Checklist of the Rare Birds of the Vancouver Area: Casual and Accidental Records May 1, 2018: 3rd Revised Edition by Rick Toochin, Paul Levesque, Jamie Fenneman, and David Baker. Comments? Contact E-Fauna BC The following list contains records of Casual and Accidental birds recorded in the Vancouver Checklist Area. The Checklist Area covers Greater Vancouver and its vicinity from the International Boundary, (but including Point Roberts, Washington) north to 49’ 35’ N (including Furry Creek), west to the middle of the Strait of Georgia and Howe Sound (including Bowen Island), east to 122’ 33’ W (Bradner Road & 288th St.) in Abbotsford, Aldergrove and Maple Ridge, but including all of Golden Ears Provincial Park. The Vancouver Checklist has a total of 422 species, 170 breeding species, 149 species seen less than once per year with 10 introduced and 9 extirpated species. Confirmed records appear first and are documented either by photographs, specimens, tape recordings or by written field notes (FN). Accepted records seen by a single observer are treated as a sight record (sr). There are 30 species on the list that are under the category of Hypothetical because they are either currently under review or haven’t fully been documented as a definitive record in the region. Below each species name is a list of records showing confirmed records then any Hypothetical records for that species. The casual and accidental records listed include historical records, including specimens, cited observations, photographed records and accepted sightings found in the literature about BC Birds. This List is a general synopsis of occurrence and should be interpreted as such. Where there are more than 20 records of a particular species, I have tried to add a little extra information. I wish to thank the hard work of the following people who compiled information over the past decades and made researching this list possible: Bill Hughes, R. Wayne Campbell, Mike Shepard, John Toochin, Bruce MacDonald, Wayne Weber, Brian Kautesk, Richard Cannings, Michael Force, Doug Kragh, John Dorsey, Tom Plath, Brian Self, Alexis Harrington and John Chandler. I wish to thank past and present members of Nature Vancouver (Vancouver Natural History Society), local, and out-of-town birders who have contributed sightings over the decades. These people made the creation of this document possible. I would also like to acknowledge the help of George Clulow and Eric Greenwood for without their help this document could not have been completed. It was also critical having the late Brian Kautesk’s field journals and copies of the Iona Island sightings log books from 1970 to the present where many credible observations have been made over the decades. A huge thenk-you to George Clulow and Tom Plath for giving me access to all the Vancouver Natural History Society’s digital archival bird record information. A list of references and a complete list of contributors to this list are provided at the end of the document. If you have any comments, additional observations or questions please e-mail me. Rare Species to Annual Species in the Vancouver Checklist Area: The following species are rare in the Vancouver Checklist Area. There is usually at least one report a year and in some years multiple sightings. There are a few species that have historically bred or still do breed locally in the Checklist Area. An asterisks* mark these species. Many of the species on this list occur in a narrow time period making them hard to find and often in a very selective habitat. These birds should always be documented when encountered, as they are rare at any time of year in the Vancouver Checklist Area. Species List: American Black Duck* Western Gull House Wren* Redhead Glaucous Gull Mountain Bluebird* Tufted Duck Black Tern* Northern Mockingbird Ruffed Grouse* Yellow-billed Loon Bohemian Waxwing Eurasian Collared-Dove* American White Pelican Pine Grosbeak Calliope Hummingbird Brown Pelican Gray-crowned Rosy-Finch American Avocet* Great Egret Common Redpoll Pacific Golden Plover Cattle Egret White-winged Crossbill Long-billed Curlew Northern Goshawk* Lapland Longspur Hudsonian Godwit Golden Eagle Snow Bunting Marbled Godwit Spotted Owl* American Tree Sparrow Red Knot Lewis’ Woodpecker* Chipping Sparrow* Ruff Red-naped Sapsucker Clay-colored Sparrow Sharp-tailed Sandpiper Three-toed Woodpecker* Vesper Sparrow* Stilt Sandpiper Gyrfalcon Swamp Sparrow Rock Sandpiper Least Flycatcher* Harris’ Sparrow Buff-breasted Sandpiper Dusky Flycatcher Rusty Blackbird Wandering Tattler Say’s Phoebe Northern Waterthrush Willet Ash-throated Flycatcher Black-and-White Warbler Pomarine Jaeger Western Kingbird* Nashville Warbler Long-tailed Jaeger Blue Jay American Redstart* Ancient Murrelet Horned Lark* Palm Warbler Black-legged Kittiwake Mountain Chickadee Lazuli Bunting* Sabine’s Gull Heermann’s Gull List on Document of Accidental / Casual Species The following species are considered casual or accidental in the Vancouver Checklist Area. These species are very unusual to the region. To be considered a species of accidental occurrence