Rock Pigeon

Here we are at the last day of 2019. At the end of each year, I back up my blog posts with a hard-covered book. This year’s book is fun for me to read, since it covers our move to Washington. As I began the year, I was curious about how many birds I could photograph. Taking pictures of every bird I saw is clearly impossible. My all-time Washington state list is at 219 species. I have images of 145.

In December, eBird challenged birders to submit photographs in at least 20 bird lists. That quest found me stalking feral Rock Pigeons in down-town Olympia. North American birders and ornithologists have mostly ignored Rock Doves. An Old World bird, the species was released in the New World for the first time in 1606 and pigeons quickly escaped into the wild. “Plumage variation is nearly limitless in polymorphic domestic and feral birds” (Lowther and Johnston 2014). Notice that the pigeons in this photo do not appear to be banded.

Reindeer Lichen

Looking for a new location to hike, on a gray and misty 27 December 2019, Erika and I discovered the Mima Mounds Nature Preserve, about 10 miles south of Olympia. My photograph does not convey the oddity of this prairie, which is covered by two-meter high mounds. The mounds mystify geologists. Hypotheses for their origin range from insect/soil interactions, gophers, earthquakes, and/or glacial remnants. Stranger yet, many of the mounds are capped by clumps of Reindeer Lichen. Lichen literature is confusing at best. Reindeer Lichen are found, often abundantly, in the northern hemispheres of the world. These may be Pacific Reindeer Lichen, Cladonia portentosa pacifica, a subspecies found nowhere except for three Washington counties. Smith et al. (2012), however, discovered five additional species (= chemotypes) at Mima Mounds.

Wood Duck

Like this one on 13 December 2019, leaving Wood Ducks unphotographed is hard. The species is infrequently reported in the winter. We listed two drakes and a hen at Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge. We did not see them two days later on the Christmas Bird Count. In any case, Wood Ducks are ominvores, consuming seeds, fruits, and invertebrates. (Hepp and Bellrose 2013).

Red-winged Blackbird

Here is a female Red-winged Blackbird at Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge on 18 December 2019. Not black and lacking red shoulders, female Red-winged Blackbirds are often misidentified by beginning birders. The full name of the refuge, clearly one of our favorite birding destinations, is actually the Billy Frank Jr. Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge. The 12.6 square-km refuge includes a protected estuary, salt and freshwater marshes, mudflats, grasslands, and woodlands. My understanding of the refuge’s history is derived from various sources. Here is a very concise summary:

White settlers first settled the area in 1845. At that time, timber was exported to San Francisco. In 1854 the local Nisqually Tribe signed a treaty, granting the tribe fishing, hunting and gathering rights, and apparently some land rights, which are still held by the tribe. During the late 1800s, the Nisqually River esturary was diked and drained for agriculture. In 1904, Alson Brown purchased 2350 acres of the esturary and built a four-mile dike and drained the area to raise crops and livestock. In 1932, two large barns were built, which still stand today. The refuge used them as an environmental education center, but they were severely damaged by the 2001 Nisqually earthquake. Subsequent owners put the land up for sale in the early 1970s. The Nisqually Tribe lacked funds to purchase the land. Proposals for creating a deepwater port or a regional garbage dump were on the table. Local environmentalists were able to persuade the Federal Government to create the wildlife refuge in 1974. Much of the mudflats now enjoyed by wildlife were created about ten years ago with the destruction of the old dike.

In 2015, President Barack Obama signed an act designating the wildlife refuge in honor of a flamboyant Nisqually tribal leader and treaty rights activist, Billy Frank, Jr., who died in 2014. The act also established the Medicine Creek Treaty National Memorial within the refuge to commemorate the original Nisqually Treaty.

Surf Scoter

Female scoters are difficult to identify. This bird, seen on 17 December 2019 at Woodard Bay northeast of Olympia, is probably a Surf Scoter. The white spot just behind the eye is oblong, not round. The bill is relatively short and stocky. A white wing spot is not evident. The bird is likely a first year bird, since the cheek patch becomes indistict toward the upper neck.

Northern Harrier

Northern Harriers from Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge, the first on 13 December 2019, the second two days later. With its long wings and tail, harriers fly and glide low over marshes and meadows as the hawks search for their main prey, small mice and birds. The number of breeding birds is strongly correlated with spring vole numbers.

During their first year, the sexes are similar. The second bird is probably a young male, because of its yellow eyes and relatively small size. First year females have brown eyes. Older females’ eyes change to yellow after several years, and older males sport gray plumage. Thus the first bird may be an older female. Both sexes and all ages have white rumps, not visible in either of these images. These hawks are almost owl-like, with their binocular vision. Their facial disks work as parabolic reflectors. Northern Harriers can locate their prey by sound and by sight.

American Wigeon

An Amercan Wigeon—Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge, 2019, 8 Deember 2019—showing the effects of watching too many Monty Python Flying Circus reruns. 

Northern Shoveler

According to Dubowy (1966), “the Northern Shoveler is a common holarctic duck with a high degree of morphological and feeding specializations.” This duck is widespread across northern regions of North America, Asia and Europe. We photographed this hen on Olympia’s Capitol Lake on 16 December 2019. These birds use their grotesquely shaped bills to strain aquatic crustaceans from the water. The bill edges are specially laminated for this purpose. While swimming, the ducks hold their bills under water. The bills strain out their invertebrate prey.

Barrow’s Goldeneye

A first sign of spring—courting, male Barrow’s Goldeneyes—except it was on 17 December 2019 at Woodard Bay northeast of Olympia. We found a flock of three males and two females, a number typical for this species when courting—they may form groups of up to 20 birds. Courtship pair formation begins in November and lasts until males abandon females in early incubation (Eadie et al. 2000). Curiously, however, pairs sometimes reform in subsequent breeding seasons. What I at first took to be a submissive posture in the closer bird may be a threat— a display seen in both males and females, The other male was pumping its head up and down—a common and variable courtship display.

Moon Jelly

Moon Jellies are in the genus Aurelia and have a world-wide distribution. The species are closely related and require genetic sampling to identify. The four rings in the body are the animal’s gonads. Stinging cells paralyze its prey, which are then hauled up by tentacles to the digestive system. They are poor swimmers, and can not usually move against the current. Olympia: 16 December 2019.