Heading south for winter, more birds are choosing the Pacific Northwest

Posted on October 7, 2022 by Stephen Carr Hampton

Many papers predict that bird ranges will shift northward with a warming climate (Wu et al 2018, Langham et al 2015).

Many studies have already documented that this is happening (Illán et al. 2014, Virkkala, R. and A. Lehikoinen 2014, Hitch and Leberg 2007, and La Sorte and Thompson 2007).

And some have documented poleward range shifts specifically for wintering ranges (Saunders et al 2022, Hampton 2019, Paprocki et al 2017, Prince and Zuckerberg 2016, and Paprocki et al 2014).

I’ve previously written about an increase in insectivore bird species in winter associated with a warming climate in the Sacramento Valley. As the Putah Creek Christmas Bird Count (CBC) compiler, it was hard not to notice the trends. Cassin’s Vireo, Black-throated Gray and Townsend’s Warblers, and Western Tanagers were becoming more expected in winter. We had crossed a threshold; we didn’t get freezes anymore. My bougainvillea and cape honeysuckle, which previously clung to life in winter, were now growing and blooming year-round. Fruit and insects were available to these birds.

Now in Port Townsend, Washington, we set a local CBC record for Yellow-rumped Warblers last year. This caused me to take a closer look at the data, focusing on Passerines that are rare or uncommon, and at the northern edge of their wintering range. They are: Hermit Thrush, Cedar Waxwing, Lincoln’s Sparrow, White-crowned Sparrow, Orange-crowned Warbler, and Yellow-rumped Warbler. For each of these, the PNW is at the northern limits of their wintering range.

I looked at their numbers and trends on the Portland, Olympia, Seattle, Bellingham, and Vancouver BC CBCs since the 76^th CBC (winter 1975-76). I’ve got more notes on my methodology at the end.

Results

All have increased since 1975, generally with the uptick beginning in the 1990s. Here are the results of my inquiry.

The range maps are from eBird’s Abundance Maps. Red=summer; blue=winter; purple=year-round; yellow=migration. The graphs show the birds per party hour across the five CBCs, taking the total number of birds and dividing by the total number of hours across all five counts.

Hermit Thrush

Hermit Thrush has been increasing at a rate of 4.2% per year across all the CBCs. It has been increasing across all five of the counts, most strongly in Vancouver (4.1% annual growth) and most tepid in Seattle (0.6%). It is most common on the Portland count, which has averaged 26 Hermit Thrushes per count since 2009.

Cedar Waxwing

Of the six species I focused on, Cedar Waxwing showed some of the most erratic growth, averaging only 2.5% per year. That said, it has been above average 8 of the last 9 years. To illustrate the unpredictable nature of waxwings, they have actually been declining on the Olympia (-2.3%/yr) and Vancouver (-4.1%/yr) counts. They are increasing the most on the Portland count (3.0%/yr).

Lincoln’s Sparrow

Lincoln’s Sparrow has been increasing steadily, from near zero, at an overall rate of 3.6% per year. To put this in perspective, these five CBCs tallied 5 or fewer individuals, summed across all counts, in each of the first five years of this analysis. In each of the last five years, these counts, in aggregate, tallied between 34 and 52 individuals. Growth has been strongest on the Olympia count (4.6%/yr) and weakest on the Bellingham count (1.7%/yr).

White-crowned Sparrow

Despite the eBird map, White-crowned Sparrow is a regular overwintering species in the PNW. The five counts, in aggregate, tally between 100 and 750 individuals each year. They’ve been increasing at a rate of 1.8% per year, strongest in Seattle (3.1%/yr) and weakest in Vancouver (-2.5%/yr, the only count with declining numbers).

Orange-crowned Warbler

Orange-crowned Warbler has seen dramatic increases, averaging 5.0% per year, highest in Olympia (7.2%/yr) and lowest in Bellingham (3.2%/yr). The numbers, however, are still small. Aggregate numbers across all counts were zero five of the first eleven years of this analysis (easily seen on the graph). Double digits were not reached until 1999. The last ten years, however, have averaged 15 individuals across all the counts, making this an expected species in winter now.

