THE CHANGING SEASONS: THINK PINK 
Figure 7. An invasion of Eurasian Collared-Doves hit Alaska's Southeast in summer 2009, including this sampling (photographer's 
name in parentheses): 1. Wrangell, 4 June (Carol Ross), 2. Ketchikan, 12 August (Steven C. Heinl), 3. Glacier Bay area, 30 June (Nat K. 
Drumheiler), 4. Juneau, 5 June (Patty A. Rose), 5. Yakutat area, early August (2 birds; Nate Cattersen), 6. Juneau, 8 June (Mark W. 
Schwan), 7. Elfin Cove, 1 1 June (Dennis Enderle), 8. Juneau, 8 June (Mark W. Schwan). 
Figure 8. In western Virginia's mountains, this Violet-crowned Hummingbird dazzled the 
state's birders all too briefly, 2S-28 (here 28) June 2009, at a bed-and-breakfast in Craig 
County, near the West Virginia border. Photograph by Brenda Tekin. 
from British Columbia (its first two records) 
to Montana to South Dakota to Michigan to 
Massachusetts; Prothonotary Warbler was 
confirmed nesting in South Dakota; and 
Florida confirmed its first nesting of Western 
Spindalis, the first true tanager ever recorded 
nesting in the United States, now that the Pi- 
ranga tanagers are classed as cardinalids. 
North Carolina’s Black-whiskered Vireo, a 
seeming oddity in a pine 
forest, fits a clear summer 
pattern in the southeast- 
ern corner of that state, 
which has about a half- 
dozen records, mostly 
from barrier islands. In 
southern Illinois, at Car- 
lyle Lake, Dean DiTom- 
maso found a Tropical 
Kingbird 13 June, which 
remained through 18 
June, long enough to be 
captured and measured 
for a first state record. Per- 
haps overshadowed by 
more numerous records of 
Gray Kingbirds in sum- 
mer, records of Tropicals 
in the East and Midwest 
in spring/summer do ex- 
ist: 12 May 1984 at Grand 
Isle, Louisiana; 14-15 May 1975 at Luke’s 
Farm, Bermuda (subspecies melancholicus); 
23 May 1997 at Eagle Harbor, Michigan 
(Tropical/Couch’s); 16 June 1984 at Anticosti, 
Quebec; 3-22 July 1989 at Cap Tourmente, 
Quebec (subspecies satrapa)' and 18 July 
1976 at Wolfville, Nova Scotia (Tropical/ 
Couch’s). (There are also fall through winter 
records of Tropicals from Florida, North Car- 
olina, Maine, and Connecticut, at least.) It is 
interesting that the U.S. and Bermuda records 
fall in May, the Canadian records in June and 
July. 
And what would a summer be without the 
doves? A White-winged Dove in Saskatch- 
ewan was the first of its kind documented in 
the province, but others were fetched up to 
Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Quebec, Maine, 
and Montana, less remarkably to North Car- 
olina, Ohio, Missouri, Iowa, and six counties 
in Colorado. Records of White -wingeds con- 
tinue to increase in the Southern Great Plains, 
where Joe Grzybowski and Ross Silcock tal- 
lied 14 in Kansas and six in Nebraska. Farther 
west, notables were two each in Utah and 
Oregon, one in Nevada, and one in Placer 
County, California, its first ever. Eurasian 
Collared-Doves also continued their hard 
work, conquering Ohio and Alaska (Figure 7) 
with first nesting records, and making other 
noteworthy appearances in Wisconsin and 
upstate New York. In other areas, they have 
become so numerous as to disappear from the 
regional reports. Chris Charlesworth indi- 
cates that “most records are no longer note- 
worthy in the southern half’ of British Co- 
lumbia, and Jim Dinsmore notes that col- 
lared-doves have now been recorded in 96 of 
Iowa’s 99 counties. Two in Martin County, In- 
diana make the forty-third county in that 
state (which has 92 counties) with a record of 
the invader. In the continent’s center, two ap- 
parent Mourning Dove x Eurasian Collared- 
Dove hybrids were studied at Bushnell, Ne- 
braska 2 July. We should remain attentive for 
such hybrids and attempt to document them. 
Although all of these records have plenty of 
context, summer 2009 was memorable for sev- 
eral records that seem anomalous. About 2900 
kilometers from southeastern Arizona, a Violet- 
crowned Hummingbird in Appalachian Vir- 
ginia (Figure 8) was even more out of range 
than the near-Arctic Rufous Hummingbird in 
Nunavut. The Special Attention box by Mark 
Adams and Matt Hafner in the Middle Atlantic 
regional report provides evidence of increasing 
records into westernmost Texas, but no Violet- 
crowned has been reported in the East, not 
even in Louisiana, a comparative western hum- 
mingbird mecca. Was this bird following in the 
summer footsteps of Green Violetears and 
Broad-billed Hummingbirds moving northward 
from Mexico? A singing Yellow-green Vireo at 
Solana Beach, San Diego County 22-27 July 
was California’s first ever in summer; on the Pa- 
cific coast, the species appears almost solely as 
coastal vagrant in autumn, much like Tropical 
Kingbird in the West. Are we witnessing the 
VOLUME 63 (2009) • NUMBER 4 
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