neighborhood naturalist CORVALLIS, OREGON — WINTER 2016
Golden-crowned Kinglet by Don Boucher, photography by Lisa Millbank
T
he rain froze as it fell on a thin layer of snow, creating a crunchy, noisy surface. By mid-day, ice had accumulated on our clothing and bikes. Fortunately, this gravel road was deep in the forest and with no traffic to contend with, our bikes made steady progress without slipping much. It was the Christmas Bird Count, and our numbers were low compared to other years. Nevertheless, we still had over 300 Goldencrowned Kinglets, and as always, they greatly outnumbered the other forest birds. The noise of our tires on the crusty snow drowned out the faint peeps and tweets in the forest canopy, so we stopped often to listen. Though we counted mostly by ear, we got a few good looks when they came to lower branches. In those precious moments, we forgot about the miserable weather as we admired these delightful, fancy and cute birds. To me, the voices of Golden-crowned Kinglets are simply the sounds that a conifer forest makes; just as ubiquitous and familiar as the wind sighing through fir needles. Golden-crowns are among the most numerous birds in our winter woodlands. On some Christmas Bird Counts in the same forest, during better weather, we’ve counted more than 500 in a day. It’s too bad that many Golden-crowns are
overlooked by birders, and I’m afraid most hikers don’t even know they are there at all. I can understand why; despite their numbers, they aren’t conspicuous. These tiny denizens of the forest canopy are often hidden high in the treetops, and they don’t usually visit backyard feeders. It also doesn’t help that their voices are too high for some birders to hear. It’s worth paying attention to, and tracking down, those little voices in high up in the trees. Fortunately, there are a few ways to improve your odds of seeing them. Now may be the best time to get a look. In winter, they roam from their preferred conifer forests and show up in deciduous forest patches in city parks, suburbs and along rivers. They’re relatively easy to see in the bare trees in winter. You don’t need to search very hard, because you’re not looking for one tiny bird in a large tree. They’re always in flocks, from five to 20 and sometimes more. They’ll join flocks of other birds like Black-capped and Chestnut-backed Chickadees, Bushtits, Brown Creepers, Ruby-crowned Kinglets, Red-breasted Nuthatches, Yellowrumped and Townsend’s Warblers. These other species are often more conspicuous because their voices are easier to hear, and they often forage lower in the trees than Golden-
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crowns. To avoid competition, each species will forage in a different area of the trees. Golden-crowns will choose the highest parts of the trees and the smallest twigs. When you see these other birds flocking low in the trees, they may lead you to Golden-crowns above them. You can also search for Golden-crowns in a forested area on a steep slope. The tops of trees downslope are nearly at eye level, making kinglet-watching easier. Occasionally, they descend from the trees, flitting along low branches and understory shrubs. Once you find a flock, most likely high up, follow them for a while, and they may eventually oblige you with a great view, sometimes just a few feet away. They’re not afraid of large animals like people, and as long as you move slowly, you can get pretty close to them. I suppose they’re not accustomed to watching out for ground predators.
cold nights. Some species, such as Anna’s Hummingbirds, get through cold nights by going into torpor, which is a bit like an overnight hibernation. Golden-crowns can’t do this either. Instead, they’ve got a special solution that they share with some other tiny, gregarious birds, like Bushtits—and it’s as cute as it is simple. They pack themselves close together on a branch, fluff up their feathers and tuck their heads into their back feathers. While snuggling, they form a nearly seamless mass of feathers, and the only distinction between birds are the tails poking out from the fluff. This technique is all it takes keep most Golden-crowns alive during cold winter nights.
