Wildlife Update Comments - 7/27/08

Wildlife Update Comments. We thought we would pass on some of the wildlife update comments received over the past 2 days. Note that we don't indicate who they are from unless they have given us permission.

I love the wildlife reports! The parrot may be the one owned by Audrey Boyer. Although I have not seen "Bird" for several years, it used to fly freely in the neighborhood. It was not lost, or escaped, and returned to its home on Oceanview by evening. It could make a pretty good imitation of a crow and was frequently seen flying with a flock of those birds.

While sitting in my den looking out over the water, I saw a solid gray eagle. It was NOT a Heron. I looked in The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Birds book and there is such a bird as a Gray Sea Eagle. I've only seen it once, and as I said before it was not a Heron. Have you heard anything about this kind of Eagle?

My wife has seen a white/cream colored pheasant on Illahee Rd, north of 3rd. Not sure if it is a domestic or wild bird.

Thanks for including my question abut the doves in the previous newsletter. I posted three of the little webcam movies up on a webpage. They show a little more detail than the still I sent earlier. If you know someone who is interested, you could forward them this link. http://www.alberts-astro.com/misc/index.html

However, WARNING, the clips are pretty big, about 7 megs, so a dialup user would have to wait for hours to see the clips.

I would agree as noted below, the birds seem larger than those I'm used to seeing. When I first saw them I thought... What the heck are those seagulls doing in that tree???? That's how big they look from my distance.

Al Tuttle

Al - Thanks for sharing your photos and your web page. The white birds have been a puzzlement for many in Illahee and we were hoping someone would come forth and tell us who was raising these birds. We actually had one of them land in a tree next to our house so I got to see one up close and my take on it was it was a raised pigeon and they were being bred to maintain their white feathers. When I was young we used to raise pigeons in our back yard and it is not easy to get a group of all one color.

When our kids were young we went to the Illahee dock at a high tide in a dingy and got a squab (young pigeon - the pigeons nest in stringers under the dock and it is easy to get the young ones at high tide) that was just beginning to feather and kept it for a pet for awhile (the kids named it Andrew) until it flew into the house one day and landed on one of the blades of the ceiling fan. Our son said he could get Andrew down by turning on the fan, which was enough justification for my wife to have us take our pet back to the dock to release it. She was worried it would someday get back into the house and fly into the fan and she would have a bloody mess to clean up. It was okay as a pet on the deck, but not in her house. Anyway, that is my pigeon story and my take that they are pigeons.

Jim those were great reports on wildlife. I for sure sited a dove, and it sounded like a Mourning Dove. Rock pigeons coo differently :) I'm not sure ring neck doves have the same call the Mourning Dove has, but I could be wrong.

Great on the Midshipman! yes they are fun fish, maybe someone can catch one for Illahee days!

Weed Expert to Talk on Tuesday. The county's Noxious Weed Coordinator, Dana Coggon, is the brown bag lunch speaker at the Norm Dick's Center on Tuesday, July 29th, from 12-1pm. She will have some examples of noxious weeds and has also said we are welcome to bring any weeds we need help with identification. We have found these brown bag meetings to be informative and there is usually nearby parking available then.


Jim Aho

Wildlife Update - 7/25/08

Midshipman Fish. One of the more common fish in the area is the midshipman fish, though seldomly seen. Recently when showing some visitors the beach area during a low tide we lifted some rocks to see what was under them. What we saw were yellow eggs on the underside of the rock and a midshipman fish underneath.

The midshipman is a nocturnal fish that buries itself during the day. During breeding season the male digs out an area under a rock and sends out a 100 hertz humming sound to attach females who them lay their eggs on the underside of the rock. She then moves on and he continues to try and attract more females and also guards the eggs.

When talking with some long time residents they say these fish have always been around and one said they call them croakers because when touched on the head they emit a croaking sound. There is much more on these fish on the internet. Someone reported they are under every bigger rock in Illahee and discovered three fish under one rock. We will try to get some photos for a future update.

Illahee Dock Report. The report from the dock is that it has been a good year for red rock crab. There are also lots of shiner perch (poggies) around and also large schools of small salmon seen swimming by. One poggie fisherman caught a 10 inch Chinook salmon which had its adipose fin cut off indicating it was a hatchery fish. We are beginning to have a better understanding of why the nearshore beach areas are so important for a healthy Puget Sound and for Chinook. Some rock cod have been caught, but no reports of catches of piling perch that used to be common around the dock.

Sediment Depth at the Dock. A check on the amount of mud or sediment at the base of the shore side float revealed the depth of the mud was 30 inches at the south end, and 24 inches at the north end. Not that many years ago divers would collect squid jigs that had gotten caught on the rocks under the floats. The good news for jiggers is that they aren't losing their lures, but the bad news is sediment is accumulating under the dock at an alarming rate. It is an indication of the amount of sediment that is coming down from Illahee Creek during storm events, and the reason the Port of Illahee is concerned about the creek and the depth of water at the floats.

