THE AMERICAN BABBLER

Once again today I heard, and didn’t see, a singing male Wrentit at Ashland Pond in southern Oregon.  The distribution of this unique American bird (only member of its family this side of the Bering Strait) is an example of both adaptation and inflexibility in this species.  Famously, the Wrentit is sedentary, rarely wanders far and eschews open water.  Thus the species’ northern range limit is now the south bank of the Columbia River.  Its ancestors must surely have come across the Siberian land bridge eons ago and moved south only to be isolated from all over babblers (widespread in Old World forests) and marooned south of the Columbia River when it was formed after gigantic ice sheets melted.  In Uganda once I saw a dark brown, skulking babbler with a big voice…larger than our Robin.  It looked and sounded much like an over-stuffed Wrentit.

Here in southern Oregon the Wrentit is found in scrub and heavy thickets, mostly at lower elevations. Most likely locations in Jackson County are along the Rogue River and then south along the Bear Creek riparian corridor.  Willows, cottonwoods and blackberry thickets often signal Wrentit presence.  It seems most likely that our Jackson County Wrentits arrived here by spreading from the coast up the Rogue River Canyon and then along the corridors of its major tributaries, like Bear Creek.  BIRDS OF OREGON (Marshall, Hunter & Contreras) points out the species is still expanding its range.  Not in weeks or months like the explosion of the Eurasian Collared-Dove, nor even over a few decades like the Starling or Red-shouldered Hawk, but one thicket to the next…ever so slowly.

EBird does show a record for the Klamath Falls area at slightly over 4000′.  Otherwise the bird is not seen east of the Sierra Nevada crest or the Cascades further north.  The species is also found in the Sierra Foothills and some higher plateaus in California.  It is most abundant along the California and Oregon coasts wherever brush dominates and forests are broken or absent altogether.  There hillsides often are alive with singing male Wrentits, each bouncing his only vocal rubber ball downhill at requent intervals. The habitats most likely to be home to the Wrentit are coastal scrub and inland chaparral.  They are not treetop singers, quite able to sing loudly while staying concealed in brush humans do not penetrate.  I have yet to meet anyone who gets Wrentit to come to a suet or seed feeder.  They are not a suburban adapter like the Mockingbird or House Finch.

The Audubon Society’s recent climate change report on North American birds gives no map for the Wrentit, but the American Dipper, also found on our low elevation streams here in southernmost Oregon does have a map.  The Audubon projections are very bleak for that species.  If the climate does get hotter and dryer and plants like blackberry disappear the Wrentit is not going to be able to nest in sagebrush and feed on open ground.

This Wrentit photo was taken at Ashland Pond some months ago by Majorie Palmer, a birder visiting Ashland from the Olympic Peninsula.  This is a bird she’s not going to see in her own backyard 200 miles north of the Columbia, the Wrentit demarcation line.  These birds are very hard to photograph because they do not often appear in public, preferring their seclusion and being undercover.  Their territory is year-round so I have heard one sing in January during a snowstorm.  “My thicket.  Stay out.”

PIB has numerous trips to Asia and Africa where you can see many and larger babblers.  If you want to see a Wrentit, sign up for one of trips in California or Oregon.

WINTER BIRDS OF THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST

UPDATE: SIGN-UPS FOR THIS TRIP CLOSE ON NOVEMBER 15, 2011.  This coming January PIB and Minneapolis Audubon are teaming up on a trip to the Pacific Northwest.  For Minnesotans the weather will seem mild despite the rain.  The wintering birds will agree.  Most have come down  from the Arctic to enjoy the temperate weather of coastal Oregon and Washington State.  The trip will begin and end in Portland.  For a complete itinerary, dates and list of target birds click here.

Here are soe pictures taken by birder Bob Shade on one previous trip:

Male Barrow’s Goldeneye on Hood Canal.

Black Turnstone on the rocks at Seaside, Oregon.

Pair of Harlequin Ducks just off the ferry dock at Keystone Harbor on Whidbey Island, WA.  This photo by tour leader, Harry Fuller.

A Pacific Wren in brush at Fort Lewis, OR, near the mouth of the Columbia River.  And a Surfbird with its gray back on the same stretch of beach as the turnstones.

A bunch of Brant watching a bunch of birders near Hama Hama, WA.

Other birds we see on this trip include: Red-throated and Pacific Loons, Black Oystercatcher, Long-tailed Duck, Pigeon Guillemot and Rhino Auklet, Glaucous-winged and Western Gulls, Chestnut-backed Chickadee, Anna’s Hummingbird.  We will also visit Ft. Clatsop where Lewis & Clark spent the winter 1804-5 and a Native American cultural center for the S’Kallam Tribe.

Here’s a link to blogs done during last year’s trip.

