2010 Forest Grove Christmas Bird Count

We made it down to Portland a couple of days ago, just in time for me to participate in the 111th Christmas Bird Count yesterday with my dad. First thing in the morning we headed out to Forest Grove where we met up with other birders before heading out to our sector. Just like last year, we were assigned to the sector that included Fernhill Wetlands, where we found 61 species during the 2009 count. Of course, our goal this year was to beat that total.

The weather forecast wasn't the greatest and while last year's count started with a beautiful sunrise and sub-freezing temperatures, this year's count started with gray dawn and rain showers. We started at Fernhill wetlands where the first species on the day list included common mergansers, buffllehead, mew gulls, and northern shoveler. As we started making our way around the ponds we added more of the expected species including Canada geese, cackling geese, great blue herons, double-crested cormorants, mallards, and mourning doves.

When we veered away from the main trail back into more of the woodland habitat we found golden-crowned sparrows, a single Eurasian collared-dove, and our only ruby-crowned kinglet of the day. We found a couple of Lincoln's sparrows, which I thought was a great find since it's only the second time I've seen that species (the first time being earlier this year in Haines, Alaska!). We also saw four raptor species including the American kestrel, red-tailed hawk, northern harrier, and bald eagle. Before we finished at the wetlands, we added a fifth, a peregrine falcon.

Back on the main path by the bigger lakes were large flocks of waterfowl, and we found a common teal male in with the green-winged teal as well as a trio of canvasback and hundreds of northern pintail. We also spotted one of our two great egrets for the day. Near the edge of the marsh we also spotted the marsh wren that eluded us last year. In the same grassy habitat we spooked a green heron, which turned out to be the only one seen in the whole count area that day. We also found a few ruddy ducks.

Once we had completed the circuit the weather had cleared up and the sun even came out for a while. We took advantage of the better light to get the scope out and scan the lake for species we might have missed in the pre-dawn light of the early morning. This proved fruitful as we found an eared grebe (year bird #226) to add to our grebe list that already included pied-billed grebe, western grebe, and horned grebe all on the same lake. Greg Gillson, one of the count coordinators, also stopped by, and thanks to his expert birding skills we were able to find a pair of immature Thayer's gulls (year bird #227) among the flock of gulls on the lake. I would never have been able to pick them out on my own - immature gulls are a specialty I haven't even begun to master.

By this point we had spent four hours at Fernhill Wetlands and turned up a respectable 51 species, but we still had a lot more territory to cover by car before dusk. Shortly after leaving the wetlands we found the western meadowlarks we had missed earlier, as well as a flock of estimated 900 tundra swans - by far the most I have ever seen in one place! In right with them was a pair of bald eagles, but apparently the swans knew they were too big for the eagles, since they didn't seem nervous in the least. We also found about 40 killdeer in a farm field a little further along.

With all the rain in recent weeks, there was a lot of flooded land to survey, and in one mixed flock of ducks we found a common x Barrow's goldeneye hybrid, something I've never seen before. It had the flat head and small round white patch on the face of a common goldeneye, but the dark sides and back of a Barrow's goldeneye.

After a quick pit-stop in Gaston, we drove a stretch along Highway 47 which turned up more waterfowl, and then more of the rural back roads where we found species like western scrub-jays, Steller's jays, and spotted towhees. One of our most productive stops of the day was when we pulled over to admire and try to estimate the numbers in this flock of thousands of northern pintail.

No easy task! And not made any easier when some of them decided to take flight:

But it was a pretty phenomenal spectacle:

So, how many pintail were there? Your guess is probably about as good as mine, but we recorded an estimate of 6000. Now that I'm looking at my pictures I think this could easily be an underestimate! While the flock was dominated by pintail, there were a few other species mixed in, none of which stood out as well as these Canada geese:

At the same stop, we also saw some black-capped chickadees, our only fox sparrow of the day, and heard a ring-necked pheasant (year bird #228) that called a couple of times in response to some distant thunder.

It was about three in the afternoon at this point, and with the thickening clouds and early sunsets it was already starting to feel like it was getting dark. We doubled back on a road we had already surveyed planning to take one more look at Fernhill Wetlands, but got delayed to examine what we almost dismissed as another American kestrel but turned out to be a merlin. After seeing many kestrels throughout the day, it's streaky chest and overall darkness distinguished it as being somehow "different", which thankfully caused us to pull over and take a closer look.

Back at Fernhill Wetlands, we decided to take one more look for the swamp sparrow that had been seen there the day before. No luck on that species, but we did find the white-crowned sparrows we missed earlier. We first found a couple of immatures mixed in with some golden-crowned sparrows, and I learned that you can tell them apart by the brightness of their beaks, with the white-crowned having bright yellow beaks compared to the golden-crowned. Just in case we had any doubts, we found two adult white-crowned sparrows too. Also on this last short walk of the day we found a Bewick's wren, more glacous-winged gulls than we had seen in the morning, and saw a flock of 15 dunlin that flew overhead.

