Category Archives: Wildlife

Interpretive Blogs about Wildlife and Plants

Tufted Puffin (Fratercula cirrhata)

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Tuffted Puffin (Fratercula cirrhata) Curtesy USFWS

Local Finds

This recognizable seabird nests on Oregon headland such as Haystack Rock, Cape Mears, Cape Lookout, Cape Foulweather, Yaquina Head, and further north at Three Arch Rocks.

Recognizing

The large triangular red-orange bill is definitely unique and is most visible on breeding adults during the summer reproductive season. The birds also develop a distinct white face with long cream-colored facial plumes and red feet.

The colorful breeding plumage and bill plates molt-off in the winter as the bird moves offshore to feed. The bird appears predominantly black similar to immature or non-breeding puffins. The body length is approximately 15-inches.

Nesting

Puffins, murres, and auklets are oceanic birds that live predominantly in the water. They only come to land to nest. Puffins gather on in dense breeding colonies often on treeless islands far out in the ocean.

They prefer offshore treeless islands and steep cliffs offer protection from mammal predators and may choose islands that are not in sight of land.

The ideal nesting site would be close to food, have relatively soft soil and grass to dig and build nesting burrows, and have a high enough elevation and steep drop offs that help the bird take flight.  

Breeding Range and Habitat

The Puffin breeding range extends from British Columbia throughout the southeastern Alaska, Aleutian Islands, Kuri Island, and Japan. Puffins will also breed on Russia’s Kamchatka peninsula which has some of the worlds largest brown and rainbow trout.  

Nesting can occur as far south as the northern Channel Islands, off southern California (sightings have not occurred since 1997.

Flight and Forage

The wings are relatively short (a span of about 25-inches) and adapted for diving and swimming. These birds cannot gliding but can fly long and fast using strong breast muscles and a strenuous wing-beat cadence.

Wings are used to ‘fly’ through the water, tail spread to steer, streamlined body with feet back make the puffin a formable underwater hunter. The puffin often forages by surface diving and rapid swimming through schools of small fish and marine invertebrates.

The large axe-like bill can catch large quantities of food at one time. The bills also facilitate transporting food back to chicks.

Diet

Diet will vary greatly by age, location, and availability. Colony nestlings are more dependent on invertebrates. Adult birds also depend on invertebrates such a squid and krill. Puffins also feed, to some extent, on ocean floor species.   

Predators

Tufted puffin avian predators include Snowy owl, Bald eagles, and Peregrine falcons; gulls and ravens will scavenge eggs. Artic foxes prefer puffins over other birds.

A mass puffin die-off, attributed to climate change, occurred on St. Paul Island, Alaska between October 2016 and January 2017.

In the past, the Aleut and Ainu people hunted the Tufted Puffin for food and feathers. They used the skins to make parkas, and the feathers in ornamental work. Harvesting of tufted puffins is illegal or discouraged today.

REFERENCES:
–Oregon Dept. of Fish and Wildlife, Murres, Auklets and Puffins (https://myodfw.com/wildlife-viewing/species/murres-auklets-and-puffins)
–All About Birds, Puffins (https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Tufted_Puffin/id)
–Wikipedia, Tufted Puffins (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tufted_puffin)
–Audubon Field Guide (https://www.audubon.org/field-guide/bird/tufted-puffin)

Western gull (Larus occidentalis)

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Western gull (Larus occidentalis)

The Western gull is a large, white-headed gull that lives on the west coast of North America between British Columbia and Baja, California. This species is an exclusively marine gull that is seldom encountered inland. It nests on offshore islands and rocks along the coast as well as islands inside estuaries. Within nesting colonies, long term pairs aggressively defend territories whose borders may shift slightly from year to year, but are maintained for the life of the male. The Western gull typically lives 15 years, but can live as long as 25 years.

Western gulls are omnivores and eat a variety of things including fish and other aquatic invertebrates. Like many other gull species, Western gulls drop hard-shelled items from the air to break them on hard surfaces. The Western gull is highly opportunistic and will steal unguarded eggs or chicks of other species. They will also situate colonies near sea lion breeding colonies and scavenge dead pups.

Because of their opportunistic nature and adaptability, gulls can thrive in urban environment. However, living in close proximity to human environs means these birds are also subject to abnormal environmental pressures. For example, when their normal sources of food are diminished, gulls are quick to take advantage of an easy food source such as a trash and leftover scraps. By exploiting unnatural food resources their population may be growing larger than it would normally thus upsetting the ecosystem balance. Next time you visit the beach be sure to take your extra food home and pick up any trash to prevent Western gulls and other seabirds from eating foods outside their typical diet.

Western Meadowlark (Sturnella neglecta)

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‘Little grass shack’

This 1930’s Hawaiian song kicked off a multi-ethnic music craze perfect for the Western Meadowlark.

Western Meadowlark (courtesy ODFW)

Female Western Meadowlarks build a ground nest that is often covered by a woven grass roof — a ‘Little Grass Shack’ so to speak.  

The ‘little grass shack’ nest is a small hollow hidden in dense grass cover. The shack has an entrance tunnel that may extend several feet with several narrow trails leading to it.

Identifying

Visually, this medium-sized bird sports a dapper Herringbone-like plume with a black V-lapel and yellow vest.  This color and pattern palette helps camouflage the birds in the open grasslands.  

Habitat and Range

Western Meadowlarks call meadows, fields, desert shrub-steppe, marshes, and agricultural grasslands home throughout their range. Low-growing vegetation provides foraging cover.

Western Meadowlarks are widely distributed from southern Canada to central America; and from the Mississippi River west. Many birds are permanent residences and breed along the Oregon coast.  

Food

Meadowlarks forage on the ground looking mostly for a wide variety of bugs, seeds, and berries. In the winter, the birds will often forage in mixed flocks of blackbirds and starlings. Winter diet often focuses on seeds and grains.

Meadowlarks, like other blackbird family members, use a feeding behavior called “gaping.” They drive their sharp, pointy bill into the soil, bark, etc. They use strong jaw muscles to force the material open. This hole provides access to foods other birds can’t reach.

Predators

Ground nests are inadvertently destroyed during mowing, and weather (droughts) can be very tough on nestlings.

Bird Song

Six states recognize the western meadowlark as their State Bird, including Oregon. In 1927, Oregon selected the Western Meadowlark as their State Songbird.

Western Meadowlark song is significantly more complicated and flute like compared to other closely related birds.

Males defend their breeding territory by singing. They often sing from the tops of fences, shrubs, and powerlines.

A Party in a Grass Shack?

The little grass shack this bird builds is quite unique, just like the Hawaiian song “Little Grass Shack.” This song is one of Hawaii’s “50 Greatest…” and featured in many movies, performances, and recordings.

The song features one full line in Hawaiian “Komo mai no kāua i ka hale welakahao.” This line or Dolly Parton’s 1987 interpretation may be a great way to remember this unique bird.

She translated the line as “Come to my house, we’re gonna party!” Maybe that is what the male birds are really singing about.

REFERENCES:
–Western Meadowlark (https://myodfw.com/wildlife-viewing/species/blackbirds-grackles-and-orioles)
–Audubon Society, Western Meadowlark (https://www.audubon.org/field-guide/bird/western-meadowlark)
–Wikipedia, Western Meadowlark (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_meadowlark) and (…My_Little_Grass_Shack_in_Kealakekua,_Hawaii)
–All About Birds, Western_Meadowlark (https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/western_meadowlark)