White Pigeons/Doves? We received several emails regarding the white pigeons/doves, but nothing about who might be raising them or where in Illahee they might reside. We also received a sighting of a parrot that evidently got lose. Here are two of the pigeon/dove responses.

Of course it's hard to tell without seeing the bird in life, but it looks to me like a white variant of your basic rock dove (Columba livia), which is the bird that hangs around in parks and that everyone calls a pigeon. I found a nice pic of a white pigeon at a University of Hawaii web page: http://www.botany.hawaii.edu/biology101/birds/campus_birds.htm

Another candidate might be the ringneck dove (Streptopelia risoria), which is the kind that's commonly kept as pets and inappropriately released at weddings or other celebratory events. I can't be certain from the photo, but the size and shape of what the folks have been seeing at Illahee looks a little more robust than a typical ringneck dove. Here's a link to a page with a bunch of color variants of S. risoria: http://www.dovepage.com/species/domestic/Ringneck/ringneckcolorlist.html. You can see that most of those individuals look a little daintier than the birds that are in the photo you got from Jim.

The following response was received from a former president of the Seattle Audubon Society.

Pigeons:

Varieties of domesticated pigeons are all descendants from the Rock Pigeon Columba livia , (formerly called Rock Dove).

These appear to be a white morph (form) of the Rock Pigeon. You can see many of these morphs just by looking at a flock of "city pigeons", almost all Rock Pigeons fit into one of these morph patterns. They may have been bred by someone to dominate the white morph. Cornell University has done a great deal of study of Rock Pigeon morphs and these can be seen by Googling their website or other Rock Pigeon websites.

Pigeon Color Morphs

blue-bar

This bird has two black or dark gray stripes or "bars" on each light-gray wing. It has a dark-gray body and shiny, rainbow-like neck feathers.

red-bar

This bird has two red stripes or "bars" on each light-gray wing. It also has a rusty-red or brown shade to its body.

spread

This bird has one dark color spread all over its body.

red

This bird has a rusty-red or brown shade to its body and light-gray bars on its wings.

checker

This bird looks a little like a checkerboard. Its wing feathers have checks of light and dark.

pied white

This bird has white as well as other colors on its body. The "pied white flight" has white wing feathers, which are easy to see when the bird is flying.

pied splash

The "pied splash" pigeon has one or more spots of white.

white

This bird is solid white. This color morph is what some people call a dove of peace.

Keep sending us your reports. We will eventually get them out to the community.


Jim Aho

Wildlife Update - 7/18/08

Bald Eagle Gets Canada Goose. On Thursday (7/17/08) residents north of the Illahee Community dock heard a loud commotion at the beach as a Bald Eagle went after a Canada goose. The goose lost the battle and ended up being food for two mature bald eagles. A very large brown eagle, either an immature bald eagle or as someone thought, a golden eagle, came by to look over the situation and was aggressively chased away by one of the mature bald eagles. We took a picture of the carcus of the goose which was well picked over. It is attached so as to verify the event. We have seen bald eagle take Great Blue Herons, but this is a first for seeing them take on a Canada goose. It is no wonder that the Canada geese seem apprehensive when they swim by a bald eagle up in a tree.

White Pigeons or Doves? Over the years Illahee residents have observed varying numbers of white pigeons or doves. Some of the residents remember seeing first a pair of the white birds, and then a few years later up to about 10 or more. Then, nothing until recently when the following report came through this week. If you have any information on these pure white birds please let us know and we will pass the information on. We have attached one of Al's photos.

You often send out wildlife sightings in these updates, and well... I'm trying to solve a little mystery. A couple years ago I noticed a group of fairly large white birds settling a the top of one of the tall fir trees (always the same one) near the shore. From my home near Ocean View & Madrona the tree is ENE.

The birds showed up 2 years ago and stayed through most of August. I didn't see them last year, but this year they have stopped and stayed perched in the tree a few times. Sometimes staying for a few minutes, sometimes hours. This year there are 7 of them... I think there were a few more two years ago.

I'm not a birder by any means, but I'd never seen any birds like this in the NW and I wondered what they were. I took some pictures and movies through my telescope and sent them to a birder I know. He thinks they are a non-native variety of Dove not native to North America, but is not sure. He wonders if maybe someone is raising them or if they're escapees.

I'm wondering if there is a local birder in the community that may have also noticed the birds, or may know what they are? Is there some way you could help me solve the puzzle?

Here's a couple pictures (not great I know, but not bad for a webcam and telescope at over a hundred yards).

Thanks for any help or ideas,