Gloria Z. Nagler: Birdy banter...

Photo copyright Gloria Z. Nagler

What IS that over there, photog?

Photog, being a fuddy-duddy, replied: please don’t talk with your beak full, Harry the House Finch.

--Gloria Z. Nagler

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Gloria's critters: Delores

Photo copyright Gloria Z. Nagler

I asked Delores the Chestnut-backed Chickadee why such a big piece? She replied:

Seize the day! Isn’t that what you humans say, photog? Well, that’s what I’m doing. Seize the nut!

--Gloria Z. Nagler

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For the Birds: The Changing of the Feathers

What a healthy wing looks like.
Photo by Elaine Chuang

By Christine Southwick

Have you seen one or two large feathers, usually black, on the ground? Not to worry, unlucky crows aren’t being attacked.

There are also feathers from other birds being found on the ground, but small white Junco tail feathers, or flight feathers from chickadees are harder to see…

Feathers determine what a bird looks like (and usually how we identify them), the colors of the bird, and how birds are able to fly.

Wing in Molt with spaces where feathers are missing.
Wing on other side will basically match.

Feathers, made out of keratin (as are human hair and fingernails), are shaped around a shaft (rachis) and held together with barbs and barbules which latch together (sort of like Velcro). 

When birds preen their feathers they are latching those barbs and barbules back together after bushes, branches, and wind disarrayed their functioning arrangement. Sun also degrades feathers. This causes feathers to wear out and need to be replaced.

Found feathers primary and secondary flight feathers with obvious wear and tear.
Photo by Christine Southwick

Discarded flight feathers indicate that songbirds in the Pacific Northwest have started the process of the annual replacing of all their feathers. This is called Molting.

Songbirds, which even include Crows and Ravens (really), replace all their feathers each year, in an orderly manner, so that they can still fly while having less than a full quota of feathers.

There are six types of feathers, with the flight feathers on the wings and the tail, the ones which are the largest and most obvious. They are shed in such an orderly manner that a bird can be aged by which feather(s) is/are missing, and which ones have already been replaced, or not. 

Other tracks of feathers also molt on a regular schedule with the neck and head usually last. Which look really funny on larger birds—crows often look like they have been strangled during this phase, but loss of all the neck feathers means they are almost through with their annual molt.

Male Hairy Woodpecker showing how flight feathers of wing and tail fold on themselves.
Photo by Christine Southwick

Because growing new feathers requires a lot of energy, most songbirds wait to begin their molt until after their last brood of babies has left the nest, and the adults only need to feed themselves.

Since the molting process is stressful, providing good food and water plus sheltered areas are helpful for our resident birds. Some birds will stay in bushes for protection. They also eat more bugs and suet for instant energy.

You will probably see lots of feathers in the birdbaths—make it a good time to identify their differences.

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Gloria Nagler: Contentious Corvids

Photo copyright Gloria Z. Nagler

When they bickered, Clara and Claude sometimes just couldn’t look each other in the eye...

--Gloria Z. Nagler

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Gloria Nagler: House Finches found our feeder...

Male House Finch
Photo copyright Gloria Z. Nagler

“What exactly is this stuff”, wondered Henry House Finch. “If photog is a true bird lover she ought to post a menu for us, spelling out our options!"

(Although online descriptions tell us House Finches are ubiquitous here in the continental U.S., I still get excited when I spot one of these lovely birds. They colonized our State beginning in the late 19th century, according to Google.)

--Gloria Z. Nagler

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For The Birds: What’s Your Name, Little Bird?

By Christine Southwick

You have a bird on the ground in your yard that doesn’t look like the birds you know.

From March thru July-August in this area birds are raising babies, usually 1-4 broods of 2-5 each.

Juvenile American Robin with breast spots
Photo by Craig Kerns

Fledgling birds have just left their nests and often don’t look like their parents.

Chickadees, nuthatches, and brown treecreepers look like their parents, except that the young are fresh looking, while the harried parents look bedraggled.

Downy and Hairy Woodpeckers have temporary red spots on the top of their heads, presumably to help the parents locate them in multi-nested snags. Pileated Woodpeckers have orangish-pink top knots that don’t change until the next spring. So unidentified birds are probably not one of these.

Tree nesting birds seem to be a mixed bag; American Robins are speckled. Golden-crowned Kinglets look like their parents, but with brilliant gapes. Gapes are the swollen mouth lining, which become adult coloring as they mature.

Ground birds seem to have camouflage, while cavity nesters mostly look like their parents.

Juvenile junco showing pink feet, stripy heady and white outer-edge tail feathers.
Photo by Craig Kerns

So how to identify these mystery birds?

First, where do you usually see it? On the ground or a deck? In shrubs? High up in trees?

