Cascadia Hummingbird Report 02/27 to 03/05

RUHU (all males)
South Beach, OR 2000/02/27 58 44.6128N 124.0475W
Forest Grove, OR 2000/02/27 58 45.5200N 123.1094W
Bellevue, WA 2000/02/27 58 47.5497N 122.1417W
Applegate Valley, OR 2000/03/02 62 42.3417N 123.3065W
Reedsport, OR 2000/03/03 63 43.6990N 124.1109W
Philomath, OR 2000/03/03 63 44.5307N 123.4070W
Grants Pass,OR 2000/03/04 64 42.4696N 123.3316W
Suver, OR 2000/03/05 65 44.7431N 123.2061W
Lacey, WA 2000/03/05 65 47.0344N 122.8219W

ALHU (female)
Coquille, OR 2000/03/03 63 43.1813N 124.1817W

Two to three males have been hanging around my feeder in Astoria
all week.

Indian Plum (Oemleria cerasiformis) now have flowers on nearly all
outer branches. Salmonberry (Rubis spectabilis) is leafing out and
a few flowers (less than 5% of canes surveyed) can be found, but
only on well exposed plants in areas away from canopied forest.

Small insects were collected from stamenate flowers on Hooker
Willow (Salix hookeriana). Video captures of these were sent
to the entomology listserve (see Hummingbirds and Flowers URL).
The following are tentative ID's come from the listserve:
Family Psyllidae>Order Homoptera (This is virtually certain)
Family Pteromalidae>Order Hymenoptera (a parasitic wasp-
IDing this caused much anxiety on the ento listserve)
Suborder Nematocera>Order Diptera
Family Agromyzidae>Order Diptera
Family Chironomidae>Order Diptera (Even I got this one)
Suborder Nematocera>Order Diptera

Samples will be sent to the OSU ento guys for official
identification.

A a large sample of willows was surveyed at Ft Stevens State
Park, Clatsop Co. OR on Sunday. Small fly distribution seems
fairly uniform, while the psyllids seem to occur in localized
irruptions (there are either lots of them on a branch or none at
all). The psyllids also apparently produce honeydew like their
relatives the aphids. This may make them more attractive to
gleaning hummingbirds (just one more thing to have to watch for).

For more information on Northwest Hummingbirds:
http://home.pacifier.com/~mpatters/archive/humm/humm.html

and if you'd like to help with the hummingbirds and flowers project:
http://columbia-pacific.interrain.org/ahscience/humm/count.html

--
Mike Patterson Alas, to wear the mantle of Galileo,
Astoria, OR it is not enough to be persecuted
celata at pacifier.com by an unkind establishment,
you must also be right.
---Robert Park
http://www.pacifier.com/~mpatters/bird/bird.html