Back in December 2022, I had the remarkable privilege of visiting Portland, Oregon, for a conference. I’ve longed to visit the Pacific Northwest for my entire life and this was my first ever visit there. It was a dream trip and I had an amazing time, and while there’s a lot I could talk about… today we’re here to discuss THE BIRDS...
Caption: an Oregonian passerine montage. From left to right: male House finch, Cedar waxwing, Steller’s jay. Images: Darren Naish.
I saw a good number of birds that were entirely new to me, and in this article I want to tell you about them and – where possible – show you the decidedly mediocre, often awful, photos I took. I’m going to discuss the birds I saw in approximate phylogenetic order, not in the order in which they were seen on the trip.
Geese! And with that in mind, it’s convenient that among the first birds I saw were geese. In a deliberate effort to get out and see some wildlife, I made a short trip during my stay in Portland to Battleship Oregon Memorial Marine Park on the west bank of the Willamette River (which flows north to join the mighty Columbia River). Large numbers of Canada geese Branta canadensis were grazing across the park. My philosophy on animals is that even familiar, regularly encountered species are interesting if you pay them attention, so I took a few photos. And looking through them right there and then, I realised that I was looking at two sorts of goose, one of which was smaller, shorter-necked, bigger-headed, had a crescentic white marking at the base of the neck, more obvious projection of the primary feathers, and more obvious, closely packed pale margins to their feathers.
Caption: waitaminute, those aren’t Canada geese at all!! Image: Darren Naish.
Why, these weren’t Canada geese at all, they were Cackling geese Branta hutchinsii. Ok, Cackling geese (there are four forms) were long regarded as Canada goose subspecies, but it’s generally agreed today that the two are distinct at the species level (and both have their own subspecies). Vast number of Canada geese exist at home in the UK (and I’ve seen them in the US on previous trips too), but Cackling geese were a first for me.
A third goose was present as well, namely Greater white-fronted goose Anser albifrons, though as a European my instinct is just to call this bird the ‘White-fronted goose’. I know this species from the UK as well, of course, but these Pacific coast ones are a different subspecies: the ones I know from the southern UK are the nominate form, whereas those in Oregon are – I think – A. a. sponsa according to recent revisions (Banks 2011). The North American subspecies-level taxonomy of this species is confusing and views differ. Whatever, the Pacific coast form is the smallest. An interesting aspect of Greater white-fronted goose behaviour is that it has an especially long period of parental care, sometimes lasting two years. Some adult birds have even been shown to be the grandparents of the younger ones they’re associating with.
Caption: adult and juvenile White-fronted goose… or Greater white-fronted goose, if you must. Image: Darren Naish.
Ducks! Moving now to other wildfowl (or waterfowl, take your pick), I saw a handful of other species later in the trip while visiting the Oregon coast. At Siletz Bay (somewhat to the south of Portland, and directly west of Salem) a handful of Surf scoters Melanitta perspicillata were in evidence and living up to their name, diving and swimming about in the surf. The look of the water was fantastic. Scoters occur around the British coast (albeit not Surf scoters) but I’ve just never been in the right place at the right time and haven’t ever seen them. Scoters are seaducks, as are eiders and mergansers, and a second member of the group was also seen along the coast. I refer to the distant groups of Bufflehead Bucephala albeola I saw at Yaquina Bay further to the south.
Caption: Surf scoters in the beautiful green waters of Fogarty Creek Beach. Images: Darren Naish.
Caption: there are no visible birds in this photo, but I want to include it because it gives you some idea of how rugged and surfy the shore is in this part of the world. This is Fogarty Creek Beach; I think just to the north of Boiler Bay. This is the exact same place where the Surf scoters shown above were seen. Western gulls were perched on various of the rocks here. Image: Darren Naish.
Caption: more anseriforms seen at unco-operative distance, this time a group of Bufflehead in Siletz Bay. These ducks were seen swimming around in groups as well as off on their own, sometimes in close proximity to Pacific harbour seals. Image: Darren Naish.
Moving to dabbling ducks, I saw Mallards Anas platyrhynchos at a few places (including the Bonneville Fish Hatchery in the Columbia River Gorge). North American mallards don’t look any different from the European ones I see most days here in the UK but at least here (below) we have an individual who appeared to be blind in one eye. When visiting the Oregon Coast Aquarium on the edge of Yaquina Bay I saw a few other ducks: Northern pintail Anas acuta and American wigeon Mareca americana.
Caption: male and female Mallard in a pool in the Columbia River Gorge. The male was in excellent shape but for his damaged eye. Image: Darren Naish.
Caption: a selection of ducks in Yaquina Bay. At left, two female and one male American wigeon and a male Northern pintail. The Northern pintail has a massive range, occurring across most of the Northern Hemisphere. At right, we see three male American wigeon. Wigeons (also called widgeons, yuck) are mostly herbivorous anatin ducks related to gadwalls. Images: Darren Naish.
Cormorants, grebes, gulls. Other waterbirds I saw on the trip included Double-crested cormorant Phalacrocorax auritus – a species I’ve previously seen on the east coast (in Toronto) and by far the most familiar and oft-encountered of cormorants in North America – and Pied-billed grebe Podilymbus podiceps. To date, this is the only grebe species I’ve seen in North America, which is a shame as the Americas has some real weirdos relative to the good and sensible species we have in Eurasia. Looking at you, Aechmophorus. I also saw Great blue heron Ardea herodius in a marsh next to the Siletz River and a Black oystercatcher Haematopus bachmani at Fogarty Creek Beach.
Caption: Double-crested cormorant on the Willamette River in standard cormorant wing-drying pose. At right, a Pied-billed grebe as seen on the other side of the Siletz River near the coast (about 100 km to the south-west of Portland). Images: Darren Naish.
As you might predict given my several visits to riverside and coasts, I saw a lot of gulls (big love here to my hosts outside of Portland – Nico and Hayley Spadafora – who were gracious enough to take me to all the cool places). I love gulls and always pay attention to them, in part because a group of samey-looking big white Larus species very often include one or two individuals that belong to other species, and are sometimes hybrids or anomalies. And the big white-headed Larus gulls can be confusing and hard to tell apart (Dunne & Karlson 2019).
Caption: a pair of Western gulls keeping vigil on the tall rocks on the coast near Fogarty Creek, about 80 km to the west of Salem. Images: Darren Naish.
The majority of the gulls I saw were the northern form of the Western gulls Larus occidentalis, a large, dark-mantled species with a robust bill, pinkish legs and (typically) only a single white spot at the distal end of the primary tips. Various young white-headed gulls were hanging around too, their mottled plumage (rather than large expanses of white) showing that they were probably in their second year. The relatively long, two-toned bill, rounded head, black primaries and flesh-coloured legs made me think that they were young Western gulls… but juvenile gulls are hard and I may well be wrong on this (Dunne & Karlson 2019).
Caption: juvenile and subadult white-headed gulls have driven a select few birdwatchers to insanity. They’re not easy to identify and distinguish. I think this is a second winter Western gull, but it was seen right next to an Olympic gull. UPDATE: this is most likely a California gull, see the comments. Image: Darren Naish.
A second gull species was seen at the mouth of the Yahina River, but only at great distance and in silhouette. Look at the photo below and tell me if you can identify it, since I can’t.
Caption: numerous gulls were visible some distance from shore at Yaquina Bay, and the fact that they were almost entirely silhouetted made them even harder to identify than usual. Some of these birds (look at the tall, walking individual on the right) look large and long-billed, and I think they’re Western gulls. But others are smaller, shorted-billed and with a rounded head. Look in particular at the lowest bird in the photo (enlarged in the inset). What species is this? Are California gulls L. californicus this small relative to Western gulls? UPDATE: most likely a Short-billed gull L. brachyrhynchus, see the comments. Image: Darren Naish.
Finally on gulls, one or two gulls encountered at the edge of the Willamette River were big and gnarly, with an especially long, deep, prominently hooked bill, a mid-grey mantle, flesh-coloured legs and some vermiculation on the head, neck and chest. Some of these features make these birds look a bit like Glaucous gulls L. glaucescens, a notably long-billed species with white primary tips. With this in mind, it seems that the birds I’m describing here are hybrids between Western and Glaucous gulls. This hybrid – the Olympic gull or Puget Sound gull – is relatively common from British Columbia south to Oregon, and individuals vary in terms of how similar or different they are to the parent species (Hoffman et al. 1978, Bell 1996, 1997).
