Zoology Commons^™

Endemicity And Regiona[L] Biodiversity In Nebraska's Breedin[G] Avifauna, Paul A. Johnsgard

Nebraska Bird Review

I estimate that 215 bird species currently breed or have previously bred in Nebraska. This number compares with a total of 330 species that breed or have bred in the Great Plains region south of Canada, as I defined that region in my book on the breeding birds of the Great Plains (Johnsgard, 1979).

Grasslands or potential grasslands make up about 81 percent of the Great Plains' vegetation, and probably represented about 96 percent of Nebraska's original vegetation. Only in the Sandhills region is that vegetation type still essentially intact; the tall-grass prairie of eastern Nebraska is Virtually gone. In …

Parasitic Jaeger At Lake Mcconaughy, Stephen J. Dinsmore, W. Ross Silcock

Nebraska Bird Review

On 5 October, 1997, we joined Joel G. Jorgensen and John Sullivan for a pelagic trip on Lake McConaughy. A similar trip in late September 1996 yielded a Sabine's Gull, but we were really hoping to see a jaeger. From 7:00 to 8:30 a.m. we gradually worked our way from the dam towards the western end of the lake. Besides moderate numbers of Franklin's and Ring-billed Gulls, there were few birds on the lake. At approximately 8:45 a.m. Dinsmore noticed that all of the gulls at the western end of the lake had suddenly taken flight. Less than a minute …

Nebraska Bird Review (December 1998) 66(4), Whole Issue

Nebraska Bird Review

In Memorium: Harvey L. Gunderson … 114

Parasitic Jaeger at Lake McConaughy … 114

Endemicity and Regional Biodiversity in Nebraska's Breeding Avifauna … 115

Fall Field Report: Introduction … 121

Fall Field Report: Species Accounts … 123

1997 (Ninth) Report of the NOU Records Committee … 147

Bird Banding Notes … 159

Index for Volume 66 … 160

Masthead And Table Of Contents [December 1998]

Nebraska Bird Review

The Nebraska Bird Review is published quarterly by the Nebraska Ornithologists' Union, Inc., as its official journal, and is sent to members not in arrears of dues. Annual subscription rates (on a calendar-year basis only): $14.00 in the United States; $18.00 for all foreign countries, payable in advance. Single copies are $4.00 each, postpaid, in the United States, and $5.00 elsewhere. Send orders for back issues to Mary Lou Pritchard, NOU Librarian, University of Nebraska State Museum, Lincoln, NE 68588-0514.

Memberships in NOU (on a calendar year basis only): Active, $15.00; Sustaining, $25.00; Student, $10.00; Family Active, $20.00; Family Sustaining,$30.00; …

Table Of Contents And Masthead [September 1998]

Nebraska Bird Review

The Nebraska Bird Review is published quarterly by the Nebraska Ornithologists' Union, Inc., as its official journal, and is sent to members not in arrears of dues. Annual subscription rates (on a calendar-year basis only): $14.00 in the United States; $18.00 for all foreign countries, payable in advance. Single copies are $4.00 each, postpaid, in the United States, and $5.00 elsewhere. Send orders for back issues to Mary Lou Prichard, NOU Librarian, University of Nebraska State Museum, Lincoln, NE 68588-0514.

Memberships in NOU (on a calendar year basis only): Active, $15.00; Sustaining, $25.00; Student, $10.00; Family Active, $20.00; Family Sustaining,$30.00; …

Bald Eagle Counts At Two Facilities Owned And Operated By The Central Nebraska Public Power And Irrigation District, Mark M. Peyton, Rodger Knaggs

Nebraska Bird Review

Since 1988 the Central Nebraska Public Power and Irrigation District (Central) has provided, free to the public, a bald eagle viewing facility in its Johnson #2 Hydroelectric Plant south of Lexington, Dawson County, and since 1990 a facility near the outlet of the Kingsley Hydroelectric Plant at Lake Ogallala in Keith County.

Central provides binoculars and viewing scopes at both locations as well as personnel to answer questions and provide assistance. These individuals also conducted daily eagle surveys at the facilities.

1998 Midwinter Eagle Survey For Nebraska Including Summary Tables For The 1980-1998 Period From The Nebraska Game And Parks Commission, John J. Dinan

Nebraska Bird Review

Mild temperatures were prevalent in the weeks prior to this year's survey; however, temperatures cold enough to form a thin layer of ice on some reservoirs and lakes occurred between aerial surveys. Three of the aerial surveys were conducted on the 6th and 7th of January and one was conducted on the 13th. The survey route that includes the Platte River from Kearney to Plattsmouth and the Loup River was not surveyed this year because of persistent foggy conditions.

Temperatures recorded during the 1998 survey were variable, ranging from 5 to 40 degrees F. The Niobrara River was 50 to …

Book Review: Baby Bird Portraits By George Miksch Sutton: Watercoiors In The Field Museum By Johnsgard, P. A. (1998), John J. Janovy Jr.