Yellow-rumped Warbler

Yellow-rumped Warbler wins the award for poster child of species increasing in winter at the northern edge of their wintering range. They’ve been increasing at a rate of 5.3% per year. Interestingly, this growth is concentrated in the south. Portland (3.7%/yr), Olympia (3.4%/yr), and Seattle (6.1%/yr) have seen the most growth, while Bellingham (-0.5%) and Vancouver (-5.0%) have seen declines. Perhaps those Fraser River winds are too cold for warblers.

Methodology

The data includes bird per party hour for the Portland, Olympia, Seattle, Bellingham, and Vancouver BC Christmas Bird Counts from the 75^th count (winter 1975-76) to the 120^th count (winter 2019-20). The 121^st count was impacted by the pandemic.

CBC (and Breeding Bird Survey) data is uniquely advantageous for looking at long-term trends such as climate change, as they both go back many decades with generally similar effort over time (for certain well-established counts). Nevertheless, there were some issues with this data:

I did not use the Portland data from the 76^th thru the 82^nd count, due to aberrantly low party hours relative to later counts.
The following data was missing entirely from the Audubon CBC database: Olympia 76^th, 77^th, 78^th, 84^th, 104^th, and 110^th counts; and Seattle 91^st count.
The following counts had no (or obviously incorrect) data for party hours: Portland 104^th count; Bellingham 111^th, 112^th, and 119^th counts. Because they did have bird numbers, I approximated the party hours based on their counts in nearby years. I used 230 party hours for the Portland count and 200 party hours for the Bellingham counts.

Other climate-related bird changes in the Pacific Northwest

I’ve previously blogged about climate change and birds in the Pacific Northwest:

The invasion of the Pacific Northwest: California’s birds expand north with warmer winters looks at northward range expansions of Great Egret, Turkey Vulture, Red-shouldered Hawk, Anna’s Hummingbird, Black Phoebe, Townsend’s Warbler, and California Scrub-Jay, with some discussion of others as well. Note that Townsend’s Warbler, as a migrant that winters rarely in the PNW, fits with the group of birds described in this post.

The song of the Lesser Goldfinch: Another harbinger of a warming climate looks at increasing records in the PNW in summer.

Mapping the expansion of the California Scrub-Jay into the Pacific Northwest looks at the steady range expansion of this non-migratory species.

References

Hampton, S. 2019. Avian responses to rapid climate change: Examples from the Putah Creek Christmas Bird Count. Central Valley Birds 22(4): 77-89.

Hitch and Leberg. 2007. Breeding distributions of North American bird species moving north as a result of climate change. Conservation Biology 21(2): 534-9.

Illán et al. 2014. Precipitation and winter temperature predict long-term range-scale abundance changes in Western North American birds. Global Change Biology, 20 (11), 3351–3364.

Langham et al 2015. Conservation status of North American birds in the face of future climate change. PLoS ONE 10(9): e0135350.

La Sorte, F.A., and F.R. Thompson III. 2007. Poleward shifts in winter ranges of North American birds. Ecology 88(7):1803–1812.

Paprocki et al. 2014. Regional Distribution Shifts Help Explain Local Changes in Wintering Raptor Abundance: Implications for Interpreting Population Trends. PLoS ONE 9(1): e86814.

Paprocki et al. 2017. Combining migration and wintering counts to enhance understanding of population change in a generalist raptor species, the North American Red-tailed Hawk. The Condor, 119 (1): 98–107.

Prince, K. and B. Zuckerberg. 2016. Climate change in our backyards: the reshuffling of North America’s winter bird communities. Global Change Biology 21(2): 572-585.

Saunders et al. 2022. Unraveling a century of global change impacts on winter bird distributions in the eastern United States. Global Change Biology

Virkkala, R. and A. Lehikoinen 2014. Patterns of climate-induced density shifts of species: poleward shifts faster in northern boreal birds than in southern birds. Global Change Biology 20: 2995–3003.

Wu et al. 2018. Projected avifaunal responses to climate change across the U.S. National Park System. PLOS ONE 13(3): e0190557.