*FOUR CLUES FOR IDENTIFICATION *

HOW BIG IS THE BIRD, WHAT IS SHAPE OF BILL?

Oregon Juncos have a smallish pink bill (and legs); Spotted Towhees look like a large sparrow and have a large dark bill.

COLOR PATTERN:

Color is often different in juveniles, but there may be some clues:

Stripy Oregon Juncos (our sub-species of Dark-eyed Juncos) Look for the white outer tail feathers as they fly.

Stripy birds will start changing their body feathers in July- August into adult plumage depending on when they fledged.

Spotted Towhee less than two weeks after fledging, note dark large bill
Photo by Christine Southwick

HABITAT:

Juncos are mostly on the ground and come out openly under feeders.

Spotted Towhees start out stripy, looking like large dark Song Sparrows. They have large dark bills, skulk around on the ground, under bushes, and often do a two-footed backward hop searching for seeds and bugs. About three weeks after fledging they start having rufus sides, and by the end of September they look mostly like adults.

Song Sparrows also look different, but there is such a variation in Song Sparrows they are usually overlooked as “little brown jobbies” anyway. If you see a stripy sparrow flying “bottom heavy” because it hasn’t grown its tail feathers yet, it is probably a juvie Song Sparrow!

Golden-crowned Kinglet with gape and yellow feet
Photo by Craig Kerns

BEHAVIOR:

Does it flick its wings or tail repeatedly? Is it moving from branch to branch constantly? Does it have yellow feet? It may have a yellow gape. That’s a young Golden-crowned Kinglet.

Hope that helps! Keep watching the birds, and remember that many birds are still nesting—don’t clean up all the nesting places of weeds and leaves, yet…

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AG Brown leads states’ brief opposing increased oil and gas development in Alaska’s Coastal Plain

Tundra swans in the Skagit Valley
Photo by Wayne Pridemore

Attorney General Nick Brown led a coalition with 13 other attorneys general in filing an amicus brief supporting three lawsuits challenging the Trump administration’s decision to authorize an oil and gas program that would maximize development of the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska.

Washington’s brief argues that expansive, maximalist oil and gas development in an area previously untouched by industrial development will harm our states’ migratory birds and increase greenhouse gas emissions that worsen the devastating impacts of climate change in our states.

The coalition states argue that the Bureau of Land Management’s rushed and incomplete environmental review under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the Secretary of Interior’s failure to comply with the National Wildlife Refuge System Administration Act (Refuge Act) illegally ignored more environmentally protective alternatives and disregarded legally required standards for public participation and transparency.

“Once again, this administration is breaking the law to prop up the fossil fuel industry, with no regard for the costs to our natural world,” said Attorney General Nick Brown. “The interests of oil and gas are not above the interests of the American people and our extraordinary ecology.”

The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is our nation’s largest refuge. The Coastal Plain is a 1.6-million-acre national treasure at the heart of the refuge that provides habitat to hundreds of species, including threatened polar bears and caribou. 

Millions of migratory birds spend the summer on the Coastal Plain breeding and feeding before migrating southward across North America, including Washington, travelling upwards of 3,000 miles. 

For example, Tundra swans cross the continent to winter on the Atlantic coast. Brant, Pacific loons, and yellow-billed loons from the refuge winter primarily along the Pacific coast of North America.

AG Brown is joined on this brief by the attorneys general of California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Vermont.

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Travels with Charlie: Walking along with Geese

Gander on Lake Washington herding geese
Photo by Gordon Snyder

We were walking along Lake Washington Shoreline when I noticed the Gander Goose on right was herding these geese along. A bit unusual.

An eagle was soaring around above them
Photo by Gordon Snyder

Looking around, I spotted an Eagle soaring around. Hmmm. Was that why he was herding them?

They swam by a Crane standing peacefully.
Photo by Gordon Snyder

Followed the swimming geese as we walked along the path, they swam by a Crane standing peacefully. 

Notice the Gander is still herding...

Seems there is always a reward for getting outside and walking with my buddy Charlie.

Cheers,
Gordon Snyder

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Gloria Z. Nagler: Anna's Hummingbird says...

Photo copyright Gloria Z. Nagler

 Up there, photog, that’s my Happy Place. Flying free, and finding feeders...

--GZN

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Scene on the Sound: Pelican migration

By Jan Hansen

Decades ago, White Pelicans were common in Puget Sound. But with pesticides and habitat changes, they disappeared. I've only seen them twice in 70 years. Today was one of those times. 

The pelicans flew over while my camera and I were having coffee on the deck. With the loss of breeding grounds, these huge birds are known to seek out new locations, and ten years ago the pelicans found Deer Lagoon on Whidbey Island and Honeymoon Bay on Vancouver Island in British Columbia. They have returned every year since.