Identifying them by sound is tricky but possible. They call to each other frequently with a three-note, highpitched see-see-see, about a second in duration. The trick is Golden-crowned Kinglets hunt by pecking at twigs, to distinguish them from Brown Creepers, Black-capped moss, lichens or the undersides of leaves and conifer and Chestnut-backed Chickadees, which are commonly needles. This yields prey like caterpillars, scale insects, found flocking with Golden-crowns. Both species of spiders, mites, insect eggs, pupae and more. I’ve tried to chickadee make soft, single-note seet calls that are similar find what they eat by looking at accessible twigs, leaves, to the Golden-crown call. Similarly, Brown Creepers make moss and lichens but never found much. But a Golden- one or two sliding notes, like seeet, seeet. I’m savvy with crown knows exactly what to look for, and the best places bird sounds but I don’t instantly recognize the three-note to search for prey. Golden-crowned Kinglet calls amongst these others, so I have to listen for a minute. The Ruby-crowned Kinglet Only Bushtits and hummingbirds are smaller. Being such spends the winter and early spring here, and although it’s a lightweight has its advantages—it can access food from very closely related, makes a chit-chit call note that doesn’t perches that are too small or flimsy for many other species. sound at all like the Golden-crowned Kinglet. If a Golden-crown spots food on a leaf that can’t bear its weight, it will hover and pick it off. Should a tasty-looking Ruby-crowned Kinglets sing their vibrant and complex small insect fly by, a Golden-crown may dart out to catch it. song for a brief period in early spring, but leave our area soon thereafter. The first few notes sound similar to a Their small size may give them a competitive edge for Golden-crown call. During warm, sunny days in late scarce winter food, but it also creates a dilemma. To keep winter, male Golden-crowns sometimes sing. Unlike the their little bodies going in freezing winter temperatures, Ruby-crown, the song isn’t very dynamic and you could they eat all day long. Scientists have calculated that with miss it if you weren’t paying attention. It starts out similar their fast metabolic rate, size and ability to store fat from a to the call note, but with more notes, increasing in volume day’s worth of eating, they wouldn’t survive a frigid winter and ending with a few harsh notes, like see see see SEE SEE night without some kind of help. Other little birds like SEE chit chit chit. chickadees and nuthatches solve this dilemma by spending their nights in cavities. Each bird remains in the same area Watch a video and listen to sounds for much of the winter, and such roosting sites are a familiar of Golden-crowned Kinglets at and reliable escape from the cold. www.neighborhood-naturalist.com During winter, Golden-crowned Kinglets are nomadic, and they’ve got to sleep wherever they end up at dusk. Unlike chickadees and other, less nomadic birds, they don’t have a mental map of the local roosting cavities, and must be prepared to spend their nights outside. They do their best to find a sheltered spot among dense conifer foliage, or they may get lucky and find a squirrel’s nest. Still, this strategy alone won’t help them survive most
Males and females look very similar. They both have a golden-yellow crest surrounded by black, but the males have a noticeable orange line in the very center. When excited, and sometimes when singing, the male’s crest raises dramatically into a spiky crown of yellow, orange and a touch of vermilion.
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A female has a solid yellow central crown patch.
A male has a golden crown patch with an orange center.
A male fans out his crown when he’s excited or agitated—there are a lot of orange feathers hidden in there! Neighborhood Naturalist, Winter 2016 v13 #4 • page 3
Our Other Kinglet
k-Alike o o L
The Red-breasted Nuthatch is another conifer forest bird. In shady settings, its head markings may lead you to mistake it for a Golden-crown. Its voice has unique, nasal qualities to it, not all like a Golden-crown.
Sound-Alike
The Ruby-crowned Kinglet is a close relative of the Golden-crowned Kinglet, but has some obvious differences in appearance. Its head markings are limited to a broken white eye ring and a tiny red crown patch (males only) that isn’t visible from most angles. Occasionally, when excited, a male displays his ruby crown (below). The common calls of the Ruby-crown do not sound like the Golden-crown’s calls.
The Brown Creeper can sound like a Golden-crown and is often found in mixed flocks with them.
The Chestnut-backed Chickadee inhabits deep conifer forests and is frequently found alongside the Goldencrowned Kinglet. Chestnut-backed and Black-capped Chickadee calls are similar to the Golden-crown’s calls.
The female Ruby-crown (above) has no crown markings at all.
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Two males face off, with their crown patches displayed. Even when it isn’t breeding season, a male will reciprocate if he sees another male with his crest raised. A female can also display her golden crest in some situations.
