cite many otherexamples for (Kain 1998). The Guadelouperecord is Prothe-Orient. Delachaux et Niestl•, the Antilles. The Marsh Harrier observed thus the first satisfactorilydocumented Paris. in Guadeloupeis probablymore likely to report of this speciesin the New World. Kain, T. 1998. 1997 Report of the Vir- haveoriginated in Europethan in Africa, It is conceivable that this individual ginia Arian RecordsCommittee. Raven as part of the European population could movenorth in the spring,perhaps 69: 46-52. migratesas far as the southern Sahara to mainland North America. A record of Levesque,A., and M.-E. Jaffard. 2002. (G•nsbol 1909). the species 14-25 January 2004 at Quinze nouvelles esp•ces d'oiseaux Laguna Cartagena, Puerto Rico was con- observ6esen Guadeloupe(EWI.). El Statusof the spedes in the New World firmed as this articlewent to press. Pitirre 15: 1-4. Althoughnot includedin the main list of Mazar Barnett, J., and G. M. Kirwan. the American Ornithologists' Union's Acknowledgments 2002. Published records from the liter- Check-list of North American Birds The authors wish to thank Guy Belair, ature:Caribbean. Cotinga 17: 82•83. (1998), Marsh Harrier is included in the who assistedin the originaldiscovery of Shedd,D. H., R. D. Getringer,B. L. Shedd, Appendix (A.O.U. 2000), basedon a 4 this bird, and MarjolaineMoreau, Lionel and E R. Scott. 1998. First record of a December 1994 report of a juvenile Herphelin, and Frantz Duzont, who Western Marsh Harrier in Virginia. nominate-race Marsh Harrier from Chin- helpedAL during his search.Gratitude is Raven69: 56. •

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