Boundary Bay, British Columbia: Snowy Owls

On Friday, January 27, Annie and I drove up to British Columbia to see the Snowy Owls at Boundary Bay.  

It was not a long trip for us.  Bellingham is just 37 km (22 miles) from the border.

US-Canadian Border

We headed over to Boundary Bay Dyke Trail, near Ladner.  This sculpture of shorebirds marks the start of the refuge.

This map shows Boundary Bay.

Snowy Owls:

     Here are some first views of the Snowy Owls through binoculars.  I counted 14 'Snowies' in the salt marsh by Boundary Bay.  They were a small part of a huge migration of young males that have come south from the high Arctic.  According to Denver Holt (biologist; Owl Research Institute; Montana), "This is the most significant wildlife event in decades."

     You might ask what is impelling all these young males to make an exhausting flight south.  Last breeding season, there was an unusually high lemming population in the Arctic.  Food was plentiful for nestlings.  Out of a clutch of up to eight eggs, normally two to four become fledglings.  Last year, the average was seven.  The lemmings were hunted and the rodent population could not keep up with the increase in Snowy Owl population.  The grim mathematics of Malthus predict a competition for food with the winners surviving and the losers dying.  The young cannot compete with the more experienced elders.  Young males migrate to the south, searching for rodent rich habitats.

Many of the Snowy Owls were perched on debris, carried from the bay by storm surges and high tides.

     During many years, few Snowy Owls are seen.  The cold of the arctic winter does not bother them, if they have enough to eat.  If there is adequate food in the high Arctic, there is no reason for the owls to migrate south.  There will be enough lemmings, Arctic Hare, Ptarmigans, Snow Buntings, and other birds and rodents for them to eat.  The presence of Snowy Owls in these numbers is one consequence of the lemming-predator population cycle.    

     Snowy Owls are larger than Great Horned Owls and versatile hunters.  Snowy Owls are not restricted to night hunting.  If they stay in the Arctic in the winter, they are obviously hunting in the dark, but they are good daylight hunters, too.  Here, they hunt field mice.  They may even go after the Short-Eared Owl, because their habitats overlap the much smaller owl.  They catch fish.  They eat rabbits.  They hunt shorebirds.

Adult males are mostly white with faint barring or no barring.  These owls - one after another - had the distinct barring of young males.  Their feathers were plumped-up, making them look rotund.  This is certainly because the weather was cold (about 34 F/2 C) and a cutting wind was blowing out of the Fraser River Valley.  The air spaces in puffed-up feathers are effective insulation.

'Tired Snowy Owls'

The owls we were seeing are survivors.  They have flown from the shores of the Arctic Ocean, 3000 km/2000 miles.  They have used their calorie reserves.  Many are food starved when they arrive.  One Snowy Owl recently seen in Wisconsin died from starvation upon arrival.

A young Snowy Owl resting.

     The Boundary Bay Dyke Trail is well marked and the path offers a superb view.  All that is asked of bird watchers is that they stay on the trail and not harass the owls.  Bothering them in their exhausted state could ruin their chances for survival.

Unfortunately, a few people invade their space, perhaps too avid for photographs, perhaps not thinking about the rigors of survival confronting these birds.  It comes down to thinking and respect, doesn't it? 

     The man above, by his presence, is denying a circular area of the marshland (with himself, the center of the circle) to the owls.  They need all the marshland for resting and hunting.  Also, his proximity must be a source of stress when they need to rest. 

Snow Owl

(Nyctea scandiaca)

Let's do the right thing, while we enjoy their presence.

Northern Harriers (Circus cyaneus) at Boundary Bay:

There was another drama going on at the marshland.

Northern Harriers were hunting for voles and field mice.

     There was also aerial conflict.  Here, two Northern Harriers seem to be in a 'dog-fight' over a long stringy piece of grass.  One challenged the other and actively chased it.

Their chase took them near me.  They completely disregarded my presence.

One of the harriers got away with the grass.

Northern Harriers are well camouflaged for marsh and grassland.  Can you see this female?

