This week’s Dawn Chorus was inspired by an observation the day before Winter Solstice: I saw a solitary Whimbrel strolling down the beach near my house.
We all read about vagrants and accidentals, like the spectacular Galapagos Swallow-tailed gull that showed up in Seattle last summer for a few weeks, but I’m going to focus on birds I’ve seen personally where I live in northwestern Washington State, in the San Juan Islands, that are out of their normal range.
Thinking about the lone Whimbrel, I realize that out-of-range can be as much an issue of timing as of geography.
Whimbrels
are rare birds in Washington state since they breed in Alaska and winter in Central/South America. A few stop on our beaches on their way north in late spring and heading south in late summer but they are always uncommon, and never here in winter. At least there are no reports of them in this county in winter on eBird (before mine).
I can’t help but wonder how it got so separated from others of its kind, and what it can do to get back with them. When I first saw this bird it was standing on one leg, and seemed to favor it for a few steps when it started walking, but then it appeared to walk normally. Could it have been cold? We had freezing temps for a few days about that time. It did fly just fine, but where can it go in December? Might it flock up with other shorebirds, like Dunlin?
I’ve seen other birds here outside their normal migration time, like a single Red-breasted Merganser in July 2015. RBMEs summer in Alaska/Yukon and return to the Salish Sea in the fall. Not quite as rare RBMEs, a few nonbreeding individuals of some other water birds do regularly hang around for the summer, like Harlequin Ducks, Surf Scoters, Common Loons. Others will depart their usual freshwater summer habitat for the ocean for a while, like Hooded Mergansers and Pied bill Grebes. For any of these birds, all they have to do is wait until fall to see their buddies again. Summering here is not a hardship. But for birds who need a warmer climate, like the Whimbrel — I worry about them.
Turkey Vultures
Another bird that departs in fall for warmer locales is our Turkey vultures. I can’t be sure if they are the same individuals, but there are usually 2-10 Turkey vultures who stay the winter in my county. They fly just fine, so it doesn’t seem likely to be a health problem. I figure their bodies are large enough they can weather the occasional sub freezing cold snaps we get. I have seen them sunning themselves on clear cold days. Interestingly, since I’ve been paying attention these past several years, I’ve noticed more vultures remain behind during warm El Niño years — might they know the winter will be warmer?
Other birds are completely out of their geographic range, and not just seasonally, for one reason or another.
Wild Turkeys
were never native to western Washington, but in the last century, when their numbers overall dropped so low, efforts were made to build up populations across the US even beyond their historic range. This article has some nice maps and description of their history. A few decades ago some folks in my county brought in and released wild turkeys (along with pheasants and quail) for hunting sport. Most of these birds died out but some have persisted, including a few pheasants and a robust flock of turkeys that lives in my neighborhood. It waxes and wanes, from a few to 20+, but has been remarkably successful in spite of cars, dogs, raccoons, hawks and eagles. They like the edge habitat here, a mix of brush (for cover), trees (for roosting) and backyards and ditches (for foraging seeds, fruit windfall, compost piles, gardens, bugs). I see them year round, including spring courting displays and lots of poults of all ages. They are wary of me walking by but mostly just move out of the way. I report them to eBird periodically and each time I get flagged for “Rare in this location, documentation needed”. I send the latest photo :)
Anna’s hummingbird
Like turkeys, Anna’s hummingbirds were never native here, but unlike turkeys, these big hummers found their way north all on their own and have established themselves in the Pacific Northwest. Older bird books still show the northern limit of their range in central California, but individuals began appearing in the 1990s, and now they are everywhere. The climate is a few degrees warmer, but ironically the main reason for their success is expanded forage from human development: urban/suburban gardens, landscaping and feeders. The diversity of vegetation and associated insect life supports them year round. However without widespread availability of feeders during our occasional cold snaps, when plants and insects are frozen or buried under snow, Anna’s hummers couldn’t survive. Bird lovers have various ways of keeping their sugar water thawed, either switching out frozen feeders or setting up a heating apparatus. Last week we rigged up our feeder with heating tape — just in time. We were gone over the holiday when it snowed and was below freezing for a few days.
Intergrade Flicker
An odd out-of-range bird situation I see occasionally is a hybrid of our local red shafted Northern Flicker and the yellow shafted version that lives east of the Rocky Mountains. The only time these Intergrade Flickers are seen in Washington and Oregon is in winter, like the one I saw a couple of days ago in my yard. How do yellow-shafted genes get way over here by the Pacific Ocean? It’s a combination of overlapping range and migration. In Canada, the red and yellow subspecies overlap in a narrow zone, and will interbreed. In winter, northern flickers migrate south, and as you can see from the map, Washington is due south of that Canadian overlap zone.
Intergrades have different combinations of the features of red-shafted and yellow-shafted. They have some red nape like the yellow-shafteds. The males have red mustaches instead of the black of yellow-shafteds. Tail feathers are either yellow or red (these were both red). Red-shafteds have a gray face, yellow-shafteds a brown face, Intergrades either.
I think it’s interesting both the intergrades I have pictures of have different shaped red napes. It’s like they’re mostly red-shafted with a bit of yellow-shafted.
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Black-capped Chickadee
Most of these out of range birds I’ve seen are either stable or are likely to resolve happily. The Whimbrel is an exception. But perhaps the bird I’ve felt most sad for is the Black-capped Chickadee who showed up two years ago after a big windstorm — several days of wind gusting up to 50 mph from the east.
These chickadees are very common in most of the US, including Washington State. Everyone has heard their cheerful chicka-dee-dee-dee. But chickadees don’t like flying over more than a mile of water, and have never established a population in the San Juan Islands or on Vancouver Island. For whatever reason, its cousin, the Chestnut-backed Chickadee did find its way over, and we have lots and lots of them.
This single Black-cap showed up at my feeder in mid-December looking a bit windblown as you can see. Within a day it had groomed itself and was grabbing seeds from the feeder just as fast as all the other birds. They didn’t treat it any differently. In a week I was hearing its chickadeedeedee song, very different from the Chestnut-back’s cheecheechee. It continued to visit the feeder for the next two months. We watched for it every day.
February 16 (2016) was the last day I saw it.
A few days later I heard its song from the trees nearby, and then nothing. What happened to this little guy? Maybe he was caught by a hawk. Maybe he flew off searching for others of his kind, since spring breeding season was approaching. If so he wouldn’t find any. And there are no reports of Black-caps hybridizing with Chestnut-backs even though their ranges overlap, so this bird would be the only one in his world. I may be anthropomorphizing, but I can’t help but think it would feel lonely for this bird.
Being out of your range, if you’re a bird, can be good: exploiting new opportunities, as for the Anna’s hummers and the local turkeys. It can be neutral, as for the non-breeding ducks, loons and grebes. Or it can be potentially dangerous, as for the Whimbrel here in the Salish Sea in December.
Have you seen birds outside their normal range, either in time or place? I’d like to hear about it.
And of course, please add your birdy observations for the week in the comments below.