Map quiz 6 - answer
Map quiz 6 - Answer
Another one for all years and all seasons. A tough one! The record off the Canadian Maritimes is probably an erroneous lat-long plot.
A lot of birds have a distribution that is more or less like this one: they breed in Eastern Hardwood forests, get scarce on the Great Plains, and are essentially absent from the Rocky Mountains and West Coast. Often this distribution stops north of the Mexican border and does not penetrate far in to Canada. We can deduce in this case that this is not a long distance migrant, since there are no records from Mexico or points south--so we must be seeing the entire range of the species.
A few candidate species that may have come to mind: Tufted Titmouse, Red-bellied Woodpecker, Red-headed Woodpecker, Carolina Wren, Brown Thrasher, Eastern Towhee, and maybe Pine Warbler. there are probably others worth considering too, and we are fortunate that this is a year round map and not a summer map: this could also apply to Wood Thrush and a host of other "summer" birds.
Checking the fringes of the range is usually the way to figure these quizzes out. Focusing on the Northeastern US, we see that the pale green indicates low frequency here--this is a scarce bird. That pretty much eliminates all species except one.
But let's look at the western fringe species by species. Tufted Titmouse does not occur this far west, and is unrecorded from Colorado. Carolina Wren occurs west to Colorado, but in low frequency and it does not reach Montana, North Dakota, etc. Eastern Towhee is super-rare in Colorado too and doesn't occur in the Dakotas and Montana, where Spotted Towhee replaces it. Red-bellied Woodpecker seems possible, as it reaches extreme eastern Colorado, but it is rare enough there that we'd expect lower frequency. Also, it is a vagrant to Wyoming, with just a handful of records, and the pattern of records in Montana is another key that we are on the wrong track there. The range of Pine Warbler stops well to the east too, although the southern margin for this bird (stopping at about the Rio Grande) is right for Pine. So what about Red-headed Woodpecker? That species occurs west to Colorado, well into Montana, and strays rarely to south Texas (but not yet found in Mexico!). It occurs in ne. New Mexico too and is rare in New England. That sounds like it could be it.
Finally, vagrant records are helpful too. Tufted Titmouse does not stray far out of range (no records west of Texas), and Carolina Wren is a vagrant that has occurred to the Front Range of Colorado, in New Mexico, and as far west as southeast Arizona; the vagrant pattern of Eastern Towhee is similar. But both have yet to reach California. Brown Thrasher is a regular enough stray to California that it is not on the state review list. Pine Warbler is a semi-regular vagrant to California, and would have many more records around the state. Red-bellied Woodpecker has not occurred so far west, but Red-headed has -- there are about 5 records for California, including a long-staying bird in Goleta, Santa Barbara County, 14 Sep-23 Apr 1989. Three people have entered four of their sightings of this individual from the exact location it was seen! California's first was found dead in 1962, but maybe eBirders that saw the birds will be inspired to enter the other three records soon.
