JANUARY 2015 ABC GALA!

On January 29th, the ABC Club met to celebrate its own!! We had lots of fun and games, beverages, and goodies!

The meeting started out with the two stalwarts of the club, Kay Pullen, our Mistress of Ceremonies and program planner, and Ken Brown, founder, both being recognized this year by Tahoma Audubon as award winners for their volunteer work! Congratulations both of you!

Kay then announced a wonderful roster of upcoming programs including feather artist Chris Maynard next month on February 26, famous woodpecker and owl photographer/author Paul Bannick on March 23, noted naturalist and author Andy Stepniewski in April, Wendy Connally of WDFW in May or June on the new Northwest eBird portal, later in the year Lora Leschner of the Washington Pacific Cost Joint Venture, then Peter Wimberger and Dennis Paulson, whom you all know!

Plus we’re going to read the book, The Thing with Feathers by Noah Strycker, a one-time Washingtonian who is now doing a World Big Year! More info: http://noahstrycker.com/ So start reading soon!

Our Big Year review included our star for Pierce County, Mike Charest, with what he’s learned from two consecutive Big Year titles and the new birds added for 2014. His photos, as usual, were terrific! He also explained where Sha-Dux wetland is, one of his finds that got people birding there and where there is currently a Black Phoebe! The Phoebe was seen yesterday by the red mark: https://www.google.com/maps/place/47%C2%B013%2717.7%22N+122%C2%B020%2746.5%22W/@47.2217396,-122.3460782,976m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x0:0x0

The Great Bustard Caper was then presented by Kay and Ed Pullen. This was on a trip to England where they were privileged to be privy to a reintroduction program of this fabled huge bird to the Isles from Spain after a botched attempt from Russia. The population now is almost to the self-sustaining level. The leader of the program has facial hair now making him quite resemble a Great Bustard himself and keeps Bustard “pets” which the Pullens met and came home with souvenir feathers, some of which they offered to us, some saved for Faye, our Feather person, and some to be saved for next month’s speaker, the feather artist/expert Chris Maynard!! The feathers illustrated powder down very well. Ed recommended YouTube videos for more information:

Then the game quiz!! We struggled and we laughed to identify problem bird photos! Photos came from many of the group. As usual, we sweated over them too long, so had to postpone many for another day.

Our 5 Best Photos of 2014 participants showed us some glorious photos, including the Pullens, Pat Damron, Heather Roskelley, Heather Voboril, Susan Boynton, Carol Smith, John Riegsecker, Brian Pendleton, Vicki Biltz, John Riegsecker, Bryan Hanson, Diane Y-Q, Åsta Tobiassen, and Cara Borre, including her stunning video of the Eurasian Hobby seen in October/November, which was part of a longer video on the great bird collection seen at that time at Neah Bay, which is highly recommended: https://www.youtube.com/user/wildthingproduction1?feature=watch

A great time was had by all!

Click below to enlarge photos:

ABC’s 2015 NEW YEAR’S CELEBRATION!!

Join us for fun and games on January 29th at the University Place Library at 6:45 PM.

We’ll be celebrating our Big Year people, old and new, including Mike Charet and Brian Pendleton, who mesmerized us last year with their outstanding Big Years, and Ken Brown who just finished a Kitsap Big Year.

Kay and Ed Pullen will be giving a presentation on the Great Bustard, a truly amazing story! Don’t miss this!

BEST PHOTOS FROM EVERYONE! Bring your 5 best photos from 2014! With only 5 from each, we should have a fast and fabulous slide show to make us appreciate our local talent! Photos can be of anything, not necessarily birds. Bring on a jump drive or e-mail to Kay Pullen at kaypullen@me.com or Diane Y-Q at Avosetta@hotmail.com.

Speaking of photos, we’ll also have a photo quiz, or should we say, Help us ID these birds!! If you have a photo of a bird that you think should be in this quiz, send it to Kay Pullen at kaypullen@me.com or Diane Y-Q at Avosetta@hotmail.com.

