Birdathon Report 2013- Ed Pullen & Ryan Wiese

3:05 PM May 3 until  2:40 PM May 4, 2013

Ryan and I had no one sign up for our TAS overnight birdathon trip this year, and we so enjoyed the time together and the ability to both move quickly and yet have plenty of time to enjoy the birding. We are contemplating just doing private birdathon’s in years to come. The weather was perfect, high 60’s on Friday afternoon and in the 70’s most of Saturday.  A strong offshore breeze kept it cool, and migration kept it fun.

We saw 119 species, with just the highlights mentioned, the full list to follow.  We started at Steilacoom Park and found mostly expected species, but no House wren this year.  The waters off Steilacoom were very quiet, and we missed most of the expected water birds there, but picked nearly all of them up at later times.  Not even  a Pigeon guillemot seen from the ferry terminal, but we did pick up Common merganser and Common Goldeneye in Chamber’s creek.

Nisqually NWR was beautiful, and two bright male Yellow-headed blackbirds that had been reported for a week or so were obliging and flew in on our walk back off the marsh to the base of the trail.  After a few minutes they flew back out toward the sound and disappeared. We did do well on ducks, and heard and saw both Dowicher species as well as both yellow-legs species there.  Not a single rail was heard or seen though. Across McAlister creek at Luir beach we got Purple martins, and as they sang away we found Brant (geese) and Caspian terns.

Then as it started to get dark we dashed to Elma, where at the new access off Wenzel Slough Rd we saw two Barn owls flying over the fields and heard American bittern calling as Wilson’s snipe winnowed overhead.

After a short sleep in Ocean Shores we were at the Jetty just after daybreak, and watched migration happening.  Highlights were 3 “rock birds”.   Ruddy and Black turnstones and Surfbirds were easily seen at the base of the jetty, and many Pacific loons flew north, mixed with some Common and Red-throated loons.  Boneparte’s gulls fed in the turbulent water off the “bar” and Sooty shearwaters used the offshore wind to swoop over the waves.  Later, just before the 9AM high tide at Bill’s spit were large numbers of shorebirds, and Ryan found one Red knot by sorting through an estimated 3-4000 other shorebirds.  We squinted to make out two distant Whimbrel before turning around and getting great looks at three on our walk back to the car.

At Ocean City State Park we had plenty of time to be sure the Black-throated gray warblers were were hearing were not the similar sounding Townsend’s warbler, and added Golden-crowned kinglets and Stellar’s jays.  On the ride back east we stopped at Burrow’s road, Hoquiam’s Bowerman basin, Brady Loop, Schouweiler marsh and ended our day enjoying being in tee-shirts and counting at least 100 Whimbrel in a freshly mowed field off the west end of Wenzel Slough Rd.   Overall we had a great trip.  Thanks to anyone who chooses to donate to the Tahoma Audubon Society.  You can donate at my First Giving site by clicking on this link.  Good birding.

See the trip list below: