A perch is an observation place in a high position that is occupied only temporarily. A view from the perch provides an expansive perspective of the surrounding landscape and gives a unique viewpoint for discovery of objects/subjects that cannot be seen from ground level. A view of the perch and its transient occupants can reveal surprising attributes of the environment’s inhabitants and the natural forces that bring them to the perch.
This is an account of what was seen at two bird-perching stations in two quite different locations. The first location is in the Clearwater River canyon in Central Idaho. In this dry, mostly-mountainous, inland landscape, Jean and I purchased a property on which we built a family cabin that we used as a gateway to nature for 20 years. The whole of the place and its canyon setting were immeasurably interesting. But there were specific spots that drew more than their share of our attention; one of these was a tall, rugged pine tree that we dubbed the “Perching Pine.”
Eventually, age-related infirmaries forced us to move from the rural inland intermountain region where our cabin was located to the suburbanized Puget Sound region south of Seattle. This move was necessitated because amenities for accommodating aged people were more readily available in the Puget Sound than at our inland-empire home. The move required that we give up the rugged, semi-wilderness place in the Clearwater canyon. In our new location, our contacts with nature took place at a small farm in the wet, fragmented coastal forests of the Puget lowlands, which was in stark contrast to the rugged semi-arid canyon lands of Central Idaho. But even in this semi-citified landscape, we found a second attention-getting spot, an old decaying cottonwood snag on our farm that we called the “Cottonwood Perching Snag.”
This essay contrasts these two bird-perching stations. Contrast is warranted on two accounts: one, because similarities and differences in the animal associations at these two vastly different Pacific Northwest environments reveal the depth and richness of the region as a whole and two, the process of documenting these similarities and differences requires one to bring a focused attentiveness to what is seen and then to interpret the observed event in the larger context in which nature’s processes take place. Attentiveness, awareness, mindfulness, and cognizance of relationships between the specifics of observed events and the over-arching dynamics that govern nature’s ways is a kind of knowledge that broadens and enriches one’s view of life; all life, not just the life of birds. This essay attests that these attributes accrue from critical, engaged, nature watching.
A. Perching Pine in Clearwater River Canyon
This account was written in the summer of 2015 at our cabin in the Clearwater River canyon.
There is a pine tree on the canyon-side about 250 yards away from the cabin whose top-most branches are on eye level with my office window. When I look out the window these tree branches are centered in my up-canyon view. Thus, when I look upriver, as I often do, I can’t help but see what is going on in the top of that tree.
At 150 feet tall, this tree stands apart from other trees on the canyon side. The top-most branches are gnarled and twisted and several of them are bare and dead. It is not a very well-formed tree but, because of its size and placement on the canyon wall, its reach into canyon air is unmatched by others in its vicinity. Thus, it gives unusual visual advantage to any bird that chooses one of its warped branches for a perch - several do. I call it the “Perching Pine.”
I group the birds that perch in the Perching Pine into the following categories:
· Raptors: Red-tailed Hawk; Bald Eagle; Osprey; Kestrel; Cooper’s Hawk.
· Full-time Fly catchers: Western King Bird; Olive-sided Flycatcher; Western Wood Pewee, Say’s phoebe.
· Part-time fly catchers: Cedar Waxwing; Western Tanager; Bullock’s Oriole; Lewis’s Woodpecker; Bluebird.
· Songsters: Robin; Black-headed Grosbeak; House Finch; European starlings.
· Passer-byes: Flicker; Mourning Dove; Stellar’s Jay; Magpie.
Raptors on perching pine: Bald eagle on fishing lookout; Red-tailed hawk screaming at intruders; American kestrel
A few of the pine’s perchers: Western kingbird; House finch; Northern flicker; Mourning dove.
A few more: Cedar waxwings often visited in small flocks; Black-headed grosbeak and robin competed as the perching pine’s most ardent songsters, they both sang a slightly different version of the same song; Western tanager adds spectacular color to the pine’s top-most branches.