This will be a celebratory party just for us as well as a look forward at all the great programs we have coming up, including February’s program (Feb 26) featuring famed feather sculptor and scholar, Chris Maynard. His new book will be available at that time. More info on his website: http://www.featherfolio.com/

CHARLIE WRIGHT GULL EVENT SLIDE SHOW:

Several people have asked to receive the slides from Charlie’s presentation on November 24th. We are unable to post the PowerPoint program on the ABC website, so as an alternative, below you will find thumbnails of the slides. They are not full sized, though, so if you see any you’d like, please e-mail Diane Y-Q at Avosetta@hotmail.com with the numbers of the slides you’d like to have sent to you by e-mail.

Thanks, Charlie, for making these available and for a great presentation.

Click on the image below to enlarge it for viewing.

CHARLIE WRIGHT GULL WORKSHOP REPORT, Nov 24, 2014.

We had such an enthusiastic response to hearing Charlie talk about gulls that Peter Wimberger of UPS had to find us a bigger room to hold it in!

I think everybody took notes! Of the 24 species ever seen in Washington, Charlie covered the 8 main species (Mew, Thayer’s, Ring-Billed, California, Herring, Glaucous-Winged, Herring, and Glaucous), as well as two hybrids (the common Glaucous-Winged/Western and the more-common-than-realized Glaucous-Winged/Herring, plus the bonus gull, Slaty-Backed, now being seen at Gog-Le-Hi-Te in the Tacoma tideflats!

You have to love a presenter who tells you to identify your gulls by facial expressions! Glaucous-Winged: Horse face! Thayer’s: Bambi-like, gentle! Charlie says to learn gull faces like your friends’ faces.

Charlie finished up by moving the group to the Slater Museum. Museum honchos Peter Wimberger and Gary Shugart had put out a plethora of gull specimens for our study, which provoked more one-on-one questions, which Charlie and Peter fielded admirably.

Field trips are still coming up for those of you lucky enough to get into one. If so, you’ll be getting reminders soon. If not, you can get on the waiting lists by contacting Diane Y-Q at Avosetta@hotmail.com.

Click on photo below to enlarge.

CHARLIE WRIGHT GULL EVENT – NOV 2014

The response has been overwhelming for this event. We will be getting our difficult questions about Gull ID answered by our own rising bird star, Charlie Wright. He is the regional reviewer for eBird in Washington and a member of the Washington Bird Records Committee. He says, “I have been doing research on bird occurrence and migration on Middleton Island in the Gulf of Alaska for the last 4 fall seasons, and I work out of the University of Washington for the COASST program the rest of the year. COASST is a citizen science project monitoring beached birds from northern CA up to Alaska.”

PART ONE: WORKSHOP: Monday, November 24th, at 6:45 to 8:45 at UPS, Thompson Hall, room to be announced. $15. RSVP to Diane Y-Q at Avosetta@hotmail.com to get on the list. The actual room number will be sent out to those who have registered. This will take the place of our regular ABC meeting.

PART TWO: FIELD TRIP: Two field trip dates have been announced in conjunction with the workshop. You may attend the workshop or a field trip or both. Field trip fee is $15 (or if you do both a field trip and the workshop, $25).

Field trip dates are 11/30 and 12/13. The 11/30 field trip is FULL, though you can be wait-listed for it. There are just 5 spots left on the 12/13 field trip. RSVP immediately to assure a spot. RSVP to Diane at Avosetta@hotmail.com.

For those already signed up, a reminder will be sent out soon to you.

CHARLIE WRIGHT will do a Gull workshop for ABC in November!!

ACTION REQUIRED: NEED RSVP ASAP to set up field trip dates!! See choices below.

The Gull workshop will be Monday November 24th at the University Place Library at 6:45, the MONDAY before Thanksgiving. If this date is a problem, let us know.

