Wild Fidalgo

The Spotted Towhee (Pipilo maculatus) is one of my favorite birds.  They always look confident and happy and they love to sing.  Instead of fleeing, they will often sit still long enough to get a photo.  They seem to like watching us while we watch them.  This is another appealing trait for me. Look for them along forest edges.  They can be seen year-around foraging in dense thickets of shrubbery or in leaf litter on the ground.  Sometimes you will hear them scratching in the leaves before you see them.  They will be looking for insects, spiders, seeds and fruits.  I caught this one in a Nootka Rose thicket on Kiket Island.  I think they might like those rose hips.  For bird feeders, the Towhees in my yard are especially attracted to safflower seed. Spotted Towhees are the largest of the New World Sparrows (Emberizidae).  The black feathers reveal this bird to be a male.  The back, head and wings of females will be dar...

December 1 is the meteorological beginning of winter.  In northern latitudes, winter is the season of cold, stillness and darkness, when much of nature seems to die.  True to form, ours has come with subfreezing temperatures and even some snow in places.  In the north Puget Sound area, we have been getting clear skies and bright sunshine along with the cold temperatures. For some reason, I love hiking in cold weather.  With a day off work and a beautiful day, I headed over to the Kukutali Preserve to check out the wildlife.  I didn't get much past the parking lot before spotting this Eastern Gray Squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis) enjoying the fruits of a Common Hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna) .  This tree is a native of Europe that has become naturalized in the Pacific Northwest. As I mentioned, our overnight temperatures have dropped below freezing.  It was about 26° F (-3° C) when I left home.  A skim of ice had formed on the surface of...

Dies caniculares , the dog days of summer have provided warm, sultry temperatures to South Fidalgo Island.  After a week of hot weather, the weekend brought overcast skies and a cool down.  Activity at the two BirdCam stations brings the usual late summer pattern.  A lot of juveniles are making their debuts while summer and year-around residents are looking a bit past their prime.  In the morning twilight, an oregonus Spotted Towhee male enjoys some suet for breakfast at BirdCam Two.  In early morning and evening, I would hear calls that resembled a coach's whistle  coming from the trees.  I finally figured out it was one of the Spotted Towhee's vocalizations. A group of Chestnut-backed Chickadees is called a banditry.  These little guys are bold and energetic and their visits come with a lot of chatter.  I get dozens of them in the Madrona trees where they forage for spiders and insects. The Black-headed Grosbeak is our only...

I thought I would try something different and use a birdbath as a BirdCam lure.  I got the idea from a recent post by David Lindquist at Cary BirdCam Blog .  I found a little birdbath on sale at Ace.  I thought it would look good in photos.  It also fit nicely within the depth-of-field setting on the BirdCam. When I started reviewing photos, I was taken aback to find this Eastern Gray Squirrel showing up on the first day out.  As some may know, I have been engaged in something just short of hand-to-hand combat with these invasive and  resolute feeder pests . In the end, I would only get three squirrel shots, these two and one that was blurred.  What a relief.  This is in stark contrast to the 1,200 a day I was getting with a suet lure.  As long as he is behaving himself, he will be welcome to come for a drink now and then. My very first customer was actually this Song Sparrow .  They have always been reliable BirdCam vis...

The Spotted Towhee ( Pipilo maculatus ) is the largest, and in my opinion the handsomest of sparrows.  They are among the most common birds seen locally.  They prefer a forest edge habitat where they forage on or near the ground.  They will also frequent  planted yards and parks where they can find food.  Their shrill call sings their name, " tow-HEEEE ."  I often see them in my yard and along trails exploring thickets or scratching in leaf litter on the ground.  This bird was enjoying wild crabapple fruits in the wetlands of the Skagit River delta on Fir Island, Washington.

Spotted Towhees ( Pipilo maculatus ) are common year-around birds on South Fidalgo Island and throughout the Pacific Northwest.  A previous post from early March revealed the discovery of Towhees here with more spots than we usually see.  They seemed to be birds normally seen further east and south which wandered into our area.  In a subsequent post , these variants were identified by Greg Gillson as P. m. 'curtatus' or Nevada Towhees.  Their normal range is southeast British Columbia, eastern Washington, through Idaho, Nevada and into southeastern California.  Our local 'oregonus' variants of the Northwest coast are much less spotted as exemplified by this female: At the time, the question was whether these spottier birds were just winter visitors or migrants passing through.  Since I am still catching photos of them at the BirdCam stations, it is beginning to appear that some may have settled here permanently.  Perhaps this is the beginning o...

