May 15th - Mount Walker, Jefferson County; Songs and Species

A little diversion

White-crowned Sparrows. . . it's always the White-crowned Sparrows. 

They have a song that was one of the first I learned: XC647617 White-crowned Sparrow (Zonotrichia leucophrys) :: xeno-canto

And it's a remarkably consistent song, but one I'm still learning a lot about. 

Variability in vocalization is an interesting thing. It's part of what makes it possible (or completely impossible, as we'll see later) to identify a species by song. If you have a species that sings a given song, and other species sing nothing at all similar to it. . . I'd dare say even the Merlin app on your phone can identify it! (I'll table the Merlin discussion for now as well, but it's all connected.) 

In other cases, songs from one species can overlap with others. Lately, a point of discussion on birding forums has been Chipping Sparrow and Dark-eyed Junco songs, which do seem to overlap, if only in quality. Juncos can give very sweet-relaxed songs, and all along the spectrum to more rapid, harsh trills. And to emphasize, it's very much a spectrum. The latter end of it overlaps with Chipping Sparrows a bit, although they can often be separated even then by the duration of the call. Often. Although for these species there's a secret identification trick that helps even more. Looking at the birds! 

The song linked above is the one that I heard outside my Port Townsend hotel room. Unmistakably, a White-crowned Sparrow, and more specifically, the Pugetensis subspecies. But here's what has blown my mind even more in the last few days. . . It is more specifically dialect 5! 

A funny thing happened as I attended my daughter's parade in Long Beach a few weeks back. I heard the normal Pugetensis songs. And then I heard something else. 

XC143211 White-crowned Sparrow (Zonotrichia leucophrys) :: xeno-canto

I was hearing both this and the song at top and was not at all ready to hear it as I did - clear, distinct, and repeated by multiple birds. I couldn't call it variation, as with the juncos above. This was distinctly different - piano key differences rather than trombone differences, in a way. I poked around on this one for a bit, but eventually gave up on it, until I sat to do this post. And now. Goodness. Here's what I landed on. 

From: 
Cultural Evolution of Puget Sound White-Crowned Sparrow Song Dialects (engdes.com)

Dialects. And not just a few, but thirteen?! I'm realizing that some of these are variations I may have heard from individual birds here and there over time, but just chalked it up to bad singing. "Missed your note, buddy." But they don't really do that! Not only do they hit the songs quite well, but individual birds, it seems, are able to sing multiple dialects, reducing the ones that they produce over time to match the birds around them. 

The rabbit-hole here is certainly going to go deeper as I listen to more sparrows out there, but there you go. Inside a given subspecies, there are distinct dialects, and multiple dialects that can be sung by given birds. Didn't know that. 

The other things singing outside the hotel door

American Goldfinches. Some gulls, likely the hybrid "mutts" that are prevalent in the area, and Purple Martins. The latter birds were a species I'd not had yet in the county. Loud enough to be heard easily, and not a surprise, as I had grabbed a room next door to Kah Tai Lagoon, where they'd been reported recently. This brought my year total to 156 species. I've been pretty happy with the progress towards a year list goal of 200 in Jefferson County. Each species brings me one step closer, but also changes the shape of future trips. Purple Martins are pretty localized, so getting this species certainly adds some flexibility to my days. 

My plans for the day involved another fairly localized species, and one with a little problem. 

Hermit Warblers. These lil guys are cute, plain and simple. Black, white, and yellow, and . . . warbler-sized. But their relationship with Townsends_Warblers is messy indeed. Last year, I'd been birding in the Southwest corner of the state and found pure Hermits in all four of the counties I visited. I also found Townsend's Warblers. In one case, I found a hybrid warbler in an area where the species have a bit of overlap. 

A Pure Hermit Warbler from last year
not the sharpest picture, but one that shows some of the major checks:
Clean white breast with no streaks or yellow wash
Yellow face without any smudging or masking
Black chin.

In Jefferson County, it's extremely overlappy. For the Hermits, found at mid-elevation, this means that their populations have been almost completely muddied by interbreeding Townsend's. The latter can be found at lower elevations and still continues as a distinct species in the county but confirmed records of pure Hermit Warblers have been extremely rare in recent years. 

