SEPTEMBER MEETING AND PROGRAM
Birds of Alaska
By Bob Hamblin
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
7:00 Social; 7:30 Program
Padilla Bay Interpretive Center
10433 Bayview-Edison Road
Mount Vernon, Washington
Parakeet Auklet
Bob Hamblin has spent 26 years in the field photographing birds, during which time he has traveled over 300,000 miles and covered 47 states and 11 Canadian provinces and territories. A new video series born of this work is in final production stage, and will cover over 600 species of birds found in North America. In this program he will show a portion of that video specific to birds in Alaska.
Because the state is large and not easily accessible, Bob found it necessary to bring to Alaska a 26 foot trailer to live in and also required aircraft flights to remote areas like the Pribilof Islands in the Bering Sea. St. Paul Island in the Pribilofs gave him 9 new species, such as Thick-billed Murre and Red-faced Cormorant. He also was able to observe rarities like Red-legged Kittiwake, Parakeet Auklet, and Least Auklet, and, as a bonus, Great Knot and Common Pochard, both of which are rare European strays.
Please join us for this exciting presentation about birds in Alaska.
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SEPTEMBER MEETING AND PROGRAM
Birds of Alaska
By Bob Hamblin
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
7:00 Social; 7:30 Program
Padilla Bay Interpretive Center
10433 Bayview-Edison Road
Mount Vernon, Washington
Parakeet Auklet
Bob Hamblin has spent 26 years in the field photographing birds, during which time he has traveled over 300,000 miles and covered 47 states and 11 Canadian provinces and territories. A new video series born of this work is in final production stage, and will cover over 600 species of birds found in North America. In this program he will show a portion of that video specific to birds in Alaska.
Because the state is large and not easily accessible, Bob found it necessary to bring to Alaska a 26 foot trailer to live in and also required aircraft flights to remote areas like the Pribilof Islands in the Bering Sea. St. Paul Island in the Pribilofs gave him 9 new species, such as Thick-billed Murre and Red-faced Cormorant. He also was able to observe rarities like Red-legged Kittiwake, Parakeet Auklet, and Least Auklet, and, as a bonus, Great Knot and Common Pochard, both of which are rare European strays.
Please join us for this exciting presentation about birds in Alaska.
__________________________
Location of our meetings:
Padilla Bay Interpretive Center
10433 Bayview-Edison Road
Mount Vernon, Washington
JOINT STATEMENT ANNOUNCING SETTLEMENT OF NORTHERN SPOTTED OWL LITIGATION
On July 3, 2008, the State of Washington Commissioner of Public Lands, the Seattle and Kittitas Audubon Societies (Audubon), the Washington Forest Protection Association (WFPA) and Weyerhaeuser Company announced the settlement of ongoing litigation over Northern Spotted Owls.
Under the settlement, the parties propose a collaborative Policy Working Group on Northern Spotted Owl Conservation to be established by the Washington Forest Practices Board. The purpose of the Working Group would be to recommend measures that result in strategic contributions from non-federal lands in Washington to the broader goal of conservation of a viable population of the Northern Spotted Owl. Recommendations must be based on the best available science and should consider guidance in the federal Northern Spotted Owl Recovery Plan. The State Department of Natural Resources, Audubon, WFPA and Weyerhaeuser will participate in that collaborative process, along with representatives of the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife and others. While the details of the settlement between Audubon and Weyerhaeuser are confidential, the settlement maintains habitat around the four owl site centers that were the focus of Audubon's claim against the company.
Spotted Owl
The parties to the litigation concluded that continuing this “take” litigation under the federal Endangered Species Act would not be productive and would prevent a truly collaborative process, which they are hopeful will lead to significant conservation benefits for the spotted owl on non-federal lands.
ABOUT BIRDS By Tim Manns
Brown Creeper
Though deemed a single species, the Brown Creeper varies across America—from larger in the north to smaller in the south, darker or lighter from one place to another, with varying songs and calls—enough variation to define 12 subspecies. These range from Alaska and southern Canada down to Nicaragua and from the Atlantic to the Pacific with Occidentalis being the one here in Western Washington. Many of the Canadian breeders migrate south to winter across the U.S. or into northern Mexico. In more temperate areas, Creepers breeding in mountains may simply drop to lower elevation for winter, but most stay in the same area all year.
