Back in 1994 I was asked about the status of jackdaws in North America by a friend at the British Trust for Ornithology. He was writing a species account for some book that I forget what it was. I did a bit of digging and sent the following in a letter on 1 June 1994 (2 years pre-email for me). I don't know if he used the material or not.
Kevin Cornell Lab of Ornithology 159 Sapsucker Woods Road Ithaca, NY 14850 k...@cornell.edu 607-254-2452 *********************** The first Jackdaw reported in North America was in December 1962 or early 1963 in Fort Myers, Florida, and was regarded as an escaped cage bird (Stevenson, H. M. 1963. Florida Region. Audubon Field Notes 17: 319-323.) The first accepted natural occurrences were in the early 1980's on islands off the coast of the northern Atlantic states and provinces. The first was a bird found on Nantucket Island, Massachusetts in November 1982 (Forster, R. A. 1983. Northeastern maritime region. American Birds 37: 157). A number of Jackdaws (at least 9) turned up in the spring and summer of 1984 in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Miquelon Island (French Overseas Department), and Nova Scotia. A good case was made for natural vagrancy: appropriate weather conditions, at the peak of spring migration in Western Europe, following a heavy fall irruption (Smith, P. W. 1985. Jackdaws reach the New World. American Birds 39: 255-258). Only those Jackdaws in Massachusetts and Miquelon were seen for extended periods of time, and I will discuss them below. With two other exceptions (explained below), only scattered sightings were reported subsequent to this influx of birds. Single Jackdaws were reported from a small island off the coast of Maine (11 June 1985); Cape Sable, Nova Scotia (March through May 1986); and Connecticut (16 February to 13 March 1988). One individual was seen in Halifax, Nova Scotia December 1984 through March 1985. Another individual with a malformed beak was seen there November 1988 through March (?) 1989, and again in November 1989 through March 1990. A large number of Jackdaws (52) were found November 1984 in Quebec Province at the port city of Port-Cartier on the north shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence (Yank, R. & Y. Aubry. 1985. Quebec Region. American Birds 39: 148-150). Subsequent information indicated that the birds had arrived on board a French freighter that had picked the birds up lost at sea off southern England (Yank, R., Y. Aubry, & M. Gosselin. 1987. Quebec Region. American Birds 41: 61-63). According to Yank & Aubry (1985) someone in the Quebec Fish and Game Department decided that the Jackdaws had been ship transported and were "an unwelcome addition" to the local avifauna, and therefore instituted an eradication program. By late March 1985, most of the birds had been shot or poisoned (Yank & Aubry 1985). I can find no subsequent reports of Jackdaws from Quebec. The single bird on Nantucket remained in the area for over a year, and was joined by a second in July 1984 (Tingley, S. I. 1984. Northeastern maritime region. American Birds 38: 999) . Two birds were there over the following winter, but only one was present the next spring. The last sighting reported was 8 December 1986 (Nikula, B. 1987. Northeastern maritime region. American Birds 41: 256). No attempts at breeding were reported. Three Jackdaws were on the Islands of St. Pierre-Miquelon, possessions of France off the coast of Newfoundland, in March 1984 (Nikula, B. 1984. Northeastern maritime region. American Birds 38: 886). A fourth bird was found 18 July 1984. One pair "occupied a fairly small territory for almost three months" in 1985, but no breeding was discovered; a third bird "seemed to be paired with a[n American] Crow" (R. Etcheberry in Tingley, S. I. 1985. Northeastern maritime region. American Birds 39: 888). The pair disappeared in July 1985, and the third bird was seen until August 1985. Two were sighted again on 18 April 1986. A single Jackdaw was reported 27 June 1991, and it was seen until 28 September 1991. A pair of Jackdaws turned up far inland at Lewisburg, Pennsylvania in mid-March 1985. The two lived in a maximum security prison, and apparently nested there several times. Fledglings were seen on several occasions, but no birds other than the pair were seen repeatedly. One of the pair apparently died in 1991, and the other disappeared some time in 1992. I can find no reports of Jackdaws in North America since 1992. I have heard of no other organized efforts to control their spread other than the Quebec one, but I'm not sure how well they would have been publicized. It would appear that Jackdaws established themselves nowhere, and the immigrants gradually died out. The only known breeding attempts were by the pair in Pennsylvania, and they did not seem very successful. It appears that the existence of Jackdaws in North America was just a brief, exciting thing. I, unfortunately, never got to see them. It remains to be seen if any more transatlantic flights of Jackdaws will occur in the future. -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/nysbirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NYSB.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