It was time to head back to reconvene with our fellow birder and come up with our tallies for the day. Here's what our team accomplished:

Hours birded: 8.5

Number of species seen: 67 (compared to 61 last year)

Number of individual birds seen: 11,935 (compared to 4848 last year)

Most number of any one species: 6260 northern pintail

Other impressive species counts: 1930 cackling geese, 960 tundra swans

Miles traveled by car: 47.5

Miles hiked on foot: 4

As a group, we tallied 112 species in our count circle, down slightly from the 117 confirmed for last year's final count, but still above the average.

We beat our personal species count from last year by six species and I added three year birds, which made for a fantastic day's birding, but I was exhausted by the time it was dark outside. I enjoyed a long hot shower and dinner, then went to bed early and had one of the best night's sleep I've had in a long time!

 

Forest Grove Christmas Bird Count

Today my dad and I participated in the 110th annual Christmas Bird Count in Forest Grove (about 25 miles west of Portland). It was a clear, sunny day, but very crisp with the wind chill dropping the temperatures well below freezing. After meeting up with some other volunteers at 7 AM, we headed out just before sunrise. Our sector included Fern Hill Wetlands, so we started there. Here's a view overlooking the main lake just before the sun came up. The flock of waterfowl silhouetted at the far end of the pond turned out to be mostly tundra swans.

We spent a little over three hours hiking around the wetlands and saw most of the expected waterfowl such as large groups northern shovelers; hundreds upon hundreds of northern pintail, Canada geese, and cackling geese; and flocks of mallards, green-winged teal, and common mergansers. We picked up three gull species (mew, glaucous-winged, and ring-billed), three shorebirds (killdeer, dunlin, long-billed dowitcher) and three raptors (bald eagle, red-tailed hawk, American kestrel). The American kestrel was perched on a telephone pole eating a large rat, and it was impressive that it was even able to fly carrying such large prey! In addition to lots of other common species, some highlights included about 30 western meadowlarks and a small flock of yellow-rumped warblers.

By the time we finished our hike we had tallied a respectable 40 species, but all the best finds of the day were yet to come. The first was just across the road where we spotted a single lesser goldfinch. Later on while surveying a pond full of gadwall, I discovered a lone male blue-winged teal. In one lake in addition to tundra swans and northern pintail were several dozen trumpeter swans. I also found a northern shrike perched on the top of some brambles out in the middle of farm country.

My dad scopes out some birds in the reservoir below, where we found our first ring-necked ducks, a ruddy duck, some bufflehead, and a few double-crested cormorants.

Our view from our lunch stop, where we picnicked on cheese and crackers while overlooking the valley below. Once we descended, we found a fox sparrow in some scrub with golden-crowned sparrows and dark-eyed juncos.

While Canada geese were everywhere, we found one flock of about 15 that were the dusky Canada goose subspecies, the smallest of all Canada goose subpopulations. Currently, the dusky population numbers are at record lows (an estimated 6000-7000), which has led to more protection for this particular race. Much of this population overwinters here in the Willamette Valley when they're not at their Alaskan breeding grounds, so local birders like to look for them.Many duskies have been tagged, and about five of the birds in the small flock we saw had red tags around their necks.

European starlings were of course ubiquitous, but this flock had found a rare unfrozen puddle and were taking advantage of the bathing opportunity, splashing water everywhere!

One of the dozen American kestrels we saw throughout the day - the only one who sat still long enough to have his picture taken

The Christmas Bird Count isn't just about counting how many species you see, but how many individuals of every species. I was the tallier for my team, a job which I enjoyed. As a result, I was thinking about all kinds of numbers, so here's a summary of my CBC stats...

Hours birded: 9.5
Number of species seen: 61
Number of individual birds counted: 4848
Most number of any one species: 1768 northern pintail
Miles traveled by car: 60
Miles hiked on foot: 4

At the end of the day we reconvened with other birders to hear about their sightings and see how many species were collectively seen in our 15-mile diameter circle. Overall, the unofficial count was 121 species - not bad at all! Some sightings I'm jealous of include a very rare for this time of year hooded oriole, a long-eared owl, and a flock of common redpolls. Of course the barn owl, blue grouse, and red crossbills some teams were expected to find and did would have been nice too! But, I can't complain. We contributed three unique species to the list that no other team saw - the trumpeter swan, blue-winged teal, and northern shrike.