I try to maintain an updated list of references at the Birds and Climate Change Facebook group. At that page, click on Files to find the list.

Eastern Towhee: Can the white-eyed subspecies survive even 1.5C climate change?

Posted on May 30, 2022 by Stephen Carr Hampton

Pale-eyed and red-eyed forms diverged approximately 18,000 years ago.
Photo by Melissa James/Macauley Library.

eBird abundance map for Eastern Towhee. It is resident in the southeast, but expands north in summer.

The Eastern Towhee, a bird of scrub and thickets, is a common resident in the southeast United States. One subspecies migrates north in summer.

They are a prime example of a species that is considered “Least Concern” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), but “High Risk” in National Audubon’s assessment of birds under climate change. In their 3.0 C scenario, they predict it would lose 83% of its current breeding range, while gaining only 23%.

This is National Audubon’s projection for the Eastern Towhee’s breeding range under just a 1.5C scenario. This would spell extinction for the white-eyed birds of Florida and the deep South.

Their winter range is not anticipated to change much.

These projections are consistent with recent literature showing poleward shifts of species ranges– of the northern edge of their range, of the southern edge, and of their range’s geographic center. The predictions for Eastern Towhee are among the most dramatic.

Recent research also suggests that non-migratory and short-distance migrants are more adaptable to climate change than are long-distance migrants, and more able to shift their ranges. Indeed, we are already seeing that with Eastern Towhee. The Audubon projections appear to be in progress.

Based on Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) data, the Eastern Towhee breeding population in Florida has declined over 50% since the late 1990s. The timing of this is consistent with worldwide ecological shifts which began in the mid-1980s.

The white-eyed subspecies appears to be already in trouble. eBirders in Florida in May and June are encountering the species half as often as they were just six years earlier.

eBird data from Florida, focusing on frequency of lists reporting the species during the May-June period, shows that the maximum frequency has fallen from 18.3% in 2015 to 8.6% in 2021.

Not all range shifts are due to climate. As a scrub specialist, the Eastern Towhee prefers habitat that is in the act of regrowth, such as after a fire or being cleared. But they don’t want a forest either. To quote the Birds of the World species account for Eastern Towhee: “As farmland is abandoned, successional changes produce suitable midseral habitats that towhees favor, and their numbers increase. But, successional time is against towhees, and their numbers decrease as seres age.” That may be the explanation for the Georgia data (orange dots), which show a decline in the late 60s and early 70s, possibly due to forest growth or land clearance for development, and then a leveling off.

As the climate warms, many species are expanding north and/or declining in the southern part of their range. But these need not happen simultaneously. Opportunities for suitable habitat may open doors in the north, and doors may close in the south, at different times. There is evidence of Eastern Towhee expansion in Minnesota, but look at the vertical axis; it does not compare with the losses in Florida.

In Florida, the white-eyed subspecies faces extinction based on National Audubon’s 1.5C scenario. They appear to have declined dramatically in the past two decades.

Photo from National Audubon website that provides range change projections under 1.5C, 2.0C, and 3.0C scenarios.

For more on climate change impacts on birds, I invite you to join the Birds and Climate Change Facebook group.

Carolina Wren + Climate Change vs the Polar Vortex

Posted on January 3, 2022 by Stephen Carr Hampton

Like so many species, the Carolina Wren is expanding northward. And, like many of those species, this expansion started decades ago, before any measurable climate change, but has exploded in the past decades with climate change.

This phenomenon is most obvious – and even dramatic – among non-migratory species and short-distance migrants. The same thing is happening in the West (e.g. Anna’s Hummingbird, Turkey Vulture, Red-shouldered Hawk, Great Egret, California Scrub-Jay, Black Phoebe, Townsend’s Warbler, and others).

The Carolina Wren has been expanding north since the 1800s due to habitat recovery after deforestation (Haggerty and Morton, 2020 – the Birds of North America (BNA) species account). What makes the recent Carolina Wren data so interesting is that we can clearly see, in its expansion into Canada, its battle with winter weather conditions.

The raw number of Carolina Wrens reported on Christmas Bird Counts in Canada. Over 95% of these come from southern Ontario. The cold waves marked on the graph were particularly record-breaking and long-lasting.

