As the temperature drops late in the year, less and less of us venture out into the mountains. In the forest, everything seems a bit more still, and most of the sounds around us come from the leaves crunching under our feet. But if you take a moment to stop and listen, there is still so much activity happening around us! When we think about what birds are doing this time of year, we tend to focus on all of the birds flying south and we often forget that we have feathered neighbors who stay here year-round. On October 11 and 12, the Friends of Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument discovered that you can encounter many birds in the Monument during the fall if you just take the time to listen and look. Klamath Bird Observatory board president, Shannon Rio, guided us on this quest during our final Hike & Learn of the 2019 season.
On Friday October 11, bird enthusiasts and eager learners gathered at the Geos Institute to hear Shannon speak about the birds you can listen and look for in the fall here in our region. These birds include great gray owls, dippers, yellow rumped warblers, bald eagles, pileated woodpeckers, flickers, white-breasted, red-breasted and pygmy nuthatches, golden-crowned and ruby-crowned kinglets, mountain chickadees, western bluebirds, Stellar’s jays, and of course Raven, the Trickster. She emphasized that the edges of distinct habitats are where the action is. In the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument, the landscape is filled with a mosaic of edges: ridgelines tracing the tops of mountain ranges with vastly different plant communities on either side, edges of forests bordering open meadows, and edges of lakes, streams and rivers dividing aquatic and terrestrial habitats. “It is a powerful thing to be near edges”, Shannon told us.
On Saturday October 12, we had an opportunity to walk along these edges and look and listen for the Monument’s fall residents. We walked five miles along the Pacific Crest Trail, from Highway 66 at the Greensprings summit to the peaceful shores of Little Hyatt Reservoir, then returned to the highway by walking three miles along Old Hyatt Prairie Road. On our journey, we passed through forested areas, meadows and oak woodlands, identifying the birds we encountered and observing their behavior and interactions with other species all along the way. In total, we identified 28 species of birds and witnessed many captivating moments between different species and individuals. Shannon encouraged us to watch how different birds were behaving and figure out what their behavior could tell us. At one point along the trail, we ran into a number of Stellar’s jays making a huge ruckus and then we spotted the bird that they were mobbing: a Cooper’s hawk hunkered down in a fir tree! You never know what exciting things you will encounter on a walk along the edges in the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument!
- Written by Ellie Cosgrove, Program Coordinator of Friends of Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument
Photos by Ellie Cosgrove
