THE EUPHONIA Quarterly Journal of Mexican Avifauna Editor: Kurt Radamaker Associate Editors: Michael A. Patten, Kurt F. Cambell Spanish Consultants: Luis Santaella, Corina Easley Consultant: Steve N.G. Howell Proofreaders: Richard A. Erickson, Bob Pann Circulation Manager: Cindy Ludden The Euphonia encourages you to send in manuscripts. Appro- priate topics range from recent sightings to scientific studies of Mexican birds. Feature articles in Spanish are encouraged. Please send manuscripts, preferably on diskette written in Wordperfect (although almost any major word processor file will suffice) to Kurt Radamaker, P.O. Box 8045, Santa Maria, California, .93456-8045, U.S.A. Please send summaries for Recent Ornithological Literature to Michael A. Patten at P.O. Box 51959, Riverside, California, 92517-2959, U.S.A. Recent sightings (with details) should be sent to Luis Santaella, 919 Second St., Encinitas, California, 92024, U.S.A. Membership dues, including, The newsletter Aves Mexicanas and subscription to The Euphonia : Supporting, $50 Contributing, $30 Regular $15 annually. For membership to The Euphonia, please send a check or money order in U.S. dollars payable to The Euphonia P.O. Box 8045, Santa Maria, California, 93456-8045, U.S. A. Checks drawn on Bancomer in Pesos accepted. I thank Sophie Webb for the beautiful cover illustration, andEd Berresi and his staffat Reproxfor the generous donation and production ofthe cover. Contents 46 PREVOST'S GROUND-SPARROW IN EASTERN CHIAPAS Claudia Macias Caballero and Charles Duncan 51 STATUS OF THE PIPING PLOVER IN MEXICO Steve N.G. Howell 55 MAGNIFICENT FRIGA TEBIRDS CROSSING THE BAJA CALIFORNIA PENINSULA, MEXICO William H. Clark and David M. Ward, Jr. 58 A RECORD OF BAR-TAILED GODWIT FOR MEXICO Kurt A. Radamaker and Cindy Ludden 66 PHOTO SPOT: WHITE-NAPED AND WHITE-COLLARED SWIFTS Steve N.G. Howell 69 RECENT ORNITHOLOGICAL LITERATURE Michael A. Patten Annual membership includes Aves Mexicanas Newsletter THE EUPHONIA Volume 2, Number 3, Fall 1993 PREVOST'S GROUND-SPARROW IN EASTERN CHIAPAS 1 CLAUDIA MACIAS CABALLERO AND CHARLES D. DUNCAN , Pronatura-Chiapas and Centro de Investigaciones Ecologic as del Sureste, Carretera Panamericana y Periferico Sur, San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, CP 29290 Mexico. The A.O.U. (1983) described the range of Prevost's Ground-Sparrow (Me/ozone biarcuatum) as highlands, from Chiapas, Mexico, to Costa Rica. Peterson and Chalif(l973) and Edwards (1989) also included the Pacific slope of Chiapas, with the highlands, in their descriptions of the species' Mexican range. We have observed the species outside of these areas on three occasions and have discovered reports of other such sightings in the literature. During April and May 1993, we found Prevost's Ground- Sparrow in the lowlands of the Lacandon Forest on the Gulf slope of Chiapas. Our observations occurred at the edge of a milpa [household garden] near intact lowland rainforest in Lacanja (l6°46'N, 91 °06'W) at an elevation of325 m. On 28 Aprill993, Duncan saw an individual of this species two meters offthe ground in tangled vegetation. The sighting was brief, and only the head was seen. The bird was easily identified, however, by its prominent facial pattern of white, bordered with brown and black at the crown and below the auricular. 1Permanent address: Institute for Field Ornithology, University ofMaine at Machias, 9 O'Brien Avenue, Machias, Maine 04654, USA. The Euphonia 2: 46-50, 1993 46 PREVOST'S GROUND-SPARROW IN EASTERN CHIAPAS Four days later, 2 May 1993, Macias Caballero, aware of Duncan's observation, found possibly the same individual, about 50 m from that site. She studied it thoroughly for fifteen minutes, concurring with the identification as Prevost's Ground-Sparrow. The bird stayed in or near dense vegetation at the edge of the milpa from one to three meters above the ground. Neither observer heard any vocalization from the species. On 27 August 1993, Macias Caballero, surveying the avifauna at Ya'altzemen, Municipality ofChi16n (17°02'N, 92°15'W, elev. 1500 m), found three more Prevost's Ground-Sparrows. She observed two at amilpa for about 10 minutes, and another was seen for about one minute, some 800 m from the first sighting, between a milpa and secondary scrub. Again, none ofthe three birds vocalized. This little-known part ofChiapas is also on the Gulf slope and is transitional between the highlands of Chiapas and the Lacandon Forest. In reviewing the literature, some of it not readily available outside of Mexico, we found conflicting and changing range descriptions for Prevost's Ground-Sparrow. Two highland records are particularly curious. Miller et al. (1957) listed not only the Pacific Coast and Sierra Madre Sur de Chiapas, where Brodkorb (1939) had collected specimens, but also Tuxtla Gutierrez (16°45'N, 93°l0'N) in the north-central part of the state, and Tumbal<i (17°17'N, 92°19'N) in