Spotted Towhee ( Pipilo maculatus ) From Fidalgo Island Crossings , spring arrived for real on March 23rd.  In Deception Pass State Park, this Spotted Towhee caught my attention at Rosario Beach.  All by himself, he was joyfully singing, completely caught up in the moment.  After a long winter, I felt the same way on this beautiful, sunny day.

The previous post introduced an atypical Spotted Towhee ( Pipilo maculatus ) visiting the BirdCam station.  While the leopard may not be able to change its spots, the Spotted Towhee can.  Our local oregonus variants have relatively few spots.  Those to the east and south, including eastern Washington birds, are markedly spottier.  This bird appears to be one of those which has wandered into our area. My attempt to identify this bird among the 21 listed subspecies was frustrating.  Based on descriptions I found, I took a guess that he was a montanus variant, and admitted it was a guess.  I noted that in Pacific NW Birder , Greg Gillson was also visited by such birds in Beaverton, Oregon.  He identified them as curtatus , or Nevada Towhees.  In a comment to my post, he has kindly provided more information: "I think you are correct that this towhee with white outer tail feathers is one of the inland group. I wish we knew what one! Going on...

Spotted Towhee ( Pipilo maculatus ) Among Spotted Towhees ( Pipilo maculatus ), our local oregonus race is the least spotted.  Now, however, this bird has appeared at the BirdCam station over the last couple of days.  His spottiness immediately caught my eye.  I decided to shine a spotlight on this unusual visitor. These large Sparrows were formerly classified Rufous-sided Towhees ( Pipilo erythrophthalmus ).  Erythrophthalmus literally means "red eye."  In 1995, the birds were divided into two species, Eastern Towhee ( P. erythrophthalmus ) which have no spots and the Spotted Towhee ( P. maculatus ), maculatus meaning "spotted."  Got it?  You might know the word "immaculate" which means "without spots," but I digress.  Word etymology is one of my arcane interests. Oregonus Male This is a photo of a typical oregonus Spotted Towhee of the Northwest Coast.  Spot-checking reveals how different this bird is from the one in the ...

Snowfall is not a common occurrence in the Puget Sound lowlands.  If we get any, it usually comes between late November and early January.  Sometimes we don't even get frost until late December or January.  Other parts of the US have been clobbered by repeated waves of heavy snowfall this winter.  In the Pacific Northwest, we have tried to keep a low profile, hoping to escape La Niña 's attention. When February arrived, we thought we had staved off any chance of snow for the winter, but no such luck.  On February 23, 2011 a Pacific low positioned itself off the coast in a perfect location to draw Arctic air down the Fraser Valley into Puget Sound.  At the same time, it pushed moisture from the ocean into western Washington.  This was a recipe for heavy snowfall and it came very quickly.  For a time, 30 miles of Interstate 5 was shut down in Skagit County north of Seattle where drivers where overwhelmed by the volume of snow.  Up to 14 in...

Golden-crowned Sparrow (upper right) with Spotted Towhee It's always fun to catch a "first-timer" in a BirdCam photo.  This past weekend it was a Golden-crowned Sparrow ( Zonotrichia atricapilla ) that debuted at the BirdCam station.  South Fidalgo is part of their winter range which extends from northern Baja, up the Pacific coast through Vancouver and Graham Islands in British Columbia.  They breed in the subalpine interior of British Columbia, and through the southern Yukon into most of Alaska.  Even during winter, they are rarely seen on South Fidalgo in my experience.  This makes these photos even more pleasing.  Their cousins, the White-crowned Sparrows are more common here. Golden-crowned Sparrow (top left)  This fellow has some streaking on the breast which would indicate a juvenile.  In the breeding season, the golden crown would be surrounded by a distinctive black cap for both male and female.  According to iBird, a group o...