     On the upstroke of the wings, she becomes easier to see.  (Adult males are grey.) The white-rump is indicative of the species.  I look for behavior flight clues, too.  They usually hunt 'low and slow', often with a rocking or kiting motion.

     I was surprised at how close the harriers flew...and I was trying to keep my distance on the proscribed trail.  After several years of watching them, this closeness seemed completely uncharacteristic.  Normally, harriers are wary of people and keep their distance.  It was great to be able to see them so near.

Snow, Songbirds, and Raptors

This week, Bellingham and western Washington received a major snowstorm.  At our house elevation, 310 ft., we got more than a foot of snow in one night, followed by two nights of arctic air (10 F/-5 C), then a heavy, warmish rain that melted it all.  This turned out to be spectacular weather for bird watching.

Our garden was visited by all sorts of passerines, looking for insects and seed under the cedars, and for suet or birdseed that we set out.  There were four Varied Thrushes that hung around continuously.  I heard them before I saw them...that strangely pretty, one-note call, which has been described as being ethereal.  All the thrushes have songs that many describe as beautiful or at least interesting: the American Robin, the Hermit Thrush, and especially the ascending-spiral song of the Swainson's Thrush.

These Varied Thrushes had spent the warmer parts of the year up-slope in the Cascade Mountains.  It was the snow that had driven them down to our elevation.
               
                                                    Female & Male Varied Thrush in young Alders

Female Varied Thrush

(Her feathers were puffed, providing extra insulation.)

Female with Pale Supercilium (Eyebrow)

Male Varied Thrush

(Notice the darker throat band.)

Song Sparrows, Dark-Eyed Juncos (Oregon J. variety) and Spotted Towhees were all scratching around in the snow.  They are all types of sparrows and they were busily looking for insects and seeds.  The Spotted Towhees also tend to be driven down-slope by the cold weather.  The Song Sparrows are a classic 'edge' species that likes fragmented forests and hedgerows.  We have a hedgerow of Red Cedars in our garden. 

Dark-Eyed Junco

Song Sparrow

Spotted-Towhee

(These were watercolor sketches that I did two years ago.)

A hard rain washed away most of the snow and our Merlin Falcon Foundation team headed out to look for raptors in the Skagit Valley.  Here you see, from left to right, Sara Davis (a volunteer), David Drummond (biologist and chief researcher), and Nathan Kline (intern and environmental science major at WWU).

There was a great deal of Bald Eagle activity.  We saw two young eagles (2 year olds) pirate a kill from a group of ravens, only to be displaced by 18 adult eagles.  Incredibly, one of the youngsters got away with a piece of meat.  Another time, we saw an eagle catch a duck and drowned it in a drainage ditch.  Eleven other eagles quickly joined it and it found itself defending its prize.  Unfortunately, I only have one poor photo of this, because I was driving, it was raining, and we didn't want to influence their behavior by getting out of our vehicles.

The eagles were perched in Black Cottonwoods, tall broadleafs and conifers at the edge of farm fields.  When they observed raven activity or a successful hunt of another eagle, they would leave their perches and try to supplant the original bird.

Rough-Legged Hawks come south from the Arctic to spend the coldest months in our region.  They are often confused with Red-Tailed Hawks, but there are some physical and behavioral differences.  Like most field observations, there are always exceptions, but here are my thoughts.  Rough-Legged Hawks have feathered feet, unlike Red-Tails...good for cold weather.  Their underwings have dark patches at the carpals (wrists), whereas the Red-Tails have dark patches on the leading edge of the wing at the radius/ulna.  The Rough-Legs seem to have smaller heads, beaks, and feet.  They also seem to perch on lower, thinner branches than the Red-Tails.  Finally, and this is very subjective, Red-Tailed Hawks seem to me to be more robust in their flying, hunting, and diet.     

Rough-Legged Hawk

Rough-Legged Hawk (light color variant)

dark variant, Rough-Legged Hawk preening

A day of sloppy, cool weather turned out to be a good day for seeing raptors.