In April, they stop visiting winter foraging places like deciduous forests and stake out breeding territories deep in the conifer woods. They breed throughout a large portion of Western Oregon, commonly at mid- to high elevations in the Coast Range or Cascades. It’s not well-known if the birds who spend the winter here breed in the nearby Coast Range or migrate north and out of our area. It’s also not clear how many migrate from the south to breed in Oregon, or which ones are just passing through. Breeding occurs at the highest densities in mature conifer stands or those that have never been logged. In these forests, there may be as many as one breeding pair for every 1.5 acres. While there are patches of old forests on hills or river bluffs at low elevations, these sites are few and far between. They’ll breed in younger forests and tree farms at lower densities. Nesting starts in May or June when the female builds a spherical nest of lichens and moss that hangs from a horizontal branch, usually near the tree trunk. It’s lined with soft plant fibers or feathers and the opening is near the top. A clutch is typically eight or nine eggs. That’s a lot. Most birds their size lay fewer than six eggs per clutch. The female incubates while the male feeds her. The chicks hatch after 15 days, and they commonly have two broods each breeding season. They are exclusive to North America, where they’re seen most anywhere at some point during the year, either
in winter, summer, during migration or all of the above. The exceptions are parts of the Great Plains, large deserts, southern Florida and northern Alaska and Canada. It’s hard to imagine these tiny birds flying hundreds or thousands of miles, but some Golden-crowns migrate as far south as the southern states and northern Mexico. Interestingly, there are two year-round populations in the tropics, one in the Central Volcanic Mountains near Mexico City, and another in the mountains of Guatemala. The Golden-crowned Kinglet is one among five species in the genus Regulus. Their closest relative is the Goldcrest of Eurasia. Three of the species are called firecrests, and live in either Asia or Europe. The Goldcrest and the firecrests are mostly similar in appearance to the Golden-crown. The outlier of the genus is the Ruby-crowned Kinglet (exclusive to North America), which has a plain face, and only the male has a small, barely-visible red patch on the top of the head. All Regulus species have yellow feet, like little golden slippers. I hope your next visit to the forest this winter doesn’t involve ice accumulating on your hat, like our Christmas Bird Count adventure. But whether it’s sunny, cloudy, rainy or worse, Golden-crowned Kinglets will be there—bright flashes of yellow and orange bringing cheer to the winter landscape. ó
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Western Wild Ginger article and photography by Lisa Millbank illustrations by Don Boucher
H
eart-shaped deep green leaves carpet the ground under the forest canopy, standing out against the browns and grays of winter. Crush a piece of leaf and there’s no mistaking the pungent and spicy aroma of carry it back to the nest, unwittingly dragging the hard, ginger. It’s Western Wild Ginger, a strange and beautiful inedible seed along with it. Once inside the ants’ nest, the elaiosome is usually fed to the developing larvae. After plant that’s also a bit deceptive. the elaiosome is gone, the remaining hard-coated seed is Although a couple of rare species of wild ginger grow treated as waste, and discarded in the ants’ garbage dump. in southwest Oregon, we only have one species locally. Ants place their food waste, dead ants and ant droppings Our Asarum caudatum is found from British Columbia to in a separate refuse chamber. Rich in moist organic matter northern California and east to Montana. And it’s not related and hidden from seed-eating animals, there’s hardly a nicer to culinary ginger at all. Western Wild Ginger belongs to place for germination. Sometimes, seeds are taken out of the nest and discarded, but even these seeds benefit from the pipevine or birthwort family, Aristolochiaceae. being transported away from the parent plant. The plant blooms in spring, but the blossoms are hidden Myrmecochory, this relationship between ants and under the layer of shiny, dark green leaves. If you part the leaves, you may find a bizarre blossom hugging the ground. flowering plants, has evolved independently at least The purplish-brown flowers have three fused tepals (petal- one hundred times. Scientists studying this relationship like structures), the tips of which are extended into long, continue to investigate exactly how the process works slender “tails.” To the human nose, they have little