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NORTHWESTERN RED-WING

Other common names: Red-winged Blackbird.

Museum Specimens - Longmire meadows (2700).

It is inexplicable just why we have had several spring visits from these birds on the Longmire meadows. They visited us in the springs of 1933 and 1934 and again in May, 1937, when two pairs were under observation for several days but they have never stayed. Where do they come from and where are they going up at this altitude? Our meadows are attractive with cattails and willows, but the snow is hardly off the ground. Then again, the birds in the low country are nesting and have young by the time those visitors show up.

Red-winged blackbirds are almost too well-known to need description. The black male with his red and yellow shoulders is recognized at once. With the female it is, perhaps, different. She is not black but shows dull brown and white striped above and below, darker on the back.

These blackbirds nest in a swamp among the reeds and cattails, making a woven basket from these plants, lining it with dried grasses. Three to five eggs are laid, light blue with black and, at times, brownish markings, scrolls or blotches. The markings show great variation. Two broods a year are raised. There seems to be a high mortality before the young birds are ready to leave the nest. Perhaps the screech owl, flitting about in the evening, is responsible for some of it, and something else may take an egg or two. The parents do not seem to mind the loss. In the daytime the male birds police the swamp and if a crow or hawk shows up they lose no time in getting after it, several birds keeping in the chase until the would-be robber leaves.

In the past 25 or 30 years our blackbirds have shown no increase even under protection. However, western Washington cannot be considered much of a blackbird country, having few fresh-water sloughs or grain fields to attract them.

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BREWER'S BLACKBIRD

Museum Specimens - Yakima Park (6400); Sunset Park (5000).

Once, not so very long ago, a business man made an automobile trip from Tacoma to Spokane in company with a friendly naturalist. It was decided, for pastime, to make a list of the birds seen during the journey. In the very first field was a flock of Brewer's blackbirds, and from then on across the state the birds were continually observed. Reaching their destination and going over the list the business man made only one remark - "This man Brewer is getting lots of advertising".

Brewer's blackbirds are on the increase and are spreading out as civilization spreads. They were formerly a migrant but birds west of the mountains are now wintering with us. More or less gregarious in their habits, they keep to fields and orchards and, although a little grain and fruit is taken, they live chiefly on an insect diet. As proof of this, watch them follow a plow. In late summer in the moth and grasshopper season, flocks of these birds will be seen in the open fields. They walk rapidly and continually skip past each other, catching and feeding on the insects that flush before them.

The male Brewer, though solidly black in color, shows a purplish iridescence on the head and has a white eye that at all times is certain identification. The female is a duller black showing rusty or brown, and her eye is brown, not white.

Nesting begins late in April and the pairs nest more or less in colonies. A substantial nest is made of twigs and rootlets and deeply cupped. Nesting sites vary. A group may be found in small pine trees, in a clump of scotch-broom, in bushes or even on the ground. The eggs, usually four to seven, have a lightish background heavily covered and marked with brown.

We have an occasional visit from this bird in the fall above timberline. They appear at Yakima Park and Paradise, perching on the cabin ridges and holding converse with the Clark's nutcrackers. We also have records from Sunset Park.

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WESTERN TANAGER

Museum Specimens - Longmire (2700); Tahoma Creek (2100).

This is the third of the new birds discovered by the Lewis and Clark Expedition, the other two being named after the explorers - Lewis' woodpecker and Clark's nutcracker - and this one after the country explored - the Louisiana Territory. Later the name was changed to western tanager.

We have few vividly-colored song birds in western Washington, so the bright colors of this male tanager places him in our front ranks. In the spring the head is crimson, lower back and lower half of tail black, the rest of the body yellow. The female, having her secret nesting duties to perform, dresses in quieter colors - dull yellow with brownish wings and tail, Both birds have a slight, double-toothed or notched mandible that is identifying.

Western tanagers are strictly summer birds in our green forests, arriving in May and nesting in June. At this time the male's incessant, metallic note of "petik-petik" is repeated over and over as he feeds through the tree tops. He is a good provider and often feeds the female on the nest.

