WETLAND WILDLIFE WATCH 2015 REPORT

Charlotte Corkran

Northwest Ecological Research Institute

NERI Report #15-05

Even though Wetland Wildlife Watch (WWW) was not funded in 2015 and is no longer an official program of the Mt. Hood National Forest (MHNF), the project continued as a program of the Northwest Ecological Research Institute. During the year 11 volunteers contributed 392 hours of monitoring wildlife and nest boxes on the MHNF. Of these volunteers, 7 women and 3 men were aged 55 and older and 1 woman was aged 21 to 55. All of the volunteers were Caucasian Americans. In addition, we contributed approximately 10 hours entering this year’s data into two Access databases for transfer to the MHNF, and approximately 4 hours entering all bird data from the project into Cornell Ornithology Lab’s eBird online database. During 2015, I did not do any more work on entering data from previous years into the eBird database.

This year, a lot of effort was expended in monitoring birds in central Oregon and Pikas in the Columbia River Gorge, rather than the usual wildlife monitoring on the MHNF. This year at Camas Prairie we found a total of 51 Oregon Spotted Frog egg masses. It is difficult to find either tadpoles or frogs even in a good water year, but the meadow dried up so quickly that no tadpoles or metamorphs were seen. I was not able to do much monitoring of the other amphibian sites. Long-time volunteers Bev LaBelle and Gayle Joiner monitored nest boxes at Fryingpan Lake and Salmon River Meadows, and worked with me on the boxes at Timothy Lake, Camas Prairie, and Keeps Mill Seed Orchard. The smaller nest boxes continue to produce many broods of Tree Swallows, but also a few broods of Western Bluebirds, House Wrens, Mountain and Chestnut-backed Chickadees, as well as providing breeding sites for Northern Flying Squirrels. The larger boxes that were designed for cavity-nesting ducks and owls are notoften used by birds, except at Fryingpan Lake. This year, there was one fledged Hooded Merganser nest and one abandoned Barrow’s Goldeneye nest at Fryingpan Lake.Mostly the large boxes are used for fall andwinter nests of Northern Flying Squirrels,and an occasional roosting site for a molting Red-shafted Flicker (one this year).We did not do anything with dragonfly or butterfly watching this year.

Below is a list of all the species identified by WWW volunteers on the MHNF in 2015. More specific data including dates and locations for the sensitive species (highlighted) and watch list (*) bird and mammal species are in the WWW Access database. All amphibian and reptile data are in the Herpsightings Access database. These sightings from 2015 have been put into Excel spreadsheets and sent with this report.

BIRDS111 native species

Canada Goose

Mallard

Northern Shoveler

Green-winged Teal

Cinnamon Teal

Ring-necked Duck

Lesser / Greater Scaup

Bufflehead

*Barrow’s Goldeneye

Hooded Merganser

Common Merganser

Ruffed Grouse

*Sooty Grouse

*Mountain Quail

California Quail

*Common Loon

Pied-billed Grebe

Eared Grebe

Western Grebe

Turkey Vulture

*Osprey

Bald Eagle

Sharp-shinned Hawk

*Cooper’s Hawk

*Northern Goshawk

Red-tailed Hawk

Merlin

*Greater Sandhill Crane

Killdeer

Spotted Sandpiper

Wilson’s Snipe

California Gull

Caspian Tern (probable)

Band-tailed Pigeon

Northern Pygmy-Owl

Barred Owl

Common Nighthawk

*Common Poorwill

Vaux's Swift

*Rufous Hummingbird

Belted Kingfisher

*Williamson’s Sapsucker

Red-naped Sapsucker (probable)

Red-breasted Sapsucker

Hairy Woodpecker

*Black-backed Woodpecker

Northern Flicker

Pileated Woodpecker

*Olive-sided Flycatcher

Western Wood-Pewee

*Willow Flycatcher

Hammond’s Flycatcher

*Dusky Flycatcher

Pacific-slope Flycatcher

Cassin’s Vireo

Hutton’s Vireo

Warbling Vireo

Gray Jay

Steller's Jay

Clark’s Nutcracker

American Crow

Common Raven

Tree Swallow

Violet-green Swallow

Cliff Swallow

Barn Swallow

Mountain Chickadee

Chestnut-backed Chickadee

Red-breasted Nuthatch

White-breasted Nuthatch

Brown Creeper

House Wren

Pacific Wren

American Dipper

*Golden-crowned Kinglet

Ruby-crowned Kinglet

Western Bluebird

Mountain Bluebird

Townsend’s Solitaire

Swainson's Thrush

Hermit Thrush

American Robin

Varied Thrush

American Pipit

Yellow-rumped Warbler (Audubon’s)

Yellow-rumped Warbler (Myrtle)

Black-throat. Gray Warbler

Townsend’s Warbler

Hermit Warbler

McGillivray’s Warbler

Common Yellowthroat

Wilson’s Warbler

Western Tanager

Chipping Sparrow

Savannah Sparrow

Song Sparrow

Lincoln's Sparrow

White-crowned Sparrow

Golden-crowned Sparrow

Dark-eyed (Oregon) Junco

Black-headed Grosbeak

Lazuli Bunting

Red-winged Blackbird

Western Meadowlark

Brewer’s Blackbird

Brown-headed Cowbird

* Gray-crowned Rosy-Finch

*Purple Finch

Red Crossbill

Pine Siskin

Evening Grosbeak

MAMMALS 14 species

*Pika

Snowshoe Hare

Townsend’s Chipmunk

Western Gray Squirrel

Douglas’ Squirrel

Northern Flying Squirrel

American Beaver

Coyote

American Black Bear

River Otter

Bobcat

Cougar

Elk

Black-tailed Deer

REPTILES3 species

Western Fence Lizard

Northwestern Garter Snake

Common Garter Snake

AMPHIBIANS11 native species

Northwestern Salamander

Long-toed Salamander

Rough-skinned Newt

*Cascade Torrent Salamander

*Cope’s Giant Salamander

Pacific Giant Salamander

Coastal Tailed Frog

Western Toad

Pacific Treefrog (Chorusfrog)

*Cascades Frog

Oregon Spotted Frog

[American Bullfrog - I.]

INVERTEBRATES

DRAGONFLIES 3 species

Boreal (or Northern) Bluet

Paddle-tailed Darner

Striped Meadowhawk

BUTTERFLIES 5 species

Propertius Duskywing

Skipper sp.

Pale Tiger Swallowtail

Margined White

California Tortoiseshell

Mourning Cloak