Vol. 19 No. 3 (1988)

In light of newly available information and the recent trend toward considering the Black-vented Shearwater (Puffinus opisthomelas) and its close relatives as distinct species—not subspecies of the Manx Shearwater (Puffinus puffinus)—it seems appropriate to summarize current knowledge of the Black-vented Shearwater's biology.

During the 19th century, there were periodic reports of White-faced Ibises (Plegadis chihi) in Oregon. Most of the records were from the Harney Basin in Harney County (Jobanek 1987). In 1908, W. L. Finley and H. T. Bohlman were the first to document the species breeding in Oregon, recording a colony of 500 ibises on Malheur Lake in the Harney Basin (Finley 1908). Extreme drought during the 1930s severely reduced this colony, and no ibises at all nested in some years.

In the late afternoon of 2 November 1985, Trochet heard the quiet tapping of a woodpecker. He was hiking along the South Fork of Pine Creek, about 2½ miles from the Pine Creek trailhead in the South Warner Wilderness area of the Warner Mountains, Modoc County, extreme northeastern California. Trochet traced the tapping to its source and was surprised to discover a male Three-toed Woodpecker (Picoides tridactylus). The bird was working the north side of a large White Fir (Abies concolor), 30–35 feet above the ground, and was easily approached as it probed on broken branch stubs with a heavy growth of lichen.

In its notice of Rulemaking Actions proposing the listing of both the Least Bell’s Vireo (Vireo bellii pusillus) and the Arizona Bell’s Vireo (V. b. arizonae) as endangered species, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (1980) attributed the birds' decline in California both to loss of habitat and to parasitism by Brown-headed Cowbirds (Molothrus ater). As I recalled my casual observations of the Arizona Bell’s Vireo from 1976 to 1978, they did not indicate heavy parasitism by cowbirds.

The Southern or Slender-billed Fulmar (Fulmarus glacialoides) has variously been on primary (American Ornithologists' Union [A.O.U.] 1910, 1983) or hypothetical (A.O.U. 1931, 1957) lists of North American birds. Its fluctuating status results both from acceptance versus rejection of particular records and from the recent expansion of the A.O.U. Check-list's geographic coverage to include Mexico and Central America. One searching those lists will note that the bird has also been treated under the genus Priocella and the specific name antarctica.

The Ring-billed Gull (Larus delawarensis) is a common winter resident throughout Nevada but is not known to breed in the state (Conover 1983, Ryser 1985). According to the A.O.U. Check-list (1983), the breeding range of the Ring-billed Gull in western North America extends from the northwestern United States and prairie regions of Canada south to northeastern California (Honey Lake), south-central Idaho, south-central Colorado, southeastern Wyoming, and northeastern South Dakota (Waubay Lake).