elaenia

[Cin-Ty]

An elaenia was found today in south texas by Dan Jones. There has been only one previous record of elaenia (Greenish) in the United States.

here are the photos of this remarkable find!

http://spinaturecenter.com/blog/

what elaenia is it? any thoughts?

[Alex Lees]

An elaenia was found today in south texas by Dan Jones. There has been only one previous record of elaenia (Greenish) in the United States. here are the photos of this remarkable find!

http://spinaturecenter.com/blog/

what elaenia is it? any thoughts?

wow, what a mega. Lets start with what is obvious, this is a first for the ABA region. It clearly isn't Greenish (Myiopagis viridicata) which has occured previously (http://www.texasbirds.org/tbrc/gelaenia.htm) and although somone mooted Yellow-bellied (Elaenia flavogaster)(which breeds closer than any other Elaenia), this bird is clearly either White-crested (Elaenia albiceps) or Small-billed (Elaenia parvirostris). Has anyone taped it vocalising? Both of these species are long-distance austral migrants wintering in northern South America. However this bird should be on its summer breeding grounds in southern South America at the moment, so its occurence is all the more amazing.

So which one is it? I have some field experience of both candidate taxa from their winter quarters in the Amazon basin; the combination of a ragged, permanently exposed crest, no lesser-covert bar and underpart colouration suggest White-crested rather than Small-billed. However identification criteria and species limits in this group are far from resolved....

Alex

[Chris Benesh]

Hi All,

This is a remarkable record. There has been a lot of traffic on the Texas listserv and I agree with the consensus building that this is a White-crested Elaenia. It makes sense that it would be one of the potential vagrant Austral migrants (spectabilis, albiceps chilensis, parvirostris, or strepera). Of those candidates, the chilensis form of White-crested seems the best fit for the the bird's appearance.

I mainly wanted to pointed out that the Greenish Elaenia record for Texas is not, in fact, the only elaenia record in the United States (and ABA area). There was a true Elaenia photographed in Florida on April 28, 1984 that was believed to be a Caribbean Elaenia (not universally accepted as a Caribbean, but clearly an Elaenia).

I wish I could be there to see this remarkable find firsthand.

Chris

[Alex Lees]

I mainly wanted to pointed out that the Greenish Elaenia record for Texas is not, in fact, the only elaenia record in the United States (and ABA area). There was a true Elaenia photographed in Florida on April 28, 1984 that was believed to be a Caribbean Elaenia (not universally accepted as a Caribbean, but clearly an Elaenia).
Chris

The record from NW Florida has been accepted per the ABA checklist (http://www.americanbirding.org/checklist/abachecklist.pdf)

cheers

Alex

[Chris Benesh]

The record from NW Florida has been accepted per the ABA checklist (http://www.americanbirding.org/checklist/abachecklist.pdf)

Thanks Alex,

That's right. It was the AOU that did not completely acknowledge the record in its most recent checklist. The AOU 7th edition states "a report from northwestern Florida (near Pensacola), based on photographs (not definitive) and descriptions of vocalizations, very likely pertains to this species [martinica group]."

Also, I noticed Brian's comments in another thread (rare bird) about distinguishing between Small-billed and White-crested elaenias. I have a little (getting ancient) experience with White-crested and essentially none with Small-billed (other than examining photos and specimens). My own impressions jive with those of Alex (stated in his post and reiterated below). At least my novice impression is that Small-billed looks quite round-headed typically, without much evident crest, whereas White-crested quite typically looks rather crested. Also, it seems like the coronal patch is typically somewhat concealed in Small-billed while rather exposed in White-crested. Further, Small-billed is meant to be one of the Elaenia with pale-tipped lesser secondary coverts, whereas those of White-crested are not (or not strongly so). The lesser coverts of the Texas Elaenia are not strongly contrasting (see image with wing held up over body).

How do these differences jive with the impressions of those with more experience than my own? I'm sure with the amount of talented birders with South American experience, that the Texas bird can be (if it isn't already) conclusively identified.

Chris

[AndyB]

General consensus from birders on site seems to be White-crested but there is some debate still and now noises about trapping it. If I was to make the long trip out there, that latter option would make me nervous. Here's a collection of links to photos from this weekend

http://antshrike.blogspot.com/
http://outdoors.webshots.com/photo/2348757010048489912vgMGzz
http://www.otterside.com/winter2008/index.htm#Elaenia
http://miriameaglemon.com/photogallery/Rio%20Grande%20Valley%20Birds.htm

[Chris Benesh]

Hi All,

The documentation on this rarity has been superb! Martin Reid just posted additional images and a sound file with three call notes on his site (http://www.martinreid.com/Main%20website/wcelaenia.html). I made a spectrogram (attached below) comparing his recorded call notes with two samples from a chilensis White-crested Elaenia from the Xeno Canto site (http://www.xeno-canto.org/sounds/uploaded/KOIEAHGHNX/04/b09a.mp3). It looks like a pretty good vocal match.

