The Status and Occurrence of Chestnut-collared Longspur (Calcarius ornatus) in British Columbia
by Rick Toochin
Read the full article, with photos, on our Vagrant Birds page.
Introduction and Distribution
The Chestnut-collared Longspur (Calcarius ornatus) is a passerine species that breeds on the open Prairies from southeastern Alberta, southern Saskatchewan to southern Manitoba, parts of north western Minnesota, North and South Dakota, and Wyoming and Montana (Sibley 2000, Hamilton et al. 2007). The species is a short distance migrant with the bulk of the population migrating south through the Prairie states to winter from southern Arizona, New Mexico, eastern Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas to south into northern central Mexico (Sibley 2000, Hamilton et al. 2007). Birds have shown up as vagrants throughout the eastern Provinces and States (Sibley 2000, Hamilton et al. 2007). The Chestnut-collared Longspur was only on the California Bird Records Committee review list of species for the state between the years 1972-73, but is no longer a review species of the committee because the species is reported annually in the state in numbers each year (Hamilton et al. 2007). In Oregon, the Chestnut-collared Longspur is no longer a review species for the Oregon Bird Records Committee with over twenty accepted records (OFO 2012). The Chestnut-collared Longspur is still a rare bird in Washington with seven accepted state records to 2012 (Wahl et al. 2005, WBRC 2012). The Chestnut-collared Longspur is accidental in Alaska with only one good sight record for the State (West 2008). In British Columbia, the Chestnut-collared Longspur is a casual species with twenty records which seem to have increased in frequency since 2007 (Campbell et al. 2001, Toochin et al. 2013c).
