Bees, Birds and Books

14 September

Asters with Bee

I turned another year older a couple of days ago, and celebrated for a while, in the sunshine, with this Common Eastern Bumble Bee enjoying a large stand of New England Asters.

For what it’s worth - I usually make that I have a proper camera with me for flowers etc. but on this occasion I only had an iPhone - unexpectedly good.

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Autumn Bird Migration Success

As you know, every morning we sit with a large mug of tea and count the birds seen and heard in the garden. Recently the regulars have been joined in the early hours of the day by varying numbers of migrating species heading southwards … mostly the infamous “confusing fall warblers”. Mostly these have been in ones and twos and were always gone by 8am - but the message is to be looking as the light goes and it’s remarkable what will appear in a garden that doesn’t look too much like a garden if you know what I mean. If you don’t look, you won’t see - plus, watching birds is easier on the soul than reading the morning news most days.

The travelling/passage birds noted since 1 September alongside the regulars included the following - confidence in our identification grew when we realised that the morning census at the nearby banding station, just a few minutes to the north “as the warbler flies”, was seeing quite a few of these same species.

• American Redstart (though these nested locally for the first time ever, and were seen as regular visitors to the waterfall in mid-summer with their offspring), Tennessee Warbler, Black-throated Green Warbler, Nashville Warbler, Yellow-rumped Warbler, Baltimore Oriole, Cape May Warbler ,Magnolia Warbler, Northern Parula, Bay-breasted Warbler, Blackburnian Warbler, Yellow Warbler, Chestnut-sided Warbler, Blackpoll Warbler, Wilson’s Warbler, Swainson’s Thrush, Hermit Thrush, Rose-breasted Grosbeak, Indigo Bunting

Them, this morning, the number of species in the census hour dropped off to only a dozen. Sadly this probably marks the tail end of migration. There was still a single Cape May Warbler (they have been one of the most frequent recently) but we are now undoubtedly heading down towards autumn and eventually winter.

Wilson’s Warbler

Bay-breasted Warbler

And, a resident. Cooper’s Hawks are with us all year around. This one arrived yesterday about noon and sat beside the waterfall for a couple of hours - I am thinking that it had dined quite well earlier in the day and was doing some calm digesting in a place that seemed quiet and safe. When it arrived there was much screaming from Blue Jays and all the other birds vanished, but once the smaller birds had realised that he wasn’t hunting they all drifted back for their own snacks, while the hawk just sat there taking life easy.

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Books are Best

This post that I am sharing is an excellent read. When it comes to identifying wildlife, while apps are useful, uncannily accurate (sometimes) and generally good, books/field guides are almost always better in the long run. I use both, but at least confirming with a book teaches you more than always trusting to the app … good as they generally are these days.

Note: The article (link follows) is headed by a photo of a group of botanists in their natural habitat - a species that is easily identified as such by their characteristic poses. No need of app or book for this ID 😉

The Triumph of the Book in Nature

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Just One Hour - Tom’s Account

A couple of weeks ago I invited readers to tell us about their findings in “just one hour” of walking or pottering in a garden or a roadside wasteland. Tom Pendergast, who notices nature in Washington State, sent this account of the first hour of a recent walk he took in the Cascade Mountains. There is also a link below to some photographs he took on the trail.

This summer, I set a goal of climbing a mountain a week, amended along the way to allow a hike or two that didn’t end on a summit. (I’ll leave the details of this summer quest for a post of my own later.) I consider the Cascade Mountains that lie to the east of my home in Snohomish, Washington, to be my backyard, so on my hike on Tuesday the 9th I set about to document the first hour of my hike to the summit of Mount Teneriffe, not far outside of North Bend.

The trip up Mount Teneriffe is what I consider a “classic” Washington summit: you start in the river valley and head straight up until you reach the summit. In general, these get you 4,000 to 5,000 feet of elevation in anywhere from 3 to 10 miles. These hikes ALWAYS start in the forest, and this one is no different—or I should say, this forest has a lot of the qualities I’ve grown to expect. Thick ferns and other brush where there’s enough light, with very little underbrush where the trees are thickest. This is all second- and third-growth forest we were going through, but you can see remnants of the big trees that used to be here. There’s enough water in the mountains that we had a couple small stream crossings.

It’s been very dry this summer so there were very few slugs on the trail, but we did get to see a wasp nest being built in the branches hanging near the trail.

As for birds, well, they were exactly as I’ve come to expect:

Pacific Wren (just calling now, no long melodious songs as earlier in the season)
Red-Breasted Nuthatch
Golden-Crowned Kinglet
Chestnut-Backed Chickadee
Steller’s Jay

The Kinglets and Chickadees hang out in groups, chittering like teenagers. I always see (or just hear) them together, raising a ruckus. They seem to like to be around people. The Nuthatches and Wrens are more distant and reclusive.

There was only one fungus poking its head out of the forest floor down at the low elevations, though the higher we got the more diverse the fungus population became. All we need are a couple of rains and the woods will explode with mushrooms.

I’m sure I would have seen more had I slowed down just a bit, but we had a summit to reach and it was a 13.5 mile round trip hike after all.

Photos illustrating by Tom are here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/9hT32jTNVK2oszWC8

And, this is the trail: https://www.wta.org/go-hiking/hikes/mount-teneriffe