The above species list is not exhaustive. I was unable to identify many of the small birds that visited the tree because it was so far away and I didn’t always have access to my spotting scope at those brief times when a bird was sighted there. Because I regularly saw Brown creepers, Black-capped chickadees, Red-breasted nuthatches, Yellow-rumped warblers, and Ruby-crowned kinglets in trees close to my window, I am certain that this group of birds were, at least, the major contingent of the small birds in the upper branches of the perching pine that I saw but could not identify. However, like the time I saw a small yellow bird moving about from branch to branch that could have been a yellow warbler or maybe a goldfinch; its busy behavior, like the busy behavior of most of the small birds that I see there, caused it to be gone before I was able to train optics on it. Uniformly, these small birds forage on the insects that live on the needles and in the bark of the tree. Thus, these birds are not perched so much as they are following a food-gathering lifestyle that occasionally takes them into the perching area of this tall tree. Together, they represent another category, i.e., Gleaners, to go with the five categories of those that perch as listed above.
Raptors perched in the pine for a variety of reasons: the eagles used that post to watch the river and launch attacks on sighted fish; the red-tailed hawks were there to surveil their territory and scream their displeasure at unwelcomed intruders; the kestrels used the pine as a meeting place with their nest mate away from the nest and as a training station for their new fledglings that were learning to fly and hunt. Flycatchers, whether full-time or part-time, were perched on the pine to fly-catch; in typical fly catching fashion, the bird sallied out from its perch, snatched an insect in the air, and then returned to the perch to await the appearance of the next insect. The robin, Black-headed grosbeak, House finch, and Western tanager were at the pine to sing and announce their territorial claims. No doubt, each bird had a more complex set of reasons for being at the perching pine than the reasons I just gave, but my attribution covers the bird’s most apparent purpose.
The variety of species that perched in the tree is noteworthy but it is also interesting that there were a few resident birds that did not perch there. Tree swallows fly through the air space around the Perching Pine all summer long; yet, I never saw one actually perched in the tree. Maybe it is because swallows reserve their perching for times when they are close to their nest cavities and there are no such cavities in or in the proximity of the Perching Pine. Further, those birds that lived close to the ground (i.e., Valley Quail, Spotted Towhee, Juncos, brush-loving sparrows) would not be expected to be seen high up in the top of this tree and they weren’t. Likewise for the skulkers such as the Grey catbird and Yellow-bellied chat, which are never found very far from the brambles and thickets that infested the ravines and creek beds. But ravens are a different matter. Ravens are common in the canyon and their habit is to seek commanding positions for observing their surrounds. Accordingly, they often perch near the tops of the canyon’s tall pines. Yet, I never saw a raven in the Perching Pine. I wonder “Why?”
Except for the occasional flock of cedar waxwings and for the time that four bald eagles perched in the tree simultaneously, birds perched in the pine either alone or as a pair. Of course, they came to the tree only during the time that they were visiting the region. For example, Western kingbirds were seen in the tree only in the days between late May and early August. Their appearance in the tree marked their migratory coming to, temporary residence in, and going from our area. A similar time slot marked the presence of the other flycatchers and of Western Tanagers, Bullock’s Orioles, and Black-headed Grosbeaks. The Osprey’s time was between late April and mid-October. In contrast to these summer birds, bald eagles were seen in the tree during the winter months when they made their annual migratory visit between late November and early March. The other birds on the list were seen at all times of the year.
I have not observed a competition for perching spots in the tree as there seems to be plenty of spots available. However, there is a displacement effect. For instance, I have never seen another bird in the tree if a Cooper’s hawk was there. And, given the animosity that redtails feel for bald eagles, it will never be that a bald eagle and a red-tailed hawk will be in the tree at the same time. Redtails, which often use the tree, do displace the smaller birds but not entirely; sometimes a flicker or a robin came to the tree even though a redtail was present. Kingbirds and kestrels harass perched redtails causing them to move on. Generally, however, the tree is well-shared by many of its users.
