North Coast Diaries

Angry, angry sea

Why a duck?

It rained a bit yesterday...

Today there was some rain left over that hadn't quite made it out to the river. It was a good day for ducks. It was a good day for geese. And, as I sorted though anseriforms around Brownsmead and Svensen Island, I got to thinking: how many field marks does it take to make a duck?

For some species, only one field mark is necessary.

And for others, a field mark that is supposed to "define" the species may be absent or (nearly so).

Sometimes the field marks are too subtle for the mere mortal to discern. We may think we know what we're looking at and there may be better men than me who actually do, but only the birds know for sure (and they may care less about the differences we claim for them than we do).

Then there are the vagaries of space and time and photos taken through a spotting scope...

The National Weather Service warns that we should expect more rain. I suspect this means we can expect more duck-day afternoons and more opportunities to ponder the way of the goose.

What's with all the red-shoulders?

Once upon a time, not too very long ago, seeing a Red-shouldered Hawk in Oregon was a big deal. They have been slowly expanding their range, working up the coast and interior valleys over the last 20 years. I didn't see my first Red-shouldered Hawk here in Clatsop County until 1998 after over 10 years of looking.

Today I saw two and in the past couple years, there have been days when I see 3 or 4.

The expansion of Red-shouldered Hawk as well as White-tailed Kite and Black Phoebe are all probably due to climate change and when I say climate change, I mean the broader definition, not the narrower global warming due to carbon definition. Yes, global average temperatures are going up and yes, carbon emissions are a cause. But we human do other things to the landscape which change the climate. We build city creating heat islands. We cut down conifer forests and replace them with croplands, or shopping malls which changes how radiant energy is absorbed or reflected. We import non-native species. We extirpate native ones.

New species migrate into these micro-climatic oases that we create. Their numbers increase. Red-shouldered Hawks are responding to the changes we have made as a consequence of doing what we do.

When people ask me if I've noticed any changes in the local avifauna due to climate change, they're looking for stories of loss, and there are plenty of species that have gone missing because of human impacts. The demonstrable changes, however, the ones we can measure easily and show to others are stories of the additions.

I don't complain about the increase in the number of Red-shouldered Hawks. They are a beautiful creature and are probably not displacing other native species. But for every benign species that expands its range northward, there are also cowbirds and starlings, scotch-brooms and knotweeds.

The Red-shouldered Hawk expansion is a sign of our times.

Tropical Kingbirds

Last week, Steve Warner found a Tropical Kingbird at the Pizza Castle in Seaside. The area between the Wahanna River mouth (where the Pizza Castle is) and 12th Street seems to be a good spot for Tropical Kingbirds. 8-10 have been seen in that general area over the last few years, sometimes multiple birds hanging out together.

Another kingbird hotspot is the area along the back edge of Youngs Bay in Astoria. Kingbirds have been found from Astoria High School to Wireless Rd, at least 6 altogether, including one today along Wireless Rd.
Tropical Kingbirds are well known for their "reverse" migration, heading north in the fall before turning south again to spend the winter in proper tropical climes. Birds that stick around for more than one day are usually associated with holly trees and may eat the holly berries. They make good use of the termite flights that occur after fall rains and have an amazing knack for find wasp nests.

Other spots in Clatsop County where Tropical Kingbirds have appeared include the Warrenton Sewage Ponds and Svensen Island.

Red-shouldered Hawk

Caught in action this morning at the Astoria Airport.

Name that prey item

It's time once again to play, name that prey item!

This week, three kinds of shorebirds. Three kinds of prey. Can you identify them?

Spotted Sandpiper at Necanicum Estuary.
Dunlin at Sunset Beach.

Sanderlings at Sunset Beach

Five birds that are not a Tropical Kingbird

Steve Warner found a TROPICAL KINGBIRD at the confluence of the Necanicum and Neawanna Rivers in Seaside this morning. I dropped by to look for it and found several species that were not a Tropical Kingbird.

I did not get to see the kingbird, however...

Chinook

The Chinook are running at Youngs River Falls. I waded out to mid-stream and got some record quality photographs of the event. Fish are really difficult subjects...

Getting the Falls to pose was a little more straight forward, standing, as I was, in the middle of the river...

UPDATE: My fish guy (Lee Cain) tells me (now that he's got a good look at the photos and made visit to the falls himself) that some of the fish are Chinook (Rogue River hatchery stock) and some are Coho (also probably hatchery stock). None are genetic natives to the falls, but instead managed to get past the nets in Young Bay.

Salamander high season

It's been raining with some regularity over the past couple weeks and this dampens up the forest enough to bring out the amphibians. Michelle and I along with David Bailey and his daughter, Eva, ran the annual salamander census at Circle Creek this morning with the following results:

10 Northwestern Salamanders
27 Rough-skinned Newts
1   Columbia Torrent Salamander
1   Oregon Ensatina
18 Western Red-backed Salamanders
4   Dunn's Salamanders
7   Northern Red-legged Frogs
1   Pacific Tree Frog

Here's a photo-sample of what we saw...

Northwestern Salamander

An unusual dark-morph Northwestern Salamander.

Western Red-backed Salamander

Dunn's Salamander

Columbia Torrent Salamander

Oregon Ensatina

Three Buteos

Here are three buteos photographed within the last couple days. It's the middle of the "movin' around" season for raptors and funny looking buteos can be pretty regular. Can you identify any of these guys?