Nebraska Bird Review

George M. Sutton's baby bird portraits are his most captivating works. The subjects are isolated against a stark, raw-paper background, and they stare out at the viewer with eyes typically naive but alert. Sutton's artistic mastery of the foot is integral to the underlying biology in these pictures: sturdy and sure against the table for a ruffed grouse, curled inward and near useless for a gallinule on dry land, and almost casually clutching a twig, the hallux resting loosely, for a newly fledged grosbeak. The match between these pictures and Paul Johnsgard's text is perfect. In his first two paragraphs, …

"A Half-Century Of Winter Bird Surveys At Lincoln And Scottsbluff, Nebraska", Paul A. Johnsgard

Nebraska Bird Review

Since 1900, the National Audubon Society has sponsored annual "Christmas bird counts" during the two-week period encompassing Christmas; and as a result, long-term data on winter bird populations have accumulated, especially for some locations. The first two such counts in Nebraska were made in 1909 and in 1912 in Lincoln. While similar counts were made in Omaha from 1909 to 1911, no further counts were conducted elsewhere in the state until the 1940's. Beginning in 1947 and continuing to the present, an unbroken series of counts were made in Lincoln, usually by members of the University Place Bird Club, the …

Nebraska Bird Count For 1997 Addendum

Nebraska Bird Review

Site and Party Data

Observers

Total Species

Total Individuals

CW Birds

Summer Field Report, June-July, 1998, W. Ross Silcock, Joel G. Jorgensen

Nebraska Bird Review

First, some housekeeping is in order. . . . You will also notice the new order of species (AGAIN!!), reflecting the latest American Ornithologists' Union Checklist, published this spring. The most noticeable change concerns the placement of shrikes and vireos between flycatchers and corvids; but the order of species within some genera also differs, especially among the waterfowl, where, for instance, swans now follow the geese.

And now let's turn to the birds! As in most summers, many species went about their business in routine fashion, hence the notation "Routine Reports" for many.

We encourage observers to note and to …

Nebraska Bird Review (September 1998) 66(3), Whole Issue

Nebraska Bird Review

A Half Century of Winter Bird Surveys in Lincoln and Scottsbluff ... 74

Summer Field Report, June to July, 1998, Introduction ... 84

Species Accounts ... 86

Book Review: Baby Bird Portraits by George Miksch Sutton ... 100

1998 Midwinter Eagle Survey and Ten-Year Summary Tables ... 101

Central Nebraska Public Power Facilities Eagle Count ... 108

Nebraska Bird Count for 1997 Addendum ... 110

Bats Of The Antillean Island Of Grenada: A New Zoogeographic Perspective, Hugh H. Genoways, Carleton J. Phillips, Robert J. Baker

University of Nebraska State Museum: Mammalogy Papers

The island of Grenada is the southernmost of the Lesser Antilles, lying 130 km north of Trinidad and 135 km north of the Venezuelan mainland. It measures 34 km north to south and 19 km east to west and has an area of 312 square km. Grenada and the Grenadines northward to Bequia stand on the large submarine Grenada Bank. At 183 m depth, the bank is 179 km long. The Grenadines cover the bank to its northern end, but the bank extends for 39 km south of Grenada with no islands. During the last Ice Age, Grenada and the …

Cooperative Whooping Crane Tracking Project (February 1998-May 1998)

Nebraska Bird Review

Whooping crane spring and fall migrations are monitored each year. Sighting reports are forwarded to the Ecological Services Field Office of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife service, Grand Island, Nebraska, by private organizations, State and Federal conservation agencies, and the Canadian Wildlife Service. Cooperation throughout the whooping crane flyway continues to be excellent. Special thanks go out to each participant.

Between 1977 and 1988, 132 juvenile whooping cranes were color marked on the breeding grounds; of these 40 were accounted for during the winter of 1997–98. One color-marked crane was observed during the spring migration. All sightings of color-marked whooping …

Confirmed Spring 1998 Whooping Crane Sightings In The Usa

Nebraska Bird Review

The Nebraska Bird Review Volume 66 No. 2

Confirmed

Spring 1998 Whooping Crane Sightings in the U.S.A.

State/Obs. Date No. Location

NE 98A-1 2/15-3/25/98 1 Hall Co., Platte River, 3 mi

KS 98A-2 2/19/98 1 Meade Co., 2 mi west of Fowler.

NE 98A-3 3/23-2/9/98 1 Hall/Hamilton Cos., 4 mi.

