Seattle Birds

The holidays are the perfect time to visit old friends. At the end of December I was able to return to Seattle, where I grew up, to visit my family and friends who are still in the area. While I was there, I took the time to visit a few old avian friends as well.




Fox Sparrows are common over much of North America, and they can be found near my current home in Utah, especially in the summer. But there is variation among Fox Sparrows, and the subspecies found in Utah is not the same as the one in Washington. This is a Sooty Fox Sparrow I photographed near my parents' house in Issaquah.

One of the ornithological treats of visiting Washington is seeing the coastal species that don't usually occur in Utah. This flock of Brant is a perfect example, a species that lives almost exclusively along the coasts. Once every few years, one gets lost and turns up in Utah among a flock of Canada Geese, but here in Puget Sound they can be found in some numbers every winter.

Speaking of geese, one of my latest points of focus in my birding has been learning the subspecies of Canada and Cackling Geese. This recent split has left a lot of the country realizing how overlooked these geese have been. Travelling to Washington was a good chance to practice my subspecies identification. Here are three Ridgway's Cackling Geese with two Taverner's Cackling Geese (the middle bird and the bird behind it, to our right).

Another favorite of mine is the gulls. Gulls are one of the classic identification challenges in birding, and I love the challenge of sorting through a flock of gulls. This adult Mew Gull was feeding on a mayfly hatch on the shore of Lake Sammamish with Ring-billed Gulls, California Gulls, Glaucous-winged Gulls, and several hybrids. If you click on the photo you might be able to make out the insect about to be grabbed in the larger version of the photo. I have seen Mew Gulls in Utah before, but they are very rare there, and like Brant, are typically a coastal species in winter.

A lot of people I talk to who aren't birders know what a chickadee is, but don't realize that we have several species in the U.S. One of my favorites is the Chestnut-backed Chickadee, a resident of mostly coastal forests and to me a strong reminder of the Northwest. This image of a Chestnut-backed Chickadee clinging to Douglas-fir cones seems an almost iconic reminder of my friends and family in Washington and Oregon, and of course of my avian friends there.

The Mystery of the Cackling Geese

In 2004 the American Ornithologists Union made a major change to birding in North America by announcing the split of what was formerly known as Canada Geese into two species. The larger of the two was to remain known as Canada Geese, and the smallest four of the eleven or so subspecies in the Canada Goose group would be known as Cackling Geese. This decision was based on genetic evidence that showed little to no interbreeding between these groups. This move was not unexpected by those who had been paying close attention to Canada Geese. The subspecies of Canada Gees were discernible in the field, and various subspecies or groups of subspecies had been elevated to species status in the past. However, it was a big surprise for most of the birding community, because, to be honest, most of us hadn't paid much attention to Canada Geese before.

In Utah, and probably throughout many parts of the U.S., this caused a stir. What was once one of the most common and familiar species in the state was now a pair of strangers. The safe thing to do in this situation was to assume that all previous records of Canada Geese applied to what was still known as Canada Geese, because the most common species here, the Great Basin Canada Goose, was still considered a Canada Goose. However, some records already existed of Cackling Geese in Utah, namely museum specimens. But the Utah Bird Records Committee decided to put the Cackling Goose on the state review list so that any records of this species in the state would be reviewed by a panel of experts.

Now that more people are looking for Cackling Geese, more people are finding them. In the four or five years since the species became a species, there have been over 20 records of Cackling Geese in Utah. However, I think the Records Committee must remain unconvinced, because few records have been submitted to the committee and even fewer have been accepted. Part of the problem, I think, is that the details of Cackling Goose identification were not well worked out. There were conflicting opinions on various websites about the traits that distinguish the largest subspecies of Cackling Goose (Like Taverner's Cackling Goose, seated at right in the photo above, and Richardson's Cackling Goose, in the back of the photo below) from the smallest subspecies of Canada Goose (like the Lesser Canada Goose, in the foreground of the photo below). Thankfully, I think that confusion will soon come to an end. A brilliant article published in the latest issue of North American Birds outlines in thorough detail how to tell the subspecies of Cackling Goose from one another, and from the smallest Canada Geese. I'm hoping that this article will be just the thing to help our knowledge of Cackling Geese advance in Utah and elsewhere. In the meantime, I intend to continue to submit records to the Utah Bird Records Committee until a pattern of occurrence has been established. Based on one year of actively birding in Utah, I think we will soon solve the mystery of the Cackling Geese and realize that this species, although rare, occurs annually in winter in Utah.

Fun with Geese

Today Stephanie and I were having lunch on our way out to do some birding when I got a phone call. The caller ID said "Craig Fosdick," and I knew that what it meant was "Good Birds Have Been Found." Sure enough, Craig and Keith Archibald were scanning a flock of about a thousand Canada Geese and had also found Snow Geese, Tundra Swans, and a Ross's Goose in the mix! By the time we got there, the geese had moved a bit further from the road, but in the next hour or so we were also able to find three Cackling Geese and a Greater White-fronted Goose in the flock. Cackling Geese are a smaller version of the familiar Canada Goose, and were recognized as a distinct species in 2004. You can see one with Canada Geese in the photo above - can you find it? Perhaps it is only because they are a recent species which didn't have much attention paid to it when it was just a subspecies, but the new species is considered rare in Utah and is being tracked by the Utah Rare Birds Committee, who will be interested in a report about this sighting. White-fronted Geese are not considered as rare state-wide, but are apparently more rare in Cache Valley - Bob Atwood told me that he hadn't seen one in Cache Valley since the mid-1990s. It seems that the spring migration is finally underway, and my list is again picking up momentum, with four new species today!

A Glaucous Gull and More Signs of Spring

Things seem to be changing in the valley. Some of the water that was frozen over a week or two ago is now open. There seem to be many more gulls and Canada Geese around (no Cackling Geese that I could find, and I've been looking). In the past two months I've been seeing mostly Ring-billed Gulls with a few California Gulls mixed in and maybe a Herring Gull if I'm lucky. Today the Ring-billed Gulls and California Gulls were in about even numbers, but I'd estimate I saw about five times as many total gulls today than any other day in the last two months. Herring Gulls also seem to have increased not just in numbers but also in proportion to the rest. I saw at least ten, maybe twenty today. The biggest find of the day was an immature Glaucous Gull in Cutler Marsh, a first for the year and a find almost as rare as the Mew Gull I found a few weeks ago. The Glaucous Gull was seen at the landfill earlier this week by Keith Archibald, according to rumor, but was not reported online; I don't know why. You can see the Glaucous Gull on the right in the photo above, next to a Ring-billed Gull (left) and a Herring Gull (middle) for comparison. Other highlights in the last two days included a Short-eared Owl at Cutler Marsh last night, a Barn Owl at the Logan Airport, and a flock of about five American Tree Sparrows in Benson today. I also saw courtship displays by Common Goldeneyes and Ring-necked Ducks today. Spring must be on the way! Right?