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LITTLE FLYCATCHER

Other common names: Formerly Trail's Flycatcher.

Museum Specimens and Eggs - Stevens Canyon (2500).

One of the last summer birds to arrive and nest is the little flycatcher. It is a bird of the brush and is fond of near a swamp or stream. In appearance it is like all little flycatchers; it is difficult to tell one from another. However, as we have only two in the park, this bird and the western flycatcher, we should have little difficulty in identifying them. The little flycatcher is a browner type with less yellow, and more whitish on the underparts. It is a bird of the open spaces, while the western prefers the deeper timber.

This flycatcher is not common in the park, but it occasionally is seen down Stevens Canyon way. It nests in open bushes, two or three feet from the ground, the nest often being placed in the center of a clump with small trees, but usually in plain sight. Another favorite site is the tall ferns, such as the bracken. The nest itself is made of dried grasses and fairly well cupped. Three or four handsome eggs are laid about the last of June - creamy-white with a few brownish spots at the larger end. When approached, the incubating bird will slip silently from the nest and disappear in the brush.

It is not always silent, its call of "swit-zo" being heard repeatedly where the birds are present.

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WESTERN FLYCATCHER

Museum Specimens - Longmire (2700); Box Canyon Ridge (3000).

One must not think that this little flycatcher is yellow because we read of its being more yellow than others of its kind. The predominant color is green, and green it is to blend perfectly with the deep moss-covered woods - the birds' summer abode. They are an olive-green above with a lighter shade on the breast, brightening to yellow on the remaining underparts. Two conspicuous bars of yellowish-gray mark the wings, and the broad, snappy bill is black above, yellow below.

This is the common flycatcher in our deep Washington forests, and it is a lover of mossy sections and upturned roots. They are more quiet than others of our flycatchers, and one may not be conscious of the presence of a bird until it dives after some (to the watcher) unseen insect and then returns to its perch on the root.

They nest in these roots, on or behind a piece of loose bark on a tree trunk, generally near the ground. Sometimes the nest is placed against the trunk on the short stub of a broken-off branch. A nest in this location looks much like an old piece of moss caught on the limb and one would pass it by without realizing that it is really a basket containing three or four beautifully-marked eggs. Nests built on the side of a trunk are also well concealed and would not be noticed unless the bird glided out, a foot from ones head.

The nest may be somewhat bulky in shape, made of green moss lined with dried grasses. The rather deep cup contains three or four creamy-white eggs, delicately marked at the larger end with spots of pink and brown. They nest earlier than most of our flycatchers, fresh eggs being laid early in May and on through June.

In the park we have recorded them at Longmire and the lower Cowlitz Divide. They should be found in all our deep timber near the boundaries. In 1935 a pair was nesting in a root by the Trail of the Shadows at Longmire.

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OLIVE-SIDED FLYCATCHER

Museum Specimens: Paradise Valley (5400); Frog Heaven (4500).

The park naturalist sometimes finds himself in strange surroundings during the month of June. Picture, if you can, a bright, hot morning with several feet of dazzling white snow about you, with the contrasting green of the alpine trees: and ice breaking up in the lake. Then add to all this, the loud double notes of a strictly summer bird - the olive-sided flycatcher. You wonder what season it really is up here at timberline, or do we have just changes instead of seasons!

The olive-sided flycatcher is the most conspicuous, if not the most common of the flycatchers on our mountain slopes. We see and hear him from his favorite perch - the tip of an alpine fir or the top of a dead snag. His loud, clear notes - "see here" - are repeated, seemingly, all day long without a let-up. His large size identifies him from our other flycatchers. He is a pugnacious soul and quickly drives away any bird passing too near the nesting tree.

In color, the upper parts are brownish or blackish-gray, the sides gray streaked with a touch of olive near the flanks. The conspicuous identifying mark in the field is the straight white area extending from bill to tail down the entire underparts with the exception of a grayish-streaked marking across the breast. The bill is large and wide - yellow below, black above.

