The "I'm On Hold" Bird Count

I was dreading the phone call I had to make today to dispute my internet/phone bill, which was incorrect for the third month in a row. From past experience, I knew I would probably be put on hold for a while as the appropriate supervisors were consulted with. I realized instead of letting my anger rise as the minutes of the hold ticked by, I would take advantage of the time to conduct an informal bird count out my window, in preparation for next weekend's Great Backyard Bird Count. Here's the decent list I generated during my 30 minutes (!!!) on hold:

9 dark-eyed juncos

1 belted kingfisher

5 glaucous-winged gulls

2 rock doves

1 Pacific wren

3 chestnut-backed chickadees

1 song sparrow

1 red-breasted nuthatch

And I even got the billing issue resolved!

Downy Woodpecker Art

My dad gets a lot of the credit for turning me into a bird-watcher. I remember being about eight years old and driving around Sauvie Island with him on a Saturday, as he pointed out such novelties as northern shovelers and bufflehead. I was as amazed at the variety of birds as I was at my dad's seemingly encyclopedic knowledge of them. How could he keep them all straight? I wanted to try, too.

My mom, on the other hand, gets some credit for my creative, artistic side. While primarily a stained glass and then a glass bead artist, she always has a project of some sort on hand and loves to try her hand at a wide variety of crafts. Before I left Portland last month I got a chance to try her latest endeavor, encaustic art. It's basically abstract painting with hot wax. You "paint" melted colored wax onto a board, then use a small torch to heat it further on the board. As you add additional colors, they mix and swirl into one another. There are tools you can use to manipulate the hardening product, or you can transfer Xeroxed images onto the final product.

I combined my love of birds with my artistic side to create this piece, featuring a downy woodpecker drawing that I Xeroxed out of one of my favorite children's books.

A Great Day's Birding in Skagit County

First a note: yesterday while walking to town to watch the Superbowl at the local watering hole I saw my first fox sparrow (116) of the season!

Last week a couple of great birding reports came through on Tweeters, the Washington birding listserv, about sightings in Skagit County, which is just over on the mainland from here. I was inspired to get over there and see if I could find some of the great species they had been seeing, and the first day I had a change to do so was today. Last night I drew out a map of the target places I wanted to visit, and I was ready.

I get a bit made fun of for my not-to-scale hand-drawn birding maps, but they help familiarize me ahead of time with places I'm not used to birding and are a simple reference throughout the day....so they work for me! :)

I woke up in the morning to the sound of a Pacific wren singing in the pre-dawn light, which I took to be a good omen for the day. On the ferry ride over I spotted all the expected species including mew and glaucous-winged gulls, common murres, pigeon guillemots, pelagic cormorants, two rhinoceros auklets, and a single common loon.

I was especially keen to look for the rock wren that had been reported near Burlington, so we (my boyfriend came with me) headed straight there. While looking for it, we saw a displaying male Anna's hummingbird, a flock of bushtits, and three bald eagles soaring above. Then, after about 5-10 minutes, there it was, perched right on top of a boulder!

The rock wren (117) is a rare species to get west of the Cascades as it tends to prefer more arid habitat. I've only seen this species once before, in 2002 at Malheur in southeast Oregon, so it was a real treat to see it again.

Just a block away from the rock wren was a cattail marsh, and I got a Virginia rail (118) to respond almost immediately to the call I played. This was based off another great tip from a birder who had seen the rock wren, and because of his report I recorded the Virginia rail call on my cell phone last night. I don't have a very fancy recorder/playback ability, but it was good enough to get the rail to call back! I couldn't believe it!

What was also neat about the rock wren/Virginia rail area was that it was a really industrial part of town. It's not the ideal place to go birding in terms of beauty, but it's pretty cool to see so many great species living there right among all the industry.

Next up we went north on Old Highway 99 to Pomona Grange County Park where I quickly found one of the American dippers (119) that had been reported. The old mixed forest was pretty quiet besides, but it was amazing to see the variety of deciduous and coniferous trees that grew all together there.

I drove down Bow Hill Road through Edison and had to pull over along Bayview/Edison Road when we spotted no fewer than 20 bald eagles hanging around the same small stand of trees. I've read about the eagle congregations near the Skagit River but this was the first time I've seen so many in one place. Here's ten of them, all sub-adults:

It was an active area, with several eagles, red-tailed hawks, and northern harriers flying about nearby. These three adult bald eagles perched right together were one of the most impressive sights. The eagle count for the day, by the way, ended at a whopping 73.

