For all the 'political' discussion about "draining the swamp", nothing changes for the better in the Other Washington. However, a swamp here in south Olympia has yielded a little gem: The Swamp Sparrow. This species is fairly uncommon on the Left Coast most winters, but this winter has seen good numbers reported all around. Chehalis Birder, Dalton Spencer, summarized sightings on the Tweeters chat list, this year, stating "... sheer number of Swamp Sparrows and Palm Warblers this fall and winter has been unbelievable. ... Montana, Idaho, and Oregon have all had extremely impressive numbers of the species with one place near Florence, Oregon having at least 10 Swamp Sparrows."
The sun came out for a bit today, so I decided to drive over to
Black Lake Meadows to see if I could find a pair of Swamp Sparrows that had been found
on the Christmas Bird Count yesterday. I
got there at 10 a.m., and came up on Gary Wiles who was also searching for
it. We looked for a while, and were
chatting when it became obvious that I could not recall the name of a man that
I’ve known for many years… somewhat pretty darned embarrassing…
Sorry, Gary - - - I will remember your name next time I
see you!
He left after about a half hour, but I kept birding the
area for another hour, watching other birds, including a mixed flock of juncos,
chickadees
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| Chestnut-backed Chickadee |
and kinglets
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| Golden-crowned Kinglet |
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| A trace of red on the bird's crown indicates he is a male; he found a morsel in the lichens |
A pair of Spotted Towhees was feeding pretty aggressively
on the seeds of the Pacific Ninebark Physocarpus
capitatus.
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Female Spotted Towhee
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Finding seeds in the ninebark
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And going for more . . .
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It'd be interesting to know what is the nutritive value
of Pacific Ninebark
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The ninebark has clusters of beautiful cream-colored
flowers in the summer, and the seed pods are a reddish color.
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| Ninebark flowers and fruits in June |
I hadn’t thought that these soggy brown
seedheads would still contain nutritious seeds this time of year, but I guess I should have
thought to ask the towhees . . .
A sapsucker was drilling its series of sap wells in the bark of a
western red cedar Thuja plicata.
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| Looks like a Red-breasted Sapsucker . . . |
The sapsucker is a type of woodpecker that notches rows
of small holes in trees, causing sap to well out. The birds eat the sugary liquid flowing from
these sap wells. Tree sap is similar in sugar content to the nectar
hummingbirds take from flowers. In fact,
sometimes you can see our Anna’s and Rufous Hummingbirds taking a bit of nectar from the
sap wells. Of course, insects will be
attracted to the sap as well, and the woodpeckers (and hummers) derive a bit of protein by feasting
on the insects.
The bird landed on another cedar, where I got a much better
look at it, and noticed that its head and breast were not the bright red I
associate with our resident Red-breasted Sapsuckers, and there was quite a bit
of dark feathering in the head and on the nape of its neck.
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| Dark feathering in the red behind the eye . . . |
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| . . . and the back of the head . . . |
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| . . . lead me to believe that this is a hybrid Red-breasted X Red-naped Sapsucker |
I suspect that this bird has some ancestry resulting from
interbreeding with the Red-naped Sapsucker, which is more common east of the
Cascade Mountains. These species, along
with the Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, were considered as variations of one species
until the 1980s and 90s, when the taxonomists determined that they were
separate species. That the birds show
evidence of genetic ‘introgression’ is suggestive that the separation of the
populations was likely in the recent past few millennia.
A little before noon, I was about to return to my car, as
the clouds had returned, and the wind was beginning to pick up, but as I was
leaving, I heard a sharp ‘chip’ call that I didn’t recognize. I ‘pished’ a couple times, and saw a
light-colored sparrow tee up from the canary grass.
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| Swamp Sparrow success? |
There was the Swamp Sparrow!
I had about 10 minutes of
good views of the bird as it foraged around, occasionally coming up into a sapling, but more often
staying in the brush.
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| My usual views of a Swamp Sparrow are not when it is out in the open . . . |
I left the bird get back to its own life, as 10-12 minutes
is more than enough time to intrude on its busy schedule, and got back to the
car just as the rains began again.
Black Lake Meadows eBird Checklist is Here
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