Derek,

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As the main person who has kept track of rare bird sightings in Metro Vancouver since the 1960s, I can give a very definite answer to your question. It is an unqualified YES! Since May 4^th this year, there have been 14 reports of Dusky Flycatcher in our area, which is an all-time high. (All of these were single birds, and it doesn’t include the birds your team banded). A normal number of sightings would be 1 to 5 in a year, almost all of them in May.? By most definitions, this is rare, especially because it is very unusual to find more than one Dusky Flycatcher at once.

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All or nearly all of this year’s sightings were by experienced and capable birders, and/or were photographed. It looks like an abnormally high number of Duskies migrated west of the Cascades this year. You can see a list of the dates and locations of these sightings on the “Vancouver Rare Bird Alert” webpage, maintained by Melissa Hafting. It is at this location:

. From the top of the listing, scroll down about 3 screens and you will find the list of all the recent Dusky Flycatcher sightings.

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Dusky Flycatcher is an abundant breeding bird in the BC Southern Interior. (I have run a BBS route near Merritt since 1974, and the first year I surveyed it, I recorded 44 Dusky Flycatchers— the commonest bird on the route!) However, the species does not breed west of the Cascades, and is consistently a rare migrant, more in spring that fall. The status of Dusky Flycatchers in Seattle, WA and Portland, OR is pretty much the same as around Vancouver.

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As you know, Dusky Flycatcher is very difficult to identify in the field, especially from Hammond’s, which is common here. As you say, the wing formula of the two is different, making it possible to reliably identify them in the hand.? Even after 60 years of birding experience, I often have difficulty separating these two on visual characters alone. However, the songs and call-notes of these two are quite different, and make it easy to separate them IF they are vocalizing. I first recorded Dusky Flycatchers in the field (by their call-notes) in our area at Pitt Meadows in 1972, and I usually manage to find one or two myself every spring.

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Even though I’ve rarely visited the Colony Farm banding station, I am well aware of the work that you and your cooperators are doing. This work is very important and valuable, and documenting records of rare and accidental species, even if it’s a tiny part of the work you do, is important nonetheless.

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Can you give us the dates of Dusky Flycatchers you’ve banded this year? I gather that each time it was a single bird, except for today.

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Keep up the outstanding work you are doing at VARC!!

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Wayne Weber, Ph.D.

Delta, BC

contopus@...

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Hi Vanbirders!

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Are there any Empid experts out there who have noticed a lot of Dusky Flycatchers in the lower mainland this spring?

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For us as banders with birds in the hand, we can fairly easily separate Dusky from Hammond’s based on wing morphology. This spring, along with a good number of Hammond’s, we have banded multiple Dusky Flys and this morning banded two Dusky along with several Hammond’s.

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This is highly unusual for us; we normally catch the odd Dusky in Spring, and treat it as an uncommon if not rare bird here, but not multiple birds and never two in the same morning!

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I was just wondering if anyone has noticed an increase or had any thoughts?

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Thanks!

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Derek

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