Rushing water. A shushing breeze. Rustling leaves. Chattering wildlife. These are the sounds of a forest in the foothills of the Willamette Valley. Soft, tranquil, quiet. Or at least in winter.
The forest awakens in spring. As flowers stretch out their petals and leaves unfurl to catch the sunlight, the tranquil chatter of the forest turns into an all-out symphony of sounds. Like the string section in the orchestra, it is the birds that draw the most attention.
I have always enjoyed bird song but have not yet mastered their melodious rhythms. This spring I am determined to take a closer listen.
Fortunately, Joan Hagar, a research wildlife biologist with USGS, agreed to meet with me to talk birds in a local forest.
The Hike
- Trailhead: 720 Gate at the end of Sulpher Springs Road
- Distance: approximately 2 miles
- Details: Limited parking at the end of a well-maintained gravel road. No fee for parking. No restrooms. Park at gate 720 gate and head up Road 720. Look for a right turn-off on a user trail that takes you back to the gate. Map of area available on OSU College of Forestry website.
Introductions
I met Joan on a cool spring afternoon. It was overcast, but not raining. Would the birds be out?
We didn’t take but a moment before heading up the trail which rose along a riparian corridor next to a rushing creek.
I asked Joan to tell me more about herself and her career.
“The focus of my career has been to help forest managers incorporate wildlife habitat into their management plans,” she explained as we walked. “Remind them that they can accommodate wildlife at the same time as they are meeting their other goals.”
More specifically, she is all about the birds. Joan has spent her career studying birds and other wildlife in the Pacific Northwest.
As Joan explained it, she was born with it.
“My dad was a wildlife biologist and taught me the birds,” she explained, “and being able to hear them and know what species you are hearing it is like understanding a foreign language.”
A skill she would prove multiple times on our walk, but at least for the moment, the forest was rather quiet.
Indicators
As we continued our gradual climb up the forested hillside, I asked Joan “Why birds?”
“Birds, it turns out, are really great indicators for management and environmental change,” explained Joan.
Many species are only suited for a particular habitat or forest type. If the environment changes, so does the bird community. As a master’s student, Joan explained, she was able to see this firsthand.
Joan studied the impact of forest thinning on bird communities.
“I am going to show that harvesting is bad for wildlife,” Joan’s early scientist idealistic self-had thought, but she was mistaken.
“I found out that when the canopy of these dense conifer stands opened up and allowed the understory to develop… that meant more productivity—more flowers, fruits, seeds, and insects,” said Joan.
In essence, thinning increases resources birds relied on and as a result bird diversity also increased as birds that were attracted to the more open habitat arrived.
“Disturbances aren’t a bad thing,” Joan concluded.
Of course, “that is a bird perspective,” said Joan. “Amphibians might feel differently.”
Why birds?
In addition to birds’ ability to respond so quickly and clearly to environmental change, there are many other reasons birds are useful biological indicators.
“Birds are everywhere,” said Joan. “And they are fun to watch.”
Joan tried studying amphibians early in her career but found it more difficult.
“You have to turn over a lot of logs to find them,” Joan explained, “and in doing so you have to destroy their habitat.”
(Turns out, Kermit is right—It ain’t easy being green.)
Birds, on the other hand, can be counted by sight and/or sound.
For more detailed demographic data, mist nests may be used to capture the birds temporarily to study them. By using a method called “mark-recapture,” even the abundance of birds may be calculated.
Riparian Resident Birds
Deciduous trees, like bigleaf maple and red alder, having still not leafed out, offered views down towards the water as we walked.
“So, what kinds of birds would you find here?” I asked.
“Usually there are a lot of birds here,” Joan responded and pointed out the chattering call of the Pacific Wren.
“They [Pacific Wrens] start nesting this time of year,” she continued; “they like a lot of dead wood—stumps, logs—and they love the riparian area because of all the trees that fall in and it is damp and moist.”