NE 98A-4 3/27-28/98 1+ Hall Co., 4 mi. south of the

NE 98A-5 3/28-4/1/98 2 Brown Co., 1 mi. South and 1 west

NE 98A-6 3/30/98 1 Hall Co., Platte River, 1 3/4

NE 98A-7 04/03/98 1 Hall Co., 3 mi east and 2 north

NE 98A-8 04/07/98 4 +1 …

Three Poems By Twyla Hansen, Twyla Hansen

Nebraska Bird Review

Twyla Hansen was raised on a farm in northeast Nebraska on land her grandparents farmed as immigrants from Denmark in the late 1800's. And since 1982, she has worked as a horticulturist and arboretum curator at Nebraska Wesleyan University. Twyla Hansen, in the words of Bill Kloefkorn, Nebraska's State Poet, "connects": "Her truths are in those taproots without which poetry would surely expire for lack of nourishment."

She received her B.S from the University of Nebraska. Twyla and her husband Tom live in Lincoln where their yard is maintained as an urban wildlife habitat. In 1989, the Nebraska Statewide Arboretum …

In Memoriam: Charles G. Sibley, Paul A. Johnsgard

Nebraska Bird Review

On April 12 this year, Dr. Charles Sibley passed away in California. Although a Nebraskan by neither birth nor occupation, his work on hybrid zones among various passerines in the Platte Valley of central Nebraska during the 1950s became a model for modern studies in field approaches to both evolutionary biology and species-level taxonomy. His study also identified for the first time the Platte Valley as a major evolutionary "suture zone" between eastern and western avifaunas. When I arrived at Cornell in 1955, all of Dr. Sibley's graduate students were doing their fieldwork in Nebraska, collecting specimens of the various …

Nou Fall Field Days Count, 1997; May Namc Count, 1998

Nebraska Bird Review

The NOU count during Fall Field Days, September 26-28, focused on areas in and around the Nebraska National Forest and includes reports from 6 counties: Blaine, Thomas, Cherry, Brown, Custer, and Logan. This year's count of 122 species is a record for NOU Fall Field Days; last year, the count registered 116 species. Especially notable sightings included a Red-necked Grebe at Willow Lake in Brown County; a Broad-winged Hawk in the Forest; a Rough-legged Hawk in Thomas County; and a LeConte's Sparrow also at Willow Lake in Brown County.

North American Migration Counts (NAMC) for Lincoln and Sarpy Counties are …

Spring Field Report, March To May 1998, W. Ross Silcock, Joel G. Jorgensen

Nebraska Bird Review

In most respects, this was a routine spring. While a few rarities and several interesting reports appeared, perhaps most interesting was the arrival of the electronic age. Foremost was the start-up of "NEBIRDS," the Nebraska Birding Listserver set up and operated by Robert Price at Kearney. This resource should greatly enhance communication and collective learning amongst birders in the state. We have culled several reports from observations submitted to NEBIRDS, and several reporters now contact us by email. We urge observers to forward their email addresses; if we have questions on their reports, communication would be easy! Submit reports and …

Nebraska Bird Review (June 1998) 66(2), Whole Issue

Nebraska Bird Review

Spring Field Report, March to May, 1998, Introduction … 30

Species Accounts … 32

Cooperative Whooping Crane Tracking Project Report … 55

Confirmed Whooping Crane Sightings in the USA … 58

NOU Fall Field Days Count, 1997; May NAMC Count, 1998 … 60

Table for NOU Fall Count and NAMC Count … 61

In Memorium: Charles G. Sibley … 68

Three Poems by Twyla Hansen … 70

Table Of Contents And Masthead [June 1998]

Nebraska Bird Review

The Nebraska Bird Review is published quarterly in March, June, September, and December by the Nebraska Ornithologists' Union, Inc., as its official journal, and is sent to members not in arrears of dues. Annual subscription rates (on a calendar-year basis only): $14.00 in the United States; $18.00 for all foreign countries, payable in advance. Single copies are $4.00 each, postpaid, in the United States, and $5.00 elsewhere. Send orders for back issues to Mary Lou Prichard, NOU Librarian, University of Nebraska State Museum, Lincoln, NE 68588-0514.

Memberships in NOU (on a calendar year basis only): Active, $15.00; Sustaining, $25.00; Student, …

Wild Primate Populations In Emerging Infectious Disease Research: The Missing Link?, Nathan D. Wolfe, Ananias A. Escalante, William B. Karesh, Annelisa Kilbourn, Andrew Spielman, Altaf A. Lal

Harold W. Manter Laboratory of Parasitology: Library Materials

Wild primate populations, an unexplored source of information regarding emerging infectious disease, may hold valuable clues to the origins and evolution of some important pathogens. Primates can act as reservoirs for human pathogens. As members of biologically diverse habitats, they serve as sentinels for surveillance of emerging pathogens and provide models for basic research on natural transmission dynamics. Since emerging infectious diseases also pose serious threats to endangered and threatened primate species, studies of these diseases in primate populations can benefit conservation efforts and may provide the missing link between laboratory studies and the well-recognized needs of early disease detection, …