The species is known for “decimation… by severe winter conditions” (BNA) at the northern limits of its range. The same account notes that “severe winters have apparently been infrequent enough during the 20^th century to allow populations to expand and move northward.” Indeed, one of the key conclusions of an analysis of climate change in southern Ontario was that there has been “a decrease in the frequency of cold temperature extremes”. While the wren is aided against cold snaps by bird feeders, the climate trend, at least in Canada, is in its favor. The report noted an overall average increase of 1.5C.

eBird abundance map. The Carolina Wren has primarily been a species of edge habitat associated with moist southern forests.

As the wren expanded, certain record-breaking and persistent cold waves knocked the population back, where it restarted. It’s also clear that it is restarting from a higher position each time, thus building its numbers and continuing its expansion.

The cold snaps denoted on the graph were particularly severe in southern Ontario. A more detailed look at weather data may reveal a more complicated pattern and even greater correlation to warmer winters.

Predicted range changes for Carolina Wren by National Audubon under 1.5C scenario. This map is fairly accurate as the bird continues to colonize the St. Lawrence River corridor.

eBird map for December 2021 showing colonization from Toronto to Ottawa and Montreal and nearly to Quebec City.

A Carolina Wren fluffed up against the cold. Pic from National Audubon website.

Mapping the expansion of the California Scrub-Jay into the Pacific Northwest

Posted on October 28, 2021 by Stephen Carr Hampton

This blog post is merely to provide a visual illustration, by way of a map, of the expansion of the California Scrub-Jay across Washington, British Columbia, eastern Oregon, Idaho, and even Montana (one record so far). It is intended to complement my more detailed article, “Tracking Expansion of the California Scrub-Jay Into the Pacific Northwest”, in the Washington Ornithological Society (WOS) News, August-September 2021 edition.

California Scrub-Jays are often first detected at bird feeders in suburban areas. As aggressive nest predators, jays should not be subsidized by anthropogenic food sources. In short, please don’t feed the corvids. Port Townsend, WA. April 2021.

As becomes clear in the article, these are not hard lines. The jays are advancing gradually, not in a solid wave. Typically, a single jay will appear well outside the known range (e.g. Spokane). Within a year or two, there will be several. Then they’ll be breeding. Then they will begin expanding further. Meanwhile, a wave of jays will be backfilling the new territory, with densities increasing annually. The lines in this map are as much art as science, but are intended to show the primary region were jays were “regular and expected”. There were always outliers, pioneer dispersers expanding the range. Records beyond the 2020 line are shown as pale blue dots.

CLICK MAP TO ENLARGE

The expansion of the California Scrub-Jay mimics that of several other species, mostly non-migratory or short-distance migrants, rapidly expanding from California and Oregon into the Pacific Northwest.

The jay’s expansion has already surpassed that predicted by the Audubon Society’s climate model under a 3.0 degree Celsius scenario, shown here.

The jay’s expansion, when considered in the context of timing and trends in other species, is likely a function of a warming climate combined with suitable food sources. For more discussion of this, see the WOS article linked above.

They seem to be particularly taking advantage of warmer winters in the lower Columbia River Basin.

It will be interesting to see where the 2030 scrub-jay “contour line” will be. I predict they’ll be on Vancouver Island from Victoria to Campbell River, as well as up the Sunshine Coast, up the Okanagan Valley to Kelowna and possibly Kamloops, and east to Idaho, from Coeur d’Alene in the north throughout the Snake River Valley in the south.

After that, they face some formidable hurdles. The biggest obstacles to their expansion further north and east will be habitat with limited food sources (e.g. high mountains). That said, they’ve already shown some ability to travel up mountain valleys and potentially cross the Cascades north of Mount Rainier.

Like most corvids, California Scrub-Jays are big time cachers, storing extra food for future use. I took this photo in southern California, October 2017, when a family of jays were repeatedly stripping an oak, two acorns at a time, flying over a nearby ridge to cache them, and then returning again and again throughout the morning.

