The Hooter Kittitas Audubon December 2016

No Membership Meeting & Program in December! But you can join in this annual event:

Ellensburg Christmas Bird Count (CBC) ~ Saturday, December 17th

The 117th Christmas Bird Count season is almost here! Since the Christmas Bird Count began over a century ago, it has relied on the dedication and com-mitment of volunteer citizen scientists. In other words, it all starts with you!

This will be Ellensburg’s 38th Count. Here’s how it works: no matter the weather, teams of people each cover a slice of a 15-mile diameter circle centered in west Ellensburg. Every year in December they count every species and group of birds they see. Some areas require a fair amount of walking, but much counting will be done from the car as the roads are slowly traveled. Birds seen at feeders within the count circle are of equal

importance, so for those who prefer the “Armchair CBC”, your sightings for the day are also need-ed (for any amount of time).

At the end of the day, all gather to enjoy a potluck at the home of Steve and Linda Hall and to tally the day’s re-sults. The potluck begins at 5:00!! After the “Count Day”, Phil Mattocks compiles the statistics for National Audubon, which he has done for many, many years. Peo-ple who have covered a specific area in the past are veri-fying that they will be doing so again this year.

The first allowable date for this year’s CBC is December 14th. All around the western hemisphere, teams of like-minded people will be counting on a chosen date within

the 3-week “window”, December 14th, 2016 to January 6th, 2017. In the January Hooter, there will be a summary of the history, as well as the current results of Kittitas Audubon’s Count.

If you have never before participated and would like to… or if you have participated and cannot do it this year, please call Gloria Baldi @ 933-1558 or Phil Mattocks @ 962-2191.

2013 Cle Elum Christmas Bird Count ~ Monday, December 19th: Michael Hobbs facilitates this count; call 425-301-1032 or email BirdMarymoor@frontier.com

The compiled results of all these counts over the years help to track fluctuations in bird populations and are used to guide conservation programs around the world.

Interested in helping out with other Eastern Washington CBCs??? There are other chapters that are always in need of more volunteers. See page 3 for a schedule!

Page 2 The Hooter

KAS BOARD MEMBERS President –Tom Gauron 968-3175

Vice President – Judy Hallisey 674-6858

Secretary – Jim Briggs 933-2231

Treasurer – Sharon Lumsden 968-3889

Conservation- Board members

Education – Judy Hallisey 674-6858

Field Trips – Steve Moore 933-1179

Historian – Gloria Lindstrom 925-1807

Programs – Jeb Baldi 933-1558

Publicity – Meghan Anderson 253-987-7629

Scholarship – Gloria Baldi 933-1558

Climate Change – Barry Brunson 674-6858

Past President – Jim Briggs 933-2231

*Newsletter – Jan Demorest 933-1179

*Membership – Tuck Forsythe 925-2356

*Bluebird boxes – Jan Demorest 933-1179

*Social Greeter – Kay Forsythe 925-2356

*Christmas Bird Count–Phil Mattocks 899-3370

*non-voting members

KAS Board Meetings are held at 4:30

PM on the 1st Thursday of each

month in the PUD meeting room,

1400 Vantage Highway. These meet-

ings are open to the public and all

Audubon members; please come and

join in the discussions. Meetings ad-

journ by 6:00 or 6:30, after which we

all go out for a sociable dinner ~ NO

business discussion allowed!

Board Notes by Gloria Baldi

The November 3rd KAS Board began with a lively presenta-tion by Mary Keffer, one of our scholarship recipients. Mary’s thesis is on the impact of large scale irrigation and hydropower projects on the Columbia River Basin sand dunes. She pointed out that dunes often create wetlands by damming up ephemeral streams. They also facilitate groundwater recharge since they are very porous. She added that far from barren, they are vibrant ecosystems. Mary said the Beverly Sand Dunes is operated as a state ORV Park but the others should be preserved. She hopes to become certified in GIS operation. Mary thanked KAS for the scholarship. The funds enabled her to purchase old aerial photographs essential to her project.

The business meeting was called to order and the follow-ing are highlights:

Preparations to reprint the Birding in Kittitas County brochure is in progress. Members will visit birding sites to update information and report to Steve Moore.