After I could finally turn my attention away from the eagles, I noticed a flock of golden-crowned sparrows and this ring-necked pheasant, one of two males that was hanging around in the area:

With a squall looming on the horizon, it was time to move on towards Samish Island, but we stopped along the way at the Samish Unit of the Skagit Wildlife Area where a couple of other birders had scopes set up. They were generous enough to let us take a look at the pair of short-eared owls (120) they had found acrobatically flying around in the distance. While looking through their scope we also found a rough-legged hawk (121), our only one of the day. There was a lot of raptor activity around with more bald eagles and harriers around as well.

Our time admiring the raptors was cut short by the downpour, so it was on to Samish Island. Looking up towards Samish Bay it was pretty quiet except for a few red-breasted mergansers, surf scoters, and bufflehead. Maybe everything else took refuge from the rain. Bay View State Park was similarly quiet.

There was more activity, however, at the Padilla Bay Shore Trail trailhead, where there was a flock of green-winged teal, a few northern pintail, and a singing western meadowlark. There was also a single house finch and several song sparrows in the brambles. 

As we headed south of Highway 20 we started seeing more and more trumpeter swans, with a few tundra swans mixed in. By the end of the day I wouldn't be surprised if we saw nearly a thousand swans. Here are a couple of the tundra swans, distinct here with the small yellow marking at the base of the bill, which isn't always there (and isn't always visible when it is there if they're too far away!):

We stopped in La Connor to pick up a snack, but weren't able to locate the wild turkeys that they regularly see there. (It's debatable how wild they are, anyway.) There wasn't much to see on Valentine Road, but down on Rawlins Road on Fir Island was a pair of northern shrikes and also a large flock of snow geese (122) in the distance. The snow geese were absent a couple of weeks ago, but seemed to have returned in force, perhaps because the hunting season is now over. There was another large flock in a field north of Fir Island Road. Also nearby was this American kestrel. Between rain showers, there were many raptors attempting to dry out, like this kestrel with his tail fanned:

I had stopped at the Fir Island unit of the Skagit Wildlife Area before, but just learned there is another public access to the reserve off of Wylie Road. The area down there was very muddy and flooded, but I heard and then we were able to locate the black phoebe (123) that has been seen there over the last couple of weeks. Another rare find for this area, and I was very glad to have found it!

Before heading back to run a couple errands and head for the ferry home, there was one other place I wanted to stop just east of Fir Island where snow geese had been reported. I found them a little further south than they were the other day - just south of Johnson Road this afternoon - but there were thousands of them. A few of them were close enough to the road for photographs, unlike the other two flocks we saw:

The sights and sounds of a large flock of snow geese are so impressive I decided to try and capture a short video clip of it. While I was filming, the flock all of a sudden became alert and then took flight as a bald eagle came right through them. They circled around as the eagle chased them. What an amazing wildlife spectacle. Check it out - the eagle is visible at a couple points during the clip.

It's a bit hard to see the geese when they get further away in flight due to the video compression to post on the web, but you get the idea.

The last sighting of note for the day was a tagged red-tailed hawk just south of Exit 226 on I5 while we were heading back north. It had a blue marker on at least its left wing, which appeared to be marked with an "I" or a "1". I'm going to try and figure out who I can report the sighting to, like I did with K5, the red-tailed hawk near the Portland airport earlier this year.

Overall, a fantastic day's birding. More than 50 species were seen (49 in Skagit County plus a few more from the morning ferry), and seven year birds were added to the list. I had a list of about 10 potential year birds for the day, and decided I would be very happy finding 3 of them - so 7 of them was real treat, especially because after the rock wren first thing in the morning I proclaimed the day a success and said everything else on top of it would just be a bonus!

P.S. Since it's Monday, I thought I would share a brief update about Flex the gray whale, who I posted about last week. After his tag didn't transmit for 5 days they thought it had fallen off, but then he resurfaced (pun intended) nearly 300 miles west of the north end of Vancouver Island. He has continued his trajectory south since then, passing the Washington coast and heading into Oregon, approximately 15 miles offshore. When weather permits they are going to attempt to relocate him by boat. Read this week's update and see his updated map here. Is he going to Baja??

Unexpected Cetacean Sightings in Puget Sound

The Ways of Whales workshop last weekend included a lecture by John Calambokidis, one of the co-founders of Cascadia Research and a local cetacean expert. One of the things he talked about was a series of bizarre whale and dolphin sightings that have occurred over the last year in Puget Sound. 

