Birds of a Feather

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Gayle Mitchell Stokes of Jacksonville submitted this photo of tundra swans on the ice at the Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuge for the 2008 Oregon Outdoors Wild Bird Photo Contest. The six Klamath-area refuges serve as the backdrop for the annual Winter Wings Festival at the Oregon Institute of Technology.Photo by Gayle Mitchell Stokes

Scott Weidensaul has this thing about owls. He's not alone. Consider what happened when the long-time science writer and field researcher put out a call for unpaid assistants for an owl study.

"They have to stay up all night," he says. "You'd think I'd have to round them up off the streets with a cattle prod. I had 100 volunteers. We have a waiting list."

Weidensaul, 51, who lives in the Appalachian Mountains of eastern Pennsylvania, will be the keynote speaker at the Winter Wings Festival, a bird-centric event happening Friday through Sunday at the Oregon Institute of Technology in Klamath Falls.

Sponsored by the Klamath Basin Audubon Society, the event is three days of bird programs, photography and other workshops, live birds, children's activities and birding opportunities.

Weidensaul's keynote talk, slated for 7:30 p.m. Saturday in the OIT Auditorium, is titled "Living on the Wind: The World of Migratory Birds." He'll also give a 9 a.m. Saturday presentation called "The Enigmatic World of Owls," with a special focus on the Northern saw-whet owl, which lives in Southern Oregon as well as Pennsylvania.

The main talk will look at when, how and why birds migrate and some of the things scientists are learning. It's a good place for such a talk. Millions of birds pass through the basin with its six national wildlife refuges each spring and fall, up to 80 percent of birds on the Pacific Flyway.

"It's a fantastic example," Weidensaul says. "A natural magnet for birds filtering though that part of the West."

More than 90 percent of the basin's historic wetlands were drained for farming early in the 20th century. Weidensaul will talk about things people can do to help migrating birds, such as landscaping with native species that provide berries and other food for birds to eat, and buying shade-grown coffee from farms that haven't cut down the native trees.

Also among the presenters will be John Alexander of the Ashland-based Klamath Bird Observatory, which conducts long-term bird population monitoring and research projects. Alexander will lead a two-hour class on birding by ear at 9 a.m. Saturday at OIT.

"It's one of our most popular events," notes Alexander, who says he sees lots of Rogue Valley faces at the festival.

"It's a great way to get over the mountain and see a lot of eagles and waterfowl and other species," he says.

Results from the event's field trips will be posted on eBird, an online checklist site launched in 2002 by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and National Audubon Society. The site is credited with revolutionizing how scientists and hobbyists report and accesses information about birds (visit ebird.org/klamath-siskiyou).

Alexander will also talk about "the state of the birds," giving a preview of a major report expected out soon from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and other organizations (see www.stateofthe birds.org).

Weidensaul says his love affair with owls — he's studied saw-whets for more than a decade — even caused him to change his lifestyle.

"I'm not a night person," he says. "I've totally rewired myself for owl work."

The saw-whet — it's named for a call that sounds a bit like a saw being sharpened — is a small owl (about the size of a human hand) with a round gray face and big yellow eyes. It nests in tree cavities, often dug out by woodpeckers, and eats small rodents. It has superb hearing and vision.

"The bottom line is that owls are just extremely cool," Weidensaul says. "I don't think there's a culture in which they don't figure prominently. Any animal that's more myth than real attracts a lot of attention. A lot of people see them as dangerous, even as harbingers of death.

Field guides typically list saw-whets as an uncommon species. Audubon Society distribution data for Southern Oregon describes them as uncommon, and in Jackson County they are considered "rare but regular."

Weidensaul, however, says they are a lot more common than people realize.

"And not only are they out there, this little owl, but it's so common as a migrant that I can guarantee they fly over your house at night," he says.

Saw-whets don't stir off their roost in the day, and they have little fear of people.

"It's not unusual to walk right up to them and pick them up," Weidensaul says. "If a giant predator picked me up, I'd find a different perch. But they just look at you like, you again."

Part of the attraction for researchers like Weidensaul is the opportunity to learn new stuff about little-known species.

"Here in the East people have been doing serious ornithology for 350 years, and until 15 years ago we didn't realize the saw-whet owl was one of the most common birds."

Weidensaul says he doesn't believe in showing people at festivals a lot of graphs and tables.

"I've got too many cute owls," he says.

He'll talk about other things, too. A certified hummingbird bander (one of fewer than 200 in the nation), he says Western birds such as the rufous hummingbird have been turning up in early autumn back East where they shouldn't be.

"We think we're seeing the establishment of a brand-new migration route," he says. "Migration isn't learned, it's genetic. Anything genetic you could wind up with bad software.

He points to new research that has found that songbirds — long believed to navigate by the stars and even by the earth's magnetic fields — in some cases actually smell their way south.

Reach freelance writer Bill Varble at varble.bill@gmail.com.