Judy Hallisey will represent KAS at Central’s Nature of Night on November 19th. Others are welcome to help!

Judy also completed the KAS Annual Report and sub-mitted it to National Audubon.

Hal Lindstrom (expressed everybody’s outrage?) over the Bundy acquittal in the Malheur Wildlife incident. A civil suit can still be filed.

Steve Moore reported on the Teanaway Community Forest meeting. It looks like closed roads will re-mained closed.

~ Gloria Lindstrom

Send in your stories & photos!

The Hooter is the

newsletter of Kit-

titas Audubon,

published monthly

except for July.

~~~~~~~

Submissions from readers are most welcome and encouraged!

The editor reserves the right to edit for

space, grammar, and/or suitability.

Email text and/or photos to bob-

cat@kvalley.com or snail mail to Jan

Demorest, Hooter Editor, 712 E 2nd

Ave, Ellensburg, WA 98926. Sub-

missions need to be in by the

20th of the preceding month.

The mission of Kittitas Audubon is to develop an

appreciation of nature through education and

conservation, with a focus on birds.

Field Trip Reports Page 3 The Hooter

November 5 First Saturday Birdwalk ~ 13

folks gathered to find birds in Rinehart Park on a

cool and fairly quiet day, bird-wise. One of our

group brought a poetic description of the water

ouzel, written by John Muir, describing the bird

we know now as the American Dipper, often seen

along the river here. Before we strolled off, Tom

Gauron volunteered a reading: “ …How romantic

and beautiful is the life of this brave little singer

on the wild mountain streams, building his round

bossy nest of moss by the side of a rapid or fall,

where it is sprinkled and kept fresh and green by

the spray! No wonder he sings well, since all the

air about him is music…” [Muir wrote extensive

and charming descriptions; to read further, web-

search “Sierra Club John Muir the water ouzel”].

We failed to encounter a dipper on this day, but

spied a preening Common Merganser in the river

shallows. Starlings dominated the treetops,

shared with Downy Woodpeckers, a flicker,

chickadees and a Ruby-crowned Kinglet. Two

Red-tailed Hawks and a Bald Eagle in a distant

pine represented the raptors. We heard a

Bewick’s Wren and managed to coax Song

Sparrows out of the brush. 16 species was the

morning’s total.

Diving water ouzel (American Dipper) from: John

Muir, The Mountains of California

~ Steve Moore

January 1, 2017 Twisp CBC

davidrudholm1@centurytel.net 509-429-1105 Dave Rudholm

December 19 Cle Elum CBC

425-301-1032 Michael Hobbs BirdMarymoor@frontier.com

December 15 Bridgeport CBC

509-686-7551 Meredith Spencer merdave@homenetnw.net

December 17 Leavenworth CBC

509-393-0088 Gretchen Rohde design@thedesignranch.com

December 28 Chelan CBC

509-682-2318 Steve Easley 509-682-9653 Dan Smith

January 1, 2017 Wenatchee CBC

dstephens@wvc.edu 509-679-4706 Dan Stephens

January 2, 2017 Omak/Okanogan CBC

509-429-8167 Heather Findley heather@eagleson.net

More CBC counts that need your help!

The Great Backyard Bird Count is coming!!!

It’s easy! It’s fun!

(now global ~ everyone can participate!)

President’s Day Weekend

Feb.18-20, 2017

http://www.birdcount.org

Put these dates on your calendar!

Take a look at the above graph. It represents an alien expansion that would make a Barred Owl blush. This is the Christmas Bird Count data for the Eurasian Collared Dove (Streptopelia decaoto). The chart is for Washington State with dates from 2004 through 2015. (Numbers on horizontal axis refer to the number of the count year: 107th year to 115th year). The in-crease is unbelievable, jumping from 11 birds in 2004 to 5266 in 2015. This is the fastest and most sweeping invasion since Genghis Khan.

So what’s the story here? How did it get here and what is it doing?

The Collared Dove started out in India. Now think about that. The Princeton Field Guide Se-ries, Birds of India, states: “Widespread resident …Open dry country with cultivation and groves.” India’s civiliza-tion goes back over 4000 years and this bird has had a long time to co-evolve with its human neigh-bors. I suspect that along the way they adapted to liv-ing in areas with plenty of “cultivation and groves” and other con-sequences of

human habitation.

That would predispose them to moving into the expanding areas of human dominion. By the 1800s and early 1900s they were in Turkey and then Europe. Then they got a boost from the

clueless pet trade: a few ap-parently escaped during a pet store burglary in the Bahamas in the 1970s. There they mul-tiplied and possibly with the aid of a friendly hurricane made it to Florida. By the 1980s they were all over the Southeast, although they were not even listed in Birds of North Ameri-ca, 1983 edition, even on the

(Continued on page 6)

Page 4 Hooter Loathsome Dove ...or is it? By Jim Briggs

Holiday Ideas Page 5 The Hooter

Would you like to find a way to get out of the “fast lane” at Christmas… the task of buying gifts for everyone on your list… try giving a donation in someone’s name to a charitable organization: conserva-tion, helping people in poverty or victims of natural disasters, animal shelters/rescues, endangered species, and more. Here are a few ideas which you can easily find on the Web (and if you don’t have a computer, try the Public Library; your local librarian will be happy to help!)