Birding the Continent’s Edge

Out PIB Northwestern Birding Trip was at the mouth of the Columbia River in Oregon today.  And then went south to Cannon Beach on the Pacific shore.  Have you ever really seen the feathering on a Black Turnstone?  We did.

We encountered White-fronted Geese in a Cannon Beach city park.

Altogether we’ve seen over seventy species.  Today we added Surf Scoter, the turnstones, Dunlin, Sanderling, Horned Grebe, the White-fronts, Varied Thrush (always a hit among visiting birders), Wrentit and Pacific Wren.

SAUVIE ISLAND–NORTHWESTERN U.S. IN WINTER

This was the first official day of our annual Northwestern U.S. trip.  Birding Sauvie Island west of Portland and nearby Scappoose Bottoms we had over sixty species.

 

 

 

 

Here’s a cross-section of the thousands of Cackling Geese wintering in the area.

 

 

 

 

And here are a few of the Sandhill Cranes that winter this far north.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And we had Golden-crowns galore…sparrow, and kinglet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NORTHWEST WINTER BIRDING, GALLERY PART 3

Here are yet more pictures captured by birders on the PIB trips to the Pacific Northwest last winter.  Here’s you chance to get your own pictures this winter.

View across Sauvie’s Island taken by Steve Murray.  That’s another one of those Cascades volcanoes.

Black Turnstones on the ferryboat dock at Port Townsend, Washington.  There were Surfbirds present, along with Pigeon Guillemot and Pelagic Cormorant.  Steve Murray took this photo.

Adult Pigeon Guillemot in Puget Sound.  This bird will not show up in your local reservoir if you live east of Sacramento.  Photo by Mr.Murray.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Barrow’s Goldeneye by Tom Shade.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In addition to all the birds we saw Orca, river otter, California sealions, harbor seals, elk and mule deer.  Among the land birds we saw: Varied Thrush, Wrentit, Pacific Wren, Pileated Woodpecker, Merlin, Cooper’s Hawk.

 

 

 

 

SEABIRDS IN THE RAIN FOREST, GALLERY PART 2

More pictures from the birders on our 2010 winter trips to the Pacific Northwest.  HERE YOU CAN FIND OUT ABOUT OUR TRIP IN 2011.

PHOTOS, TOP TO BOTTOM:

Brant loafing along the shore of Hood Canal, Washington State.  Photo by Steve Murray.

Male White-winged Scoter, Hood Canal.  By Steve Murray.

Harlequin couple on the rocks along Hood Canal.  Photo by Jeannie Mitchell.

Male Olds… Long-tailed Duck cruising the yacht harbor at Sequim, Washington.  Photo by Ms Mitchell.

A Glaucous-winged Gull struggles to get up enough speed to show its disapprobation of an adult Bald Eagle.  The eagle seemed to be carrying a Coot  in its talons.  This action shot by Ms Jeannie Mitchell.

Red-tailed Hawk dining on fresh rodent, Sauvie’s Island, Oregon.  Photo by Ms Mitchell.

Trumpeter Swans in flight, Sauvie’s Island, Oregon.  Photo by Ms Mitchell.

Whidbey Island beach, photo by Jennifer Hyypio.  Here we saw a large flock of Black Oystercatchers.  A flotilla of Harlequins, several species of loon and grebe fished offshore and a Pacific (nee “Winter’) Wren came down to insect-hunt in the driftwood.

Some Northwest Pics From Janet Hyypio

TOP TO BOTTOM:

Blue Heron, NIsqually NWR, WA

Pelagic Cormorant and Glaucous-winged Gull at ferry terminal, Port Townsend, WA.

Sunrise at Astoria, OR.

Northern Shrike, also at Nisqually.

More Murray…You Shudda Been There

Eagles in aerial combat above Nisqually River at Nisqually NWR.  One eagle had a duck in its talons.  Two other eagles envied that.

Mew Gull (Left) and three Western Gulls.

Rhino Auklet in flight.

Part of the Varied Thrush flock we found along the road in Ft. Stevens Park near the mouth of the Columbia River in Oregon.

Red-necked Grebe.  There were many in Hood Canal, none near shore.

Pileated who flew around the treetops at Tolmie State Park, WA.

Red-throated Loon.

More great shots from birder Steve Murray

Top to bottom:

Black Turnstones on the ferryboat dock, Port Townsend, WA.

Bald Eagles over Nisqually NWR.

Horned Grebe on Hood Canal along the Olympic Peninsula, WA.

Red-winged Blackbird walks on shells, oyster shells.  Hood Canal.

Steve Murray: More Fine Northwestern Images

Top to Bottom:  Mule deer buc watching the watchers.

Red-breasted Merganser.

White-winged Scoter male on Hood Canal where they were often within thirty yards of shore.

Lincoln’s Sparrow in the marsh at Crockett Lake on central shoreline of Whidbey Island, across the road from  the Keystone Ferry Terminal.

Marsh Wren at Nisqually NWR.