Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2003 16:11:35 -0400 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Sharon Schwemmer Subject: Re: Fw: Eastern Kingbird and Western Kingbird share nest in Baltimore Maryland In-Reply-To: <000e01c3504b$9f645d70$237121a2@DOWNSTAIRS> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed I have given the info. from Dr. Michael Murphy to Jim Peters this morning while banding at the Fort, who has extensive daily observations of the Kingbirds. But he needs an address for him, either e-mail or snail mail. Could you provide that Les? Thanks, Sharon Schwemmer Hampstead, Md sharons@carr.org At 08:20 AM 7/22/2003 -0400, you wrote: > I recently forwarded a copy of the photo of the fledgling > Kingbirds to Dr Michael Murphy of Portland State University. He has > been studying Eastern Kingbirds for at least the past 22years. His reply is provided below. > Les Roslund > >----- Original Message ----- >From: Michael T. Murphy >To: Les Roslund >Sent: Monday, July 21, 2003 6:01 PM >Subject: Re: Eastern Kingbird and Western Kingbird share nest in >Baltimore Maryland > > >Dear Les, >I have already seen the photo. One of my grad students is on a >listserv that picked up this story and he sent it to me. After looking >at the nestlings it seems clear that they are Eastern Kingbirds all the way. I >have never heard of an EKB and WKB cross. WKBs are probably most >closely related to Scissor-tailed Flycatchers (based on unpublished DNA >work by someone else), and they have successfully produced young >together. My take on this situation is the following. I have >documented widespread extra-pair paternity in EKBs in both NY and OR. >It seems that 60-70% of males lose paternity, and my most recent data >suggest that up to a quarter of males lose ALL paternity. My guess is >that this WKB took up residence on a good territory, maybe where this >female nested in the past. She came back, paired up socially with this >WKB male, and then simply went off and found a more attractive EKB male >to father the young. Its not surprising that no one witnessed a >copulation. I have worked on kingbirds (Easterns, Westerns and >Scissor-tails) for 18 years and I have only observed two. I suspect >that all the copulating goes on in the predawn darkness. Kingbirds >have a "dawn song" that is really a "predawn song" that I believe males >use to attract females. I have just finished a study showing that >males do not move around in the predawn darkness, hence it must be the >females who are moving to obtain copulations. So, your female kingbird >was doing nothing out of the ordinary. Its simply very obvious because >the social male partner doesn't look at all like her! Nonetheless, its >a fascinating piece and I would love to have as much information on the >history of this nesting as possible. I'm planning on writing a book on >kingbirds in the near future and this would make for a great addition. >I would of course site all of the appropriate people. Better yet, why >don't you write this up as a note for a journal such as the Wilson >Bulletin? I think that it would probably be accepted since it appears that the nesting has been so well >documented. I would be willing to edit the MS for you. Let me know, but >in either case, excellent observations. >Michael > >Note - The suggestion above makes good sense to me, but I am certainly >not the right person to write up the story of these birds. Someone >amongst those who have been closely observing this nest would be far >more appropriate, and I'm sure Dr Murphy's offer for editing would be >available to whoever takes on the job. > >Les Roslund >Lroslund@bluecrab.org >Talbot County >Easton MD 21601 > >======================================================================= >To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com >with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey >======================================================================= ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================