Two New Subspecies Of Bats Of The Genus Sturnira, Hugh H. Genoways

University of Nebraska State Museum: Mammalogy Papers

The last systematic review of the yellow-shouldered bats of the Neotropical genus Sturnira in the Lesser Antilles was in 1976 (Jones and Phillips, 1976). At that point in time, two species--Sturnira lilium and Sturnira thomasi--were known from these islands. Sturnira lilium was represented by five subspecies, beginning with Trinidad and moving northward, these subspecies were lilium on Trinidad (Goodwin and Greenhall, 1961), paulsoni on St. Vincent (de Ia Torre and Schwartz, 19661, luciae on St. Lucia (Jones and Phillip, 19761, zygomaticus on Martinique (Jones and Phillips, 1976), and angeli on Dominica (de la Tom, 1966).

Addendum To The G. M. Sutton Bibliography, Paul A. Johnsgard

Nebraska Bird Review

Since the publication of “The George Miksch Sutton Bibliography” (Nebraska Bird Review 65(2): 46-58), additional titles [eight] have come to light. Other additional titles [four] related to Sutton may be of additional interest.

Nebraska’S First Curlew Sandpiper (Calidris Ferruginea), Joel G. Jorgensen, W. Ross Silcock

Nebraska Bird Review

During a birding trip on 19 July 1997, we stopped at Funk WPA, Phelps County. While viewing from the north-south road that runs through the marsh at the east end of the marsh, we caught glimpses of a large group of shorebirds behind cattails in an area on the south side of the main marsh and about a third of a mile west of the road. We eventually decided to walk out and get a closer look at the shorebirds. Once we were close enough we were able to see that there were approximately 250 shorebirds. We began sifting through …

Nebraska Ornithologists’ Union, Inc., Treasurer’S Annual Report, 31 December 1997, Elizabeth Grenon

Nebraska Bird Review

1/1/97 balance on cash basis per bank account: Cash $1,519.59 Investments $15,851.40 Total $17,370.99

Total Receipts: Cash $10,790.91 Investments $900.04 Total $11,690.95

Total Disbursements: Cash $7,546.26 Investments $0 Total $7,546.24

Balance 12/31/97: Cash $4,764.26 Investments $16,751.44 Total $21,515.70

Table Of Contents And Masthead [March 1998]

Nebraska Bird Review

The Nebraska Bird Review is published quarterly in March, June, September, and December by the Nebraska Ornithologists' Union, Inc., as its official journal, and is sent to members not in arrears of dues. Annual subscription rates are (on a calendar-year basis only): $12.50 in the United States; $15.00 in Canada and Mexico; and $17.50 for all other countries, payable in advance. Single copies are $4.00 each;postpaid, in the United States, and $5.00 elsewhere. Send orders for back issues to Mary H. Prichard, NOU Librarian, University of Nebraska State Museum, Lincoln, NE 68588-0514.

Memberships in NOU (on a calendar year basis …

Bald Eagle Nest Monitoring - Nebraska, 1997 Summary Report, John J. Dinan

Nebraska Bird Review

In 1997, 38 Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) nests in 22 counties were surveyed for breeding activity. Eagles occupied territories at 10 of these sites. These same 10 territories were occupied in 1996. Two separate, mid-July sightings of Bald Eagles along the Niobrara River, one of an adult and three juveniles in Knox County and one of an adult and a juvenile in Holt County, suggests the presence of additional nesting territories. All nest attempts in 1997 were successful, producing a total of 16 fledged young. The Lake Alice nest on the North Platte National Wildlife Refuge fell during …

Nebraska Bird Review (March 1998) 66(1), Whole Issue

Nebraska Bird Review

NOU Treasurer's Annual Report ... 2

Nebraska's First Curlew Sandpiper ... 3

Addendum to G. M. Sutton Bibliography ... 3

Mystery Duck at Sinninger Waterfowl Production Area ... 4

Bald Eagle Nest Monitoring - Nebraska, 1997 ... 5

Winter Field Report, Dec 1997-Feb 1998 ... 6

Nebraska Christmas Bird Count for 1997 ... 18

Note from the New Editors ... 27

A Note From The New Editors, Bill Clemente, Tom Klubertanz

Nebraska Bird Review

Special thanks go to Dr. Rosiland Morris for her many years of service to the Nebraska Ornithologists' Union, especially for her exceptional editorship of The Nebraska Bird Review. I can only hope that the journal will continue to reflect Rosiland's attention to detail and her devotion to excellence.

As the Newsletter noted, I am an Associate Professor of English at Peru State College and an enthusiastic birder here in Nebraska—and during the summer in Ripon, Wisconsin, where my family lives; my wife is an Associate Professor of French at Ripon College. When Betty Allen notified me that NOU Board …