IN-BIRD for Thursday, January 31, 2002

Messages are displayed in the order they were received.  Subject  From  Time   Re: forest birds in Indiana   Moore Jeffrey    10:43am   ADMIN: IN-BIRD will be moving to a new home   Phil Kelly    5:25pm   Askins' forest birds   Beth Misner and Barn   8:27pm

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Subject: Re: forest birds in Indiana
From: Moore Jeffrey <merlin46783(AT)YAHOO.COM>
Date: 31 Jan 2002 10:43am

Barny,
    I like this little quiz.  The keys are "forest"
and "not Texas".
I think I have 3 of them,
Worm-eating Warbler
Cerulean Warbler
Scarlet Tanager

   Blue-winged and Golden-winged Warblers are
canidates but I am not sure you would consider them
'forest' birds. Could one of these be your 5th
species?
   Several other warblers, (Kentucky, Pine, Hooded,
Louisiana Waterthrush, as well as Acadian FC are close
but their ranges sneak into Texas.

My guess for the two extinct are Carolina Parakeet and
Bachman's Warbler (at least I consider it extinct, I
am not sure of the official status).  I am guessing a
couple more of the other seven are Bachman's Sparrow
and Red-cockaded Woodpecker (Pine forest of E-Texas on
east).

Looking forward to when the 'teacher' gives out the
answers :-)

Jeff Moore
Roanoke, IN

> So, your homework for today is: what are the 4
> Indiana species that Askins
> identifies as endemic to eastern forests?  Here is a
> hint - of the remaining
> 7 species, two are extinct.
>
> Barny
> misner1(AT)gte.net

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Subject: ADMIN:  IN-BIRD will be moving to a new home
From: Phil Kelly <phil(AT)PJKELLY.NET>
Date: 31 Jan 2002 5:25pm

Hello IN-BIRDers,

The folks at National Audubon Society got a very nasty surprise late last week.

The company that currently provides them with listserv service (the
computers and software that make this list function) decided to
unilaterally increase their prices for ALL of the lists that NAS
runs.  This company raised their prices last year and NAS absorbed the
charges, which were $25 per month, per list.  The new price schedule that
the company will be implementing on February 1 is incredible!

 From the NAS Listowner's notice:
 >>>>>>>>begin quote<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
"Effective FEBRUARY 1, 2002, the price for your service will increase from
$25/month per list to $50-200/month per list, depending on the number of
participants for each of your lists.  The new pricing matrix is as follows:

Participants Per List
1-100  $50.00  Max. size 128KB, Maximum of 25 messages per day

101-200  $100.00  Max. size 128KB, Max. msg 25 per day

201-500  $200.00  Max. size 64KB, Max. msg 25 per day"
 >>>>>>>>>>end of quote<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

As you can see, IN-BIRD would now cost NAS $200 per month (we have 396
subscribers).  Consequently NAS can't afford to continue to provide this
type of service and they have asked all listowners to find new homes for
all their lists.  The timing is unfortunate, since NAS won't even have a
board meeting until March, so the department heads are forced to act now,
before their entire budgets are consumed.

The NAS department heads have been trying to find alternatives to help out
the list owners and are also somewhat dismayed over what has occurred.  The
person in charge of the budget that has been covering IN-BIRD costs has
contacted me several times over the past few days with assistance in
finding IN-BIRD a new home.  She has also assured me that this issue will
come up at the NAS board meeting in March.

I am pursuing a move of the list, INCLUDING ALL THE ARCHIVES to a new
home.  Hopefully this will be accomplished with minimal of interruption to
each of you.

Regardless, there will be a new set of email addresses to POST and
SUBSCRIBE, and a new URL to view the archives.  I will try to automatically
re-subscribe each of you at the new location and will send out a
notification via this list when the new location has been determined and is
functional.

Stay tuned for updates.  Please contact me directly if you have suggestions
regarding this move.

Good Birding!

--
Phil Kelly
phil(AT)pjkelly.net                                Kokomo, Indiana, USA


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Subject: Askins' forest birds
From: Beth Misner and Barny Dunning <misner1(AT)gte.net>
Date: 31 Jan 2002 8:27pm

The answer to my question yesterday could be disputed. I reported that in
Restoring North America's Birds, Robert Askins stated that only 11 species
that are endemic to the eastern forests (he defines that as species
restricted to the "forests of eastern USA and southeastern Canada, and the
pine forests of the SE USA").  He specifically says that it is surprising so
few species are restricted to this area. His 11 species include only 4 that
are regular breeders in Indiana, and I asked people to think of what those 4
species might be.

The answers: Chuck-will's-widow, Carolina Chickadee, Worm-eating Warbler,
and Yellow-throated Warbler are found in Indiana as breeders. A fifth
species on his list was Fish Crow, which barely gets into Indiana but I
don't normally think of it as a "forest" species.  His list of 11 also
includes Swainson's Warbler, which I don't believe breeds regularly in the
state, but I could be wrong there.

The other 5 species on his list are either extinct or endemic to the
southern pines: Bachman's Warbler, Carolina Parakeet, Red-cockaded
Woodpecker, Bachman's Sparrow and Brown-headed Nuthatch.  He acknowledges
another 17 species have "75% of their range within the eastern forests" but
does not list them. He did state that Ivory-billed Woodpecker and Passenger
Pigeon fall into this last group.

With some prompting by Liz Day and others, I looked at the range maps in the
Sibley Guide, and I don't see how he came up with the list.  Some species
like Tufted Titmouse and Carolina Wren make it down into Mexico, so they
don't make the grade. Others go too far north or west into Canada. But how
does Cerulean, Hooded, and Kentucky Warblers or Scarlet Tanager not make the
list?  Some of these are discussed in a later chapter but they seem to fit
his definition. And Yellow-throated Warbler and Carolina Chickadee seem to
go pretty far into central Texas. Plus Yellow-throated Warbler has
subspecies in the Caribbean.  Hmmmm...

The statement is made a certain context. Some people have reportedly argued
that deforestation cannot be a major problem because we eliminated most of
the eastern forest around the late 1800s, but "only" 4 species went extinct.
According to Askins calculations, the number that went extinct is about what
you would expect given the number of endemic birds and the proportion of the
forest area that was cleared. I haven't checked to see how his argument
stands up if the number of endemics is larger.

Barny
misner1(AT)gte.net