Bewick's Wrens and Varied Thrushes are extra abundant this winter in the
coast range foothills where I live in Polk County. Walking a mile down the
hill this winter I'll hear another Bewick's like every tenth of a mile,
especially in the more open areas. Normally it's only been one for the
whole walk in past years. Varied Thrushes are even more abundant.
Golden-crowned Sparrows just increased in numbers on the hill. West of
campus in Corvallis though, there have been a few around since early
October, along with more than one White-throated. Interesting stuff.
Caleb
On Mon, Jan 7, 2019, 10:43 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
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