[birding] Another Nashville Warbler in Adair Village, plus Solitary in EEW

[David Irons]

Greetings All,

John Notis makes a good point about lowland Nashville Warblers. They are higher elevation breeders and they do seem to arrive via lowland routes and then move upslope as it warms up and higher elevation areas open up. Given all the cold and wet weather we've had in the Willamette Valley, we can assume that some of their higher elevation breeding areas are getting new snow about now.

I've seen several comments in recent days suggesting that this is somehow a better year than most for both Calliope Hummingbird and Nashville Warbler in the Willamette Valley. As one who has to track such things on an ongoing basis, I can tell you that I've yet to see any reports that lead me to think that Willamette Valley numbers for either of these species are abnormally high. I've made several trips to Skinner Butte in recent days. While Nashville Warblers have been pretty conspicuous there, I've not had any counts that rival my best days on the butte. Today I estimated that I saw 12 Nashvilles on the butte (not spectacular by local standards). On multiple occasions, dating back into the early 1980s, I've had 20+ Nashvilles in a day during spring migration. 

As for Callope Hummingbirds, in each of the last two spring seasons (2008 and 2009) there have been 30+ Calliopes detected in the lowlands of Western Oregon. While there have been pretty good numbers reported this year, we are no where near 30 reports yet. We may get there, but we have a ways to get to reach such numbers. We birders tend to remember (and get excited about) the most recent interesting thing that we've seen and then talk about seasonal counts of a species (with a healthy dose of hyperbole) as though those tallies represent an anomaly. 

Dave Irons
Eugene, OR
 		 	   		  
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