[cobirds] Re: mountain birds down low or out east

Well said, Dave.

Since the fires are having a major impact on humans it is easy for one to attempt to extrapolate how it also impacts the world around us. While the fires may indeed be influencing the movements of birds, but there are other things to consider. Nesting season and overall recruitment can be impacting sightings. Is it increased populations? What kind of impact is drought having on bird movement? The drought has had a significant negative impact on forage for bears along the Front Range this year forcing them to seek out foodstuffs closer to humans earlier than normal. Is it impacting our avian friends, too?

Please continue to wonder and discuss the what, where, how and why of what is happening out there, but please try to remain as objective as possible. Your objective insights help piece together a very complex puzzle that is the wildlife/bird world that surrounds us.

Michael Tincher

Loveland,CO/Fort Collins

On Thursday, October 8, 2020 at 11:07:05 PM UTC-6 Dave Leatherman wrote:

Everyone,

I need to reiterate some things said the other day that seem to have been somewhat misinterpreted.  First off, we see mountain species come down low and perhaps wander onto the eastern plains pretty much every year at this season.  Corvids, chickadees, nuthatches, kinglets, solitaires, other thrushes, warblers, certain sparrows, owls like Northern Saw-whet and many others, at least part of their populations, engage in altitudinal migrations and post-breeding travel.  The extent to which this happens is highly variable from year to year and probably driven by a lot of factors including nesting success, food resources, weather and other factors.  Apparently this is a big year for chickadees and corvids coming down the hill and fanning out onto the plains. 

The crux of my initial post was wondering out loud how much the timing and intensity of these movements were influenced this autumn by the added factor of fire.  I put these questions out there knowing proof of anything would be most difficult.  Because most of the long-running fires blackening hundreds of thousands of acres and generating the smoke we are seeing are occurring in the middle and upper montane zone (7-10,500 feet in elevation = lodgepole pine up into the spruce-fir areas just below timberline), the resident birds both populating these areas and that are part of the bird group mix mentioned above would seem to be chickadees, Clark's Nutcracker, Canada Jay and maybe a portion of the Steller's Jays (note spelling and don't let spellcheck change it to "Stellar's" in your posts).  That is to say, most of our Steller's Jays, Pinyon Jays and Woodhouse's Scrub-Jays breed in the lower mountains and foothills (populated by ponderosa pine, pinyon pine and juniper) and, thus, DON'T live in areas being heavily impacted by the present set of fires.  I am speculating here that the occurrence of Steller's Jays, Pinyon Jays and Woodhouse's Scrub-Jays in unusual places of late is probably NOT due to fire (unless heavy smoke passing thru their normal haunts causes them to redistribute themselves) but rather factors like nesting success, food issues and/or weather. 

I appreciate all the posts about these birds in places where they don't normally occur, encourage it to continue, but just want to be clear that attributing any of this to the current fires is a slippery slope at best.  Research ornithologists are best equipped to answer some of these questions.  Unfortunately, the logistics of research and its funding don't often allow for the spontaneous investigation of unplanned natural events that would yield the kind of answers to the questions posed here.  Us birders serving as citizen scientists can certainly generate enough data and dots on maps to be helpful in this regard, but we all owe a debt of gratitude to avian research scientists working in NGOs, government agencies and academia.  Also, the supplemental funding of research by many of our state's bird organizations and clubs is commendable.

Dave Leatherman

Fort Collins

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