ECUADOR BIRDBANDING, SUMMER 2014, with Michael Walker

Mike Walker writes: My trip to Ecuador was my third time as part of a volunteer crew doing tropical bird population studies at a privately owned nature reserve. The work included 7 days of bird banding across 3 habitat types, two days of forest trail bird surveys, and several days of work on hummingbirds (22 species) and Andean Cock-of-the Rock’s.

My highlight was the studying the birds we captured to gain knowledge of how they use the various habitat types. Our trail surveys identified 165 species, and we captured 317 birds representing 64 species. As part of the team, I banded 40 of those birds representing 28 species. All are amazing birds, but one of the more spectacular birds is in the photo below (my new facebook profile picture): A crimson-rumped Toucanet.

Mike Walker, cotinga51@comcast.net

HAWK MIGRATION INVITATION:

Richard Scranton is now in his second year as the director of the Hawk Migration Festival in Pateros on the weekend of Sept 13th. He has invited Tahoma Aubudon, ABC members, and bird class members to come over for it.

On Friday the 12th, we will have Jerry Ligouri here from Hawk Watch International, arguably the premier raptor ID expert in the country, to give a workshop on raptor ID. Later that nite we will offer an owl prowl for those interested. The next day we offer a field trip to Wells Wildlife from 8am to 12 pm, a great birding spot along the Columbia river. And, of course, there will be shuttles up to Chelan Ridge from 8 am to 2 pm on Saturday to see the biologists in action: counting raptors overhead and banding hawks such as sharpies and coopers.

You can see more details and sign up for the events on the Audubon website: ncwaudubon.org.

The workshop and owl prowl are new events this year, and folks can email me to sign up. If a group of people want to come I can help make all the arrangements.

We are hoping to get an especially large turnout at this event to help support the people of Pateros who went thru a lot with the devastating fires earlier this year.

Any questions, please contact me at rscran4350@yahoo.com or 509-421-3166.

Thanks, Richard Scranton

FALL FIELD TRIPS:

AUG 7: THELER WETLANDS – 7 AM: Meet at Theler Wetlands at Belfair. About 4 hours on level paths. See great birds AND great public art! No need to sign up — Just show up. If you need to Google directions, the address is 22871 NE SR3, Belfair 98529. This will be led by Faye McAdams Hands and John Riegsecker and will be a twice-a-month event. Assume this will be cancelled if really bad weather. FIRST AND THIRD THURSDAYS at 7 AM for the summer months. A later start time will be initiated sometime in the fall.

AUG 8-9: Coast trip with Ken Brown. Leave at 6:00am from P&R at I-5 and SR512. 2 days of coastal shorebirding, unless something interesting to chase shows up. We will motel, eat dinner out. Bring lunches, rubber boots. Call Ken at 360-876-9509 to reserve and set up carpooling.

AUG 12: Sehmel Homestead Park/Gig Harbor with Melissa Sherwood. June 17th, 8 AM. Enter park, turn right at the baseball fields and head south to the Heritage and Masters Gardens. Call Melissa with questions at 253-851-7230. She tends to cancel the trip during heavy windstorms. Sign up with Melissa directly. Future walk on Sept 23.

August 17, 7:30am – 5:00pm – Mt. Rainier/Sunrise Ptarmigan Hike: No, it’s not at dawn, but we’ll be hiking from Sunrise in Mt. Rainier National Park to Fremont Lookout to chase the elusive White-tailed Ptarmigan. Ptarmigan families are frequently seen in this area in August. We’ll enjoy a 5.6 mile roundtrip family-friendly hike with an elevation gain of 900 feet through wildflowers on our own favorite backyard mountain. Great territorial views on a clear day. Non-birders are very welcome. Trip leader is Martha Scoville, volunteer Meadow Rover for Mt. Rainier National Park, with birding help from Brian Pendleton. Meet at the first floor of the Tacoma Dome park-n-ride lot, 610 Puyallup Ave., at 7:30 am, and we will carpool to Sunrise. If you do not wish to carpool, meet at 9:30 at Sunrise by flagpole in front of the Visitors Center. Wear hiking boots and bring plenty of water, sunscreen, bug repellant, and a lunch. Rain or shine – bring appropriate garb. Don’t forget your Golden Age/Federal Parks Entrance Pass should you have one. Register by contacting Martha at mscoville@harbornet.com or (253) 752-5014 (h)/ (253) 221-7346 (cell).