there has only been 1 record in total or in a given season. To be considered a species of casual occurrence there have been between 2-10 records historically, often occurring at a particular time of year, but they occur less than once or in some cases a few times in a ten year period. In the case of an accidental species there is often only a single record or at most a couple of records with the occurrences of a species going several decades or much longer before reoccurring. These species are considered extremely unusual in the Vancouver area and are always in need of documentation. There are a few species that have historically bred, but are now extirpated from the Vancouver Checklist Area (or in other words extinct in the local region). An asterisks * followed by a [X] symbol after the birds name define which birds fall in this category. In a few cases there were species introduced to the Vancouver Checklist Area and for a time were successful. These species also have an [I] beside them marking that they were introduced to the region. In some cases there are species that are suspected to be breeding or have bred in the past in the region, but to date there has been no nest found. These species 2 have an asterisk in brackets (*) after the species name. For any casual or accidental species to be put on this list they are considered far out of range, extremely rare in the defined Vancouver Checklist Area or in a few cases the species were once easily found in our region, but due to ecological changes are now almost impossible to find in the region. These birds should always be documented when encountered, as they are extremely unusual at any time of year in the Vancouver Checklist Area. Species List: Emperor Goose Long-tailed Jaeger Yellow-bellied Flycatcher Smith’s Longspur Ross’s Goose Cassin’s Auklet Alder Flycatcher McCown’s Longspur Baikal Teal Tufted Puffin Least Flycatcher McKay’s Bunting Garganey Black-legged Kittiwake Gray Flycatcher Rustic Bunting King Eider Ivory Gull Dusky Flycatcher Green-tailed Towhee Common Eider Sabine’s Gull Black Phoebe Clay-colored Sparrow Smew Black-headed Gull Eastern Phoebe Brewer’s Sparrow Rock Ptarmigan Little Gull Ash-throated Flycatcher Lark Sparrow White-tailed Ptarmigan Ross’s Gull Tropical Kingbird Black-throated Sparrow Clark’s Grebe Laughing Gull Scissor-tailed Flycatcher Sagebrush Sparrow Oriental Turtle-Dove Iceland Gull (lumped with Thayer’s) Loggerhead Shrike Lark Bunting White-winged Dove Lesser Black-backed Gull Blue-headed Vireo Grasshopper Sparrow Yellow-billed Cuckoo Slaty-backed Gull Philadelphia Vireo Baird’s Sparrow Black-billed Cuckoo Arctic Tern Yellow-green Vireo Le Conte’s Sparrow Lesser Nighthawk Forster’s Tern Blue Jay Nelson’s Sparrow Common Poorwill Elegant Tern California Scrub-Jay Yellow-breasted Chat Chimney Swift Arctic Loon Clark’s Nutcracker Bobolink White-throated Swift Laysan Albatross Black-billed Magpie Hooded Oriole House Swift Black-footed Albatross Sky Lark Baltimore Oriole Ruby-throated Hummingbird Northern Fulmar Cave Swallow Common Grackle Black-chinned Hummingbird Short-tailed Shearwater Boreal Chickadee Great-tailed Grackle Costa’s Hummingbird Sooty Shearwater White-breasted Nuthatch Ovenbird Yellow Rail Black-vented Shearwater Pygmy Nuthatch Golden-winged Warbler Common Gallinule Fork-tailed Storm-Petrel Rock Wren Black-and-white Warbler Black-necked Stilt Leach’s Storm-Petrel Winter Wren Prothonotary Warbler Lesser Sand-Plover Magnificent Frigatebird Sedge Wren Tennessee Warbler Snowy Plover Brown Booby Blue-gray Gnatcatcher Virginia’s Warbler Piping Plover American White Pelican Red-flanked Bluetail Mourning Warbler Mountain Plover Brown Pelican Northern Wheatear Hooded Warbler Upland Sandpiper Least Bittern Western Bluebird Northern Parula Bristle-thighed Curlew Snowy Egret Veery Magnolia Warbler Little Curlew Intermediate Egret Dusky Thrush Blackburnian Warbler Far Eastern Curlew White-faced Ibis Fieldfare Chestnut-sided Warbler Bar-tailed Godwit Black Vulture (Escapee) Redwing Blackpoll Warbler Great Knot White-tailed Kite Brown Thrasher Black-throated Blue Warbler Curlew Sandpiper Broad-winged Hawk Sage Thrasher Palm Warbler Temminck’s Stint Swainson’s Hawk Northern Mockingbird Hermit Warbler Long-toed Stint Flammulated Owl Phainopepla Black-throated Green Warbler Spoon-billed Sandpiper Northern Hawk-Owl Siberian Accentor Canada Warbler Red-necked Stint Burrowing Owl Eastern Yellow Wagtail Painted Redstart Little Stint Spotted Owl Gray Wagtail Summer Tanager White-rumped Sandpiper Great Gray Owl White Wagtail Scarlet Tanager American Woodcock Boreal Owl Red-throated Pipit Rose-breasted Grosbeak Spotted Redshank Acorn Woodpecker Brambling Indigo Bunting Wood Sandpiper Williamson’s Sapsucker Cassin’s Finch Painted Bunting Red Phalarope Yellow-bellied Sapsucker Hoary Redpoll Dickcissel South Polar Skua Black-backed Woodpecker Lesser Goldfinch Pomarine Jaeger Prairie Falcon Chestnut-collared Longspur 3 Species List: Emperor Goose (Chen canagica): [Casual in the late Fall and Winter: Accidental Summer: Photographed ] 1. (2) adult / immature November, 1922: R.A.