Santa Barbara: Monarch Butterfly Migration (part I); Egrets & Woodpeckers (part II)

SANTA BARBARA - PART I: MONARCH BUTTERFLIES

I found myself making a trip to Santa Barbara, California, to be with my father during a minor medical procedure.  This trip gave me a chance to refamiliarize myself with the species I knew when I was younger.  Being nearly 1300 miles (about 2000 km) south of Bellingham, Washington, I was suddenly seeing very different ecosystems: oak groves, coastal chaparral, and non-native shrubs and trees everywhere. The smells were different, too.  Instead of cedar, spruce, and fir, the aromas of coastal sage (Artemesia), Bay Laurel, and Eucalyptus were in the air.
   

     Near the Santa Barbara Airport, there is a marine, tidal estuary, or as the locals call it, a slough.  I like the Spanish world, estero, better.  There, I met Robert Funai, who is working on restoring the salt-loving herbs that grow by the 'lagunas'.  Rob works for a Santa Barbara based, ecosystem restoration group.  Here, he is pulling invasives from areas where the natives are just getting established.

I met two cyclists at this estuary who had just seen the winter migration grounds of the Monarch Butterfly.  When I had time, I went up the coast to Elwood to see the butterflies' winter home.  It is a eucalyptus grove on the bluffs above the Pacific Ocean.  Many Californians think that the eucalyptus is a native tree.  In reality, it was imported from Australia and planted to be a lumber crop and windrows for orchards.  It spread.  Now the Monarchs have found that some of these groves give them a perfect microclimate and shelter.  As the native California Live Oak (Quercus agrifolia) loses ground to development, the Monarch's have shifted to using this Australian transplant.  There are winter butterfly groves in Pacific Grove (Monterey), Elwood (Santa Barbara), and Ventura, California.



Entering this stand of Eucalyptus trees, I saw the Monarchs were clustered in masses of hundreds on the tree branches.  Their wings are folded up, so that the bright orange of the upper wings was mostly hidden.

Monarchs started to fly from their 'huddle', as the day warmed.  Here, you can see the bright orange of there upper wing surfaces.  Due to the nature of my trip, I only had a simple point and shoot camera.



Migration Routes of the Monarch Butterfly.

The map above shows the winter migration routes of various Monarch populations.  This particular group seems to have come from the north-east, possibly from Idaho.  These are not the well-known Monarchs who fly to Mexico.  These particular Monarchs in Elwood will never see their summer home to the north-east.  It is their descendants who will make the return journey.

 I had a plane to catch, so my brief visit with these intrepid travelers came to an end.

SANTA BARBARA - PART II: EGRETS, PELICANS, AND ACORN WOODPECKERS

I managed to get to the Commercial Fishing Harbor to do some bird watching.  I was immediately struck by the behavior of the Snowy Egrets.  They were hopping around on the fishing boats.  Go where the food is!

SNOWY EGRET (Egretta thula)

These birds, so shy in the estuaries near the airport, were quite bold in the harbor.  Here we see a Snowy Egret perched on the trawler winch at the boat's stern.  In the foreground, is an immature Herring or California Gull.

Their normal habitat is marsh land and estuaries.  They are clearly adapting to the 'easy life', provided by the fishing boats.



I found their antics quite amusing.

At the harbor, there were also Double-Crested Cormorants fishing and sunning themselves.

AND THERE WERE PELICANS.

To me, there is nothing more graceful than a flight of  Brown Pelicans. 

I lived in California during the days when DDT had decimated the Pelican population.  There was a real possibility of extinction.  Every time I see a pelican, it makes me glad.

ACORN WOODPECKERS:  The beaches are lined with non-native palms.  I was truly shocked to see clusters of Acorn Woodpeckers on these trees.  They seemed to be delicately working the boles of the trees for (probably) insects and mites.  I saw up to four of them on one palm.   Their 'normal' behavior is to drill holes in oaks and tuck acorns into the holes.  The acorns become incubators for insect larva,which the woodpeckers eat. 

I went to one of the few remaining natural oak groves in Santa Barbara, at Rocky Nook Park...looking for Acorn Woodpeckers.  I found just one.

They all seemed to be down at East Beach and Henry's Beach at 'the Palms'.

It was time for me to head back home.  My father was doing well and I missed my wife.  I also longed to see some snow.  Today, as I write this, there is a steady snowfall in Bellingham.