From Birdweb.org - snips of the gorgeous range maps
produced by Kelly Cassidy - showing the breeding range
red, and also purple for Townsend's

I say confirmed, because there have been reports of Hermits, but almost universally, the people reporting pure Hermits (this year) have included notes such as, "ID'd by Merlin" or "ID'd by song". This, I've found, just can't be done. There's definitely recordings out there that could give one a sense of what the songs sound like - deep in pure Hermit country, or deep in pure Townsend's country. But Townsend's in particular don't seem too concerned about keeping a common accent. 

Unlike the white-crowned sparrows mentioned above, Townsend's don't do their songs in a piano-key manner - distinct and defined. There's a core song, but a range of variations in duration, pitch, speed, and timbre in the songs that brings them into conflict with both Hermit and Black-throated Gray Warblers. As one might imagine, hybrid birds follow nearly no rules. 

So, Mount Walker, the source of a few Hermit Warbler reports, was my destination for the day. 

But first

On the way to my hike, I thought it might be good to investigate a clearcut with bluebird sightings in recent years. Penny Creek Road heads up from the 101 near Quilcene, and I was able to get there right around morning chorus. 

Olive-sided Flycatcher (157 for the year) and Western Wood-Pewee (158) were two new birds I found as I strolled back and forth along the base of the clear-cut. Nothing about it (besides the fact that it was a clear-cut) seemed to tip it off as good bluebird habitat. A little on the steep side. . .a little overgrown. . . completely lacking in bluebird sounds. . .MacGillivray's and Orange-crowned Warblers called from the steep slopes as well. 

On the way down, I kept an eye out for Ruffed Grouse. At this point in the year, most of the females would be on nest, so I'd be less likely to hear the drumming (although I have even later in May). A morning drive on a mid-elevation road with a little gravel, however, at least presents the possibility of catching a grouse along the road. 

Mount Walker - up

So... many... switchbacks...

From the trailhead, I added one species, Hammond's Flycatcher (159) as I laced up my boots. I also had Black-throated Gray Warblers singing. These songs are *also* variable, but not as bad as those stinking Townsend's. The songs I heard were deep in the core BTG warbler songs. Others as I started up the path were not so clear and were just left unidentified. 

The trail is pretty steep! 2000 feet in 2 miles is a good thigh-burner, for sure. The benefit is that switchbacks bring you in view of warblers in the canopy below. This is part of why I try to do these hikes, rather than hitting other warblerry spots at lower elevation. Last year I constructed a drawing to emphasize this idea: 

And this plan did succeed in giving me good views of at least one warbler on the way up. I started looking as soon as the songs sounded at least a little Hermit-like and came across this bird. 

This was a fun first one to find. For a pure Hermit, the yellow on the face would be nice and clean. The chin would be black, the breast pure white with no striping. None of this is true - but it's still interesting how this bird feels like it had a lot of Hermits in the family tree. The goal of the day was to get as many of these pictures as possible during the day! Just to confirm the rumors that there are few if any Hermits left in the county. This was the only one I got on the way up, but ... warblers are warblers, yaknow? 

Red net-winged beetle on some salal

Canada Jays

As I got closer to the top, and Sooty Grouse were found almost constantly, booming from hidden spots along the trail. Nearing the top, I even got a flyover of Vaux's Swifts (160) above the canopy. The trail finally reaches the top, coming into the north vista loop. Beautiful!

Canada Jays came through, and I was also soon joined by three other hikers. They were all, it turns out, pretty serious local hikers, and immediately got talking about different peaks, different routes, different people... And ... I think this reaction is more about me than the three people, but there's like... a volume you need to use to talk to someone and be heard. Some people (including this here writer) sometimes slip a bit higher than they really need to. And one of the people in the group was one of these (us) loud-talkers. 

It's silly to go up a popular peak and expect any kind of solitude, and I really do make these trips, in part, to meet people from the counties I visit. But as I caught my breath, a warbler started chipping around the top. I'd pish, and it would get cut off by loud-talking, and I thought... I'll just wait a minute... or five... or ten... and birds just passed along. 

Courtesy of this site.
These folks had to 
have been at like... 70.
No big deal.

Easy to pass over this, but I have to ask. . . does this happen to you? Out just trying to enjoy a little birding, and find a bird, and people just seem oblivious to what you're trying to do. . . and you just..get... fr...

