eWestern Birds

Contents

MAIN ARTICLES

Effectiveness of Public–Private Efforts to Conserve Tricolored Blackbird Colonies on Agricultural Lands in the San Joaquin Valley, California
Xerónimo Castañeda, Neil Clipperton, Daniel A. Airola, Samantha Arthur, and Paul Sousa

Foraging Habitat and Its Effects on the Tricolored Blackbird’s Breeding Distribution and Abundance in the Sierra Nevada Foothills, California
Daniel A. Airola, Tara L. Collins, Christopher J. McColl, Michael R. Lozano, Brett J. Furnas, and David E. Krolick

Swainson’s Hawk Nesting Population in the Antelope Valley of the Western Mojave Desert, California
Peter H. Bloom, Rainey G. Barton, and Michael J. Kuehn

Status of the Western Snowy Plover in Coastal Los Angeles and Orange Counties, California
Thomas P. Ryan, Stacey Vigallon, Ross Griswold, Lucien Plauzoles, Cheryl Egger, Susan Sheakley, Lana Nguyen, and Robert Schallmann

Eurasian Wigeon Breed in the Aleutian Islands, Alaska
Jack J. Withrow

NOTES

Breeding of the Guadalupe Murrelet in Southern California
Darrell L. Whitworth, Michael W. Parker, James A. Howard, David M. Mazurkiewicz, and Harry R. Carter

The First Tropical Kingbird Nest in New Mexico
Matthew J. Baumann

The Northernmost Record of the Least Grebe (Tachybaptus dominicus bangsi) in Baja California
Gorgonio Ruiz-Campos, Gonzalo de León-Girón, Tonatiuh Gaona-Melo, Gerardo Marrón, Philip Unitt, and Lori Hargrove

Book Review: Rogue Birder
Christopher W. Swarth

Thank You to Our Supporters

Front cover photo by © Edward C. Beedy of Nevada City, California: Tricolored Blackbird (Agelaius tricolor), Orchard Park, Placer County, California, 25 April 2017. The Tricolored Blackbird, in steep decline, represents one of the most challenging problems of bird conservation in western North America. Two articles in this issue of Western Birds address what it takes to achieve meaningful conservation of birds nesting in active agriculture and use of foraging habitat in a region where it is shrinking rapidly as urbanization and intensive agriculture replace grasslands.

Back cover photo by © Robert Trotter of Klawock, Alaska: Eurasian Wigeon (Mareca penelope) at Shemya Island, Aleutian Islands, Alaska, 22 October 2005. Though the Eurasian Wigeon has been well known as a migrant and winter visitant in the Aleutians since the late 1800s, the question of its breeding in North America had been answered only with innuendo and speculation—until 2022, when Jack Withrow documented nesting on two of the central Aleutians, as he reports in this issue of Western Birds.