Caption: it’s big, it’s gnarly, it has a vermiculated feathers on the head, neck and part of the body. And it doesn’t quite match any recognised gull species. So… is this the fabled hybrid known as the Olympic or Puget Sound gull? Image: Darren Naish.
Raptors and woodpeckers. The really cool birds are those that, ordinarily, you see the least often. And for me, these include raptors and woodpeckers. The good news is that I saw a few. The bad news is that all the sightings were fleeting, made at distance, and mostly made on occasion when my camera flat-out refused to co-operate. I am perpetually let down by technology; it seems to be a curse.
I’m fairly convinced that a large raptor with a pale head and neck – seen at great distance over the Willamette River – was a Bald eagle Haliaeetus leucocephalus, the first one I’ve seen in the wild. That was a terrible sighting and I hope to get better ones in time. And while on a bridge that crosses the Willamette River, I saw two American crows Corvus brachyrhynchos mobbing a hawk. The hawk had a dark underside to the distal half of its tail, a pale belly and dark brown breast, and I can’t really see anything that allows it to be identified. But maybe it was a Red-tailed hawk Buteo jamaicensis.
Caption: the photos might be terrible, but it should still be possible to work out what they show if you know birds. The distant, mostly silhouetted animal on the left is a Bald eagle. At right, a hawk is mobbed by two American crows. Images: Darren Naish.
I saw woodpeckers of several sorts, mostly from the house in Rhododendron I was staying in during the later part of my trip. My camera refused to allow me to take outdoor photos while standing indoors – I could never figure out why – so all my chances to get good photos were wasted. But, whatever, I saw Northern flicker Colaptes auratus and got poor views of what was likely a Hairy woodpecker Leuconotopicus villosus. Yes, Leuconotopicus: that’s a resurrected genus name from the 1840s, arguably needed in view of studies which find the conventional concepts of Dendrocopos and Picoides to be non-monophyletic (Fuchs & Pons 2015).
Caption: a selection of terrible woodpecker photos (there’s a theme here) which at least prove that I saw some woodpeckers. The bird flying away from the tree at left is a Northern flicker, a bird I also saw foraging on the ground in the woods of Rhododendron. The two images at right show a pied woodpecker showing itself from awkward angles only; it seems to be a Hairy woodpecker. Images: Darren Naish.
Waxwings, thrushes, juncos, towhees. We now say goodbye to non-passerines and move to that one group that contains more than 60% of all living bird species, the passerines or perching birds. For starters, I’ll say that European starlings Sturnus vulgaris were a regular presence around the house where I stayed (deep in the woods to the east of Portland, and in the small town of Rhododendron close to Mount Hood). It’s a shame to see these invasives in this part of the world; if only it were easy to capture them and take them back to where they belong.
Caption: Cedar waxwing flock near the Willamette River. Image: Darren Naish.
Caption: close-up section of the same flock. They’re great looking birds. Image: Darren Naish.
While out walking in Portland one day I chanced upon a fruiting tree alive with passerines of several sorts, and I ended up spending more than an hour watching and taking photos. A flock of Cedar waxwing Bombycilla cedrorum was the most exciting new species for me. I watched them eat fruit, fly down to the river to drink, and then get startled and wheel around in a flock before alighting to eat fruit again. Waxwings and kin – united in Bombycilloidea – are an unusual passerine group that are part of the same major clade as flycatchers, wrens, creepers and kin. For more on big picture issues of passerine phylogeny, see some of the links below.
Caption: a Cedar waxwing montage. Young birds were present in the flock and had a fluffier look than the sleek adults; the young ones also had dark streaky markings across the breast. Waxwings are named for the peculiar bright red, oval, waxy structures present on the distal tips of their secondaries. These are variable in number and size across individuals. Images: Darren Naish.
Caption: Cedar waxwings visiting and drinking from the Willamette River. Image: Darren Naish.
Oh – not a passerine, but I have to mention that a hummingbird flew in towards the ‘waxwing tree’ at one point. I only got one awful photo. People have already had various guesses as to which species it is; I was thinking Broad-tailed hummingbird Selasphorus platycercus but that doesn’t seem to occur west enough.
