Red-breasted Nuthatch

During our Olympic sojourn, during family walks and trips to playgrounds, I carried my camera. One bird I was happy to encounter was this Red-breasted Nuthatch. This species is often common enough back home in Northfield, where it is found during migration and winter. But this species is unpredictable. Northern populations are migratory, more southerly ones are residents. All populations occasionally irrupt from their breeding grounds.

Little is known about these movements. We don’t know if irrupting nuthatches return to their breeding grounds. The usual assumption is that these movements are the result of scarce cyclical food supplies. Ornithologists also hypothesize that the irruptions happen when too many nuthatches occur in a given area. Probably the answer is a combination of low food supplies and too many birds (Ghalambor and Martin 1999).

I found this Red-breasted Nuthatch behind the Olympia Toyota dealer on 17 September 2016.

Black-headed Grosbeak

We spent four days in Olympia, Septemper 17-20. Upon our arrival, the weatherman predicted four days of rain. On top of that, this trip was a grandchild visit. My worries of a dearth of birds was for naught. First, rain is an off and on event in the Pacific Northwest—it comes and goes. The weather for most of our visit was quite pleasant. The grandchildren, for their part, happily survived birding trips with grandpa.

Our first morning, however, was wet. A young-looking Black-headed Grosbeak fed at the kid’s feeder. To my surprise, eBird flagged this species as rare, requiring either written or photographic confirmation. I ran out to the car for my camera. The patio window was made of such poor glass that decent pictures were impossible. This image was taken through a screen in front of an open window. The travails of an eBirder! I will try not to burden you with further “screen shots." Meanwhile, I have asked eBird why these birds are considered rare. As far as I can tell, the species should not be that rare in Olympia. The species is, however, absent after September.

Mount Rainier

When traveling to Olympia, our habit it to take White Pass out of Yakima. A mandatory stop is an over-look to Mount Rainier. At 14,400 feet, this peak is the highest of the Cascades of the Pacific Northwest. It is an active volcano, a fact that must lurk in the recesses in the ninds of Washington residents. The mountain has been known by a variety of other names. Native Americans called in Tacoma, Tahoma, or Talol. These names may mean “Mother of Waters.” Lewis and Clark refer to it as Mount Regniere. Rainier commemorates Rear Admiral Peter Rainier, a friend of George Vancouver. With the renaming of Denali in Alaska in 2015, some favor returning Rainier to one of its aboriginal names.

We always stop at Clear Creek Falls, just east of the pass. This 228 foot drop seems perfect for Black Swifts. These birds often nest behind waterfalls. The only problem is I have never seen one there. Black Swifts breed late and leave early. Clear Creek may be at southern edge of their breeding range in Washington. Their nesting coincides with the emergence of flying ants. Perhaps we have never been at the falls at exactly the right time. Pretty waterfall, nevertheless.

Red-tailed Hawk

Red-tailed Hawks are widespread and common across North America. On 8 October, I found this one on a telephone pole at the edge of Carleton College’s Upper Arboretum in Rice County. This hawk was relatively tame, despite my close approach. Red-tails spend most of their time perched—up to 96% of the time (Preston and Beane 2009). Then they often preen. This maintenance behavior involves repeated use of their oil (uropygial) gland, located on their rumps.

Flicker Intergrade

During my blackbird hunt in Gillette, Wyoming, on the morning of 15 September (described in my last post), I randomly took photos of all the birds I saw for inclusion in my eBird list. I took photos of a robin and this flicker. In this photo and in the field, I clearly saw the flicker’s yellow wing-feather shafts. 

Very quickly I received an email from Tony Leukering, the eBird reviewer for Wyoming. We call such communications “I doubt it emails.”  Tony wrote, “The mix of red and black in the malar suggests to me a hybrid; granted, a way backcrossed hybrid. If you agree, please alter your checklist accordingly.” 

Because of their different plumages, eastern and western flickers used to be considered separate species. Birds in the west, with their red feather shafts, were Red-shafted Flickers. Eastern birds with yellow feather shafts were Red-shafted Flickers. There are also other differences. Following this paragraph is a picture of a Red-shafted Flicker taken two days later in Olympia, Washington. Western males do not have red neck collars. Eastern mustache stripes are black, not red. Where their ranges overlap in the midwest, flickers massively hybridize. I have seen quite a few orange-shafted flickers in South Dakota. 

