Gene,

In some years in late May I've seen virtual swarms of montane-
breeding birds down in the canyons on the east side of the Cascades,
and it usually coincided with bad weather in the mountains. In many
cases, they were species that should have been on their montane
territories for several weeks, and I speculated that they just all
moved downhill so they could find something to eat, then moved back
uphill when the weather improved. I don't know what to make of the
same thing happening in late June, when all those birds would have
been breeding already. It's very possible that their breeding
attempts failed completely, as it may be getting pretty late to start
breeding now and successfully raise young in time for fall migration.
This may be a bad spring for lots of things in Washington. Victor
Glick and Libby Schreiner told me that hummingbirds - in some cases
all of them! - were disappearing from feeders in the Methow when they
would usually be common, an unprecedented event. There's so much we
don't know. I was over in the Mary Ann Creek area in Okanogan County
weekend before last, and various species of dragonflies were at least
several weeks late in their appearance, although birds seemed in
normal numbers.

(Parenthetically, I'm tickled that people are looking at and
identifying dragonflies out there. There are 80 species in Washington.)

Dennis

On Jun 23, 2008, at 12:00 PM, tweeters-
request at mailman1.u.washington.edu wrote:

> From: "Eugene and Nancy Hunn" <enhunn323 at comcast.net>
> Subject: [Tweeters] migrants, how do they do it?
> To: "'tweeters'" <tweeters at u.washington.edu>
> Message-ID: <001e01c8d549$d5502f30$7ff08d90$ at net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
> Tweets,
>
> I was up in the snow yesterday near Naches Pass at about 5000 feet
> where
> last year there were many MacGillivray's and other warblers.
> Yesterday there
> were none. Lots of Varied and Hermit Thrushes, juncos, and Fox
> Sparrows and
> a single Audubon's Warbler and a few Townsend's down around 4000 feet.
> Question is, since MacGillivray's, for example, are on territory 10
> miles
> away but 4000 feet below here by late April where do the warblers
> that breed
> at higher elevations go meanwhile? Are there subpopulations that have
> migratory clocks set to the higher elevation conditions so that
> they migrate
> later or do they all arrive about the same time and some hang out off
> territory at lower elevations until the snow melts and the montane
> habitat
> opens up?
>
> Puzzled in Seattle.
>
> Gene Hunn

-----
Dennis Paulson
1724 NE 98 St.
Seattle, WA 98115
206-528-1382
dennispaulson at comcast.net



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