The invasion of the Pacific Northwest: California’s birds expand north with warmer winters

Posted on March 9, 2020 by Stephen Carr Hampton

Birds, because of their mobility, are considered to be fairly adaptable to climate change. They evolved in the aftermath of two of the world’s most catastrophic warming events (the K-T extinction and the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum), spreading to the Arctic, crossing continents, and evolving along the way. While those warming events took place over tens of thousands of years, the current warming is happening in the space of a couple hundred, with noticeable changes in climate within the lifespan of a single bird.

There will be winners and losers. Generalists, and species that enjoy warmer weather, are likely to be winners. Those with narrow food or habitat requirements, especially those dependent on the ocean or the Arctic/Antarctic, will likely be losers. Although counter-intuitive, it is primarily non-migratory resident species that seem to be more adaptable to a changing climate.

Recent studies

Studies of climate impacts on western North American birds using past data are limited, but some focusing on California were recently published. Iknayan and Beissinger (2018) showed that, over the last 50 years, “bird communities in the Mojave Desert have collapsed to a new, lower baseline” due to climate change, with significant declines in 39 species. Only Common Raven has increased. Furnas (2020) examined data from northern California’s mountains, showing that some species have shifted their breeding areas upslope in recent years. Hampton (myself) (2020) showed increases in many insectivores, both residents and migrants (from House Wrens to Western Tanagers), in winter in part of the Sacramento Valley over the last 45 years. These changes, particularly range shifting north and out of Southwest deserts, is predicted for a wide number of species.

The invasion of the Pacific Northwest

Here I use Christmas Bird Count (CBC) data to illustrate that some of California’s most common resident birds have expanded their ranges hundreds of miles north into Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia in recent years. The increases are dramatic, highly correlated with each other across a wide range of species, and coincide with rapid climate change. They illustrate the ability of some species to respond in real time.

In parts of Oregon and Washington, it is now not unusual to encounter Great Egret, Turkey Vulture, Red-shouldered Hawk, Anna’s Hummingbird, Black Phoebe, and California Scrub-Jay on a single morning—in winter. A few decades ago, this would have been unimaginable. Some short-distance migrants, such as Townsend’s Warbler, are also spending the winter in the Pacific Northwest in larger numbers.

The following graphs, showing the total number of individuals of each species seen on all CBCs in Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, and (in one case) Alaska, illustrate the range expansions. Adjusting for party hours scarcely changes the graphs; thus, actual numbers of individuals are shown to better illustrate the degree of change. The graphs are accompanied by maps showing predicted range expansions by the National Audubon Society, and recent winter observations (Dec-Feb) from eBird for 2015-2020.

These range expansions were predicted, though in some cases the recent trends exceed even projected scenarios under 3.0C increases in temperature.

Let’s begin with the climate. Canada as a whole has experienced 3.0C in temperature increases in winter. British Columbia has experienced an average of 3.7C increase in Dec-Feb temperatures since 1948. The greatest increases have been in the far north; increases in southern British Columbia, Washington and Oregon have been closer to 1.5C.

Average nationwide winter temperatures deviation from average.

Great Egret

Great Egrets on Oregon CBCs have increased from near zero to nearly 900 on the 119^th count (December 2018 – January 2019).

CLICK ON GRAPHS TO ENLARGE

But their expansion, which took off in the early 1990s into Oregon, is now continuing in Washington, with a significant rise beginning in the mid-2000s. Great Egrets occur regularly in southern British Columbia, but so far have eluded all CBCs.

They have not quite fulfilled the full range predicted for a 1.5C increase, but are quickly on their way there.

Turkey Vulture

Turkey Vultures began increasing dramatically in winter in the Sacramento Valley of California in the mid-1980s, correlated with warmer winters and a decrease in fog. Prior to that, they were absent. Now, over 300 are counted on some CBCs. That pattern has been repeated in the Pacific Northwest, though about 20 years later. Both Oregon and British Columbia can now expect 100 Turkey Vultures on their CBCs. Curiously, Puget Sound is apparently still too cloudy for them, who prefer clear skies for soaring, though small numbers are regular in winter on the Columbia Plateau.

Red-shouldered Hawk

Red-shouldered Hawks have increased from zero to over 250 inviduals on Oregon CBCs, taking off in the mid-1990s.