Brown Creepers creep upward on tree trunks (never downward as Nuthatches do), preferring large trees because they offer proportionately more insects, spiders, and their larvae and eggs and so require less foraging energy than more frequent flights between smaller trees. Creepers sometimes spiral up a trunk, sometimes ascend straight, using their stiff tail as a prop and clinging with long-clawed feet equipped with an especially long backward reaching claw. Once it's minutely probed the crevices high up one tree, the Creeper flies to a low spot on another and ascends again. The abundant big trunks and shaded, moist air of old growth forest especially attract high densities of Brown Creepers.
In spring, male Creepers sing to attract mates (one each) and defend territory. Listen for their “trees, trees, beautiful trees” call (credit: Bob Kuntz) when you're in or near forest. John James Audubon, Alexander Wilson, and other early ornithologists thought that creepers usually nest in cavities, but this seems to be so only when their preferred sites are unavailable. What they much more often do is stuff bark, fibers, leaves, and moss between a large flap of bark and a tree trunk, first making a base of cocoons and spiders' egg cases. The finished nest is a little feather-lined hammock that will hold the Creeper's 3 to 7 eggs. On a cold winter night, Creepers may bundle together behind such a bark flap.
Brown Creeper
In the 1930's Arthur Cleveland Bent wrote in his Life Histories of North American Birds, “The brown creeper, as he hitches along the bole of a tree, looks like a fragment of detached bark that is defying the law of gravitation by moving upward over the trunk, and as he flies off to another tree he resembles a little dry leaf blown about by the wind.” Anyone who has searched for Creepers knows the effectiveness of their camouflage. When danger threatens, the Brown Creeper, wings spread, flattens against a tree trunk, and disappears.
Rufous Hummingbird
This feisty little creature carries a load of superlatives. Maybe we can only call the Rufous Hummingbird one of the earliest migrants returning from outside the U.S. (i.e., Neotropical migrants), but we can say flat out that it goes further north than any other of the world's 328 or so hummingbirds and is the smallest bird nesting at such a high latitude. You can see Rufous Hummingbirds in the gardens of Skagway, Alaska, at almost 60 degrees north. Measured in body lengths, this bird of about a penny's weight makes the longest migration of any bird, any where: from as far south as Jalisco, Mexico, to a maximum of 61 degrees north (Anchorage!) is 48,600,000 Rufous Hummingbird lengths or more—an unusual way to look at travel but impressive nonetheless.
Rufous Hummingbird
Photo by J.B. Smith
Though the Rufous readily catches tiny insects on the wing, plucks them from plants and spider webs, and sips from sapsucker wells (watch for this around here), the nectar it takes from flowers seems the main determinant of its migratory route. From a fairly restricted area in central Mexico, Rufous Hummingbirds fly north across the very western U.S., arriving here in Skagit County when salmonberry and currant begin to bloom. Returning south, most follow the Rocky Mountains, sustaining themselves on flowers at higher elevations blooming later in the summer. While Rufous Hummingbirds are refueling, they also move pollen from flower to flower. Evidence suggests that by doing this they've played an important role in the evolution of Californian plant species.
Rufous Hummingbirds breed only in the Northwest, but they stray more than any other North American hummingbird and have been recorded in every state except Hawaii and in most Canadian provinces. Yet overall, their numbers have been declining. Writer and naturalist Gary Nabhan points out that the conversion of large areas in western Mexico and the southwestern U.S. to industrial agriculture has created long gaps in the "nectar corridors" on which Rufous Hummingbirds depend for refueling during their long migration. Soon, they will leave us and fly south again. Whenever this feisty super-migrant catches our eye as it flashes its throat feathers warning a rival, we can reflect on the heroics that bring it back each year, herald of spring and pollinator extraordinaire.