FEES: This workshop will be a fee item. There will also be a field trip associated with it, and the workshop and field trip will each be $15 unless you do both, in which case your discounted price will be $25. You can pay Charlie when you see him or pass your fees to Diane Y-Q, Kay Pullen, or Ken Brown in the meantime. If you need to write a check, make it out to Charlie Wright. However, DO NOT WAIT TO RSVP so field trip dates can be determined.

As many of you know, Charlie Wright is a rising star in Birddom. He is the regional reviewer for eBird in Washington and a member of the Washington Bird Records Committee. He says, “I have been doing research on bird occurrence and migration on Middleton Island in the Gulf of Alaska for the last 4 fall seasons, and I work out of the University of Washington for the COASST program the rest of the year. COASST is a citizen science project monitoring beached birds from northern CA up to Alaska.”

POSSIBLE FIELD TRIP DATES (could be more than one field trip if we have more than 4 carloads):

December 13 or 14; December 27 or 28; November 29 or 30; or December 6 or 7. Please indicate your first and second choices of dates.

Notify Kay Pullen (kay@pullenadvertising.com) or Diane Y-Q (Avosetta@hotmail.com) ASAP that you want to participate and what dates work for you.

October 23, 2014 — Meeting Report:

ABC was happy to welcome Professor Peter Hodum from UPS as our guest speaker, and we had to be forcibly kicked out of the library due to a constant stream of questions at the end! We’ll definitely be having Prof Hodum back again!

Professor Hodum had lots of information on his studies of Rhinoceros Auklets and Tufted Puffins in Washington waters, although he did let on that his true love is Tubenoses, and that is what his research on Chilean islands is all about, which he will tell us more about next year. Two surprising things were the lack of past reliable work done on our Alcids as well as the factoid that Rhinos are really homely Puffins rather than Auklets! His research on the Alcids covered in particular Destruction Island off the coast, Tatoosh Island at the intersection of the Pacific and the Strait, and Protection Island at the intersection of the Strait and Puget Sound, as well as Smith Island in that same area, and there were notable differences in many factors such as the presence or absence of European Rabbits. Bottom line is that Rhinos are doing fairly well, and Puffins are not. Puffins may soon be declared Endangered in the state, although they are doing well in Alaska.

He closed his presentation with a sobering overview of plastics in the ocean waters and in the species studied as well as their prey. Even filtering mussels had tiny pieces of plastic that made it through their filters. So the biggest problem for these birds and for the earth is us.

Click to enlarge photo.

We are excited to have Professor Peter Hodum from UPS at ABC on October 23!

Birding Lecture: Seabirds of the USA & Chile, UPS Professor Peter Hodum

Thursday, October 23, 7:15pm to 8:30pm

University Place Library Meeting Room

3609 Market Place W, Suite 100

University Place, WA 98466

Join the ABC Club and Biology Professor Peter Hodum at University of Puget Sound who will share his riveting field research on burrowing seabirds, principally the rhinoceros auklets and tufted puffins in Washington Islands. He will also discuss the ecology and conservation of native seabird communities in the Juan Fernandez Islands in Chile. Learn how these birds are becoming indicators of our oceanographic conditions and productivity.

We look forward to seeing you and your friends next week for this presentation. Open to all.

SEPTEMBER 2014 MEETING REPORT: CROSSBILLS!

Professor Julie Smith of PLU took us all back to college on the evening of September 29th. She described the projects she and her students have worked on, and we all kind of wished to be those students. Her doctoral advisor had taken the work of earlier studies starting with Lack in 1944 and continuing on through Groth, Benkman, and his own work, which established the “types” of red crossbills according to foods, bill depth, seed husking groove, calls, and type of tree/cone used, and he hypothesized the presence of a distinct crossbill type in the lodgepole pine variety found in a particular area of southern Idaho that did not have Red Squirrels called the South Hills. Dr. Smith went there to find out if such a type existed and discovered it! She continues to study the South Hills Crossbill (type 9 of 10), and expects that eventually this “type” will be recognized as a full species, as well as several of the other types, although probably not all 10 as separate species. She is currently doing the frustrating work of collecting song recordings from crossbills, who sing only when breeding, and breeding can be any time the cone crop is just right, although maybe more predictable with the South Hill type since they are more sedentary than other more irruptive types. The songs are long and improvisational, and we were treated to an example as well as to sonograms. Females are attracted by voice more than bill structure, so this is an important facet. Dr. Smith’s work will be followed closely by a number of us in the years to come. She was very accommodating in answering our many questions, as well.

