Subject: Re: South Fork Skokomish - Point Count
Date: Jun 21 18:15:12 1995
From: Dennis Paulson - dpaulson at ups.edu


>Varied Thrush 23
>Winter Wren 23
>Golden-crowned Kinglet 14
>Brown Creeper 3
>Swainson's Thrush 9 (Heard lots in between points)
>Pacific-slope Flycather 18
>Western Tanager 2 (Only!?)
>Hairy Woodpecker 4 (Plus one female 10 seconds after the count period)
>Chestnut-backed Chick. 5 (Quiet for these at the points)
>Red Crossbill 2 Flying over
>Hermit Thrush 1
>Pileated Woodpecker 1
>Vaux' Swift 1 (Vocalized while flying over)
>Hermit/Townsend's/Black-throated Gray Warbler - 1 calling at a point - I
>never could figure out which of these was making the zeedle-zeedle etc call.
>
>Rufous Hummers were seen, again, moments after the 8-minute count period
>were over at 2 sites.

Jon's count really makes the point of the low diversity of migrants on the
Olympic Peninsula, as I mentioned some time ago. Note that if there
weren't Swainson's Thrushes and Pacific-slope Flycatchers, there would be
virtually none. It's amazing to have only a single warbler with that much
censusing. I have been similarly (un)impressed on several visits. I don't
know why the peninsula should have such a much lower diversity, weather
it's related to summer weather, geological and biogeographical history, or
human use of the area.

Dennis Paulson, Director phone: (206) 756-3798
Slater Museum of Natural History fax: (206) 756-3352
University of Puget Sound e-mail: dpaulson at ups.edu
Tacoma, WA 98416