Migratory songbirds from central Washington to central America will benefit from a 338-acre purchase of an increasingly rare swatch of oak woodland near the Klickitat River.

Vancouver-based Columbia Land Trust and the American Bird Conservancy announced the $700,000 purchase Friday.

It marked the third property — totalling almost 600 acres — that the two conservation organizations have partnered to add into the Klickitat River Conservation Area since 2005. Money for the purchase came from the land trust, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and federal funds provided through the Neotropical Migratory Birds Conservation Act.

Glenn Lamb, the land trust’s executive director, said the deal helps to piece together a conservation plan spanning a migratory corridor stretching from Central Washington to Honduras.

“Ours is just a small part of the overall project,” Lamb said.

The purchase includes Oregon white oak and ponderosa pine woodland and mixed conifer forest, along with meadows and streamside habitat along Bowman Creek, which eventually drains into the Little Klickitat River. It’s within the land trust’s 3,000-acre Klickitat River Conservation Area, and adjacent to 14,700 acres of state-owned Klickitat Wildlife Area.

Woodlands in peril

The prevalence of oak may be the site’s most important ecological attribute, Lamb said.

Acorns produced by oak represent an abundant and important food source for a wide range of migratory songbirds, and the oak trees themselves provide a place for the birds to live.

“Sometimes the entire interior of the oak tree can be hollow — and yet the tree can survive and thrive,” Lamb said.

Oak habitat has historically been widespread through Oregon’s Willamette Valley and the Puget Trough, loosely defined as a stripe of lowlands stretching from the Columbia River Gorge north around Puget Sound.

Lamb said large historical swaths of oak woodlands have succumbed to farming and suburban forms of development. In addition, forest landowners often supplanted oak with more lucrative Douglas fir.

A fast-developing wine industry currently is pushing Oregon white oaks aside in Oregon’s Yamhill County.

“Vintners are removing portions of their oak forests,” Lamb said. “We’re all in favor of forests and wine, but, in this case, some of those uses are continuing to eat into oak habitat.”

The permanent conservation of oak habitat in Klickitat County represents an effort to stem the tide. Lamb said the purchase will directly benefit the high-priority Lewis’s Woodpecker, along with five species of warbler, white-breasted nuthatch, ash-throated fly-catcher and cassins vireo, among others.

Erik Robinson: 360-735-4551 or erik.robinson@columbian.com.

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