Twenty years later, they began their surge into Washington. It’s a matter of time before the first one is recorded on a British Columbia CBC.

While their expansion in western Washington is less than predicted, their expansion on the east slope, in both Oregon and Washington, is greater than predicted. This latter unanticipated expansion into the drier, colder regions of the Columbia Plateau is occurring with several species.

Anna’s Hummingbird

If this invasion has a poster child, it’s the Anna’s Hummingbird, which, in the last 20 years, have become a common feature of the winter birdlife of the Pacific Northwest. Their numbers are still increasing. While much has been written about their affiliation to human habitation with hummingbird feeders and flowering ornamentals, the timing of their expansion is consistent with climate change and shows no sign of abating. Anna’s Hummingbirds are not expanding similarly in the southern portions of their range. The sudden rate of expansion, which is evidenced in most of the species shown here, exceeds the temperature increases, suggesting thresholds are being crossed and new opportunities rapidly filled.

The expansion of the Anna’s Hummingbird has now reached Alaska, where they can be found reliably in winter in ever-increasing numbers.

The range expansion of the Anna’s Hummingbird has vastly outpaced even predictions under 3.0C. In addition to extensive inland spread into central Oregon and eastern Washington, they now occur across the Gulf of Alaska to Kodiak Island in winter.

Black Phoebe

Non-migratory insectivores seem to be among the most prevalent species pushing north with warmer winters. The Black Phoebe fits that description perfectly. Oregon has seen an increase from zero to over 500 individuals on their CBCs.

With the same 20-year lag of the Red-shouldered Hawk, the Black Phoebe began its invasion of Washington.

The figure below illustrates two different climate change predictions, using 1.5C and 3.0C warming scenarios. While nearly a third of the Pacific Northwest’s Black Phoebes are in a few locations in southwest Oregon, they are increasingly populating the areas predicted under the 3.0C scenario.

Townsend’s Warbler

Migrant species tend not to show the dramatic range expansions of more resident species – and short-distance migrants show more range changes than do long-distance migrants. Townsend’s Warblers, which winter in large numbers in southern Mexico and Central America, also winter along the California coast. Increasingly, they are over-wintering in Oregon and, to a lesser degree, Washington. This mirrors evidence from northern California, where House Wren, Cassin’s Vireo, and Western Tanager are over-wintering in increasing numbers. These may be next for Oregon.

Townsend’s Warblers are already filling much of the map under the 1.5C warming scenario, though their numbers on CBCs in Washington and British Columbia have yet to take off.

California Scrub-Jay

Due to problems with CBC data-availability, I have no graph for the California Scrub-Jay. Their northward expansion is similar to many of the species above. Their numbers on Washington CBCs have increased from less than 100 in 1998 to 1,125 on the 2018-19 count. eBird data shows they have filled the range predicted under the 3.0C scenario and then some, expanding into eastern Oregon, the Columbia Plateau, and even Idaho.

Other species

Other species which can be expected to follow these trends include Northern Mockingbird and Lesser Goldfinch. (See more on the expansion of the Lesser Goldfinch here.) White-tailed Kite showed a marked increased in the mid-1990s before retracting, which seems to be part of a range-wide decline in the past two decades, perhaps related to other factors.

Curiously, three of the Northwest’s most common resident insectivores, Hutton’s Vireo, Bushtit, and Bewick’s Wren, already established in much of the range shown on the maps above, show little sign of northward expansion or increase within these ranges. The wren is moving up the Okanogan River, and the vireo just began making forays onto the Columbia Plateau. Both of these expansions are predicted.

Likewise, some of California’s oak-dependent species, which would otherwise meet the criteria of resident insectivores (e.g. Oak Titmouse), show little sign of expansion. Oaks are slow-growing trees, which probably limits their ability to move north quickly. Similarly, the Wrentit remains constrained by a barrier it cannot cross—the Columbia River.

Call it the invasion of the Northwest. Call it Californication. Call it climate change or global warming. Regardless, the birds of California are moving north, as predicted and, in some cases, more dramatically than predicted.

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