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Re: What happened to the Bewick's wren?

From:

Phil Davis

Reply-To:

Phil Davis

Date:

Tue, 23 Jan 2007 17:31:24 -0500

Hi Mary:

If you haven't already done so, you will want to check the detailed 
species account in Stewart and Robbins (1958), Birds of Maryland and 
District of Columbia. This is the Maryland and DC ornithological baseline.

The Maryland/DC Records Committee (MD/DCRC) was founded in the 
early-mid 1980s and the first published Review List in 1986 indicated 
that Bewick's Wren was reviewable anywhere in MD and DC.

A summary of our MD/DCRC database can be found on our web pages at 
the URL in my signature block. A direct link to the MD database is here ...

         http://www.mdbirds.org/mddcrc/pdf/mddatabase.pdf

This is a large PDF document (don't print it!), but do a search or 
find for "Bewick's Wren" and you will be taken to a listing of all 
BEWR reports and records in our database. The items in the 
Unreviewable and Reviewable categories are a part of our historical 
canvass; these represent published sight records for which reviewable 
documentation probably does not exist.

There are no accepted records for DC; there is one Not Accepted 
record. The DC database is here ...

         http://www.mdbirds.org/mddcrc/pdf/dcdatabase.pdf

The species is currently on our MD/DCRC Maryland Review List, which 
can be found here ...

         http://www.mdbirds.org/mddcrc/pdf/mdreview.pdf

Since the species is not now on the Official List of the Birds of the 
District of Columbia, any sighting in DC would be reviewable.

Hope this helps ...

Phil


At 08:16 01/23/2007, Pfaffko, Mary (DDOE) wrote:
>Dear Birders,
>
>I am reviewing a status report on Bewick's wren & am seeking thoughts from
>anyone who might have expertise on the status of the wren in MD/DC & the
>reason for it's population decline.  While the wren was considered common in
>western portions of MD in the 1940s, it has become a rarity.
>
>Has anyone spotted a Bewick's wren in/around DC or eastern portions of MD?
>Any suspicions on the reasons for its decline?  I welcome your thoughts if
>you'd like to weigh in.
>
>Here is the history I have so far:
>During the late 1940s, Hampe and Kolb stated that T.b. altus was a summer
>resident & common breeder in western Maryland and that it was rare in the
>eastern part of the state. There were no breeding records for Baltimore-DC &
>Eastern Shore & only casual breeders in the Piedmont region near Cooksville
>and Millers. By the 1970s, it was rarely reported nesting anywhere but
>western MD from Garrett through Baltimore counties.
>
>The Atlas of breeding birds of Maryland and the District of Columbia shows
>declines in populations of Maryland and DC in the 1960s. By the late 1990s,
>Bewick's Wren had disappeared in most places it had once occurred as a
>breeding bird and was now considered a rarity (Robbins and Blom 1996). They
>note two possible causes of decline: the coinciding population explosion of
>the House Wren in these areas & cold weather in recent years.
>
>Thanks!
>Mary
>
>Mary Pfaffko
>Wildlife Biologist
>Fisheries & Wildlife Division
>DC Department of the Environment
>51 N St., NE, 5th floor
>Washington, DC 20002
>202.535.1739
>

==================================
Phil Davis      Davidsonville, Maryland     USA
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