AUG 21: JBLM Eagles Pride Golf Course: Denis DeSilvis leads periodic field trips to this area with the next one coming up on Thursday, September 18. They meet the third Thursday of each month at 8:00AM. Starting point is Bldg # 1514, Driving Range Tee, Eagles Pride Golf Course, I-5 Exit 116, Mounts Road Exit. Anyone is welcome to join, and you don’t have to have a base pass. For more info, contact Denis at: avnacrs4birds@outlook.com

AUG 23-24: Westport and Ocean Shores, including a pelagic trip. Art Wang will repeat the popular field trip to get pelagic birds and early shorebird migrants. It’s not too early to sign up with Westport Seabirds, which filled rapidly last year. To sign up for the pelagic trip on Saturday, contact Westport Seabirds at pmand001@comcast.net or call 360-268-9141. The boat trip portion of the field trip will leave Westport at 6:00 am on Saturday, Aug. 23. Say that you are part of the Tahoma Audubon field trip. Cost is $140, payable 30 days in advance. See www.westportseabirds.com.

AUG 30 (Saturday): Selleck swift chimney – Spend the sunset hour at Selleck hoping to see Vaux Swifts do their chimney trick (we got skunked last year, so trying the early part of the migration this time). See next Towhee for details or contact Diane Y-Q at Avosetta@hotmail.com

SEPT 6, 7, 8: KEN BROWN will lead a 3-day trip, Sat, Sun & Mon, Sept. 6, 7, & 8, to central & eastern Wash. looking for shorebirds & migrant songbirds. We will hit several areas going over, Getty’s cove, Gingko, Winchester sewage lagoon, Perch pt. Staying overnite in Othello. Para ponds, Washtucna, Lyons Ferry, Lind Coulee and possibly Potholes sp. in some order. E-mail for reservation, kennethwbrown@hotmail.com.

SEPT 14 (Sunday): JBLM Swift Chimney – Celebrate our local swift chimney! If you or your interested friend has base access, please join us to see a real spectacle! Still no official base field trip, so limited to those who have base access. Plan to be there an hour before sunset. For directions to the chimney, contact Diane Y-Q at Avosetta@hotmail.com

SEPT ??: Visit the swift chimney at the old Northern State Hospital at Sedro-Woolley. This is the tallest chimney on the swift’s route and has sometimes been the busiest. We will add on to Skagit Audubon’s field trip to assure access to what is now a Job Corps Center and will announce the date as soon as we know it.

September 28 (Sunday): 8:00am – 2pm. Montlake Fill, Seattle: “In My Nature” Field Trip with Connie Sidles The first book of the Fall for Tahoma Audubon’s Nature Book Club is In My Nature: A Birder’s Year at the Montlake Fill, by Constance Sidles. Following the book club discussion on Sept. 9, 1:30 pm, at the Hess Center, we’ll have a field trip to explore the birds and places in the book. You do not have to be a book club member to participate in the field trip. Meet at the Tacoma Dome Park-N-Ride, 610 Puyallup Ave., at 8 am, on Sunday, Sept. 28, and we will car-pool to the Montlake Fill (east of Husky Stadium). Bring lunch. We will tour the fabled Fill, search for fall migrants, and return in the early afternoon. Make reservations by emailing ArtNancy@harbornet.com or calling trip leader Art Wang at 253-209-4420. Special guest: Author Connie Sidles will join us and show us the places she loves at the Montlake Fill!

Charlie Wright has lost his dad:

Dear friends and family,

After a long period of illness and a fortunately much longer happy and adventurous life, my dad died of prostate cancer at 3am on 28 July 2014. This has been an extremely trying time for those close to him, but he would want us to find solace in knowing that he experienced “at least two lives’ worth” of joys in his 60 years. From roaming the creeks and beach of The Cove, to sailing to Hawaii and back, to leading Boy Scout troops and Little League teams for my two older brothers, to instilling a deep love of nature in Nick and me through exploring and camping in the natural areas of our home state, my dad always looked to the outdoors to enrich his and others’ lives. For this reason we will be having an outdoor memorial service/celebration of his life in mid-August. Details of the exact date and location have yet to be determined. Those specifics will be sent out when we know them.

If you are one who has been looking for a way to contribute in my dad’s memory, I have made two memorial accounts at Bank of America that anyone may contribute to as they wish.

The first fund is for funeral and close family expenses to help smooth out a rough transition. The savings account number is 138115153060.

The second fund will be donated to Hepatitis C research and charity. In his later years, before the cancer, my dad battled Hepatitis C (after he was found to have it in 1996, a fact he was not informed of until 2006). He found camaraderie in a large community of people across the United States in various stages of treatment for this often misunderstood disease, and thoughts of hope for those afflicted were always with him. The account number to donate to this cause is 138115153057. If you have any trouble making a donation, please let me know.