The nest is made of twigs and rootlets lined with hair if obtainable, or with finer rootlets. It is generally placed well out on a fir branch at any distance from the ground. Some birds prefer the oak tree and the nest is more concealed. From three to five light blue eggs, sparingly wreathed with gray or lavendar, are laid.

These tanagers are common with us, and breed on all timbered slopes throughout the park. They leave early in the fall.

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BLACK-HEADED GROSBEAK

This handsome grosbeak is strictly a summer bird with us, arriving late in spring and leaving soon after nesting. Unlike the tanager, they frequent our deciduous growth and prefer an open country of alder, maple and bushes. As there is little of this in the park they have been recorded only near the southern boundary in our small Transition zone, records made by Taylor and Shaw in 1919.

The male is really a handsome bird, but his colors do not flash as do those of our western tanager. He is described as tawny on underparts and lower back, this color running up and around the back; head and tail black; wings black with conspicuous white bars. The tawny color changes to yellow on the abdomen. The female wears subdued colors - striped browns on the back; underparts showing a paler tawny; white markings on the wings not prominent. They have heavy, blunt bills.

Few birds here can equal his song. On a bright summer morning he will render a lengthy recital from the top of some small tree, modestly retiring when the concert ends. The song is much like the evening song of the robin, but sweeter and more subdued. He takes his turn at incubating and, like the vireos, often sings from the nest.

The nest is shallow, made of thin twigs, rootlets and stems loosely woven together. So open is it that the eggs can be seen through the nest from below. It is placed near the top of a high bush or maple clump, usually five to ten feet from the ground. The three or four eggs, laid the last week in May, are of a bluish color with brown spots.

A naturalist friend of mine once found a nest containing two eggs of the black-headed grosbeak and one of the western tanager. These birds build nests that are quite similar, although this one resembled that of the grosbeak. Both females were at the nest; they did not fight but did do a lot of complaining. Next day the tanager was gone. The grosbeak remained but no eggs were added then or later, so the collector settled the matter by taking the nest and eggs for his own collection.

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WESTERN EVENING GROSBEAK

Our park is an ideal country for these birds, and we have our share of them. However, being of a roving disposition, they may be absent for months, then show up in flocks, in some localities remaining to nest. They appear in spring at the Nisqually Entrance, attracted by the budding maples and other deciduous growth. We may not see them again until their late breeding season when they again appear along the highways, first in small flocks and later in mated pairs. They evidently nest in our highest trees, but we have no records for the park nor for the state. Later in the fall small flocks are seen flying ever the higher areas. We have no actual winter records.

Evening grosbeaks are rapidly becoming familiar to city dwellers when the bare but budding trees in the parks attract them in large flocks. Bright colors, strange notes, lack of shyness and droll actions induce many persons to stop and study them. A flock may remain in one park for days at a time.

They have coats of many colors - bright on the males, plain on the females - with all in-between mixtures on the immature birds. Highly colored males show a yellow forehead and rump, black on crown and tail, wings black with solid white on secondaries, remainder of body olive-brown in different shades. The females wear a duller coat of grayish-brown blended with olive-yellow turning, to dull white below, wings black with a white mark, edges of tail spotted with white. Another mark of recognition, as the name implies, is the heavy, powerful beak, used for opening seed pods and in snipping off the early buds.

Little is known of their nesting habits. We have records from Arizona, California and Canada, but no local records. Several pairs may nest in one neighborhood, but in selecting the tops of high trees they place themselves beyond our ken where the Douglas fir is concerned. Apparently nesting takes place in June as we see mated pairs at that time. Nests are made of twigs and rootlets. The eggs, three or four in number, are bluish with black spots, resembling those of the red-winged blackbird.

No one interested in birds can pass a flock of grosbeaks without stopping to admire their gay colors and quaint actions as they fly up and down from their seed trees. Once, however, I stood on a high promontory above the Golden Lakes, during which time several small flocks passed below me, round, suspended balls of black and gold - just another bird picture retained in memory's album.

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Descriptions continued...