English Daisy

Flowers are appearing in Olympia park lawns! We think this weed is English Daisy—aka Lawn Daisy—Bellis perennis. Daisies, however, are difficult to identify. This common European weed is found in lawns and roadsides in low elevations of western Washington. The plant is grown commercially and escaped in much of the American West and Northeast. Erika and I found this daisy in a park lawn in Olympia on 12 February 2020,

Bewick’s Wren

A furst sign of spring on 12 February 2020! Erika and I strolled along a trail connecting the Tumwater Historical Park and the south pool of Caiptol Lake. This Bewick’s Wren vociferously sang its loud, bouncy trill. (Only the males of this species sing.) We stood kind of transfixed, which is too bad, since we could have recorded the song with our cell phone and included it in our eBird list. After the bird flew, I vowed to record the song during our return trip—the bird’s presence seemed likely since it appeared to be defending territory.

As luck would have it, the bird was not at its perch when we walked back about 30 minutes later. But a few feet further down the trail, the wren flew out and landed nearby. The bird behaved quite oddly. We can only assume this behavior was directed towards us. Mind you, we were silent throughout the bird’s display. We never made any of the squeaking or spishing sounds often used by birders to attract birds. During the display the bird made loud, low buzzing noises. Kennedy and White (2013) mention that Bewick’s Wrens defend territory againsts House Wrens and Song Sparrows, but we observed no other birds during this display. They also report that these wrens give “staccato scolding notes in response to human intruders.” 

First the bird spread its tail and wagged it back and forth horizontally—not up and down as you might expect for a wren. Then, even more remarkably, as it continued the tail spreading and wagging, the bird twice fluttered both wings, but without taking to the air. You can see this in the final photo. Finally the wren flew away.

Northern Pygmy-owl

After 11 months searching every tree branch in Olympia, Washington, on 11 February 2020 Erika and I found a Northern Pygmy-Owl. This bird is one of North America’s smallest owls, at only 6 inches, making it hard to see even though it hunts by day. Despite its size, this owl is described as a “blood-thirsty, rapacious...fiend” (Bent in Holt and Petersen 2000). This owl mostly eats small birds and mammals, but also insects (including dragonflies), amphibians, and reptiles. Probably also because of its size and despite its range across western North America well into Central America, the Northern Pygmy-owl is one of our least-studied owls. Ornithologists suspect what we now call Northern Pygmy-owls may actually comprise two or three distinct species. Different populations vary in details of their single or double-noted whistles and in their color—some are gray while others are a rich chestnut. My only view of this owl was extremely back-lit, which made capturing this bird’s bright chestnut difficult (the color expected in western Washington). Despite being high in a leafless alder, this owl was very hard to see. We only found it because Erika asked a nearby birder what he was so intently photographing.

Mallard and Pintail

Walking back from the Nisqually boardwalk on 3 February 2020, Erika mused, “Mallards would be better appreciated if they were not so common.” So I took a picture. According to Drilling et al. (2014), “ In North America, the Mallard is the most abundant duck species. Its success in the wild reflects its adaptability to varied habitats, its hardiness in cold climates, its catholic food tastes, and its tolerance of human activities.” The second photo is clearly the backend of a drake Northern Pintail. Like the Mallard, pintails are both common and enjoy a wide distribution around the world. Pintails and Mallards are not called “dabbling ducks” for nothing.

 

Wood Duck

Erika and I found a pair of Wood Ducks in the pond at McLane Lake near Olympia on 5 Feburary 2020. The female busily pulled down from her belly while the male napped. Hens do line their nests with down feathers, but she did not appear to be collecting the down. Perhaps she was bareing her brood patch. Her behavior may have just been an example of feather maintenance. The drake seemed to pay little attention, although he did lean away as the hen ruffled her feathers and flapped her wings at the end of this sequence.

Pacific Loon

During our 3 February 2020 Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge Brant search, Erika and I spoke to a birder. He reported that he saw three Red-throated Loons near the end of the boardwalk. We photographed two loons. I really think these look more like Pacific Loons. They don’t have the haughty, bill-in-the-air, attitude of a Red-throated Loon. The bird in this photo has what appears to be a thin necklace, a feature of Pacific Loons. The birds have relatively dark backs.

This species may be the most abundant loon in North America (Russell 2018). They breed n freshwater lakes across Northern Canada and Alaska, even into northeastern Siberia. In winter, Pacific Loons are abundant in saltwater of the Pacific Coast, from Alaska south to Baja California. Most Siberian birds winter off Japan, Korea and eastern China. These loons are casual from the Midwest to the Atlantic Coast—many of these records, however, “may involve misidentifications of Common or Red-throated Loons” (Russell 2018).

Brant

Erika and I made at least two unsuccessful trips to the Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge in search of a flock of Brant reported by other eBirders. Finally on 3 February 2020 we found them as they fed in the base of the estuary about a half-mile from the end of the boardwalk. Fitbit in hand, Erika generally arrives at a destination before I do. “I think I found your birds!” she announced. The first photo is taken at about 350 mm, the second greatly enlarged from a 550 mm image. We counted 30 Brant. They are smaller than Canada Geese. Note the lovely white stripes on their necks. Brant breed in the Arctic and winter along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of North America. Lewis et al. (2013) write, “this species provides biparental care, accompanies its young through their first migration, and usually mates for life.”

swans

Since Janauary, Erika and I have been seeing swans under the shadow of the state capitol. Those white dots on the lake in the first photo are swans. At first we saw two birds, then 10.  All appeared to be Trumpeter Swans. I was surprised by the extensive orange on some of the swans on 24 January 2020. This mark indicates a young bird. Frustratingly, some eBirders began to report a Tundra Swan among these swans.

On 2 February 2020, more or less on a whim, Erika and I set out to try to find the Capitol Lake Tundra Swan. I vowed to take a photograph of all 11 swans on the lake. The second bird I photographed was clearly a Tundra Swan. The two species, nevertheless, can be quite similar. Notice on this last bird, which appears to be somewhat smaller than the others, that the eye is much less surrounded by black, making the eye very distinct. The best field mark is the yellow tear drop coming from the eye at the base of the bill. One of the joys of birding is being at the right place at the right time.  Both swan species are sporadic migrants and winter residents across western Washington, ranging from being common to uncommon.

Red-breasted Sapsucker

Two Red-breasted Sapsuckers, the first being banded in our Olympia backyard on 17 May 2019, the second working a tree trunk at the Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge on 1 February 2020. I do not know what to make of the pale bill of the Nisqually bird. Various photos float around the internet showing these sapsuckers with pale bills. I do not think it is age or sex-related. In The Birds of North America, Walters et al. (2014) list only black for bill color—yet their account shows photographs of pale-billed individuals. Possibly pale-billed birds are deformed. In some images, including mine, the pale bill appears to be abnormally thin and long.

Black-bellied Plover

I returned to Boston Harbor, just north of Olympia, on 30 Janaury 2020. I searched for a Harlequin Duck reported roosting on a raft of logs in the marina. I had high hopes when I spied two larger birds among 80 Dunlin sleeping on the floating timber. But these bigger birds were not ducks. I did not expect to see Black-bellied Plovers.

In North America, Black-bellied Plovers breed in the Arctic and winter along the coasts of North and South America. This shorebird occurs further north than does any other plover—to southern Alaska in the west and Newfoundland in the east. Poole et al. (2016) surmise that this plover’s cold tolerance is due to its relatively large size and diverse prey preferences. Tbis hypothesis does not explain why the much smaller Dunlin have a similar, and slightly more northern, overall winter range.