Bird Notes - September to October, 2002
by Jim Rogers

September 21 - Coverage on the annual Fall North American Migration Count was a bit light with some key people being occupied on other projects. We especially missed coverage of the North County ranches. Thus our total of 132 species was below last fall’s count of 141 and well below our fall record of 147 species set in ’95. This problem was, in large part, due to my inadvertently telling people that the September 2002 count would be on Sept. 14 when it was actually Sept. 21. My sincere apologies for the last minute correction. It seems the spring count is always the second Saturday in May and the fall count is on the third Saturday in September. The official word is that the next NAMC is Saturday, May 10, 2003. If you are new to this activity, the idea is to conduct an annual nationwide bird count on a single day, once during the spring migration and once during the fall migration. This can provide meaningful data on population changes, migration routes, key feeding areas, etc. We do it mostly because it’s fun and we’d like to get more species than any other county. We try to cover as many of the good birding spots in the county as possible, but are usually stretched pretty thin. We especially need to cover the mountains better. We have very little coverage for the Agness area, the Kalmiopsis Wilderness or the east side of the county, (e.g. Whetstone Butte). The count is organized by Don Munson in the south part of the county and myself in the north. Please let one of us know if you’d like to help.

A few observations from the count:

400 Brown Pelicans seemed like quite a few, but last fall we found over 1200. Likewise, the Heermann’s Gull numbers were way down, from 2644 last year to 111 this year. The question is, were they somewhere else or did something happen to them. Heermann’s gulls accompany Brown Pelicans. They nest in Mexico and migrate up here to fish.

No Tree or Violet-green Swallows were seen, but a couple of days later, huge flocks of migrating Violet-green Swallows were seen in the lowlands. The Tree Swallows had probably headed south a month before.

A Red-eyed Vireo near Floras Lake was a welcome new bird for the count. These eastern vireos nest in Northeast Oregon and in eastern Washington, but not in the rest of the state. They do, however, occasionally fly out to the coast where they’re found in riparian vegetation.

October 21 - The first Tropical Kingbirds of the fall were spotted by Terry Wahl on the family ranch near the Elk River estuary. Last year they first showed up on October 3. Terry also spotted his first Clay-colored Sparrow of the season on the Elk River ranch.

October 26 - Alice Pfand was surprised to see a Scrub Jay in her yard in Port Orford. We rarely see them north of Euchre Creek.

Additional sightings will (hopefully) be in the next Storm Petrel.

Please phone, fax or mail your bird observations to me at (541) 332-2555; 95187 Elk River Rd., Port Orford, OR 97465. Thanks.