Greater Yellowlegs

Greater Yellowlegs breed across Alaska and central Canada, migrate across most of the United States, and winter along our shores south to northern South America. This bird swam past Erika abd me, as we walked along the Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge on 9 December 2019. Aside from phalaropes, swimming sandpipers do not come readily to mind. But I have seen stressed shorebirds swim and even dive to escape predators. This bird appeared to be staying in deeper water, thereby avoiding getting too close to us. Swimming Greater Yellowlegs are well documented in the literature, Elphick and Tibbitts (1998) write that these birds “will feed in water up to belly or while swimming.”

Bushtit

Our backyard has been fairly devoid of birds ever since mid-October. A gang of Bushtits visit the feeders about once a week—ths photo was taken on 9 December 2019. Bushtits are a welcome sight since other birds often follow them to the feast. These seven Bushtits were part of a flock of over 15. At least two appear to be banded—look closely at the birds on the front left and the far right. These birds, both banded on the left leg, are probably mine. The shininess of the bands indicates the bands are fairly new. Since April, we have banded 40 Bushtits in the backyard.

Bushtits have fascinating and variable nesting habits. They build insulated nests. Often their offspring help their parents raise subsequent young. In some populations, other, unrelated Bushtits of all sexes and ages assist the nesting pair. Most of these extra birds are unmated males that may contribute genetically to the nest. Thus, writes Sloan (2001), Bushtits are “potentially polygynous, polyandrous, or polygynandrous.”

Red-throated Loon

The Red-throated Loon is a circumpolar speices. In North America, this loon breeds acoss Alaska, the Canadian Arctic, and the Canadian Northwest. They winter along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the United States. Identification marks include its relatively small size, upward held bill, and striped back. With help from eBird, on 5 December 2019, Erika and I found this Red-throated Loon near the end of the Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge estuary boardwalk. Fog and distance resulted in an almost black-and-white image.

Storm Wigeon

I was aware of the existence of Storm Wigeons for some time, but I do not know exactly when I learned about them. Tbey are not illustrated in my field guides. Storm Wigeons are an uncommon “natural variant” (Mini et al. 2014) of male American Wigeons that have white around the front of their heads and necks. Discovering much more about Storm Wigeons is difficult. I can find nothing substantive about their biology or genetics. These ducks do have some presence in hunting websites. Storm Wigeons are prized by hunters. The name is an old folk name and may refer to influxes of wigeons in general during fall storms. In any case, on the Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge estuary boardwalk on 5 December, a fellow birder mentioned she saw a Storm Wigeon. For a bird we had never seen, we had no trouble finding one or two among the numerous regularly plumaged wigeons.

Northern Pintail

Note the drake pintail’s elongated central tail feathers. Both sexes are handsome birds—in the second photo, see the hen’s bronzy wing patch. Erika and I saw several Northern Pintail on 2 December 2019 on Olympia’s Capitol Lake. Pintails are early spring breeders across much of northern North America. Pair bonds form each winter, before the birds migrate north. Once on the breeding grounds, pintails are highly promiscuous. Both mated and unmated males display for females. Only the female incubates. Males abandon the nesting area shortly after incubation begins (Clark et al. 2014).

Harbor Seal

According to Wikipedia, Harbor Seal nostrils “appear distinctively V-shaped.” I suppose that shape holds true for this seal we photographed in Woodard Bay, just east of Olympia, on 29 November 2019. True seals like this lack ear flaps. The ear canal is visible behind the eye. Harbor Seals are common in Puget Sound. Seal populations were greatly reduced during the early 1900s. Washington put bounties on them until 1960 and both the State and the Federal Government have protected them since 1972. Numbers have recovered since then (Puget Sound Institute), Now that people wonder if control of these fish-eating mammals would result in more gamefish, including salmon, which, in turn, would result in more Orca Whales.

Peregrine Falcon

We photograped two Peregrine Falcons at the Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge on 30 November 2019. These birds seem to be a pair. As in many raptors, females are larger than males—in Peregrine Falcons, the sexes hardly overlap in size. The bird on the left is clearly the smaller male. One hypothesis is that this size difference keeps aggressive males under control. Peregrine Falcons have an almost world-wide distribution. Three races of Peregrine Falcons breed across North America. Judging by their dark-hooded heads that lack a thin “mustache” stripe under their eyes, I suspect these birds are one of the western races. The situation is a bit complicated. In the 1900s, pesticide poisoning wiped out most of the eastern Peregrine Falcons. Reintroduction programs are restoring many of these populations. But the restoration efforts were made with western birds, so now determining origins of Peregrine Falcons is problematic. These falcons are quite different from the Peregrine Falcon image we recently posted in our blog—https://dantallmansbirdblog.blogspot.com/2019/11/peregrine-falcon.html

Townsend’s Warbler

Our backyard had been relatively birdless for the past two weeks. On a rainy, gray 1 December 2019, a large flock of songbirds bounded into the yard. Among them were at least six Townsend’s Warblers. I ran for my camera, because the banding office commented “really?” when I reported banding this species during November. Due to the lousy weather, my banding nets were closed. Despite the wet weather, the Townsend’s Warblers were particularly attracted to our water feature, which also brought in a few of the Golden-crowned Kinglets in the flock. Our species tally included: 1 Black-capped Chickadee, 1 Chestnut-backed Chickadee, 10 Bushtits, 10 Golden-crowned Kinglets, 2 Ruby-crowned Kinglets, and 6 Townsend’s Warblers.

Mew Gull

Mew Gulls—the first on 9 November 2019, at Capitol Lake in Olympia, the second on 22 November, at the Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge just east of Olympia. The first bird is a second-year bird and the others are probably adult birds. Mew gulls all have smaller, narrower bills and rounder, less oblong heads than the superficially similar Ring-billed Gull. In the group photo, note the proportions of the third bird back, which is a Ring-billed Gull. Both species are common in our region.

Red-tailed Hawk

Red-tailed Hawks are extremely variable across their wide, North American range. Sixteen races are currently recognized by ornithologists. Races are identified by ventral colors, tail markings, and size, but geographical trends in these characters is generally lacking. Further complicating things, adjacent races often show intermediate patterns (Preston and Beane 2009). On top of this variation, many populations are polymorphic—they come in dark, white, and intermediate colors.

Erika and I found this dark Red-tailed Hawk on 4 November 2019 at the Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge. This bird appears to be, Buteo jamaicensis calurus, the only race with a barred, not streaked, belly band. This race is the expected breeding race is western Washington, breedibg west of the Rocky Mountains from eastern Alaska soth to Arizona and New Mexico. They are resident in mucb of their range but but some winter though the southern Great Plaains to the western shores of the Gulf of Mexico south into Central America.