Birders visit Camp Sherman

Birders from the Canadian border to San Diego came to Camp Sherman last weekend to hunt for 11 species of woodpeckers.

Birders kept checklists of all bird species that were seen along the trail. These lists, also used to provide valuable information for the Forest Service for post-fire monitoring, kept the birders on track.

With the additional sponsorship of the East Cascade Bird Conservancy and the Forest Service, Paradise Birding presented the Woodpecker Wonderland Festival. Guided field trips were offered all three days of the event, June 6-8. Music, lunches and a dinner with keynote speaker Nancy Tanner were among the activities.

Why does Camp Sherman host so many species of woodpeckers? Basically, it's the rain. The Metolius Basin has 120 inches of rain a year whereas Sisters, just 15 miles away, has only 12.

The rainfall makes for an inviting home for the birds.

We also have fire here and woodpeckers depend on it. Most of the Sisters Ranger District has burned between 2001 and 2007. Some woodpeckers thrive in the softer wood of dead or dying trees, especially newly dead trees.

In controlled burns, generally the understory of a tree burns; the upper tree thrives. Birds such as the White-headed Woodpecker like trees with less burn. They depend on pinecones in winter and probe and glean into bark at other times of the year. The first three to four years after a burn are critical because the larvae the birds feed on take three years to hatch.

Pileated's don't do well in a heavily burned forest as they eat a lot of carpenter ants, and carpenter ants thrive in rotten timber. Pileated numbers decreased considerably in the early 1900s with the loss of their habitat, but they are gradually increasing in number.

Hairy Woodpeckers are more prevalent west of the Rockies and Downy Woodpeckers east of the Rockies. This did not prevent dozens of birders from reporting Downy sightings as checklists were reviewed at the end of the day. Nothing compares to watching a Downy fly from tree to nest with grubs for a baby Downy.

Guides explained why, based on habitat, different birds were seen in different areas. A favorite sighting from the field trip was Lewis's Woodpecker named after Meriwether Lewis who discovered it. Lewis's Woodpecker is the only remaining intact specimen from the trip. The varied colors, which could easily nominate it for the Coat of Many Colors award, make it unique among woodpeckers.

East Cascade Bird Conservancy has put up 20 bird boxes for Lewis's Woodpeckers outside Bend to replace some of their lost habitat.

Veteran birders advise the new birder to take it slow. Learn one thing at a time and gradually you will be able to tell one bird from the other and recognize key differences. Difference in the underbelly, beak, different markings on the head, size, wing tip coloring, all will gradually stand out.