Caption: mystery hummingbird — what is it? Image: Darren Naish.
Caption: if you’re European, the American robin is a very weird thrush. I mean, it’s bad enough that it’s called a ‘robin’… but its profile and pigmentation add insult to injury. Images: Darren Naish.
I saw American robins Turdus migratorius on lawns in a few places. Believe it or not, this was a first for me (I have a vague recollection of seeing the species in Colorado, but don’t remember for sure). To a naïve viewer of the species, it’s strikingly large and dark with scaly patterning on its breast and belly, and bold white facial markings; its posture is also very distinct from that of Old World thrushes in being more erect at times, and with a more prominent junction between the back and the base of the neck.
Two small passerines were seen on regular occasion around the house in Rhododendron: Dark-eyed junco Junco hyemalis and Spotted towhee Pipilo maculatus. Juncos are famously variable and – as usual when this is the case – there have been, and still are, numerous ideas on how this should be recognised taxonomically. The juncos here were specifically ‘Oregon juncos’. They’re forest birds that forage on the ground, mostly for seeds.
Caption: one the best junco photos I have, and the bird has a chunk of food in its mouth. Image: Darren Naish.
Spotted towhees are very attractive, chestnut-sided, handsomely spotted towhees. I got the impression from the birds I watched that they hang out in groups, since the back porch feeding station where I first saw them was visited by a number of them together, and I later saw the same group hanging out in the woods. But apparently this isn’t typical, and they’re not social.
Caption: male Spotted towhees (possibly the same individual seen at different times, I’m not sure), what handsome birds. I learnt this species (from old field guides) as the Rufous-sided towhee, but that name is no longer in use seeing as its two populations have been split as the Spotted towhee and Eastern towhee P. erythrophthalmus. Images: Darren Naish.
The Pacific Northwestern form of the Song sparrow Melospiza melodia rufina was seen (and heard) on many occasions, though I initially thought (understandably, I think) that I was looking at the very similar Fox sparrow Passerella iliaca. Like juncos and towhees, both birds are part of the New World sparrow family (Passerellidae) – they’re not emberizids anymore – and a surprise from recent molecular phylogenies is that they’re quite far apart on the tree, Passerella being close to juncos while Melospiza is part of a clade that includes seaside sparrows and kin (Ammospiza) and savannah sparrows and kin (Passerculus) (Bryson et al. 2016).
Caption: different views of the same Song sparrow. Images: Darren Naish.
While on the subject of New World sparrows, I also saw White-crowned sparrows Zonotrichia leucophrys on several occasions, initially at the side of a small road where a group of three or four were foraging on the ground together, and later on the ground beneath the tree where the waxwings were. These birds interest me in not exhibiting obvious sexual dimorphism in their prominent head stripes... at least, not obvious to us. Some work has been done on linking the stripes with dominance hierarchies (Parsons & Baptista 1980).
Caption: three different White-crowned sparrows. The bird at left has a tan crown and hence is presumably a young individual. The bird at lower right has something wrong with its wing: the ruffled, misplaced primaries and secondaries remind me of the ‘angel wing’ condition that occurs as a consequence of dietary deficiency. Images: Darren Naish.
Finches, chickadees, creepers. While walking around the edges of the Willamette River I saw numerous small, superficially finch-like or sparrow-like passerines, essentially all of which were firsts for me too. I got reasonably good views of House finch Haemorhous mexicanus, both males and females. A flock of Lesser goldfinch Spinus psaltria, both males and females, were present in the same tree. I initially didn’t know how to distinguish this species from the American goldfinch S. tristis but a white patch at the base of the primaries is diagnostic for the Lesser goldfinch and was present in the birds I saw.
Caption: female House finches. I saw and photographed males as well; see the image at the top of the article. Images: Darren Naish.
Like me, you might have grown up associating goldfinches with the generic name Carduelis. However, several molecular studies published since 2009 (e.g., Nguembock et al. 2009) have shown that Carduelis of tradition is non-monophyletic (serins and crossbills are nested deep within it, and everyone regards them as sufficiently distinct to warrant recognition at the genus level), its numerous clades corresponding to a set of taxonomic distinctions proposed on the basis of morphology by Wolters (1980). Follow that view, and American goldfinches – which are not closely related to Eurasian goldfinches (the type species for Carduelis) – belong to Spinus.