PHOTOS: Click to enlarge. Be sure to notice Jerry Broadus’ banding shirt featuring a red crossbill applying a band to a kingfisher’s leg!

VAUX SWIFT FALL MIGRATION SUMMARY, as seen by Diane Yorgason-Quinn and Adam Trent

JBLM SWIFT CHIMNEY: We had a good local team of counters this fall. I made several personal visits starting August 26 and finishing September 21, most with excellent weather, but our last few counters are now experiencing that changeable fall weather, and counts are falling as expected. We had an informal field trip there on September 14th, only open to those with base access and their friends/relatives, but there were 15 of us! See forthcoming write-up in The Towhee. It was a nice warm evening with lots of swifts.

SELLECK CHIMNEY: After the disappointing no-show of the swifts last year, we held the field trip earlier this year on August 31, and we were not disappointed, with about 700 birds seen on a wonderful late summer evening.

MONROE SWIFT FESTIVAL: Adam and I attended the festival on Sept 13th, where we bumped into Susan Boyington and about a thousand other swifters! The turnout was fabulous, the most I’ve ever seen! The swifts pleased the crowd, most of them not knowing that 2600 swifts was far from a big night for Monroe. Applause ensued.

SEDRO-WOOLLEY: The Old Northwest Hospital field trip, hosted by Skagit Audubon, was on September 18th. Adam and I made our annual trek up there. When we met the group it was raining, and hopes were low. However, as we drove up the palatial driveway of the facility, now a Job Corps center, there were swifts pouring into the chimney in the rain. When we parked, the rain started to let up, and then the swifts put on their show! Several thousand, unknown total due to the stream of birds who had already entered. A nice crowd from Skagit Audubon also was nice, although we always wonder why there is no one out there watching from the Job Corps. Maybe they watch on other nights. Thanks, Tim Manns, for arranging this great field trip!

EUGENE, OREGON: On September 22nd, Adam and I found the UofO campus and the chimney at Agate Hall. School wouldn’t start for another week, so parking wasn’t bad. The lot at Agate Hall is enforced for those with parking passes only until 6 PM, so swifters get in free after that. We had first found it around 4:10 PM, and swifts were already going in the chimney in light sprinkles of rain. We came back at 5:45 and found swifts still, or again, entering the chimney. This continued sporadically until we saw a Merlin zoom by, but it never came back, probably because of constant crow and Cooper’s Hawk attention to the chimney after that. Although a crow did land on the chimney, it later became clear that it was mainly trying to keep the Coop from doing so. The Coop then managed 2 nice meals from sacrificial swifts before departing well after dark. Meanwhile, a Chimney Swift was detected by those more savvy than I, although Adam did hear its different vocalization! Then thousands upon thousands of swifts lined up in circles in the sky to get into bed, not finishing until about 6:40 in rainy very dark conditions. Check out a video we made and a few other shots at: 76552838@N03/sets/72157647623276170/” >https://www.flickr.com/photos/76552838@N03/sets/72157647623276170/ The video was made in the dark, but you can still see the frenzy. This was the high count for us personally this season with over 10,000 birds in spite of the drizzle, and lots of drama!

ST. JOHNS THEATER/PORTLAND AREA: On the evening of September 23rd, we checked out what has become a good roost in this area, but met heavy rain starting at sunset (after the heavy traffic getting there!). We saw about 30 swifts, but only one went into the chimney, and he ended up coming back out to find out where his friends went. I hope they made it to Chapman or some other safe site in that rain! They have had hundreds of swifts there, but this wasn’t the best night for this interesting chimney!