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A Little Bunting Reaches California

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A Little Bunting Reaches California NOTES A LITTLE BUNTING REACHES CALIFORNIA GUY McCASKIE, 954 GroveStreet, ImperialBeach, California 91932 At mid-morningon 21 October 1991 I visitedFort RosecransNational Cemetery on Point Loma in San Diego, California.While searchingfor a reportedScarlet Tanager(Piranga olivacea), I stoppedto look througha smallflock of Chipping Sparrows(Spizella passerina) feeding in the shortgrass. I wasimmediately attracted to a rusty-coloredbird with prominentchestnut cheek patches that wasabout the size of the ChippingSparrows. The flockwas alarmedby my presenceand flew up into the trees.As the birdflew ! sawwhite on the outertail feathersand heard a junco-like "tick" note, and when it landedI saw black streakson the underparts.I felt the bird was one of the Asiaticbuntings, and suspectedit was probablya RusticBunting (Emberizarustica), but had no booksto consultfor verification.Realizing I needed confirmation,I rushedto the nearesttelephone and told RichardE. Websterof the bird'spresence. Webster alerted birders in southernCalifornia before leaving his officefor the cemetery. I had relocatedthe buntingand was observingit from a distancewhen Webster arrived.After lookingat it for a coupleof minutes,Webster correctly recalled that the LittleBunting (Emberiza pusilia), not the RusticBunting, has chestnut cheek patches and that a RusticBunting should be noticeablylarger than the ChippingSparrows. We kept the buntingunder observation for abouthalf an hour,during which time I notedfield marks and Webster took photographs. Once back in my officeI contacted Kimball L. Garrett at the Los AngelesCounty Museumof Natural History and discussedthe identificationof the buntingwith him. Garrett was able to compare winter specimensof a Little and a RusticBunting against my descriptionand concludedthe bird was mostlikely a Little Bunting. When I returnedto Fort RosecransNational Cemetery in the afternoonabout thirty observershad the buntingunder observation.I then studiedit at distancesas closeas 30 feet with the aid of a Kowa TSN-4 telescopefor about2 hours.That eveningBrian E. Daniels,Michael A. Patten, and I comparedour field noteswith photographs,illustrations, and written accountsin the variousbooks and journalsin my libraryand concludedthe bird was indeeda Little Bunting.The followingis a summaryof my noteson the bird. The Little Buntingwas a little smallerthan a Chipping Sparrow. The head and upperpartswere rusty brown, with the head being the brightest.The forehead, crown,and nape were dark chestnutbrown, with a broaddiffused paler chestnut- brown median crown stripe. A broad cinnamon-buffsupercilium extended from abovethe eyes,over the ear coverts,and onto the sidesof the nape. The ear coverts were a rich chestnut,with this colorextending forward to encompassthe lores.A blackishline framedthe top, back,and rear portionof the loweredge of the ear coverts,this line broadeningat the cornersto form prominentdark patches.A fine bully-whitering encircled each dark eye. The chestnutcheek patches were bordered belowby broadpale cinnamon-buff to whitestripes, this color extending a shortway upward immediately behind the ear coverts. The chin and throat were white, borderedon the sidesby thin but well definedblackish malar stripes.The bill was mosfiyblackish with some pale colorationat the baseof the mandible,the culmen wasstraight or slighfiyconcave, and the gonysangled upward. Western Birds 24:95-97, 1993 95 NOTES The mantle, scapulars,back, rump, and uppertailcoverts were dark brown to blackish,with each featherbroadly fringed with chestnutbrown, makingthe upper parts look chestnutbrown with broad diffusedblackish streaks, but with a slight grayishcast that made the upperpartsappear lessrusty than the head. The wings were the samecolor as the upperparts,but the greaterand mediancoverts also were tippedwith yellowishbuff to form two indistinctwing bars, the yellowishbuff being more extensiveand paler on the mediancoverts, making the upper wing bar a little broaderand paler than the lower.The tertialswere blackish,broadly fringed with chestnut,and finelytipped with white.The primariesand secondarieswere blackish, finelyedged with chestnut, and with a thinline of whiteat the tip of eachfeathen The rectriceswere blackish,finely edged with chestnut,except that