Chris

[Brian S]

Chris

Checking my video again, I can see the round-headedness of Small-billed you note and the less prominent white - though not on all is the lesser covert bar obvious. As I suspected I would go down the wrong route, but I was close.
The spectrograms look a very good match and it would be hard to argue against those.

Was the AOU cautious because the Caribbean Elaenia was not recorded? Were the photographs poor?

Thanks to you and Alex.

Brian S

[Chris Benesh]

Was the AOU cautious because the Caribbean Elaenia was not recorded? Were the photographs poor?

Hi Brian,

I've never read the original report. I think that the bird was well seen and heard. The voice was described and a couple of images were obtained, but no audio recordings were obtained. One image is here (http://www.fosbirds.org/photoarc/UF_MUs/84-063.jpg). 1984 was the dark ages when it came to elaenia identification, and the tools available to document it were so much more limited.

The July/August 2007 Birding magazine discussed this record again recently. While accepted by ABA, this species, though originally accepted by some Florida authorities, it was recently removed from the FOSRC state list. See this (http://www.americanbirding.org/pubs/birding/archives/vol39no4p22to26.pdf) for details (also includes same image as above).

Chris

[Alex Lees]

Hi Brian,

I've never read the original report. I think that the bird was well seen and heard. The voice was described and a couple of images were obtained, but no audio recordings were obtained. One image is here (http://www.fosbirds.org/photoarc/UF_MUs/84-063.jpg). 1984 was the dark ages when it came to elaenia identification, and the tools available to document it were so much more limited.

The July/August 2007 Birding magazine discussed this record again recently. While accepted by ABA, this species, though originally accepted by some Florida authorities, it was recently removed from the FOSRC state list. See this (http://www.americanbirding.org/pubs/birding/archives/vol39no4p22to26.pdf) for details (also includes same image as above).

Chris

Cheers Chris, top stuff. I have some recordings of chilensis from its wintering grounds, I tried to attach them here but .wav files are not a recognised file format (technically a sonogram of an mp3 file can be misleading - owing to the compression process associated with this file format, but, considering that the differences are not that subtle I guess it doesn't matter). I can convert it this evening to mp3.

So, the next question is to speculate on how it came to be in Texas, the species range map can be found here (http://www.natureserve.org/infonatura/servlet/InfoNatura?searchSciOrCommonName=white-crested+elaenia). If one ignores the resident races (species?) in the Andes, and assume that the birds breeding furthest north also winter the furthest north then Texas does lie on an overshoot course from wintering grounds in NW South America (say central Colombia). Maybe this bird did not switch off its endogenous clock which controls its migratory urges? It has after all appeared a linear distance of 3,300km from its nearest known wintering areas (3,900km overland). I find this explanation more parsimonious than the alternative - that the bird is a nominal 'reverse migrant' and having successfully wintered somewhere, it then flew in the wrong direction, i.e. away from its point of origin. This would imply that although it completed its first migration successfully, it then failed to return home on the route it came, and this can't be attributed to some basic abnormality (such as a polarity mistake).

For any Eurocentric birders who may be yawning by now, this seems a good time to point out that austral migrants such as Dark-billed Cuckoos, austral elaenias and Fork-tailed Flycatchers are candidate vagrants to the Western Pal - who's going to try Cape Verde?

Alex

[Alex Lees]

I've attached a cut of chilensis from the Serra dos Caiabis (N. Mato Grosso State), Brazil, recorded in June 2006.

[Alex Lees]

So, the next question is to speculate on how it came to be in Texas, the species range map can be found here (http://www.natureserve.org/infonatura/servlet/InfoNatura?searchSciOrCommonName=white-crested+elaenia). If one ignores the resident races (species?) in the Andes, and assume that the birds breeding furthest north also winter the furthest north then Texas does lie on an overshoot course from wintering grounds in NW South America (say central Colombia). Maybe this bird did not switch off its endogenous clock which controls its migratory urges? It has after all appeared a linear distance of 3,300km from its nearest known wintering areas (3,900km overland). I find this explanation more parsimonious than the alternative - that the bird is a nominal 'reverse migrant' and having successfully wintered somewhere, it then flew in the wrong direction, i.e. away from its point of origin. This would imply that although it completed its first migration successfully, it then failed to return home on the route it came, and this can't be attributed to some basic abnormality (such as a polarity mistake).

For any Eurocentric birders who may be yawning by now, this seems a good time to point out that austral migrants such as Dark-billed Cuckoos, austral elaenias and Fork-tailed Flycatchers are candidate vagrants to the Western Pal - who's going to try Cape Verde?


Maybe, this debate can be re-energised now a record of Fork-tailed Flycatcher has seemingly come out of the blue and been accepted onto the Spanish A List! See here (http://www.ardeola.org/pubs/54%282%29/405-446?lang=en)

Alex

[AndyB]

Holy *%*@#!