Caption: two Lesser goldfinches – both conveniently hiding their faces and/or out of focus – in a mixed flock that also included House finches. You can see a partial blurry male House finch at left. Image: Darren Naish.
Also among small passerines, what I first identified as a Black-capped chickadee Poecile atricapillus turned out to have the warm brown sides and back of the Chestnut-backed chickadee P. rufescens. I also saw Brown creepers Certhia americana but my photos are utterly hopeless, and likewise for Golden-crowned kinglet Regulus satrapa. All three were seen foraging in the mixed woodland that surrounded the house in Rhododendron, the creeper doing the conventional trunk-gleaning that these birds are known for, the kinglet investigating the narrow and springy tips of thin branches.
Caption: every now and then, I promise myself to stop trying to photograph small passerines. It just isn’t worth it, and the results are always so poor. But here’s what I got on (left to right) kinglets, creepers and Chestnut-backed chickadee. Images: Darren Naish.
Corvids. We end this article with corvids, one of the most amazing and enthralling passerine groups of all. It turns out that the Pacific Northwest is a pretty interesting place if you want to see corvids. First of all, American crows were abundant and seen in numerous places, both in urban spaces as well as along the river and in the woods. If you’re European, their call is unmistakeably different from that of any Eurasian species and sounds weird and exotic.
Caption: oblique dorsal view of an American crow observed foraging in a bear enclosure at Oregon Zoo. Check out the absolutely beautiful metallic iridescence on the feathers. Image: Darren Naish.
Caption: American crows are really social compared to many other Corvus species, and are often seen in large groups. Here are a number of them hanging around in a closed-off parking lot in Portland. Image: Darren Naish.
I’m not too ashamed to say that I spent some of my time while looking at crows in Oregon trying to work out which of them were ‘Northwestern crow Corvus caurinus’, a supposed species that – so my Peterson and Nat Geo field guides tell me – differs from the American crow in being slightly smaller, in having faster wingbeats, and in having a slightly different head shape. I eventually gave up in trying to differentiate these two species. Aaaand there’s a reason for that, since it turns out that many field guides are now very much out of date. Recent work has shown that the populations we used to regard as distinct have a long and extensive history of hybridisation, this being so pervasive across the area where both ‘species’ occur (Slager et al. 2020) that the American Ornithological Society abandoned recognition of the Northwestern crow in 2020.
Caption: a scrub jay seen at distance. Birds hate co-operating with people who aim to photograph them, so surely this one wouldn’t still be there once I got within close range? Well…..
Scrub jays, magpies, Steller’s jays. Moving away from Corvus corvids… while walking across the Tilikum Bridge in Portland I saw (from some distance away) a blue, long-tailed corvid. Being naïve about North American birds, I assumed it was a Blue jay Cyanocitta cristata, even though it didn’t look right for that species. As I approached, the bird remained in the area, and it was immediately obvious that it was a California scrub jay Aphelocoma californica, another first for me. Two birds were observed, both of which were collecting white objects from the ground and also foraging on a lichen-covered tree. An American crow was nearby and the scrub jays kept an eye on it.
Caption: close-up to one of the scrub jays I saw, here pausing in between trying to eat that white object (a mistletoe fruit?) on the ground. These birds have surprisingly large eyes. Image: Darren Naish.
Caption: more scrub jay. I took so many photos of these birds, both on the ground and in the adjacent trees. Image: Darren Naish.
Caption: more scrub jay photos. I like these for two reasons. One is that the bird has adopted an almost identical pose on two entirely separate moments. And the second is that the bird is very ‘lazy’ with its feet, sometimes choosing to let its toes just droop or fall rather than have them properly wrapped around the branch. Images: Darren Naish.
I saw black-billed magpies on several occasions but always at the roadside while I was in a vehicle, so no photos. The North American black-billed magpie was long considered the same species as the one I see every day in England – that’s Pica pica – but genetic work has shown that the taxonomy we’ve conventionally used for magpies doesn’t match phylogeny at all. The full story there is complex and I can’t cover it here, but it supports the view that North America’s black-billed magpie is the distinct species P. hudsonia. I must come back to magpies at some other time, since I find these recent developments in their taxonomy and phylogeny pretty interesting.