Pacific wren is a resident species in Oregon’s western forests, along with Spotted Towhee, Song Sparrows, Canada Jays, and Steller’s Jay.
Barred owls and Pygmy owls are also common residents found nesting in snags.
“I have long suspected a Pygmy Owl nesting near here,” said Joan.
Riparian Breeding Birds
“In a normal year we would be hearing warblers,” Joan continued as we rose above the creek.
Orange-crowned Warblers usually arrive in April, with Hermit Warblers arriving a few weeks later.
“They [Hermit Warblers] are really cool because they only breed along the west coast here—from the coast to the Cascade Mountains,” said Joan excitedly.
Hermit warblers are what Joan called “endemic breeders.” Traveling to Central America during the non-breeding period and returning to their narrow breeding range in Pacific Northwest forests.
“Pacific-slope Flycatcher,” Joan recalled is another riparian migrant. “I am usually starting to hear those this time of year.”
Pacific-slope Flycatchers are especially fond of forests and woodlands near waterways where the canopy is dominated by deciduous foliage—often nesting on the slopes of forested canyons.
“They love these riparian trees, like maples and ash,” Joan remarked. Here the flycatchers catch insects below the canopy.
Woodpeckers
Early spring is also a great time to see woodpeckers in Oregon’s Willamette Valley forests.
“Hairy woodpecker, Downy woodpecker, red-bellied sapsucker…” Joan rattled off some examples.
It is nesting season and woodpeckers are out scouring the woods for the perfect tree to build a nest in.
“Woodpeckers are primary cavity nesters,” Joan accounted.
Primary means that they excavate their own cavity, as opposed to secondary cavity-nesters, like chickadees, bluebirds, and wrens, that depend on woodpeckers to provide cavities.
“They do the excavation of the cavities because they have strong bills,” Joan explained.
“Woodpeckers are funny because they do a lot of excavating before they settle,” she continued. “The male goes around and makes a cavity, then the female checks it out and goes ‘eh’ and so he makes another cavity.”
This process continues for a while until the female is satisfied. Fortunately, the result is several new unoccupied cavities produced each nesting season. This is great news for secondary cavity nesters, like chickadees and nuthatches, who are soft-billed and reliant on finding a home in already existing cavities.
“They [woodpeckers] are considered ecosystem engineers because they make habitat for so many other species,” explained Joan.
“So, if I see some sort of hole, it is likely something lives in there?” I asked.
“It’s likely,” Joan responded.
Preferences
Eventually, the trail bent and moved away from the creek, heading out on a slowly rising wooded ridge dominated by Douglas-fir.
Standing out in the mix of trees was the statuesque Pacific madrone, with its red shredded bark and green leathery broadleaves leaning out along the trail’s edge.
“In the fall, the madrones have a lot of berries and the band-tailed pigeons were feasting,” Joan reminisced. “They were covering the trees!”
Joan also noted how madrones tend to have cavities in live trees, unlike conifers that need to be dead or dying.
I asked Joan if certain species prefer certain trees.
In general, primary cavity nesters prefer hard snags. However, there also seem to be some preferences in terms of tree species.
“Pileated Woodpeckers like grand fir,” Joan offered as an example, speculating that perhaps it had to do with the decay process. And “Red-breasted Sapsuckers like maple trees,” frequently excavating a nest in a dead branch of a live maple.
Apparently, there is an entire branch of ecology that studies the relationship between primary and secondary cavity nesters and the trees they occupy. Joan mentioned “cavity-nest webs” as a way researchers aim to delineate and describe the complexity of these relationships.
In any event, there is one consistency—“good snags are scarce” and hard to come by.
Harvest Unit
Speaking of good snags, soon Joan and I crested the hill, we broke out of the forest into a clear-cut harvest unit littered with snags and potential snags.
“It is really nice to have something out here,” said Joan referring to all the trees that were left behind.
Joan has consulted on previous harvest projects and recommended that forest managers leave more snags and live trees than might be typical in a clear-cut.
