The black and white bird brings shades of a shifting climate

Looking as though it had arrived for a black-tie event, the bird flew out from beneath Salem’s Church Street Bridge and back again, insect in bill.

Years prior, a black Phoebe appearing in Salem would have stopped many birders in their tracks. The small songbird, black with a white underbelly, is a rarity to see this far north. When Willamette University’s biology professor David Craig spotted one along Pringle Creek, he knew he was seeing…