Sanderling

Tbe only shorebirds  we saw at the Westport Light State Park on 26 August 2019 were a few Sanderlings. As I have recently written, this species, after breeding in the Arctic, is common along coasts of the world. One way to identify them is to note their habit of running on the beach from on-coming waves, and then chasing the water as it flows back into the ocean—all the while hoping for some some hapless crustacean to poke its head out of the uncovered sand.

Variegated Meadowhawk

Erika and I observed numerous dragonflies during our walk on the beach at Westport, Washington, on 26 August 2019. Unfortunately, only one posed for a photograph—this Variegated Meadowhawk. We were surprised to see any dragonflies at all, since all but a very few of these insects breed in salt water. Variegated Meadowhawks, however, are known for their migratory behavior—thus this individual may have not have bred locally. This species makes complicated migrations. Northern breeders winter in the south, sometimes far from water. Huge fall flights are recorded along the Pacific Coast of the United States. Thousands have been counted along the coast, at rates of up to 500 per minute (Paulson 2009). Variegated Meadowhawks, whose breeding range is poorly known, has been recorded from southern Canada south to northern Central America.

Brewer’s Blackbird

I have written about Brewer’s Blackbirds in previous posts in this blog. This species was collected in Montana in 1843 by Audubon. He named it Quiscalus breweri. Brewer, was a friend, a Boston doctor and ornithologist. Unfortunately, the species had already been described in 1829 by Johannes Wagler. Thus Wagler’s scientific name, Psarocolius cyanocephalus, has priority. Now the bird is known as Brewer’s Blackbird,  Euphagus cyanocephalus (Martin 2002). Generic names can shift around, but their accompanying species names tend to be fixed.

Erika and I found several Brewer’s Blackbirds on 26 August 2019 in Westport, Washington. In most of  the western United States, this species is fairly common. We were surprised when eBird flagged it as infrequently reported from the Westport area, and so we made an effort to document our sighting with a photograph.

Black-bellied Plover

On Monday, 26 August 2019, Erika and I checked out Bottle Beach State Park on our way home from a walk on the beach at Westport, Washington. Our Westport trip produced relatively few birds, and the tide was well out by the time we hit Bottle Beach. The only birds of interest were about 30 Black-bellied Plovers. I suspect these birds are adults, molting into their drab, gray winter plumage. In the spring, the birds will sport black faces and underparts—only their vents remain white. Black-bellied Plovers breed in the Arctic in both the Old and New worlds. In North America, they winter along the coasts from British Columbia and Massachuetts south to Chile and central Argentina.

Townsend’s Warbler

We banded a immature, female Townsend’s Warbler on the afternoon of 25 August 2019. Not a too shappy looking fall bird, but the male is even more strikingly plumaged, with darker sides of the face, a dark throat, and more prominent side streaking—here is a link to one we saw in California on 28 March 2012. This warbler is a breeding bird of the Pacific Northwest, dropping south through the mountains of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. Here along Puget Sound, this bird is a migrant. They winter along our Pacific Coast south through Mexico and well into Central America. Vagrants show up across eastern North America. This individual is only the third I have banded—the first in Arizona on 1 May 1970, and an unexpected one in Aberdeen, South Dakota, on 30 October 1992.  

Caspian Tern

Caspian Terns mostly eat fish. They usually capture their prey by diving into the water, but birds are not adverse to stealing fish from other birds and even scavenging dead fish.  This tern is just emerging from a dive, and may be carrying a small fish in its bill. This photo was taken at Olympia’s KGY Point on 23 August 2019. 

Cooper’s Hawk

Cooper’s and Sharp-shinned hawks can be hard to tell apart, despite their not overlapping in size. This large Cooper’s Hawk, accompanied by over a dozen angry crows, flew into a small grove of tall conifer trees at Olympia’s KGY Point on 23 August 2019. The dull, not bright orange eyes indicate that the bird is immature. Along with its large size, other field marks include the relatively long, somewhat rounded tail—the outer tail feathers are at least a centimeter shorter than the central ones; the breast streaks are thin; the head is more oval than it is round; and the legs are relatively large.

Cooper’s Hawks breed from southern Canada south through most of the United States and into Mexico. Northern birds move south in the winter through most of Mexico as far as  northern Central America. This hawk preys upon medium-sized birds and mammals and inhabit forestlands, including urban woodlands. This hawk was named after a New York ornithologist, James Cooper, in the early 1800s.

Semipalmated Plover

I have been getting almost daily eBird Alerts that Semipalmated Plovers are being seen at the Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge. You may recall that Erika and I found this shorebird during our trip to the ocean on 20 July 2019—so we had this bird on our year and state lists, but not on our Thurston County list. Yesterday,  22 August 2019, we timed our refuge walk to coincide with high tide. High tide limits the area of mudflats the plovers prefer. Success! In fact, we made a conservative count of 17 individuals, a number eBird warned us was high for the county.

Two details of the photograph are of interest. First are the Semipalmated Plover’s semipalmated toes. This term refers to the bird’s partial webbing between its toes. These plovers don’t swim much, if at all, so perhaps semiplamated toes keep them from sinking into the mud. Second, I wondered if this bird could be the very similar, Old World Collared Plover. which very rarely strays to North American coasts. This is not a Collared Plover because the gape of the bill is surrounded by white. The dark sides of the face extend to the gape on the Collared Plover. The Eurasian bird also has brighter yellow legs. I will continue to carefully check the Semipalmated Plovers I see in the future. 

Harbor Seal

Erika and I photographed Harbor Seals (and an attendant Double-crested Cormorant) at Woodard Bay Conservation Area on 15 August 2019. The seals appear to be unconcerned about the debate among Washington wildlife managers and legislators. This debate will greatly affect the seals. Both the seals and Orca Whales eat salmon. For a variety of reasons, southern resident Orcas are becoming rare—only 75 remain in Puget Sound, a record low number over the past 30 years. One of the proposed solutions is to cull seal populations, which would presumably increase salmon for Orcas to eat. The Washington legislature introduced a bill that would permit “maximum lethal take” of seals. An alternative plan calls for the removal of logs and rafts upon which the seals bask. One problem to finding a solution is that the situation involves more  than seal and salmon interaction. (For example, at Woodard Bay, abandoned piers provide roosting sites for large numbers of roosting bats.) For more information on seals and orcas, see https://www.nwpb.org/2019/04/12/wildlife-managers-kindly-ask-northwest-seals-and-sea-lions-to-stop-eat-so-much-salmon-or-else/.

Black-capped Chickadee

A Black-capped Chickadee on 19 August 2019 at the Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge. I have been curious about this species’ migrations. Foote et al. (2010) write about what is currently known. Over 60,000 birds banded in Canada inicate that 90% of recaptured birds show no significant movements. Young birds (but few adults), apparently in response to seed cycles, irrupt from their nesting areas every two years or so. These irruptions can be aimless, but fall movements tend to be south and southwest and northeast in spring. Chickadees are reluctant to cross large bodies of water. In this situation, large numbers of chickadees can build up—36,000 chickadees were reported from the the shore of Lake Ontario. Perhaps this phobia explains why Black-capped Chickadees are common across most of northern North America but are not found on Vancouver Island, British Columbia.