I've just read an interesting draft document by D.A. James and A.R. Green on the eastern form(s) of Bewick's wren. This used to be a pretty common bird in our region, but its numbers dived in the mid-20th century. The last verified nest in Ohio was in Adams Co in 1995; the last accepted sighting came from Pike Co. in 1998. Now this eastern population is being considered for Endangered Species status, and this document is a step along the way to application. Bewick's wren maintains healthy populations in the west, but in the east ours (of the two subspecies Thryomanes bewickii bewickii and T.b. altus) are disappearing. "A Status Assessment Investigation of the Eastern Subspecies of Bewick's Wren" looks at trends in 35 eastern states for these birds. The steep decline of Bewick's wren in the east is easy enough to document. The reasons are harder to define: this paper discusses habitat change, competition with certain other species, climate change, cowbird parasitism, etc. as possible factors. Lots of interesting expert opinions are brought to bear, some of them at variance with one another. The authors do a commendable job of research. They agree with some authorities that the two accepted subspecies of Bewick's are really only one, and that all the more rufous birds of the east, extending from Texas plains to Appalachian mountain habitats, are one and the same. One interesting reason they adduce is that the extensive use of coal for heating in the East stained and darkened the feathers of birds so much that they were reckoned to be a different subspecies (altus); this seems to be confirmed by museum curators, who find that many of their specimens from the era are remarkably dirty. Other interesting aspects of the research involve the habitats of our local form, which seemed to be dominated by rural sites with discarded automobiles, deteriorating outbuildings, and trash-piles, which Bewick's wrens found convenient for nesting and roosting. Such habitats have a fairly brief history in Ohio: Audubon did not see a Bewick's during his stay in Cincinnati over two hundred years ago, but with the clearing of land and subsequent failure of small farmsteads across the state a hundred years later, Bewick's wrens reached their peak in population. Since then, the return to forest in many of these sites, as well as cleaner agriculture, suburbanization, etc. have not been so inviting to Bewick's. Competition with other species, especially the house wren, whose nesting range expanded south during the last century, is widely cited as a reason for Bewick's decline, but in the aggregate the evidence is not so clear. Many studies are described, and many contradict one another. The situation resembles that for some other birds that have disappeared from Ohio--Bachman's sparrow is a good example--in that the precise reason for their endangerment is unclear, and just as unclear is what we might to do reverse it. I can't find this interesting and quite readable document on the Web, but I can send it to interested persons on request (it's an 118-page pdf, 2.5 MB). Bill Whan Columbus ______________________________________________________________________ Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society. Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list. Additional discussions can be found in our forums, at www.ohiobirds.org/forum/. You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]