the two central rectriceswere mostlychestnut brown and the innerwebs of the outermostrectrices were mostlywhite. The tail was notched. The underpartswere whitishtinged buff, with a pale cinnamon-buffwash across the breast,well definedblack streaks across the breastand alongthe flanks,and with the vent and undertailcoverts unmarked. The legsand feet were pale pink. Althoughthe identificationof the Little Buntingis coveredin most bookson Europeanand Asiaticbirds, I found the accountsof Wallace(1980), Harris et al. (1989), and particularlyBradshaw (1991) to be the mostuseful. All threeemphasized markingsthat separatethe Littlefrom the RusticBunting, and Wallaceand Bradshaw also emphasizedmarkings that separate it from the Common Reed Bunting (Emberiza schoeniclus). Point Loma is heavilybirded during the fall, and the weekend of 19 and 20 Octoberwas no exception.Flocks of sparrowsare alwaysof interest,and the flockof ChippingSparrows was scrutinizedby multipleobservers on 20 Octoberand by at leastone observerearly in the morningon 21 October,with no one seeingthe Little Bunting.I thereforebelieve that the LittleBunting arrived in Fort RosecransNational Cemeteryshortly before being found on 21 October.It couldbe foundwith relative easewith the ChippingSparrows through 24 October,and was seen and photo- graphedby interestedbirders from throughoutthe UnitedStates. Although many observerhours were expendedon 25 Octoberand throughthe followingweekend, andeven though the ChippingSparrow flock was under almost constant observation, there were no substantiatedreports of the bunting,indicating it departedduring the nightof 24-25 October. A long list of vagrantland-birds has been foundon Point Loma duringthe past thirtyyears, and a remarkablevariety, originating from a varietyof directions,were presentbetween 21 and 24 October1991. The flockof ChippingSparrows also containedan Indigo Bunting (?asserinacyanea) and a Clay-coloredSparrow (Spizellapallida). Scarcervagrants present in Fort RosecransNational Cemetery during these four days includeda MagnoliaWarbler (Dendroicamagnolia), a BlackburnJanWarbler (Dendroica fusca), a HoodedWarbler (Wilsonia citrina), and a ScarletTanager, along with more regularoccurring Palm Warblers(Dendroica palmarum),Blackpoll Warblers (Dendroica striata), American Redstarts (Setophaga ruticilla), and a Rose-breastedGrosbeak (Pheucticus ludovicianus). However, the LittleBunting is the mostunexpected vagrant found there to date. The Little Bunting breeds from northeasternSiberia acrossnorthern Asia to northern Finland, and winters from southeastAsia west to northern India and occasionallyto continentalEurope and northAfrica. A recentlydead Little Bunting recoverednear Rodgers Bay on WrangelIsland off the northeastcoast of Siberiaon 8 September1933 (Portenko1973) wasnortheast of the species• normal range. In Alaska, Watson et al. (1974) reported one collectedon a U.S. Coast Guard icebreakeroperating in the ChukchiSea about150 nauticalmiles northwest of Icy Capeon 6 September1970, Gibson(1981) collectedone on ShemyaIsland at the extremewestern end of the AleutianIslands on 8 September1977, and M. E. (Peter) 96 NOTES Isleib(Am. Birds 38:235, 1984) saw a "flighty"individual on Attu Islandat the extreme western end of the Aleutian Islandson 22 September 1983. The Point Loma bird is the only one yet found in North America outsideextreme western Alaska.The record(CBRC 145-1991) was endorsedby the CaliforniaBird Records Committee.Eight descriptions and ten colorphotographs of the birdare archivedat the WesternFoundation of VertebrateZoology in Camarillo,California, and a color photographof the bird hasbeen published (Am. Birds46:169, 1992). LITERATURE CITED Bradshaw,C. 1991. Identificationof Little and RusticBuntings. Birding World 4:309-313. Gibson, D. D. 1981. Migrant birds at Shemya Island, Aleutian Islands,Alaska. Condor 83:65-77. Harris, A., Tucker, L., and Vinicombe, K. 1989. The MacMillan Field Guide to Bird Identification.MacMillan, London. Portenko,L. A. 1973. Birdsof the ChukchiPeninsula and WrangelIsland. Nauka, Leningrad. Wallace,D. I. M. 1980. DistinguishingLittle and ReedBuntings, in Frontiersof Bird Identification(J. T. R. Sharrock,ed.), pp. 236-244. MacMillanPress, London. Watson,G. E., Angle,J.P., and Browning,M. R. 1974. FirstNorth Americanrecord of Little Buntingin easternChukchi Sea. Auk 91:417. Accepted23 September 1992 97 .
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