Brewer Blackbirds (Euphagus cyanocephalus) seem to be fairly common migrants during favorable years. On March 9, 1929, I saw a lone male bird on the main street of Avalon, and on April 16 of this year I saw two males and a female at Middle Ranch. Captain McKay, an old resident on Catalina Island, has told me that flocks of the birds have been seen on the island several times. On one occasion, about 1913, he said, Brewer Blackbirds were common for several weeks around a horse corral in Avalon.
Juncos of an undetermined species were seen by Harry Harris near Avalon in March, 1919 (Condor, XXI, p. 172). On March 26 of last year, I saw a flock of twenty birds near the hay-press at the upper end of Grand Canon, and a specimen collected proved to be a female Junco hyemalis thurberi. This definitely establishes the Thurber Junco as an Island visitor.
A male Bullock Oriole (Icterus bullockii) was seen in an elder tree near Avalon on April 15, 1929. The birds have been reported from several other of the channel islands, but this seems to be the first record from Catalina. I recently learned that a cage-bird of this species escaped from the Catalina bird park about a year ago, and there is a possibility that the bird I saw was the one that had been brought to the island. It is quite possible that the native avifauna of Catalina Island will be seriously affected by introduced species within the next few years.
-DON MEADOWS,
Avalon, Santa Catalina. Island, California, April 20, 1930.
Harry Harris, a resident of Kansas City, Missouri, was an occasional visitor to California, and on occasion, he visited Catalina Island. His observations of birds on Catalina are significant, not only for Donald Meadows to indicate a comparison to his own observations, but to our present time in 2007. Harry Harris is a distinguished ornithologist, who studied a true and genuine native birds of California, namely the California Condor. He also studies the history of ornithology by stuying earlier naturalists that studied birds, such as Xantus and Ridgeway. He was admired by many ornithologists of his day, such as Joseph Grinnell and Ralph Hoffmann.
There are several features which Donald Meadows points out in Avalon, which show that non-native plants can bring invasive migrant birds to Catalina. For example, horticultural variety known as Cassia is discussed which supports an invasive migrant bird. Similarly, an "elder" which was imported to Catalina Island is discussed. Furthermore, a mention is made of the "Bird Park" which was considered a threat to native birds found only at Catalina, as rare-true endemics. And the discussion of of "Hay-press" and "Middle Ranch" and the "horse corrals at Avalon", all three of which supported livestock that were imported by the Wrigley family to Catalina Island, and which in turn, allowed for the successful invasion of alien invasive migrant birds, is significant.
A parallel story of other birds could be told, as for example, the American Coot and other waterfowl such as some species of ducks. The American Coot, which never occurred at Catalina, but suddenly arrived with the building of an artificial reservoir, allowed several kinds of ducks and the American Coot to establish themselves as residents at Catalina Island. One wonders if the Wrigley family or well-intentioned residents of Catalina imported the American Coot and the ducks in boxes or wooden crates from the mainland to Catalina Island?
Some birders and biologists mistakenly consider these new birds of the island as native birds, however, truthfully and with genuine science and ecology as a pursuit of knowledge and understanding, the American Coot and the waterfowl at the reservoir must be considered non-native. Their presence is definitively associated with the artificial presence of the reservoir and consequently must be understood and recorded as invasive alien birds. Could the coot and the ducks have flown from bird park to the reservoir? This makes the American Coot a negative factor in the island biodiversity, not a positive part of the biodiversity. For thousands of years, if not a million years or more, the American Coot never lived or resided as resident on Catalina Island. But then, the Wrigleys come to Catalina with their monies and successfully build an artificial reservoir, which in turn allows many birds to invade Catalina Island. For vast numbers of millenia, these birds never occurred on Catalina, so they must now be still considered non-native birds, that established during the 1930s, or thereafter, present on Catalina for only a moment of the overall history of the island.