Cooper’s Hawk

Our backyard forest treetops resounded with chattering birds on 12 September 2020. Such a racket is often a sign of an owl nearby. I scanned the woods and was surprised to see a Coopers Hawk perched on an exposed tree branch. Its crop bulged—I hope its prey was not one of my banded songbirds. Cooper’s and Sharp-shinned hawks can be difficult to tell apart, especially when the bird is some distance away. One field mark is the nape—gray in the Cooper’s, black in the Sharp-shinned. The Sharp-shinned is a smaller raptor than the Cooper’s and has a rounder, less square head profile. The tail shape also differs, but, I could not see the tail. I hope this hawk does not stick around my bird feeders.

Belted Kingfisher

All year I attempted without success for a stellar image of a Belted Kingfisher. The species is common across  most of the United States and Canada and many attempt to winter where open water persists. Kingfishers perch over water and dive for fish and other aquatic animals. They are noisy birds, and you can often hear their loud rattles as they defend breeding territories. To a human eye, females, with their rusty flanks, are the prettier of the sexes. The rusty flanks are barely visible in the second photo, taken at the Nisqually refuge on 11 September 2020. The male is only blue and white, like the bird in the first photo taken at Capitol Lake in Olympia on 9 November 1019. 

Blue Dasher

2 September 2020—the dragonfly season is coming to an end. Erika and I found this Blue Dasher at the Darlin Creek Preserve just south of Olympia. Blue Dashers are abundant dragonflies, found across most of the United States, and ranging north to southern Canada and south to northern Mexico. Blue Dashers tolerate poor water quality and are found almost anywhere with still water.

Dragonfly Books

I have updated my dragonfly book. Now it is two volumes, the first devoted to damselflies, the second, to dragonflies. The critters in the book include species Erika and I have seen in our travels through the United States and during a dragonfly tour of Costa Rica. Accompanying text covers identification, ecology, and behavior. Two .pdf files, compatible with most, if not all, platforms, are available for $9.99 each. Hardcopy formats can also be purchased, but, since they are produced on a per-order basis, they tend to be a bit pricy. Details and sample pages can be found at either of these two links:

https://www.blurb.com/b/10287736-odonata-quest-damselflies

https://www.blurb.com/b/10287788-odonata-quest-dragonflies

Townsend’s Chipmunk

This Townsend’s Chipmunk image has been languishing in my blog queue since 20 April 2020. This squirrel is named after the early 19th century ornithologist, John Townsend. It inhabits Pacific Northwest forests, and is particularly attracted to brushy areas—like our backyard. It feasts on a variety of seeds and berries, spilled bird-feed, and insects. They are said to be shier than other chipmunks, but can be quite noisy, Their loud call is reminiscent of a pygmy-owl's series of repeated, high-pitched chirps, given towards predators and other chipmunks. 

Red-breasted Sapsucker

This post might be titled “Sapsucker 15, Bander 0.” I took this photo on 6 September 2020. This bird was a retrap—I first banded it on 17 May 2019, almost a year and a half ago. (The oldest Red-breasted Sapsucker, banded and recovered in British Columbia, was at least five years old (All About Birds).)  Clearly I got the worse end on this second encounter with my sapsucker. My son, Jon, not-so-sympathetically remarked “clearly the sapsucker remembered you.” This encounter also reminds me of the definition of a field biologist—one who does not believe in the germ theory of medicine.

European Starling

This rather odd-plumaged bird is a young European Starling that Erika and I saw on 21 July 2020 at the Nisqually national wildlife refuge. The salient field marks include its sharp-pointed bill and speckled sides—otherwise it does not look like a speckled, shiny black adult. Unlike House Sparrows, which were introduced to multiple North American locations, all the 200 million Starlings on this continent are descended from 100 birds released in New York City in 1890 and 1891. The starling’s “phenomenal” success, however, has been detrimental to many native cavity-nesting species (Cabe 2020).

Pied-billed Grebe

On 1 September 2020, along the Chehalis Bike Trail just north of Olympia, Erika and I encountered a young Pied-billed Grebe. The bird displayed a bunch of self-maintenance behaviors, including stretching and preening. Grebes are interesting birds because they consume lots of feathers. One hypothesis is that grebes continually molt their flank feathers all winter, providing a constant flow of new feathers. Grebes also do a lot of preening just to keep their feathers water-proof.

Ingested feathers are found internally in two locations. Most are found in the stomach. I always thought that these feathers protect the digestive lining from being punctured. Most fish bones, however, completely dissolve in the stomach. Muller and Storer (2020) suggest that the feathers provide substance to the stomach contents, which grebes use to make pellets that they “spit” up. The pellets keep parasites from building up in the upper digestive tract. Feathers are also found at entrance to the small intestine, where they keep hard pieces of prey from entering the intestines.

Great Egret

Great Egrets are uncommon fall visitors to the Puget Sound region of western Washington. The species spread into the state only in recent history. The first state record was in 1949. Birds began breeding in eastern Washington in the 1990s and spread down the Columbia River, with egrets nesting near the mouth of the river in the early 2000s. Egrets have spread north across the continent, with birds now breeding in Oregon and Idaho. One thought is that birds seen near Olympia are due to post-breeding dispersal by young egrets that hatched south of us. Egrets are now seen annually in the Olympia area. This bird was reported on eBird over the weekend at the Billy Frank Jr. National Wildlife Refuge. In these covid-ridden times, we do not visit the crowded refuge on the weekends. Erika and I waited until Monday, 31 August 2020, to find this bird surveying the refuge marshlands. 

Paddle-tailed Darner

As is often my habit, on 20 August 2020, I took an early afternoon swing through our backyard. Dragonflies were my prey, but, finding none, I stood alongside a forest edge of bushy Evergreen Huckleberries. This gorgeous darner flew up and landed in the bushes in front of me. What a gem! No wonder I became fascinated by these creatures. 

Unless you net them, darners are difficult to identify. I was confident, and Dennis Paulson confirmed, that this dragonfly is a Paddle-tailed Darner. Its 10th abdominal segment has a blue spot. The lines on the thorax sides do not have backward sloping extenstions. But most of all, the abdominal extensions on this beast are wicked long—spined and broad. Dennis assured me that this species is common in western Washington, emerging relatively late in the season, after the first flush of Blue-eyed Darners. Paddle-tailed Darners are Western dragonflies, found from Mexico and southwestern Canada east into the central Great Plains.