Their nesting site is a coniferous tree more or less in the open. The tree must have long horizontal branches, and out on the end the nest is built. They like a lower branch with a clear trunk below, and the site is usually 30 to 60 feet from the ground. The nest itself is made loosely of twigs with a little grassy lining. The structure is very shallow, and in this three or four beautiful, creamy-white eggs with a ring of chestnut and purplish spots at the larger end, are laid. They nest in June.

The sloping country around Reflection Lake is a favorite locality for these flycatchers. In fact, on all sides of the mountain where the trees are not too dense, they will be found. We have records at Lake James, Mystic Lake, the Cowlitz Divide, Nickel Creek and Tahoma Creek. The earliest arrival at Nickel Creek in 1937 was on May 24.

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PALLID HORNED LARK

Museum Specimens - Burroughs Mountain (7000).

If the visiting ornithologist wants a treat in the park he should climb Burroughs Mountain to the high plateau - the summer home of the pallid horned lark. Here there is a life zone comparable to the Yukon Valley, the northern breeding range of this bird. This wind-swept plateau is one of the few flat sections of the park. Unlike the mountain meadows, it is bare of grass but covered with little beds of short-growing wildflowers of many colors. Add to this many glacier-smoothed stones and rocks and we have the perfect setting for this bird in its summer home.

The pallid horned lark is a larger, more robust-looking bird than its cousin, the streaked horned lark found on the open prairies below. The great distinction is the white underparts of the former compared with the yellow tint of the prairie bird. This white contrasts with the black throat band, while the grayish back is less streaked. It is interesting to note the difference in these two races, their range being separated only by some thirty miles horizontally, but by some 5000 feet in altitude. Add to this a third race - the dusky horned lark on the east side of the Cascades - a bird of the sage brush country - and we have three distinct varieties whose breeding ranges may be within a radius of a hundred miles. In winter all three forms are found in the Horse Heaven country of central Washington and perhaps all in one flock, as these larks remain in large flocks in winter. We also have migrating records of the pallid horned lark along the ocean beaches in fall, feeding in debris left by the high tides, the birds running along the sandy beach in a manner similar to that of a small sandpiper.

It is also interesting to compare the varied migrating and breeding dates in spring. The dusky horned larks whose winter range is not far from its summer home, starts its nesting as early as February more like the birds of eastern United States. The streaked horned lark arrives on the Tacoma prairies about February (Washington's Birthday) - the first real migrant of that section - but does not nest until the first week in May. This bird produces a second set of eggs after July 1. Owing to snow conditions, the pallid horned lark does not reach its breeding ground until May and nesting does not begin until early July.

Horned larks nest on the ground. They scratch out a cup-like hole and build a nest of dried grasses, the top of which is just level with the surface of the ground. Two to five eggs are laid - a light brown color on a white base - which are very hard to find until the eye has been trained by experience what to look for. The eggs of the pallid are larger than those of the streaked variety.

I visited Burroughs Mountain on July 7, 1937, hoping to get a set of lark eggs for the museum collection. It was not long before I noticed a bird at my feet, feeding in an unconcerned way - a sure sign that there was a nest nearby. Standing still and looking about, I finally discovered the sunken nest with four eggs, placed in the center of a small bed of wild flowers varying in shades of blue, white and yellow. The bird was very tame, standing a few feet away while I set the camera at less than two feet for a close-up. She evidently tired of my slow activities and came back to her eggs, turning them with her feet as does a brooding hen. I took several snaps at 18 inches, which did not disturb her, but when I wanted a photo of the nest and eggs I had to push her off and had little time to snap them before she was back on the eggs. I would lift her two feet away but back she would come, determined to protect her treasures, and though not in a fighting mood she appeared decidedly provoked at times.

I visited this area again in September when the days were cold and gray. The birds were there, each on its favorite stone, showing little activity. They seemed to be just "hanging around", waiting for the first snowstorm to drive them out to lower and less stormy surroundings.

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Descriptions continued...