I photographed birds in the Perching Pine using my telescope; the pictures shown above were all obtained that way. The telescope was an astronomical viewing device and not designed for terrestrial viewing or photography. Thus, it imposed some technical limitations. One of these was adjusting for the great variation in light that fell on the pine and achieving focus. For a good part of the year, morning was not a good time to photograph because the sun rises behind the tree and the lighting is poor. But in the summer, for about an hour before sunset, the lighting is superb. The tree is illuminated while the canyon behind the tree is in the shadow of the tall ridge across the river. A bird in the tree is lighted while the background is dark. This produces some striking photos as in the photo of the Olive-sided Flycatcher.
The Perching Pine doesn’t tell the whole of nature’s story at the river canyon cabin but, for someone who has learned which pieces it can tell, it provides a fascinating read on the state of the current goings on.
B. Cottonwood Snag in Puget Lowlands
This essay was written in 2023, eight years after writing the essay about the perching pine and two years after Jean and I relocated from the dry inland central basin to live on our daughter’s and son-in-law’s farm in the wet Puget lowlands south of Seattle. There, we found a perching station comparable to the perching pine at our old canyon cabin.
A creek flows through the farm and an old cottonwood tree next to the creek died some years ago. It was in the slow process of decay when a wind storm blew its top off creating a 20-foot tall, blunt snag. Located at the north end of the property and standing alone with no other tall trees in its near vicinity, the blunt snag gives any bird perched there a commanding look out over the entire northern aspect of the pasture and hayfields. Serendipitously, this snag in our new residence, like the perching pine at our former place in the Clearwater canyon, was in direct view from my office window.
The cottonwood snag (center) with its base in waters of beaver pond (left) and with its top showing excavations by woodpeckers (right).
A drone’s eye view from the top of the cottonwood snag showing the bird’s perspective of the farm from the snag and showing my white-framed office window in the red building.
As one might expect, raptors often seek this outlook as a perching spot. A local Red-tailed hawk frequently uses the snag as a hunting perch. Many times, I have seen the redtail launch off the snag and fly to the ground to capture a vole or some other small mammal. These are not high-speed stoops but, rather, controlled approaches to the eventual strike in the grass which can be some distance away from the snag. It is a testament to the acuity of the hawk’s vision that it can see the little gray rodent in the thick, grassy cover at such a distance. Sometimes the hawk flies from the snag to a fence post to reconnoiter up close before making the ground strike.
Red-tailed hawk on cottonwood snag: perusing meadow while perched; leaving perch to capture a vole; eating a vole.
Cooper’s hawks and Sharp-shinned hawks use the snag less often than redtails but they do perch there from time to time. These accipiter hawks have less need for a high-up hunting perch than the redtail because they are more interested in preying on birds in flight rather than on small mammals on the ground. They often perch on fence posts and low branches and often hunt while on the wing. So, I imagine they use the snag as a temporary respite from the vigors of the aerial hunt. As they reset on the snag in preparation for the next aerial foray, they use the vantage from the snag to survey the hunt territory in front of them.
American kestrels are not as common on the farm as the raptors mentioned above but when they do appear in the farm’s air space, they often go to the snag as the most attractive perch in the vicinity. I assume the kestrels use the snag as a hunting perch although I have never seen a kestrel deliver a ground strike from that station.
Coopers hawk and American kestrel perching on cottonwood snag.
Bald eagles are common farm visitors. When they perch in the neighborhood, it is often in one of the tall conifers or cottonwoods that surround the property. But occasionally, an eagle will perch on the cottonwood snag. When an eagle goes to the ground from the snag it is usually to gather nesting material rather than for striking a prey subject; although in one instance, I did see an eagle dismember and eat a small mammal while standing on the broken top of the snag. It is likely that the feeding eagle caught the subject in the near vicinity, maybe, as a result of a strike launched from the snag itself. In fact, eagles have played a role in shaping the snag which is barren of protruding limbs except for one looping overhang that extends out from 2 feet below the snag’s blunt, broken top. Most of the other dead limbs, which were previously sticking out of the bole of the snag, have been broken off by the eagles. Often when an eagle visits the farm in the early spring, it will fly at the snag with sufficient speed that when it strikes a limb with its feet it will hit with enough force to break the limb free from its attachment to the bole. The eagle will then fly off with the broken branch in its talons and carry it to its nest. I have never seen an eagle fail to break off a limb when it attempted to do so but I wonder what would happen to the eagle if the limb didn’t break.