And I'm not saying I'm 100 percent on recognizing my emotional reactions, dusting off a chair, giving them a seat, and asking "can I help you?" But in the moment, I stepped through it, and did that with my emotions. Things I picked up from a nice book titled, "Meditation for the Fidgety Skeptic". Highly recommend it. Emotional reactions seem to pop up when we'd like/expect X, and Y comes along instead. Birding, as peaceful and meditative as it is, can put us into those situations. A driver coming up the road towards the Spruce Grouse you're looking at. . . someone with their dog off-leash. . . or loud-talkers! It's nice to at least have tools available for when the birding gods put us to the test!

One of the women passed by me and wished me a great bit of hiking, and I wished her the same. 

hoverfly (sp?) seen along the way

Hiking from the South to North viewpoints, I tried for Northern Pygmy-Owl, a species that I'd had along this route on a previous trip. I got one! The added benefit was the chattering of other birds in response. Surprisingly, Western Wood Pewee was part of the mix, along with Olive-sided Flycatcher, and some Townsend's/Hermit/Townsend's x Hermit Warblers. Some of these popped up on top of trees for nice views, including some that posed. All hybrids. 

Better face and chin on this one, but looootts of yellow on the breast! Hybrid.

I actually spent a long time at the top! Not the most strategic thing to do for the year, I figure, but I really did hope to get a good rogue's gallery of hybrid pictures. Other hikers passed through, and left, and I spent some of the time watching Turkey Vultures and varmints. 

I think this was a Townsend's Chipmunk

Mount Walker - down

One more lovable mutt

Eventually, I was ready to head down, and I found that I was feeling pretty refreshed after all of the time a the top - all casual walking and no elevation. I took the road down, rather than the trail. Four miles to handle the elevation loss sounded much more reasonable!

On the way down, I had more hybrids, more Sooty Grouse, and one more addition: Red Crossbills (161). A dozen of these little finches passed overhead in a pack, giving their jip jip calls. And, I'll be honest. There are years in which I've heard a lot of crossbills, and can separate them by types, but it's been a while. Types? Sure, let's add "types" into the mix! 

Mostly shady walk down, and 
not all that steep

There are different types of red crossbills that have slightly different phenotypes, different flight calls, and different trees that they prefer to use as food sources. From all I've read, these seem to be *able* to breed across types, but they isolate from each other in ways that may lead to multiple species down the road. Species. . . subspecies. . . dialects. . . types. . . it's just a lot. 

Turkey Vultures. Just to break from the theme,
these are NOT a hybrid between Turkeys and Vultures. . . 

Yellow-spotted Millipede

Puget Blue? I think so

Um

Yeah, I got back to my car, and there were a lot of hours left in the day. But. . . to chase what? To look for what? I stopped at Quilbillies in Quilcene for a cider and a peek at my needs alerts on eBird. Nothing jumped out that would be a good bird to chase. Sightings of some good birds were from days earlier, or earlier in the day, but not since. I found myself feeling content with my day, especially given the 7 miles of walking I'd put in!

I did make the drive to Port Townsend, and tried looking at birds from Point Wilson, but I ran into interesting challenges. I'd really focused on viewing alcids and such through binoculars. These allowed me to see the size and shape of the birds better in flight - just because they'd stay in the field of view a little longer. And as soon as birds dropped to the water. . . I found myself struggling to pick out field marks. 

Most of my alcid viewing has been in winter months, when they can be found in greater abundance in Puget Sound. And here I was flat-footed as I was looking at birds moving into breeding plumage, at a distance. I looked back to my car, where the field guide sat in the back seat. But then I thought back to even a day before - Bonaparte's Gulls had been passing by Point no Point, some in breeding plumage, some not. I could walk there... and back... and still puzzle over the dark blobs in the distance, dipping up and down behind waves. 

And it's true, there could have been puffins out there, could have been kittiwakes, could have been a Black Scoter lingering around a little late. Or. . . could there be a storm-petrel? a shearwater? a jaeger?? I quickly realized that I was there with an unfortunate combination of missing pieces of information. And footsore as I was, I just decided to pack it up and head for home. 

Time to evacuate

June should be interesting. Not a surfeit of species to look for, but that does make it possible to make some focused efforts!