In January 2010 a dead Bryde's whale was found in Puget Sound after there had been several reported sightings of an unusual (live) whale in the region. Bryde's whales are medium-sized (relative to other whales, that is) baleen whales that are found in tropical waters. In the United States, they usually aren't found north of southern California. After conducting a necropsy, it was determined that while the whale had some evidence of propeller wounds and rope entanglement, neither of these were the apparent cause of death. Instead, due to the empty stomach and thin blubber layer, it was hypothesized that starvation may have played a role. This was the first-ever sighting of Bryde's whale in the Pacific Northwest.

The story got stranger when another live Bryde's whale was found in Puget Sound in November 2010. This animal had severe injuries along its back from a ship strike, and Calambokidis expressed that he thought it was amazing the animal had survived at all, as the most severe of the multiple injuries had actually severed off the tops of multiple vertebrae. He estimated the injuries had occurred about a month prior. Unfortunately in December 2010 this whale also died, succumbing to his injuries.

There have also been sightings of two members of another unexpected species in local waters - the bottlenose dolphin. The only previous record of a bottlenose dolphin in the Pacific Northwest goes back to a dead animal that was found in the late 1980s. The first live sighting occurred in June 2010, of an animal that was seen multiple times before it stranded in July. Then a second bottlenose appeared in December 2010, and was seen alive on numerous occasions up through January 18th, before it too was found dead. Bottlenose dolphins also tend to be a more tropical species, usually not occurring north of southern California, though they have seen as far north as San Francisco in the last 30 years.

There are anomalies in nature, so when I first heard about these sightings I figured they were wayward animals, probably sick or injured which led them to deviate from their normal range. Once you have four tropical animals showing up well out of their range within a single calendar year, however, you start to wonder....is this part of some greater trend?

The instinct right away is to point to climate change and shifting ocean temperatures, but there have been no greater trends established about altered cetacean ranges. Most animals are still sticking to where they're expected to be found. Also, we're in the middle of a La Niiña cycle, which makes for cooler, not warmer, water temperatures.

Scientists involved aren't offering any explanation for the multiple unusual sightings, but it will be interesting to see if more tropical cetaceans are sighted throughout the rest of 2011. 

Gull Debate and Year List Check-In

Mark Lewis, co-author of Birding in the San Juan Islands, left a comment on my recent Whidbey Island blog post questioning the ID of the gull in the photo I posted. I identified this gull as a western gull, but he suggested it might be a Thayer's gull:

After closer examination and a little research, I'm still doubtful it is a Thayer's gull for the following reasons: A) The bill does not show a two-tone greenish tinge, B) the legs are not a deep pink, C) the head shape is more flat than rounded, and D) the underside of the far primary is not pure white (see Greg Gillson's discussion here). However, I'm now wondering if it couldn't be a herring gull? Or a glaucous x western hybrid? Your input encouraged.

Is anyone else starting to think that maybe most or all of the Larus gulls should be considered one species? Once I'm getting into reading about all these hybrids and back-crossings, I've got to wonder.

Regardless of the final conclusion on this gull's identity, I for the time being am going to keep it #114 on the year list. Thus I closed out January with 114 birds on the year list, 14 species above my goal and a whopping 27 species above last year's January total.

The only other bird I've added since then is this greater yellowlegs (15) I saw at Jackson Beach yesterday:

I also went for a walk at British Camp today, but was unable to find the varied thrush that has eluded me thus far this year.

Next up, a couple more marine science notes of interest, plus a report back after checking in with some other gull references.

"Flex": Redefining Our Understanding of the Western Gray Whale

There are so many interesting things going on in the marine science world that, in continuing with the theme of my last post, I thought I would dedicate a series of posts to some of these fascinating topics. Today: the interesting results from the recent tagging of a Western Pacific gray whale.

The Eastern Pacific gray whale that migrates from the Bering Sea in Alaska to Baja Mexico was hunted nearly to extinction, but since the whaling ban the population has recovered quite well to an estimated 20,000 animals. The Western Pacific gray whale, however, which spends the summer months feeding off of Kamchatka, remains one of the most highly endangered whale populations with only about 150 animals and seems genetically distinct from their Eastern Pacific counterparts. The population was actually considered extinct until it was re-discovered off of Russia’s Sakhalin Island in the 1970s.