the northeast. In the latter case the specimen was said to have been taken at 1800 m elevation, an impossibility as a 1:50,000 scale topographic map (S.P.P. 1983) shows no elevation near Tumbahi above 15 20m. Summarizing the state's avifauna, Alvarez del Toro ( 1964) also included northeastern Chiapas, specifically Tumbala, in the range ofPrevost' s -Sparrow but made no mention of Tuxtla Gutierrez for the species. In his later work, Alvarez del Toro (1980) did not include Tuxtla Gutierrez and dropped Tumbal<i. Thus, northeastern Chiapas was not considered within the range ofthe species. He described the distribution in Chiapas only as ''Sierra Madre, desde el ' pie de las lomas hasta las zonas altas'' [Sierra Madre, from the foothills to the highlands]. We have reviewed the collection of the Institute for Natural History, San Cristobal de las Casas, where Alvarez del Toro's specimens are now housed and find no mention of specimens from either Tuxtla Gutierrez or Tumbala. TheYa' altzemen site is fewer than 30 km from Tumbala and at approximately the same elevation and habitat type, however. Thus, the sighting of Prevost's Ground-Sparrow there lends credibility to Alvarez del Toro's 1964 range statement. 47 PREVOST'S GROUND-SPARROW IN EASTERN CHIAPAS Our sightings are not the first from the Lacandon Forest. Nocedal ( 1981) reported a single sighting (21 April 1977, in shrubby second-growth) during 102 days of field work in the Lacanja Chansayab region of the Lacandon Forest. This sighting occurred only 8 to 10 km from ours and at virtually the identical time of year. Gonzalez-Garcia (1992), summarizing the avifauna of the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve of the Lacandon Forest, listed Prevost's Ground-Sparrow as resident in secondary vegetation, though poco comun [uncommon]. Curiously, he neither annotated this as a new record nor cited previously published reports. Steve N.G. Howell (1993, pers. comm.) informed us that the species is ''fairly common'' in the area around Tziscao and the Ruins of Chinkultic (16°06'N, ca. 92°45' W, elev. 1400 m). This locality is approximately midway between the Sierra Madre Sur de Chiapas of western Chiapas and the Lacandon Forest of the east. The Lacandon Forest sightings occurred at elevations signifi- cantly below those inferable from the ''highlands'' of the A.O.U. (1983). In fact, the A.O.U. 's statement has always been inadequate as it ignored the type and other specimens ofMe/ozone biarcuatum hartwegi collected at an elevation of only 150 m along the Pacific coast of Chiapas (Brodkorb 1938). More significant than their elevation, however, is the fact that the sightings in the Lacandon Forest and Ya' altzemen represent an extension of the accepted range of 100 km, and of the published range of some 200 km, toward the northeast, well away from both the Pacific slQpe and the highlands. We believe that a statement of current knowledge of the species' range in Mexico would be ''locally distributed, from 50 to 2000+ meters, in southern portions ofChiapas from the Pacific Coastal Plain and Sierra Madre del Sur, to the Eastern Highlands (Chil6n) and Lacandon Forest (Lacanja)." RESUMEN Se describen dos observaciones del Rascador patilludo (Me/ozone biarcuatum) en del Estado de Chiapas, Mexico: en las tierra bajas del este el28 de abril y el2 de mayo 1993 allado de una milpa proxima a un bosque tropical bien conservado, yen las montaftas del norte, el27 de agosto de 48 PREVOST'S GROUND-SPARROW IN EASTERN CHJAPAS 1993, en milpa tambien. Anteriormentevarias referencias han considerado el rango de esta especie en Chiapas en las tierras altas y Sierra Madre ademas de la vertiente del Pacifico del Estado. Existen escasos reportes de la especie para las regiones aqui descrita, dos de los cuales parecen problematicos; sin embargo uno de estos no esta muy lejos de los que aqui se reportan. Estas observaciones representan una extension de 200 km al noreste de la distribuci6n publicada de la especie y ademas a una altitud muchomasbajaqueladescritaporelA.O.U. Enbaseaestasobservaciones, se propone una descripci6n actualizada del rango en Chiapas. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We thank K'in Bor and his family for their hospitality in Lacanja and for their interest in conservation of the Lacandon forest. Eduardo Espinosa Medinilla graciously granted us permission to review the catalog of the Institute for Natural History's specimen collection. Emesto Ruelas Inzunza and SteveN. G. Howell offered helpful comments on earlier versions of the manuscript. Duncan is grateful to the Trustees of the University of Maine System for providing support during a sabbatical leave. LITERATURE CITED Alvarez del Toro, M. 1964. Lista de las aves de Chiapas. Tuxtla Gutierrez, Chiapas, Mexico, Instituto de Ciencias y Artes de Chiapas. Alvarez del Toro, M. 1980. Las aves de Chiapas, 2da. ed. Tuxtla Gutierrez, Chiapas, Mexico, Univ.