From the Contact Station January 2019

Getting a closer look

At the beginning of the summer, the contact station volunteers, with permission from the FWS staff, brought in a seed feeder to hang in one of the cottonwoods by the station. We started with black oil sunflower seeds. It was a slow birding summer. Mostly we had visits from the California Scrub Jays. They have been frequent visitors for some time. Changing to a mix of seeds (the cheap kind) we started seeing Black-capped Chickadees too. We are still experimenting with the best seed mix. Many of the birds like to pick out their favorite seed so a heavy millet mix empties quickly with all the millet in the tray. We will be filling the feeders every Sunday. With the onset of fall, we have had a nice variety of visitors. We have seen Dark-eyed Junco, Slender-billed White-breasted Nuthatch, Song Sparrow, Black-capped Chickadee and those ever-present California Scrub Jays. Occasionally, we get a Red-breasted Sapsucker on the trunk of the tree. You can see evidence of their activity on the trunk where there are small holes in a circle around the tree. In November, John, one of our frequent visitors, brought us a suet feeder to add to the tree. It has been found by the local birds too.

The feeder certainly keeps the station volunteers amused now. But it was fun to have a group of birders down from Seattle get a thrill by watching the California Scrub Jay. They all had their binoculars pointed at the feeder. Although, for our frequent visitors who probably see these jays in their yards this wouldn’t be a big deal, but to Seattle birders it was a great find as the California Scrub Jay doesn’t range up to their area.

My favorite visitor is the Slender-billed White-breasted Nuthatch. When I first moved to Ridgefield and started visiting the refuge, I heard something that sounded nuthatchie, but wasn’t familiar to my eastern US trained ear. I came to find out that we have a subspecies here, the Slender-billed White-breasted Nuthatch (Sitta carolinensis aculeate), Its song or call is indeed different from the eastern subspecies I was so used to.

In Washington and Oregon, slender-billed white-breasted nuthatches are commonly associated with Oregon white oak, as well as black cottonwood and Oregon ash on the west side of the Cascades. Nuthatch densities are greater in areas with higher numbers of large trees, which provide more surface area for foraging and have more natural cavities for nesting and roosting. Foraging typically occurs on the trunk and larger limbs of trees. Fissured bark supports an abundance and diversity of arthropods. Weevils and earwigs are important parts of their diet during breeding and post-breeding periods, with variation in the diet decreasing in winter. Slender-billed white-breasted nuthatches also often feed on acorns during winter, and large oaks produce more acorns. Ridgefield NWR is a perfect place for them with our oaks, cottonwoods and ash trees. Our Carty unit oak release project next year will truly benefit this species.

While the population in the eastern pine forests (subspecies tenuissima) is stable or expanding, our westside birds have shown a dramatic decline and range contraction over the last century. Much of the oak savannah has been lost, especially in the lower Puget Sound area. As a result of their decline, they are a Candidate species in Washington state and in Oregon are listed as sensitive. There has been some discussion about splitting the White-breasted Nuthatch species. If you are an e-bird reporter, you might want to read about identifying our birds to subspecies. Mostly it is based on vocal recognition. But there has been some documentation of overlap between the eastern Washington subspecies and our western Washington slender-billed subspecies along the gorge. You can find out more in a 2017 e-bird article at: https://ebird.org/pnw/news/white-breasted-nuthatch-populations-ebirders-aid-conservation-and-prepare-for-a-potential-split/.

Please feel free to quietly sit on the bench next to the contact station to watch for the nuthatch and friends. We will do our best to keep the feeder full for our feathered friends as we move through winter.