Joan pointed to a large snag with twisted branches that had been left behind.
“That snag they left isn’t worth anything because it is gnarly,” said Joan referring to the potential timber value, “but for wildlife, it is worth a lot.”
Disturbance
Joan was also quick to point out that the clear-cut itself offered some benefits to wildlife.
“There are actually a lot of species that evolved with disturbance,” Joan remarked. “Disturbance is not a bad thing.”
Species like swallows, wrens, pigeons, Purple Martin, and a whole host of raptors benefit from the opening in the canopy.
“This is a phase of forest succession—early seral,” she continued. “When it is natural it is a very diverse stage.”
Unfortunately, it wasn’t all good news in the clear-cut, as many of the shrubs that come up during the early seral stage were sprayed with herbicide to give the next generation of conifers a competitive edge.
I was also struck by the small size of the clear-cut and asked Joan about it.
“Is it good to have smaller clear-cuts?”
“There is no one good size,” said Joan.
She explained that for a forest species having a small clear-cut makes the forests more permeable—a species that wants cover can go between trees. However, the larger the clear-cut, the more valuable the area is for a species that needs open areas.
“There is always a trade-off,” said Joan. Her advice for land managers—“be as variable as possible, and work with what is there.”
Ghost Forest
As we walked past the clear-cut with the intact forest on our right, it was easy to assume that the intact forest was in some way “natural” or “right.” But, as Joan reminded me, the conifer forest only exists on this hillside as a product of colonialism.
“Before the European settlers came,” explained Joan. “Native Americans burned this area—it was a bald with scattered oak and scattered Douglas-fir. It was very open.”
With colonialism came fire suppression and the conversion of oak woodlands and prairies into forests.
“If you look in this forest now, you can find old oak trees,” said Joan. “You can tell they are open grow with lateral limbs, but they are dead and decaying…”—overshadowed by Douglas-fir.
We looked deep into the thicket of forest for one of these “ghost oaks,” and found what looked like a mossy, dead limped giant of an oak tree.
“There used to be a bird species that used those,” remarked Joan. “Lewis’s woodpecker—iridescent green with a red breast—they valued the oak and ponderosa pine.”
She sighed, “Now, they don’t nest here. There is not the habitat for them.”
Purple Martin
Then we passed it—a white sci-fi-looking apparatus on the hillside to the left.
“Here is my Purple Martin gourd rack,” laughed Joan. “It is ugly as sin!”
However, what it lacks in aesthetics, it makes up for in function.
Joan explained that the rack is put up to provide a temporary nesting opportunity for Purple Martin—a threatened species here in the west. As insectivores, Purple Martin hunt insects on the wing, so in addition to needing natural cavities for nesting, they also need open space for hunting—a difficult combination to achieve these days.
“The public land has all the big snags but is too dense, and the private land has open areas but not the snags,” explained Joan.
The rack is meant to provide temporary housing until the woodpeckers can create the cavities in snags Purple Martin needs.
However, she cautions people from putting up their own gourd racks. The eastern population of Purple Martin are entirely dependent on people for nesting for this reason. She wants to avoid this in the West.
“Purple martins are the poster child for snags,” she proclaimed.
Across the clearing, I saw a small cavity in a Pacific Madrone. I asked Joan if that might work for the Purple Martin or some other species.
“It looks good for a pygmy owl,” she replied, “but I am not sure they would want to be out in the open. A flicker would love it,” she laughed.
What about Yew?
We were nearing our turn off into the woods when we happened past a shaggy-looking Pacific Yew.
“They always make me think of old forests,” Joan smiled.
“Does it do anything for wildlife?” I asked.
“I don’t know anything in particular,” Joan replied. “They are good for cover,” she offered.
What about Joan? We knew what the Yew was up to (being a really cool tree!), but what about Yew? I questioned Joan, pun intended.
