| The Redpolls are Coming!
The Redpolls are Coming! by Stephen Shunk ( Paradise
Birding )
Small armies of red-capped invaders breached the Oregon border just
over a month ago, but residents can rest easy about the security of their
homes and families. It’s Oregon’s alder and birch trees that are targeted
by flocks of tiny finches invading from the far north. The Common Redpoll, with it's characteristic red forehead
and black
The first wave of “troops” arrived in early November as Common Redpolls began crossing the Canadian border into Washington. They moved south in search of birch and alder catkins; mixed flocks of resident goldfinches and Pine Siskins provided the perfect cover. On November 16, a wary birdwatcher reported Oregon’s first flock of the season just outside of Imbler, in northern Union County. Two days later the Imbler flock of six birds had grown to 50, and by December 1, Common Redpolls had advanced as far south as Klamath County. The Common Redpoll, Carduelis flammea, nests in the taiga forests of Northern Alaska and Canada, and occasionally into the arctic tundra. Like many songbirds, redpolls migrate south each winter, but they don’t usually travel far. Christmas bird count (CBC) records show the annual movement of redpolls into the northern United States, but the species has only been documented on Oregon CBCs during half of the last 38 years. Until this winter, only two of those years reached the stature of an invasion. These gorgeous little birds, with their crimson red foreheads and handsome little black goatees, hardly deserve the censure that might accompany the term “invasion.” Actually, redpolls are known as an “irruptive” bird species. When the crop of alder and birch catkins in their more common wintering areas won’t support the population of redpolls, the birds “irrupt” further south, where sufficient food sources await. Other northern species that experience irruption include the Snowy Owl and Bohemian Waxwing. When redpolls visit Oregon, they can often be found among flocks of
Pine Siskins and American and Lesser goldfinches. The redpolls, siskins
and goldfinches are the smallest members of the finch family occurring
regularly in North America. The tiny Pine Siskin is often accompanied by Common Redpolls in birch and alder trees. While the two birds bear some resemblance, the smaller head, browner streaking and yellow highlights of the siskin separate it from the bright red crown, blacker streaking and stockier appearance of the redpoll. Photo by Stephen Shunk When redpolls arrive in one’s yard, the observant birder is treated to the restless, playful antics of one of the most charismatic of all winged creatures. Henry David Thoreau wrote of redpolls in 1855: “Standing there I am reminded of the incredible phenomenon of birds
in winter,– that ere long amid the cold powdery snow, as it were a fruit
of the season, will come twittering a flock of delicate crimson-tinged
birds, lesser redpolls, to sport and feed on the seeds and buds now just
ripe for them on the sunny side of a wood, shaking down the powdery snow
there in their cheerful social feeding, as if it were high midsummer to
them. These crimson aerial creatures have wings that would bear them quickly
to the regions of summer, but here is all the summer they want. What a
rich contrast! tropical colors, crimson breasts on cold white snow! Such
etherealness, such delicacy in their forms, such ripeness in their colors,
in this stern and barren season.”
Well over 200 individual Common Redpolls have already been reported in Oregon this winter, mostly from the east side of the Cascades, but also from Oaks Bottom in Portland and Detroit Flats in the West Cascades foothills. As the longest running ornithological database, the CBC tells the tale of winter bird populations. Once the tallies are complete for 2001-02, this season may shape up to be one of the great redpoll irruption years in recorded history. Birders should watch their birch and alder trees this winter, or those in their neighborhoods, and they should keep their thistle feeders stocked full of seed, lest they miss this chance to be part of history. But more important than history is the sheer experience of these tiny, crimson-capped Common Redpolls squeaking and twittering in the brisk air of an Oregon winter. |
They all have tiny conical bills for extracting and shelling miniscule
seeds from catkin-bearing alders, birches, and willows as well as the seeds
of grasses, forbes and “lesser” conifers, such as spruce trees.