Best wishes,

Charlie, cwright7@uw.edu

As many of you know, we recently bid adieu to Rolan and Kathleen Nelson, as a career move for Kathleen led them to move to Spokane. Unfortunately, the news now is that Rolan is ill. Complete information is unavailable at this early date, but there are x-ray shadows on both lungs, and he felt badly enough to be in the ICU. We are awaiting more news.

If you’d like to send a card, please send it to his home address:

Roland and Kathleen Nelson, 504 W. Saint Thomas More Way, Spokane, WA 99208

Faye and I are going to bird our way to Spokane to see Rolan sometime in August when Kathleen gives us the go-ahead. We will carry with us any good wishes or anything else you’d like to send.

I am going to attempt to stay in touch with Kathleen, so feel free to e-mail me for the latest news and Avosetta@hotmail.com.

Diane Y-Q

ABC MEETING REPORT, July 24, 2014: ************************** A fun interactive evening was held, chaired by Kay Pullen. We started out with Bruce Hoeft asking us to all complete Surfrider’s online survey in an effort to make recreational uses of Washington’s shoreline an important ingredient in future decisions on land use of the coast. The website is: http://surfrider.org/washington-survey/ Then Jerry Broadus, well known as a bird bander, presented 2 long dark-colored feathers as a quiz and passed them around. It came as a surprise to many of us that they were from 2 different species when he finally revealed the answers. One of them was a primary from a Turkey Vulture, and the other, which was a dark primary with a white shaft, was from (surprise!) a Brown Pelican. Jerry mentioned that the only field guide that illustrated the white shaft was Sibley’s. I see that’s more obvious in the newer Sibley’s. Thanks, Jerry! Then on to the main discussion of the evening, a book discussion about migration centered around “Songbird Journeys” by Miyoko Chu. Kay Pullen led the discussion and started off with an excellent recorded interview with the author, which actually added to points made in the book. Our discussion centered around several points, especially how much was unknown about passerine migration until VERY recently and that much more remains to be learned. In a discussion centered on eBird now adding new insights to migration, Jerry brought up a recent ABA Birding magazine feature where an eastern hummingbird citizen science project that had been ongoing for many years clashed with eBird’s results, adding to the conclusion that so much is still to be learned. Faye and Clarice, as well as several others, noted that “our” birds who breed here are really visitors and are actually at “home” in the tropics where they spend more of their year. Discussion turned to experiments being done to figure out how birds know where to go, including clues from the stars, the earth’s magnetic field, and geographical landmarks. Vera had found a news video about an experiment on Euro Robins which disrupted migration when lots of human-sourced electronics were being used such as AM radio transmission. Wind farms and solar farms were mentioned as some of the many other hazards that have led to the huge downturn in numbers of migratory birds. Ken mentioned that by solar farm, he wasn’t referring to photovoltaics, but rather the ones where hundreds of mirrors follow the sun and condense the heat, thus making an invisible oven that any bird who happened by would be roasted in. Jerry mentioned visiting a bird market in Mexico no more than 5 years ago where thousands of birds, mostly passerines, were for sale in cages, long after this was supposedly outlawed there, and these were not parrots or the usual cage birds we think of, but our neotropic migrants for the most part. He said there was an entire floor dedicated to Jays. Then the difficulty of tracking migration was explored. Ms. Chu in her book had mentioned night flights, and Kay brought up the excellent website which uses radar to track, Birds Over Portland (which covers the entire northwest): http://birdsoverportland.wordpress.com/ Other methods of counting nighttime migrants include by voice, and Jim Danzenberger’s conversations with me about his data from his home in Battle Ground were mentioned with a handout passed around where he delineates his methods and the questions this has all raised in his mind. There was some discussion about getting him here next year some time to discuss this in person including his equipment, recorders, computer programs, etc. We’ll all be reading his Tweeters messages about his night censuses which will be starting up again in August. We had such a good time discussion this topic using a book as a starting point that we may do this again each summer. One book that was widely mentioned possibly for next year was “The Thing With Feathers,” by Noah Strycker. Read more about it here: http://www.amazon.com/Thing-Feathers-Surprising-Lives-Reveal/dp/1594486352/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1406316449&sr=1-1&keywords=the+thing+with+feathers Photo below of a few of the participants by Diane Y-Q (click to enlarge):