I did not notice that the mustache stripe is oddly colored on my Wyoming flicker. What Tony suggested is that, somewhere in its genealogical history, this yellow-shafted flicker had hybrid ancestors. The hybrid apparently bred with yellow-shafted birds, leaving only a trace to the red-shafted encounter. I gladly changed my eBird list. A bird I had serendipitously photographed turned out to be one of the more interesting birds of our trip. Just for the record, here is a male Yellow-shafted Flicker:

Brewer’s Blackbird

We stayed the night of 14 September in Gillette, Wyoming. As I walked to check in to our motel, I noticed Brewer’s Blackbirds strolling through the lawn. My photo was not quite in focus, so, the next morning, I went out and looked for another. Brewer’s Blackbirds are common across western North America and I have other photos. But these days I am collecting photos to paste into my eBird lists. I had no trouble finding a dozen blackbirds.

In a previous post, I wrote about this blackbird’s interesting nomenclature and range extension. Bird ranges are not static. Beginning in the early 1900s, Brewer’s Blackbirds moved east along the boarder states and provinces to Michigan and eastern Ontario. The birds followed highway, train, and utility corridors to reach newly created agricultural land (Martin 2002). Meanwhile, grackles have expanded west, at least to Colorado’s Front Range. Where Brewer’s Blackbirds met Common Grackles, the two species competed. In the countryside, the smaller Brewer’s Blackbirds displace grackles. Common Grackles, however, hold their own in urban situations. 

Variegated Meadowhawk

We did not see many dragonflies on our trip to Olympia. September is a bit late for these insects. We did find a few, including several dozen Variegated Meadowhawks feeding in the grass around the Badlands National Park headquarters in South Dakota.

Variegated Meadowhawks are among our most common dragonflies. They are found across North America, from souther Canada to northern Mexico. They are thought to be migrants. They appear to fly southeast from the western United States. In some areas of the south, they are absent in the summer.  In other areas, they are year-round residents, but may be more abundant in the spring and fall. Mass flights have been observed. They fly in a great variety of habitats.

When I posted the lower photo in a dragonfly FaceBook page, some readers wondered if the abdomen was correctly colored—it seemed too blue. I figure this is but an extreme individual. These photos are both females—males are more red. The first photo is more typically colored.

Palm Warbler

Palm Warblers are drab birds in the fall. A good key for their identification is their flamboyant tail wagging. Erika and I found Carleton College’s upper arboretum full of these migrants on 30 September. They seemed to be everywhere we looked (though we only reported ten individuals to eBird). We saw them in the trees, in the prairie, and even walking along the trail in front of us.

Despite its name, this species breeds further north than almost all of the warblers. It winters among the palms, however, residing then along the southeastern American coast and in the Caribbean. I have written about the interesting systematics of this bird.

Pronghorn Antelope

 

We did not see Burrowing Owls in the Badlands prairie dog colonies. We did find Pronghorn Antelope. These antelope were part of a group with several females and young, with one male. Females and their twins usually form nursery herds. One or two males often join these herds. Pronghorns tend to be gregarious and form large winter herds (Higgins et al. 2000). Historically, Pronghorns were found east to the Mississippi River—but habitat destruction and hunting brought them close to extinction. Present-day Pronghorns in South Dakota are rare east of the Missouri, and western ones suffer during abnormally harsh winters. Later during our trip we saw huge herds in Wyoming. We learned that Wyoming has more antelope than human tax-payers.

Black-tailed Prairie Dog

We stopped at a Black-tailed Prairie Dog colony in the South Dakota Badlands. Prairie dogs populations are decimated across their Great Plains range. Drought and plague cut their numbers. They are vulnerable to a number of predators—hawks from above, snakes and ferrets from below. Ranchers often despise them—accusing the rodent of competing with livestock, destroying crops, and even injuring horses that might stumble in their burrows. “Sportsmen” use them for target practice.

Prairie dogs are a Keystone species in their prairie habitat. Predators depend on them. Their burrows shelter a number of other species. That is why we stopped. We searched in vain for Burrowing Owls that we listed last year at this same colony. Perhaps the owls already departed on their fall migration or maybe we were unobservant.