Pine Siskins, counting, Turkey Vultures and other thoughts ...

I had two Pine Siskins on the thistle feeder here at Bethany Lake in Washington Co., which may seem like old news to those who see hordes of them but they have been absent here for years according my girl Leslie. She has lived here for 13 years and they were once the most common of the thistle eating birds, but she took down the feeders when she found dead birds during the the Salmonellosis die-off in the NW a few years ago. I have had them up for 2 winters now and these are the first siskins to show up. American and Lesser Goldfinch come in waves, interestingly alternating days the past week or so

I also think the whole concept of counting birds belies why birds are interesting. I suppose I am not a very good birder by many standards as I am not an expert on the finest points of identification of the rarest birds and I often misidentify birds by continent as my "expertise" if you will, is more with birds of Southern Africa and East Asia than the Pacific NW so I might think Goldcrest for Golden-crowned Kinglet until I have my bearings right, but I am good at Osprey and Northern Goshawks and Golden Eagles and Sanderlings and Common Terns, etc. for the very reason that they occur about everywhere. There are "pied" and "black" Oystercatchers on almost every continent although we give them specific status. I suppose I might count every species (I don't really count), but isn't that an interesting question? As you might guess I am an ecologist so what makes birds interesting to me is there relative rarity or abundance and the fluctuations in their populations. As an ecologist I tend to think why a bird is or isn't there in number and breeding or using habitat for migration rather than how a unique individual arrived. I doubt anyone thinks that Falcated Ducks will overrun the Willamette Valley, but Eurasian Collared Doves, or Wrentits, or Anna's Hummingbirds? Those are interesting questions.

I have also worked quite a bit on what makes bird rare. Rare in their apparently most desired habitat. I can tell you that if you are on a tour of southern Africa along the roads, you would tell me that the Pale Chanting Goshawk is the most common raptor in the world. Why? They love to hunt from telephone poles and Sociable Weavers love to build nests on telephone poles. Ok, let's take a walk in the bush and you will rarely find the goshawk because the prey nests are widely distributed in rare trees and hunting perches are scarce. You will find Lanner Falcons, Red-footed Falcons, and a handful of Kestrel species though. Why are American Kestrels common and Loggerhead/Northern Shrikes relatively rare? Their diet overlaps substantially, it can be almost identical in some areas. (here I speak from great experience). The difference is not climate or food or habitat per se, but nest locations. Kestrels nest in inaccessible scrapes on cliffs or manmade structures like most falcons, Shrikes nest in trees and most of the trees have been cut down for agriculture and the few that are left are subject to cats, rats, ravens, crows, etc. When the converstation turns to blackberries, I roll my eyes a bit because food and cover is not the whole equation. I doubt Wrentits would expand their range for blackberries - there is plenty of cover - but why are there Black Phoebes on Sauvie Island in the middle of winter, or Townsend's Warblers? Food and only food. All of them eat bugs or modify their behavior to stay where they are. Why are there more bugs in winter? That is a whole different discussion for the political forum.

I will recount one story about Turkey Vultures and behavior modification that goes to my point about not oversimplifying. As a young biologist nearly 30 years ago now, I worked down in the Falkland Islands. I grew up in the SF Bay Area, went to school in Berkeley so I knew Turkey Vultures. I knew they soared on thermals on golden summer days, ate dead cows and road kill and roosted communally in oak trees in relatively remote locations. I knew they were resident, I couldn't imagine them migrating (there is always road kill and dead cows), I never gave much thought to them otherwise. And then I was in Patagonia and the Falklands (Las Malvinas for the politically correct). After tagging penguins, banding shorebirds and jaegers, petrels, and terns and handfull of cool endemic passerines I looked around at the vultures. There were Black Vultures in abundance, I'd seen Andean Condors, but that bigger and greyer vulture than the Black Vulture? Turkey Vulture. Walking on the beach, eating dead fish and penguins and anything else. You could not pay them to fly, it was too cold and no land to create thermals and no predators so why invest when all you could possibly want was right here and concentrated on this bit of shingle?

And now I live in Oregon, two winters now and people are amazed at Turkey Vultures in February. Me too now, but it makes me wonder why the common is rare and a non-migratory bird soaring over the savannah where I am from or walking on the beach 10,000km away where I worked creates a stir in my home town now and I will spend my time thinking about that rather than whether the left or right toe of Falcated Duck is clipped.


My best,

Mike Gellerman
Bethany Lake, Portland