Finally, I had a huge shock on seeing another corvid that was entirely new to me: the legendary Steller’s jay Cyanocitta stelleri. It turned out that these birds were locally abundant in the woods of Rhododendron, social, noisy, and relatively unafraid of people. By the end of the trip I’d seen them on numerous occasions, often in pairs and threes. They’re nimble and adopt woodpecker-like poses when searching for prey on moss- and lichen-covered trees, and I also got the impression (perhaps wrongly) that their legs are especially slender for a corvid.
Caption: Steller’s jay foraging high up in trees. Like many corvids, they’re very vocal and I could hear them calling throughout the day. Images: Darren Naish.
Steller’s jay is not unique to the north-west of North America but occurs from Nicaragua and Honduras all the way north along Central America and on up through the western side of North America to south-west Alaska. It’s variable enough across this range that 13 subspecies are recognised by some. The one I saw was either the nominate form (Cy. s. stelleri) or the more southerly occurring Cy. s. frontalis. The Blue jay and Steller’s jay are the only extant members of Cyanocitta, by the way, a genus nested within the same American clade as scrub jays and New World jays (Cyanocorax).
And that is where things must come to an end. My trip to Oregon was phenomenal. I didn’t actually go there for birdwatching reasons: I was there for the aforementioned conference and also used the trip to see friends and do some bigfoot-related tourist things (see my review article for 2022 for more information). I am, however, pretty happy with the birds I saw. Had I done things properly, or gone to exactly the right places, I know that I could, of course, have seen so much more…. maybe next time.
Caption: one final look at one of those California scrub jays. Image: Darren Naish.
For previous Tetrapod Zoology articles on birdwatching around the world, and on issues relevant to the birds discussed here, see…
To the Sahara in quest of dinosaurs (living and extinct), December 2008
From Morocco, with larks, babblers, gazelles, owls and GIANT DINOSAUR BONES, December 2008
Birding in Brazil: a view from suburban Rio de Janeiro, June 2013
Thoughts on the Passerine Tree, 2016, October 2016
Birdwatching in Suburban China, May 2019
Suburban Birdwatching in Queensland, Australia, November 2019
Pete Dunne and Kevin T. Karlson’s Gulls Simplified: A Comparative Approach to Identification, October 2021
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Bryson, R. W.; Faircloth, B. C.; Tsai, W. L. E.; McCormack, J. E. & Klicka, J. 2016 Target enrichment of thousands of ultraconserved elements sheds new light on early relationships within New World sparrows (Aves: Passerellidae). The Auk 133, 451-458.
Bell, D. A. 1996. Genetic differentiation, geographic variation and hybridization in gulls of the Larus glaucescens-occidentalis complex. The Condor 98, 527-546.
Bell, D. A. 1997. Hybridization and reproductive performance in gulls of the Larus glaucescens-occidentalis complex. The Condor 99, 585-594.
Dunne, P. & Karlson, K. T. 2019. Gulls Simplified: A Comparative Approach to Identification. Princeton University Press, Princeton and Oxford.
Fuchs, J. & Pons, J. M. 2015. A new classification of the pied woodpeckers assemblage (Dendropicini, Picidae) based on a comprehensive multi-locus phylogeny. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 88, 28-37.
Hoffman, W., Wiens, J. A. & Scott, J. M. 1978. Hybridization between gulls (Larus glaucenscens and L. occidentalis) in the Pacific Northwest. The Auk 95, 441-458.
Nguembock, B., Fjeldså, J., Couloux, A. & Pasquet, E. 2009. Molecular phylogeny of Carduelinae (Aves, Passeriformes, Fringillidae) proves polyphyletic origin of the genera Serinus and Carduelis and suggests redefined generic limits. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 51, 169-181.
Parsons, J. & Baptista, L. F. 1980. Crown color and dominance in the White-crowned sparrow. The Auk 97, 807-815.
Slager, D. L., Epperly, K. L., Ha, R. R., Rohwer, S., Wood, C., Van Hemert, C. & Klicka, J. 2020. Cryptic and extensive hybridization between ancient lineages of American crows. Molecular Ecology 29, 956-969.
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