Bald eagles perching and then launching from the perch on the cottonwood snag.
Northern flickers are a second bird that has played a role in shaping the snag - the snag bears scars from several flicker excavations. At least one of the holes on the backside leads into a nesting cavity. Clutches of wood duck ducklings and Hooded merganser ducklings were photographed by the beaver-pond trail camera at the base of the snag. Both wood ducks and hooded mergansers are cavity nesters and it is likely that one or the other nested in the snag. The snag’s location with its base in the waters of the beaver pond and with woodpecker cavities high up on the bole makes the snag the archetype nesting spot for cavity-nesting ducks.
Cavity excavators up near the top of the snag (Northern flickers in the middle) and two cavity-nesting duck species on the beaver pond at the base of the snag (hooded merganser on the left, wood duck on the right).
In the spring, when goose visitations to the farm have transitioned from flocks to pairs, it is not unusual to see one member of a visiting pair perched on the snag while the second member grazes on the grass in the pasture below. One guesses that it is the gander performing lookout duty that stands on the snag while the female goose grazes; the female’s internal egg-making processes at this time of year puts her in greater need for nutrition than the gander. Thus, she has the privilege of grazing while the gander looks out for danger. Canada geese visit the top of the snag in late winter, but in late spring, when they have goslings to mind, they also visit the base of the snag, which is embedded in the waters of the beaver pond.
Gander on lookout on top of snag; goose and gander with goslings at the bottom of snag.
From time to time, any among the multitude of birds found on the farm may be seen perched on the snag. These are occasional perches and not a characteristic habit of the individual birds as are the incidents mentioned above. Like the perching pine in the Clearwater Canyon, ground-oriented birds like juncos, towhees, and brush loving sparrows (song sparrows, white-crowned sparrows, and golden-crowned sparrows) are seldom seen on the top of the snag.
Three species perching on the snag at the same time: Northern flicker; Cedar waxwing; American robin.
Great-blue heron and Violet-green swallows check out the snag for different reasons – the heron seeks a port in the ongoing rain storm; the swallows are looking for a possible nesting site in a woodpecker excavation.
While birds perching on the top of the snag are easily observed, animal life at the base of the snag, which is hidden by the surrounding brush, goes unnoticed. We rely on a trail camera, which is mounted on a stake in the beaver dam, to record the faunal activities that we cannot see. Reviewing these photos reveals that just as much activity occurs at the base of the snag as at the top. Pictures of Mallards and wood ducks on the pond are common. Robins, Cedar waxwings, Song sparrows, House finches, Starlings, Gold finches, and Juncos have all been pictured in the brush and on the limbs sticking out of the beaver dam at the snag’s base.
Common spring-time visitors to the beaver pond at the base of the perching snag: Mallards and Wood ducks.
Unusual avian visitors to the base of the snag in the beaver pond: Barn owl; Virginia rail; Band-tailed pigeon.
Beavers, otters, mink, raccoons, and muskrats, which would never be seen on top of the snag, are often photographed plying the water at the base of the snag. While the otters and mink are seen by the camera during the day, the beavers work to build and maintain their dam primarily at night. I have not taken the time to investigate the amphibian and fish life found in the pond but I suspect that such an examination would reveal some surprising results.
Mammalian denizens of the pond at the base of the snag: beaver; otter; mink.
From top to bottom, the old cottonwood snag is a lively place and one of the farm’s most notable landmarks.
C. Contrast Between Inland Canyon Perching Pine and Puget Lowland Cottonwood Snag
Surprisingly, considering the vast difference in climate and environmental settings, many of the bird species that used these two perching stations were the same: eagles, hawks, flickers, waxwings, robins, starlings, house finches, kestrels, and doves. The principal difference in species at the two locations were the passerine migrants - Bullock’s oriole, Western tanager, Western kingbird, Olive-sided flycatcher, Say’s phoebe, and Bluebird were common at the perching pine but were never seen at the cottonwood snag. Otherwise, there were more species in common at the two locations than there were species that were different.