I'm always impressed with the long daily patch species lists Warren reports over on his blog. You may remember that my dad and I often do "Big Days", usually in the spring or summer, when there's as much as 7 hours more daylight than we had today. Our record is about 90 species in a day, and we usually travel over much greater distances trying to visit a wide variety of habitats. Considering all this, it was pretty spectacular to see 61 species in a day in a relatively small geographic area, especially in December.

Bird Reports

Next weekend I'll be participating in the 110th annual Christmas Bird Count (CBC), another citizen science program where volunteers count birds in a given area, contributing their data to what is the "longest-running wildlife census to assess the health of bird populations". I've done the CBC before in the San Juan Islands, but it's a bigger deal here in the Portland area where there is a lot more ground to cover. I'm sure I'll be posting highlights of that trip, but this is also the time of year where list compilers are gathering notes on birds seen at the county and state levels.

If I look back at my own birding year, during my 11 months on San Juan Island I saw 129 species in the county. The highlight for me was seeing sooty and pink-footed shearwaters for about a week in September.

From front to back: two sooty shearwaters, a Heermann's gull, and a pink-footed shearwater

According to my resources, sooty shearwaters are rare in San Juan County and the pink-footed shearwaters were a new county record. However, my shearwater sightings haven't gathered much attention from the list compilers, maybe because they were around for a longer period of time and were recorded by many. Instead, what the "highers up" in bird record keeping have honed in on was my sighting of a pair of pine grosbeaks back in February during the Great Backyard Bird Count.

Male (left) and female (right) pine grosbeaks

At the time I was excited since it was a new life bird for me, but I didn't realize how rare the pine grosbeak is west of the Cascade Mountains. As you can see on this distribution map, winter irruptions of pine grosbeaks south of the Canadian boreal forests are relatively rare. Since I was the only one to see them, I've been asked several times to share my photographic evidence of my sighting so the account can be proven and entered into the record books. Good thing I had my camera with me!

I wonder if we'll find any record-worthy birds during the CBC? Probably not, but they've given us a list of "target birds" that would result in some good finds. Some of the target species even came with a detailed description of where to look for them based on where people have scouted them out ahead of time. I look forward to seeing just what turns up, and I'll be sure to report back here.

CBC: Variety but not abundance

Today I participated in my second Christmas Bird Count (CBC) here on San Juan Island. There was light snow last night, but most of it melted today so I was able to get out to my count site at Lime Kiln State Park, as well as conduct a local count at our marina. It was cold and windy, but the precipitation luckily held off so it was a pleasant afternoon to spend three hours birding. Overall, I saw a respectable 25 species, but most species were just ones and twos. I have a feeling a lot of birds were hard to see/count because of the high winds. Here is my species list from my two count sites:Harlequin duck

Surf scoter
Bufflehead
Hooded merganser
Common loon
Horned grebe
Red-necked grebe
Pelagic cormorant
Bald eagle
Glaucous-winged gull
Gull sp.
Rhinoceros auklet
Northern flicker
Common raven
Chestnut-backed chickadee (topped the list at 22 individuals)
Red-breasted nuthatch
Brown creeper
Bewick's wren
Golden-crowned kinglet
Varied thrush
Spotted towhee
Fox sparrow
Song sparrow
Dark-eyed junco
House sparrow

An interesting species of late is the locally common glaucous-winged gull. When I got back from my holiday trip, my bird feeder was gone, and I assumed it had blown away in the strong winds we had up here. Now, I'm starting to think maybe it was the gulls! As soon as I put out a new feeder (read: flimsy disposable baking pan), two gulls immediately came over and started pulling at and bending the plate. I spooked them off yesterday, but this morning the plate was bent in half. I guess I'll have to come up with a sturdier, more permanent feeder. Here's a picture of one of the troublesome gulls on my roof, looking down at the feeder:


Also, Dave at Lancashire and Lakeland Outback Adventures told me that a glaucous-winged gull was recently seen in Cleveland, England which is along the northeast coast of the country. (You can read about the sighting on Bill Aspin's birding blog.) This is remarkable to me! Sometimes European and North American birds will end up on the wrong continent, but often it will be from the east coast of the US to the west coast of Europe, so the bird "just" has to cross the Atlantic Ocean. But in the case of this glaucous-winged gull, it is a WEST coast bird from North America and it has ended up on the EAST side of the UK! I have no idea how this could have happened, although Dave reports that apparently American birds end up on the eastern shores of England by "bouncing" off of Norway. If this bird flew directly from Friday Harbor to where it is in England, it would have had to travel more than 4500 miles, and that's if it flew in a straight line over the shortest possible route. Talk about ended up off course! Wikipedia does list it as a rare visitor to the western palearctic zone, with its first ever record in Britain in the winter of 2006-2007. Maybe the same bird is still there!