At our SE Portland, Mt Tabor neighborhood feeder we’ve noted very few GC
Sparrows so far this winter — just 1-6 per weekend — compared with recent
years, when only Juncos were more numerous.
A Bewick’s Wren visits occasionally as usual, apparently more interested in
inspecting woodpile and structures (for spider eggs?) than partaking of suet.
A warm winter so far, eh? Only the occasional Varied Thrush Here. Our first
Purple Finch, though.
Steve Rice
Portland, OR
Sent from my iPad
On Jan 7, 2019, at 11:40 AM, Alan Contreras <acontrer56@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
My experience with Bewick’s on the coast this past fall has been that they
were hard to find. Golden-crowns are common around Eugene in the usual places
this winter. Juncos and WT sparrows seemed to trickle in slowly this fall and
then suddenly were findable in usual numbers around mid-Dec.
Juncos in particular in Lane Co. went from Low to OMG in about a week right
as CBCs started. I surmise that this was caused by the eventual onset of
winter weather to the north. November was not very wintery.
Alan Contreras
Eugene, Oregon
acontrer56@xxxxxxxxx
www.alanlcontreras.com
On Jan 7, 2019, at 10:42 AM, clearwater@xxxxxxxx wrote:
Hi all,
Saturday while covering three of the four main tracts of Luckiamute State
Natural Area as part of the Airlie-Albany CBC, walking about 7.5 miles in
the process, I had contrasting experiences with two common species:
BEWICK'S WREN: In the first patch that I covered (back part of the
Vanderpool Tract and Willamette Botanicals tract behind headquarters), I
tallied 23 Bewick's Wrens while making a big loop along the wooded edges of
the area, and zigzagging through a broad strip of 10-year-old native
tree/shrub plantings. There was more habitat of the same type that I didn't
manage to cover. Several of the wrens were singing.
By the time I got to the other areas (Luckiamute Landing Tract and front
part of Vanderpool Tract)and a light drizzle was starting to fall
intermittently, and bird activity seemed to be reduced. I wound up with 33
Bewick's Wrens for the morning, but I wouldn't doubt that are upward of 100
in the area.
GOLDEN-CROWNED SPARROW: This was just the opposite. I didn't find a single
Golden-crowned Sparrow until I was finishing up in the Vanderpool Tract,
when I came across a flock of a dozen or so. By that time I'd recorded every
other species of sparrow that we normally find here in winter, except for
Savannah Sparrow. In years past, I would have expected to encounter closer
to 200 Golden-crowns for these same areas, with that amount of walking.
Typically we find on the order of 100 Bewick's Wrens and 1000 Golden-crowned
Sparrows on this count. It'll be interesting to see how this year's totals
compare, and what other Willamette Valley CBCs have been finding.
Has anyone else been finding anomalously high or low numbers of one or the
other?
--
Joel Geier
Camp Adair area north of Corvallis