There were some differences in the way birds used the two perching posts. Perchers on the perching pine often engaged in flycatching; I never saw any flycatching from birds on the cottonwood snag. Red-tailed hawks on the perching pine screamed a lot (mostly at us and the dogs around the cabin) and reconnoitered the area, I did not get the idea that they were hunting. Redtails on the cottonwood snag were there to hunt and I never heard one scream when perched there. Each perching post had a different relation to waterfowl. At the perching pine, I once saw a flock of five geese, in attempting to avoid the notice of a nearby Bald eagle, try to land on the pine’s top-most branches but that was a failed experiment with an unsuccessful outcome; apparently, geese feet cannot grasp branches if they approach on the move. Otherwise, waterfowl had little to do with the perching pine. In contrast as shown above, a gander often stood look-out on the top of the cottonwood snag and ducks often visited the base of the snag. So, the perching pine was a purely terrestrial landscape feature with its top thrust high into canyon air while the cottonwood snag had a semi-aquatic foundation to go along with its aerially positioned top.
Another difference was in the seasonality of perching by Bald eagles. At the Clearwater canyon, Bald eagles used the perching pine in greatest numbers between November and March when the migrant eagle population was in residence. The Clearwater River carried a good run of salmon and steelhead during the winter and these migrant eagles were there for the fish – they had a good view of the river from the perching pine and used it as an observation post from which to spot and then descend on fish in the river. The few resident Bald eagles that lived year-round in the Clearwater canyon perched in the pine on only rare occasion.
But in the Puget lowlands, the primary eagles to perch on the cottonwood snag were resident birds and they chose to visit the perching snag most often from late winter through the spring but just sparingly during the rest of the year. These local birds used the snag for pair-bonding rituals and as a launch for gathering nesting materials from the meadow and surrounding brush. At other times of the year, they often flew low over the farm but only occasionally did they stop to take a perch. This exclusive use of the snag by local birds rather than migrants is surprising because large numbers of Bald eagles migrated to and wintered in the river valleys just north of the farm, i.e., in the Snohomish and Skagit river valleys. These migrant birds stayed close to those rivers because that was where the fish were and winter is when the storied runs of Washington State salmon take place. The closest river to the farm, the Cedar River, is two miles away and out of sight – too far and poorly placed for the snag on the farm to be a station from which eagles could fish.
Eagles conducting pair-bonding exercises in trees adjacent to cottonwood perching snag.
Another interesting comparison is the relationship between activities at the top and bottom of the two perches. From my observations, activity at the top of both perches had little to do with activity at the bottom of each perch. If it was true for both these two very different perches, the dissociation between activities at the top and bottom of a perch may be a general feature for all perches everywhere.
The caveat need be given however that I never directly observed what was going on at the bottom of the perching pine in the canyon like I did with the trail camera photos taken at the base of the cottonwood snag. The reason for not observing activities at the base of the pine is that the tree’s base was anchored on a very steep hillside and was surrounded by brush and young trees. I could not see the base of the tree from any of my points of observation. The base of the perching pine was a difficult place to get to and I seldom went there. However, I did see many of the animals that passed by the base of the tree on the game trails that ran along the canyon side next to the tree. These included: deer, bobcats, turkeys, rabbits, porcupines, and a badger. I once saw a pileated woodpecker working a downed and burnt log near the base of the tree. And Valley quail were numerous and ever present on that hillside. The canyon side and the meadow with the beaver pond constituted dramatically different animal habitats in dramatically different regional environments and attracted different kinds of animal associates. The fauna that I saw at the base of the perching pine was certainly different from the fauna at the base of the cottonwood snag but, like the cottonwood snag, these animals and what they were doing seemed to have no relationship to what was occurring at the tops of the trees which were visited by many of the same species at both places.