This holiday season, make a difference for those who cannot speak for themselves, set an example for your loved ones, teach the kids on your list about “true giving”. Please feel free to contact the editor if you need more information or suggestions.

...and make the Grinch happy, too!

Heifer International Trust for Public Lands

Your local Animal Shelter Your local Food Bank The Coral Reef Alliance Doctors Without Borders American Wildlife Federation OxFam

Mercy Corps American Red Cross Your local Audubon chapter National Audubon KEEN (local) Washington Trails Association Books for Africa American Bird Conservancy

Bat Conservation International Farmland Trust Ocean Conservancy Forterra (local) World Wildlife Fund Blue Mountain Wildlife Rehab (local)

"Maybe Christmas," he thought, "doesn't come from a store. Maybe Christmas perhaps

means a little bit more!" - from How The Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss

11/24/16 Notes from Kansas: I'm getting a re-

fresh on Kansas birds: at the feeder at my sis-

ter's house, only a few birds are our familiar NW

visitors. White-crowned Sparrows and Downy

Woodpeckers are joined by Harris’ Sparrows,

White-throated Sparrows, Cardinal Grosbeaks,

Red-Bellied Woodpeckers and eastern Blue

Jays. The quail are Bobwhites, and the blue-

birds Eastern. Purple Finches are a bit more

common than House Finches, and most of the

Dark-eyed Juncos are Slate-Colored. Yester-

day I saw a Red-Headed Woodpecker while

doing some work out at the farm, and last

week a pair of Gray Catbirds were working

out the brush behind the house. I'm enjoying

seeing the birds that began my bird-watching

observations/experiences.

Harris’ Sparrows aren't all that common here,

but at Laura & Jim's, at the edge of town with

good bird habitat maintained, they get them

each year, and in fairly good numbers; I've seen

up to 8 males at or near the feeder at one

time. Females are a bit harder to pick out, of

course.

~ Norm Peck

Harris’ Sparrow

Page 6 Hooter This & That…

introduced dove page. By the time they were identified as a problem in the Southeast, the ge-nie was out of the bottle. Now they are on the Alaska/British Columbia border.

A 2010 paper by Ikuko Fujisaki and Frank Maz-zotti in Ibis stated: “Reasons for this rapid ex-pansion…may include urbanization and/or cli-mate change allowing for longer breeding sea-sons.” There’s climate change again. They used a great term: “Human commensalism is a unique attribute of this species.” They went on to state “Minimum temperature was a strong explanatory variable of species occurrence; Col-lared Doves tend to be absent in areas of low minimum temperature [in the neighborhood of zero degrees Celsius for an average minimum temperature].”

Collared Doves thrive in areas with abundant trees for nesting and particularly agricultural ar-eas where there is spilled grain. I saw this for myself on a drive to Clarkston through the Pa-louse. All the little towns with grain elevators had large flocks visible from the highway. In fact that’s what inspired me to do the research for this article.

So what’s the significance of this successful oc-cupation? I can pull a few threads here. First, we can assume there will be a negative impact on native species but I tend to think of the col-lared dove as a symptom, not the disease itself. The problem is urbanization, or more precisely, diminishment of wildlands. Roads, agricultural

fields, agricultural processing plants, housing, and cities are steadily usurping native bird habi-tat and birds like the Collared Dove, with centu-ries of experience living in such environments, are exploiting this niche.

I wonder how they will compete with the Rock Pigeon and Mourning Dove. An article in beau-tyofbirds.com suggests that they may have found a place between these two species, possi-bly occupying a niche made available by the ex-tinction of the Passenger Pigeon. In fact, a study reported in the journal of Wildlife Management suggested that the competition with Mourning Doves may be less than previously reported.

The other thing that comes to the forefront is that this is an impact of the warming climate. If cold temperatures are the main limiting factor in the dove’s expansion, then a gradually warming climate should result in gradually expanding range. I searched the National Audubon climate change website for their prediction of the future range of Collared Doves but it wasn’t there. I suspect it would show a shift to the north.

So what can we do about them? State wildlife management agencies have no restriction on hunting them—other than the need for a li-cense—but that goes for Starlings, House Spar-rows, and Rock Pigeons and look at how that is working. No, I think we should just enjoy their call in the spring—which was compared to the Black-headed Gull in Birds of Europe.

And we need to realize that alien invasions will continue as we modify the natural environment, including changing the climate.

(Dove ~ Continued from page 4)

Cedar Waxwing

Drunk on sour cherries, the harlequin of birds Lurches through the branches and lisps in bleared content, While a Temperance Union Catbird shrieks her words In a scathing, scolding lecture he’s too happy to resent.

~ by William H. Matchett

Page 7 Hooter

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See The Hooter in COLOR on our website ~ http://www.kittitasaudubon.org

Welcome New Members! Steven Arkowski

Lisa Moorehead and Bob Dittrick

