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Birders spot rare Eurasian wigeon Photo by Jim Craven A Eurasian wigeon swims in a pond on the Veterans Affairs Domiciliary's golf course in White City. An occasional visitor to the Rogue Valley, the Eurasian wigeon is a relatively rare sight here. By BILL VARBLE Mail Tribune "Beautiful," says Bonnie Bayard of Medford, one the birders Tom Phillips is leading this blustery March Saturday. Bayard describes herself as "an excitable novice." The group birds TouVelle Park, parts of the Denman wildlife refuges and other "birdy" spots. In a day with nesting great blue herons and what was for most the first osprey of the season, the wigeon are a highlight. "There didn't used to be so many," Phillips says. The visitors from the far north swim among their American wigeon cousins, picking food from the surface of the pond, then going ashore to graze like geese in the grass. You can tell the males by their deep red heads, pink breasts and pale gray sides. They have a buffy stripe running down their foreheads, in contrast to the American wigeon's white forehead stripe. Eurasian wigeon are widespread in Europe and Asia. Although not common in North America, they occur regularly, sometimes even hybridizing with American wigeon. In the Rogue Valley they are considered rare, but regular, from November to April. The morning began with Phillips pointing out a granary tree in TouVelle Park, a big ponderosa pine where acorn woodpeckers store acorns to have a private larder during the winter. The birds chisel a hole to fit each acorn they collect. The tree has an estimated 30,000 acorn holes. Eileen Adee of Medford sees a woodpecker fly into the tree with a raucous RACK-a RACK-a RACK-a. The 9-inch bird with the yellow throat, red cap and clownish face is hard to miss. The woodpecker's social system is based on an extended family of about 15 members in which young adults help feed the young birds, Phillips says. "One or two birds can't guard that many acorns," he says. As if in dissent, a belted kingfisher flying overhead emits a harsh rattle. Cavity nesters thrive here in the oak woodlands, a habitat that has shrunk with the spread of human habitation. Phillips points out holes excavated in Oregon white oaks by sapsuckers, who dine both on sap and the bugs it collects. There's the call of an oak titmouse. Tree swallows and a violet-green swallow dart back and forth snatching bugs from the air. In the middle of the river is a raft of common mergansers, fish-eating divers with serrated bills for gripping fish. No greater yellowlegs today, a bird Phillips was looking for. "I still haven't seen a snipe," Adee says in mock complaint. "I think they're mythical." The nasal call of a white-breasted nuthatch leads to the bird itself, working its way down and around an oak in search of bugs. A smaller red-breasted nuthatch does the same in a nearby tree. As if to not abandon the field to the downward-creeping nuthatches, a brown creeper works its way up a nearby tree in a reversal of the nuthatch's strategy. The birds find different bugs in the bark because of their different angles and thus don't directly compete, although they would appear to. "I'm sure they bump heads occasionally," Phillips jokes. A song sparrow sings. Pacific tree frogs call. Above a ridge in the Denman wildlife refuge, a white-tailed kite soars. Suddenly a second kite appears and dives at the first, buzzing it in a near miss. Lee Hayes wants to know if there are yellow-headed blackbirds here. "Oh yeah," Phillips says. The species is a candidate for the title of bird with the worst song. Its song is harsh and unmelodious: clacking followed by a chainsaw-like wail. Near the parking lot are golden-crowned sparrows, an oak titmouse, a northern flicker. Across the river is a great blue heron rookery. Herons nest as early as February. Young herons may fledge in another three weeks. By that time, many more migrants will have returned, and a timeless cycle will begin anew. Reach reporter Bill Varble at 776-4478 or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.