scent, once the seeds are taken into the ants’ nest, since it’s not but they attract fungus gnats to pollinate them. When the easy to see into the depths of an ant colony in nature. It’s flower first opens, only its stigmas are exposed, allowing unclear which species of ants are the primary distributors the gnats to cross-pollinate from other flowers. About a of Western Wild Ginger seeds. week later, six of the anthers brush against the stigmas, The study of elaiosomes has revealed that yellow jackets pollinating them. A few days later, the flower deploys six more anthers next to the stigmas. The flower’s structure may also participate in the dispersal of some seeds. Biologist seems to ensure pollination whether the gnats are present Erik Jules has studied the interactions between Western Trillium seeds and yellow jackets in Oregon. The wasps are or not, and most seeds are produced by self-pollination. strongly attracted to the elaiosomes, presumably taking the Female fungus gnats mistakenly lay their eggs inside the trillium seeds back to their underground nests and feeding flowers, instead of on mushrooms. Researchers observed this nutritious substance to their larvae. Yellow jackets have that the larvae hatch and feed on the flower, but soon die. also been observed collecting Inside-out Flower seeds for the same reason. It’s possible that this relationship – termed The plant has a friendlier relationship with other insects. vespicochory – could be an important mechanism for seed Like some other forest herbs, Western Wild Ginger recruits dispersal in some plants, but one that is almost unknown ants to disperse its seeds. Each seed bears a soft appendage, to science. There are no published reports of wasps taking called an elaiosome, that contains oils and proteins. Once Western Wild Ginger seeds, and because the seed capsules the seed capsule opens, an ant will grab the elaiosome and are hidden under the leaves, it would be difficult to observe. Neighborhood Naturalist, Winter 2016 v13 #4 • page 6
New research from Europe suggests that some slugs and beetles may spread elaiosome-bearing seeds. The plant’s usual method of reproduction is by spreading slowly, growing its fleshy rhizome a little more, year after year. Should a pocket-gopher gnaw through the rhizome, the remnants will probably continue to grow as two genetically identical separate plants. These clonal individuals are called ramets. Even if the plant’s seeds aren’t dispersed, the plant still pushes up new shoots as its rhizomes creep along underground. Western Wild Ginger has a history of medicinal use by Native Americans, and you can still find books and websites about edible wild plants that recommend making a ginger tea substitute from the rhizome. Unfortunately, Western Wild Ginger’s pleasant ginger aroma and flavor masks its insidiously harmful side effects. It contains aristolochic acids, strong carcinogenic chemicals that can cause urinary tract cancers and severely damage the kidneys. It’s a bad idea to take Western Wild Ginger internally for any reason. Although they aren’t rare, it’s just as well that these slowgrowing plants are left alone in the wild.
In this close-up, you can see the six stigmas in the center. The anthers are tucked away around the sides, not yet receptive to pollinators.
It’s easy to grow Western Wild Ginger in a garden, and most native plant nurseries sell it. Give it a shady spot with rich humus and a good supply of water in its first year. Once established, it will tolerate dry conditions and slowly spread. Its large, evergreen leaves make Western Wild Ginger stand out in winter, while most of the other forest herbs are still deep in their winter dormancy. Look for it on winter and early spring hikes at Marys Peak, McDonald Forest, Silver Falls State Park and other areas with older conifer forests. ó In this photo, the anthers are pressed up against the stigmas, and the flower most likely has pollinated itself.
The unrelated native False Lily-of-the-Valley has similar, heart-shaped leaves. Note the parallel veining and pointed tip.
Here you can clearly see the heart- or kidney-shaped leaf. The stem is deeply inset and the rear lobes of the leaf even overlap a bit.
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Other Native Myrmecochorous Plants Like Western Wild Ginger, these unrelated forest plants also have seeds that are dispersed by ants.
Western Trillium
Ant colonies have underground waste chambers. After the elaiosomes are consumed, the inedible seeds of Wild Ginger are discarded. Pacific Bleeding-Heart
The hard, tiny seeds of Western Wild Ginger are grayish-brown, and clinging to them are the soft, translucent and wrinkly elaiosomes.
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