~~~~~~~

Thanks for renewing!

R. Dave Perkins & Janet Fulton-Perkins

Upcoming KAS Field Trips

December

3rd ~ Saturday ~ First Saturday Birdwalk, Rinehart Park. Waterfowl are pushing the ice aside on the ponds. Someone may bring a scope along for close-up looks. Sparrows & snipes are trying to keep warm. Dress for the weather and meet at the Irene Rinehart riverside parking lot off of Umptanum Rd at 8 AM. Jan and Ste-ve lead; 933-1179 for info.

17th ~ Saturday ~ Christmas Bird Count, El-lensburg. Join teams to cover a sector of the 15-mile circle centered on Ellensburg, traveling by car and on foot. Always informative to see how many birds are active this late in the year and usually a few rare surprises are encoun-tered. Celebrate over potluck dinner afterward at the Halls’ residence. If you would like to partici-pate contact Gloria Baldi, 933-1558, in early De-cember. See Page 1 for details.

January

7th, Saturday ~ First Saturday BirdWalk, Irene Rinehart Park. Continuing a January tra-dition: we’ll meet at Irene Rinehart parking lot at 8 AM, head for breakfast at the Bar 14 Restau-rant, and re-assemble afterward at 9 am, back at Irene Rinehart parking lot, for a 2½-hour walk. Ducks will be huddling in any open spots in the ponds; Brown Creeper, dipper, and eagles hang out when the year is at its coldest. Freezing fog and riverside icicles can dress up the woods, so bring a camera as well as binocs, and dress for weather! Leader TBA.

Kittitas Audubon

P.O. Box 1443

Ellensburg WA 98926

The Hooter ~ December 2016 The Newsletter of Kittitas Audubon - http://www.kittitasaudubon.org

THANK YOU…..TO KITTITAS COUNTY BUSINESSES SUPPORTING KAS!

Inland Internet, Roslyn ~ donates Internet service for our Website: http://www.kittitasaudubon.org

Old Mill Country Store, Ellensburg ~ Provides a discount on bird seed to KAS members. Get your bird seed here!

Join us on a field trip some-time ~ you never know

what we might find!

Merry Christmas & A Happy New Year!!!