It is unknown what path these Western Pacific animals take to migrate or where they go to breed, but it was assumed that they traveled south to somewhere off of China. It was essential to determine this for certain to aid in their protection, so last fall a team of Russian and American scientists set out to tag several of these animals to see where they actually go. Due to a variety of factors including bad weather they were only able to successfully deploy a single tag on October 4^th, the last day of the expedition. The tagged whale is a thirteen year-old male nicknamed Flex. The data Flex’s tag has collected so far has been a shocker.

This gray whale, instead of going south, headed east. He crossed the Bering Sea in the north Pacific, made it to the Aleutian Islands of Alaska, then crossed the Gulf of Alaska, and now has started making his way south towards the west coast of North America. In today's update, they indicate that on his current trajectory he is likely to bypass Vancouver Island of BC and, if he continues, reach the west coast of North America somewhere around central Oregon. The tag hasn't broadcast for a couple of days, but they're hoping that's just due to weather (there was another data gap a bit earlier due to high seas) and not that the tag has fallen off.

“It’s got everyone scratching their heads,” said John Calambokidis at the Ways of Whales workshop last weekend.

Oregon State University, the home base for Bruce Mate who led the tagging operations, releases new maps of the whale’s travels every Monday. Keep tabs via press releases on Flex's progress here. This week's map can be seen here. Bruce Mate estimated that if Flex continued traveling south, he would reach Oregon by mid-February. If he's going all the way to Baja he wouldn’t arrive until many of the single animals have already started their northbound migration.

Tagging whales can lead to profound discoveries, such as seems to be the case with this gray whale. Another example that occurred last year was shared by Brad Hanson at the Ways of Whales workshop where he shared the track of an Alaskan resident killer whale. The data points colletced from a single tagged whale completely redefined the range of Alaskan residents, as this one male went all the way over to Kodiak.

It’s amazing to me how little we still know about whales. I understand that some people are resistant to tagging for its invasiveness, but the data gathered as a result of satellite tagging not only has the potential to be astounding, re-shaping our understanding of entire populations of whales, but also can be a key component in determining their ranges, defining their critical habitats, and hence protecting them and ensuring their long-term survival.

V4: A Universal Killer Whale Call?

The Ways of Whales workshop today was successful, with over 100 people in attendance. There were some great talks: Brad Hanson talked about satellite tagging, John Calambokidis talked about new insights into North Pacific baleen whale stocks, a former Sea World trainer gave her views on last year’s tragic death of a trainer, and Suzanne Chisholm shared a project she is working on about the dolphin captures in Taiji. The lecture I gave was about killer whale acoustics, including some background on call usage and also tips for listeners on how to figure out which pod they are listening to when they hear the whales on the streaming hydrophones at www.orcasound.net.

One other bit of information I shared was about a study I got to participate in last year that resulted in a paper that was just published by Nicola Rehn and colleagues in a natural science journal journal*. When I was contacted by a colleague of mine, Andy Foote, last year, he asked me to listen to several dozen orca calls and place them into categories based on how I thought they should be defined.

After I went through all of the calls and organized them into call types, he told me what the study was about: they believe that there is an orca call, that they’ve termed V4, which is universal across not only different killer whale populations, but different killer whale ecotypes (resident, transient, offshore). Indeed, I had placed all of the proposed V4 calls into the same category, even though they came from five different populations of whales: the Southern Residents, the Northern Residents, the Kamchatka Residents, the Pacific offshores, and the Bering Sea transients. Eight other independent observers came up with similar classifications, justifying the researchers’ belief that this may be a universal call type.

This finding is interesting for two reasons. First of all, it’s the first demonstration of an overlap of call types between different populations of orcas that until now were believed to have completely distinct dialects. Second of all, the calls are primarily recorded in high excitement states, regardless of the population the call came from. For the residents and offshores, the call occurred in social situations, and for the transients, the call was recorded after the group had made a kill. The evidence points to this being an innate, universal call type that is highly variable but still categorizable – much like human laughter or crying.

The V4 call is often heard among Southern Residents and was termed S10 in the 1980s by John Ford. I’ve always described this call to others as sounding like the whales are laughing, and it turns out this may not be so far off! Here’s a sample of the call so you know what to listen for if you’re tuning in to the hydrophones:

*More information can be found in the paper: Rehn et al (2011). “Cross-cultural and cross-ecotype production of a killer whale ‘excitement’ call suggests universality”. Naturwissenschaften. (98):1-6.