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Birds small and large

Photo by Jan Hansen

My hummingbirds left one summer for a fresh meal of flowers and never came back. I finally took down the feeder.

They have been replaced by a dozen other birds, including enormous Flickers, Steller Jays, and the occasional crow.

Photo by Jan Hansen

Sometimes I have a woodpecker like this one but mostly I have the smaller Downy Woodpeckers.

What I don't have is the ability to get good photos of these visitors, so I'm happy to rely on contributors like Jan Hansen.

--Diane Hettrick

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For The Birds: Songbird with the Big Beak

Male Black-headed Grosbeak enjoying birdbath
Photo by Craig Kerns

By Christine Southwick

Do you have a medium-sized bird (larger than a finch, smaller than a robin), with a huge beak? Congrats!

The Black-headed Grosbeaks have returned from Mexico and can be found using birdbaths and eating birdseed, using their large seed-cracking conical beaks.

If they find suitable habitat they may stay and breed here, if not they will continue into British Columbia.

The male Black-headed Grosbeak has a black head, a bright orange-cinnamon body with lemon-yellow on the breast and underside of the spotted-black wings. 

Female Black-headed Grosbeak
Photo by Christine Southwick

The female has a brown striped head, brown wings with spots, lemon-yellow wing-lining, and she is obviously a grosbeak

Both male and female Black-headed Grosbeaks sing a faster, mellow, American Robin-like song, with the females having a slightly different song from the males.

Seasonally monogamous, the males help incubate the 2-5 eggs, with the nest being built in trees such as willow, alder, big-leaf maple, and cottonwood. 

Male Black-Headed Grosbeak
Photo by Christine Southwick

They sometimes build their nests in dense stands of blackberries. The young usually leave the nest up to two weeks before they can fly —both parents feed their precocious offspring until they can safely fly and feed on their own.

Many local birds use this tactic since nests with noisy nestlings can be an easy target.

If you see a feathered baby bird with NO obvious injuries, leave it/them alone.

The parents are nearby. This is normal songbird behavior and the parents will feed them until they can fly.

Keep cats away from these walking fledglings.

Suitable habitat is dense deciduous areas, with large trees and thick bushes, especially near some sort of water, such as: streamside corridors (called riparian), wetlands, lakeshores, or even a garden creek or pond. They appear to dislike dense coniferous forests, but can be found in patches of broadleaf trees and shrubs within conifer forests.

Female Black-headed Grosbeak
Photo by Christine Southwick

During the summer they eat mainly insects, spiders, and snails, in addition to seeds. 

In the fall they will gladly eat any berries they find, including the highly invasive ivy and holly berries.

If you really want Black-headed Grosbeaks in your yard, provide black-oil sunflower seeds, running water, and deciduous trees or bushes. 

Oh, and you might try putting out a tiny dish of grape jelly near the sunflower seeds.

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I ❤️ Shoreline

Photo by Kristine Tsujikawa

By Pam Cross

Living in Shoreline can be very entertaining. Today traffic at a 4-way stop near my house was taking a little longer than usual. There were no honking horns or other indications of impatient drivers.  

When I was next in line, I was able to see the cause: a crow finishing its lunch in the middle of the intersection. 

I ❤️ Shoreline.

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Gloria Z. Nagler: Dark-eyed junco front and side

Photo copyright Gloria Z. Nagler

I like my off-center portrait. More interesting, doncha think?

(Dark-eyed Juncos are quite discerning)

Photo copyright Gloria Z. Nagler

Dark-eyed Junco courtesy of Nature; leaves courtesy of AI:)

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Grazing at low tide

Photo by RJ Perna

A crow takes advantage of the low tide at Richmond Beach Saltwater Park to graze among the rocks.

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For the Birds: Birds and Trees Symbiosis

Barred Owl nesting on top of snag
Photo by Doug Parrott

By Christine Southwick

All our local birds need trees. Our yard birds are classified as Passerines, or Perching Birds, since their feet have evolved to clinging to tree branches and trunks.

Most of the birds in our area eat, sleep, or breed in trees.

Northern Flickers, Downy, Hairy, Pileated Woodpeckers, and Red-Breasted Sapsuckers are cavity nesters that need good-sized local trees to create nest holes for raising their young, and for shelter and sleeping.

Pileated Woodpecker excavating nest
Photo by Doug Parrott

Black-capped and Chestnut-backed chickadees, plus Red-breasted Nuthatches, are just some of the birds that use old woodpecker cavities for their nests.

All kinds of birds build their nests in our local trees: Robins, Steller’s Jays, Yellow Warblers, et al. 

White-crowned Sparrows, Dark-eyed Juncos, and Spotted Towhees use trees as look-out posts from which to watch for predators near their nests.