D. Contributions of Local Nature-Watching to the Life of the Mind
I started this essay by noting that there were specific sites in my immediate landscape that drew my focused attention. Some of these sites caught my attention because they attracted a nexus of animal activity like the perching pine in the Clearwater canyon and the cottonwood snag in the Puget lowlands. Thus, a description of what was seen at these specific locations gave some insight into the whole of these places. I created these descriptions in the spirit of David Haskell’s book, The Forest Unseen, where he describes nature’s dynamics over a whole year in one square meter of ground in an old-growth, Tennessee forest. The idea was that by giving in-depth attention to a very small piece of the environment, details become revealed that would otherwise be unseen and, through this reveal, enhance one’s understanding and appreciation for the whole environment. Thus, the essence of the inland river canyon and the coastal-dominated Puget lowlands, i.e. their differences and the sameness’s, could be revealed from attention given during all seasons to one small area, i.e., a favored perching post, at each locale.
My essay is too brief and lacks the depth of Haskell’s study of the Tennessee forest but it does focus on a small piece of the environment in two environmental settings and compares what I saw. In so doing, it brought to the fore a variety of general animal behaviors that can be found everywhere and which are often less appreciated when nature observations emphasize mere identification of species. General topics that were touched upon in this essay included:
Migration and animal movement – seasonal appearances of many species at the two locations.
Food gathering – fly catching, hunting small mammals, bird hunting, fishing.
Nesting - woodpecker nest excavation, cavity nesting by ducks and swallows, eagles gathering nesting materials.
Brood care and nurturing – kestrels training fledglings; wood ducks, hooded mergansers, and geese raising broods in pond water under nest cavities.
Competition – one perching bird displacing another.
Territoriality –hawk screaming, robins and Black-headed grosbeaks singing.
In order for me to link a sighted bird to its relevant activity, attention was needed as to what the bird was doing. I had to ask “What is going on? How does this activity relate to what I have seen elsewhere and what I know?” “What is the relationship between this bird and other birds that perch here?” “What is it about this feature of the environment that brings this bird to perch here?” And, so on.
There are some who claim that practicing this kind of mindfulness in nature can lead to clarity of mind and to the promotion of the joy that comes from humility and peacefulness in the human spirit. For me, I only know that that part of the world that immediately surrounds me holds more mystery and surprises, more beauty, and a greater presence than I can possibly comprehend. I do not need to expand my world by travelling to distant and exotic places or by going on a great adventure. I only need to be attentive to what is around me in order to satisfy my curiosity and satisfy my need to be exposed to something new.
Having likened this essay to the mind set of George Haskell in his study of the Tennessee forest, I use a quote from his book to segue into related thoughts contained in a recent NY Times review of an essay by a world-adventurer.
From Haskell’s book:
… the truth of the forest may be more clearly and vividly revealed by the contemplation of a small area than it could be by donning ten-league boots, covering a continent but uncovering little.
From the NY Times:
For more than 20 years, the British adventurer Alastair Humphreys roamed the planet. He rowed across the Atlantic, traversed India on foot, cycled around the world. …. he writes that climate change and familial commitments have caused him to narrow his horizons of late, to seek diversion in his own backyard, “on the fringes of a city in an unassuming landscape, ….”
Humphreys commits to deeply exploring one small segment of his map, to getting intimate with his immediate environment, …. “I hoped to see things I would not ordinarily come across. I decided to treat everything as interesting.”
His journey is quiet, and contemplative, but still riveting, even in the absence of any drama.
Some might argue that the locations I chose to give attention to were not ordinary in the sense of Haskell’s random piece of forest floor or Humphreys’ unassuming city outskirts. I would claim otherwise. My locations became extraordinary only after I made them so in my own mind. Otherwise, they were just elements of the landscape; they stood out only because of the attention I devoted to them. Such attention could have been given to any of many other landscape elements and the reveals that resulted would have been just as interesting. The world we live in is no more than what we make of it. Or, in the words of Thoreau: “It matters not where or how far you travel — the farther commonly the worse — but how much alive you are.”
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