“Right now, I am working on Purple Martin stuff,” she said—tracking them with GPS in collaboration with Klamath Bird Observatory and trying to figure out where they go in winter. So far, she has found that they spend some time in Baja—sounds pretty good to me.
“That is one thing,” she said. “I am trying to finish a bunch of projects,” Joan confessed in preparation for retirement before the end of the year—that also sounds pretty good to me. Maybe she will have to visit Baja?
“Another project is not birds,” she continued, but a carnivore survey using camera traps in the Klamath Network of National Parks.
“We are looking for Marten, Fisher, and Sierra Nevada Red Fox,” said Joan.
She explained that there is a lot of interest in carnivores. They are not only sensitive to environmental change and have been facing declining population rates, but they are also an important part of the food web.
Dense Woods
We were on the steep downhill return trail when I spotted a large patch of Oregon Grape out of the corner of my eye.
“Do they help birds?” I wondered out loud.
“I don’t know,” Joan responded thoughtfully. “The hummingbirds love the flowers.”
Soon we were considering the Oregon Grape fruits and species that might benefit from them as a food source as well.
In the distance, Joan heard the call of a Kinglet deep in the woods. Kinglets, she told me, were birds that responded negatively to thinning in her graduate research.
“They are beautiful little birds,” she described. “A bright gold crest with a scarlet, orange stripe down the middle.”
She heard the call again—“high and thin.” Whatever she was hearing, I didn’t register.
Learning Birds
“Is it hard to tell birds apart?” I asked.
“Not for me,” she laughed. “But yes.”
So how does one learn? Joan had a few tips.
First, “Come during the off-season,” she suggested. Learn the birds that are common year-round and learn them one at a time.
Second, she recommended using an app, like the Merlin App to help, as it identified with sound, and you can get the results often right away.
Finally, get a feeder. Feeders are an excellent way to meet several of the birds that are around all the time.
Some starter birds include song sparrows, dark-eyed junco, chickadees, nuthatches, and towhees.
It also doesn’t hurt to have a bird with a favorite song. Sometimes that is enough to draw one in.
“My favorite is the hermit thrush,” said Joan—a high-elevation bird with a song. “It sounds flute-like and ethereal.”
I recalled hearing the bird myself while hiking in the Jefferson Wilderness—singing its heart out well into the evening. Afterward, I had to find out what I was hearing!
Help the Birds
The trail continued down through the dense forest before dropping us back on the wide gravel road we had come up on—back in the riparian forest.
As we made our way back down to our cars, I asked Joan if she had any tips for helping birds.
“Audubon has a list of 10 things you can do for birds,” Joan responded.
“The biggest problems are hitting windows, lights during migration, and cats,” she continued.
So, to help with that, she suggests putting bird strike prevention on any windows that might fool birds, turning out the lights during migration, and keeping pet cats indoors.
Now, with advancements in bird tracking, you can find out when birds migrate through your area, so you know when dark skies are most important.
Pesticides are another concern she brought up.
“Anything that affects insects affects birds.”
Brown Creeper
“Well, we didn’t see very many birds,” Joan remarked when were just about at our cars.
Then, she spotted something up in the trees—a small brown bird hopping up the trunk. It was a Brown Creeper.
“They go way up and then they fly down to the base of the tree or their nest,” Joan noted.
I watched the Brown Creeper hop its way up a large Douglas-fir trunk before taking flight and landing on another tree nearby.
It was probably feeding on spiders hidden in the bark or collecting web for its nest—a common practice according to Joan.
The light was dimming as we stood and looked up at this small brown bird doing what it does best before we lost track of it.
Trills and Thrills
“That was fun!” proclaimed Joan.
And I too felt satisfied.
We have only heard or seen a few birds, but I was walking away with more bird knowledge than I could have imagined.
High-pitched trills spilled through the trees, like a tumbling stream, as we walked the last few feet to our cars.
And I knew it was the Pacific Wren singing us off.
Joan Hagar is a Research Wildlife Biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey. She has been studying birds and other wildlife professionally for the last 30 years.