Golden-crowned Kinglets, Yellow-rumped Warblers, Townsend’s Warblers, Merlins, Band-tailed Pigeons, and many other birds need tall evergreens in which to lay their eggs.

Red-breasted Nuthatches have been known to build their nests 120 feet high in conifers, Cedar Waxwings and kinglets often nest 60 feet up.

Golden-crowned Kinglet
Photo by Elaine Chuang

Willow Flycatchers, Pacific Slope Flycatchers, Western Tanagers and others pass through our area during northern and southern migrations and use treetops from which to fly out and catch the bugs needed to fuel their journeys.

Birds glean tiny bugs off trees which keeps trees healthy.

Some birds use open tree-tops on tall trees— Flycatchers, Merlins, Bald Eagles use these trees as hunting perches to locate and capture flying prey— bugs, or other birds. Owls often use broken-topped trees.

Trees reduce noise, moderate temperatures, reduce dust and help clean the air. 

Dead tree being used for nesting
Photo by Christine Southwick

Trees, especially year-round conifers, deflect rain and snow from falling directly to the ground, thereby slowing runoff and diminishing stormwaters and flooding.

Approximately 70% of the tree canopy in Shoreline is owned by private homeowners. 

Therefore, tree-cutting homeowners directly reduce Shoreline’s tree canopy. 

Trees enhance people’s yards and give character to local neighborhoods.

So, plant more trees, and keep the ones you have, especially those tall evergreens.

If a tree is sick, thin it. If it needs to be cut, don’t cut it flush to the ground, leave a ten foot or higher snag. 

It will cost you less, and the woodpeckers will start using the snag. Other birds will claim the used woodpecker holes.

Keep the trees! 

The birds will thank you and their lilting songs will help reduce your stress level.

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Gloria Nagler: Recycling Purple Finch

Photo copyright Gloria Z. Nagler

OK, now that I’ve cracked the seed, can I recycle the rest, photog? I hate to add to the planet’s problems!

--Gloria Z. Nagler

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Gloria Nagler's backyard birds: Townsend's Warbler

Photo copyright Gloria Z. Nagler

Saw 8 species in the first 20 minutes out in my yard! 

Here’s one who always stands out - a Townsend's Warbler. And she’s flipping the nut with her tongue:)

(She’s either an adult female, or a juvenile. Adult male is much darker.) 

--Gloria Z. Nagler

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For the Birds: Snow Geese Are Still in the Skagit

Snow Goose flock landing. Photo by Doug Parrott

By Christine Southwick

Snow Geese are in their winter grounds in the Skagit Valley, mostly near Stanwood and Fir Island, after having completed their summer breeding on the Russian island of Wrangel.

Snow Geese are a North American species, with both lesser (western), and Greater (eastern) subspecies, all of which breed in various parts of the Arctic Tundra. They will stay until about March.

The Skagit Valley is a major wintering site for Snow Geese, Trumpeter Swans, and Tundra Swans. These birds prefer flat to rolling coastal areas with grasses, sedges, and shallow lakes or streams.

Snow Geese showing underwing black wing tips
Photo by Elaine Chuang

Snow Geese, being herbivores, forage by using their sharp beaks to pick up seeds and rip vegetation from the ground. They are very vocal and can be heard more than a mile away from where they are foraging.

Once endangered, these geese have recovered so much that there are often up to 50,000 members here. Their recovery is now often damaging the very fields that they need here.

Snow Geese usually form a lifelong pair bond in their second year and start raising their annual three to five goslings in the third year. 

Snow Geese with landing gears down
Photo by Ray Hamlyn

The females return to their hatching grounds to breed their young (this return is called philopatric). 

The babies leave the nest and start feeding themselves within hours of hatching but stay under their parents’ protection for the next two to three years. 

So, expect to see juvenile Snow Geese in these flocks.

Occasionally you will see what is called a Blue Goose, which is the dark morph of the Snow Goose (both names come from their plumage). 

Both phases of Snow Geese have a black edge along their bills-it almost looks like someone ran a black crayon between the upper and lower bills. Their legs and feet are rose-colored, but their legs and heads are often stained a rusty-brown from the minerals in the soil. Juveniles have duller legs and bill. Snow Geese often feed with other species of wintering geese, like the Greater White-fronted Goose.

It is well worth the trip to go see and hear the flocks. Just remember to pull off these much-used rural roads, stay in/near your car, and respect private property rights. Who knows, you might see another white bird—the Snowy Owl. And know that they will probably start returning to Wrangel Island near the end of March.

See previous For the Birds columns here

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Mallard Yoga

Photo by Jo Simmons

Mrs. Mallard practices yoga next to an unconcerned Mr. Mallard

 at Twin Ponds.

 --Jo Simmons

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