An Osprey survey of the Gig Harbor peninsula and environs was undertaken July 20 and 21 by Diane Yorgason-Quinn and Adam Trent. *********************** 1. The brand new nest at Victor on North Bay (Mason County) has 3 chicks in it, all of which are busy stretching their wings. This is a brand new artificial platform erected as mitigation for the removal of the power towers in the water of North Bay between Victor and Allyn which had hosted 2 Osprey nests and a small heronry of perhaps 8 nests in recent times. The Osprey at first didn’t like the new platform, but needing to nest, one couple took it. The heron nests were not mitigated. *********************** 2. The Osprey nest on the power tower at the Purdy spit has young, and both parents were seen. Unknown how many young. *********************** 3. The cell tower nest on Peacock Hill Blvd around 156th sounds like it has young in it. One bird was seen perched above the nest. Eagles didn’t get this nest this year! *********************** 4. This is the Wollochet Bay nest which was originally constructed by the Osprey on a TV antenna mounted high in an evergreen, but last year was repaired and outfitted with a camera which refreshes every 12 seconds: http://wdfw.wa.gov/wildwatch/ospreycam/still_image.html. There are 3 large young well seen from the ground as well as on the cam. An adult was in the nest with them when we visited. ************************ 5. The Inn at Gig Harbor has screaming young in the cell tower nest, but impossible to count them because of the angle. An adult was seen. ************************ 6. While we were at the Inn, a patron of the restaurant across the street (Tanglewood) where we were standing informed us that he enjoys seeing the Osprey nest at the Little League field. I asked him whether he had seen this nest this year, since it had burnt up last year and killed the nestlings (thanks to Melissa Sherwood for the news report at that time). He said he’d seen it recently, so we headed over there, but saw no nests, no Osprey. It must have been a long time since he went to a game there. ************************* 7. Seen fleetingly from the freeway (W16) just north of the cemetery and city center, there is a cell tower behind the sculptor’s site and Budget Truck Rental. I drove in there and observed 2 adult Osprey and heard lots of begging noise from the yard at JMS Wood Sculptures. Again too tall to peer into. ************************* Photo 7/21/2014 from the JMS Wood Sculpture yard off of W16 north of city center (click to enlarge):

Some great meetings coming up at ABC! We are fortunate to have some of the best researchers in the country close at hand, as well as the contacts to bring them to us (thanks, Kay!): ———————————————————————- September 29, 2014 (a Monday), UPlace library, 6:45 PM: Julie Smith of PLU will speak on the Red Crossbill subspecies (possible future full species), a topic that intrigues and frustrates northwest birders. Learn the thinking behind the separations, what will happen next, and how to tell one from another! ——————————————————————— Tentatively October 23, 2014 (fourth Thursday), UPlace library, 6:45 PM (Check back for reconfirmation of date after July 1): Peter Hodum of UPS will speak on his research on Puffins and Rhinos in our water plus his more exotic research in Chile.

GREETINGS FROM HAWAII: *************** The ABC Club had the good fortune to be addressed by Alex Wang a year ago last December when he was home on break from college in Hawaii. He’s now almost through with his Master’s and looking for where he wants to take his Doctorate. His subject: BIRDS! At the time he addressed us, he mentioned he’d be happy to show any of us around if we came over there, but little did he imagine he was going to get The Willettes!! On June 1, 2014, he took 6 of us into the closed Waikamoi Preserve (Nature Conservancy) on the eastern slope of the volcano to study the very hard-to-get Akohekohe (his study bird) and Maui Parrotbill (his hobby study bird) and lots of other endemics there. The next day he spared his morning for more local birding and shave ice! As we went by his lodgings just downslope from the preserve, we found Nene just lying around waiting for someone to ooh and aah over them! ****************************************** Photo below at Hosmer Grove before setting off down the Waikamoi trail. Click picture to enlarge. Showing Melissa Sherwood, Dorothy Husband, Faye McAdams Hands, Alex Wang, Diane Kerlin, Carol Smith, and Diane Yorgason-Quinn

On May 19, 2014, we had a rowdy session at the ABC meeting, starting out with a spirited discussion on oil trains, terminals, and barges proposed for Grays Harbor adjacent to staging areas for a huge proportion of the world’s Western Sandpipers as well as several other species which must have this for their fueling station. Bruce Hoeft has been working on this project and urged us all to send postcards (provided) or letters in the next week to be in time for the public input deadline. Ed Pullen has posted a sample letter on the ABC site along with the address. See it here: http://abcbirding.com/birderspecificlettergraysharborcrudeoilterminals#comment-1152 ********************************************* Next, we all said farewell to Rolan Nelson who has been an integral member of our birding community for 20 years, leading field trips and teaching classes, and just plain fun to bird with. We expect a field trip sometime in the next year to Spokane to see what great birding he’s turned up in his new territory. ****************************************** Spring is busy birding, and we more than filled out our remaining time with trip reports! Presenters included Rolan, Ken Brown, Ryan Wiese, Ed Pullen, Faye McAdams Hands, Laurel Parshall, and Diane Yorgason-Quinn. ************************* Photos: Laurel Parshall laughs with her flock (click to enlarge):